The Interface Between Ethnic and Social System Attachment: The Differential Effects of Hierarchy-Enhancing and Hierarchy-Attenuating Environments

Social dominance theory distinguishes between hierarchy-enhancing environments, which promote inequality between groups (e.g., American society), and hierarchy-attenuating environments, which promote equality between groups (e.g., universities). Consistent with predictions derived from this distinction, a panel study that assessed attitudes prior to university exposure and after one year of university exposure yielded three findings: (1) exposure to the university decreased antiegalitarian attitudes; (2) at the end of their first year of college, European Americans exhibited greater national attachment than Asian Americans, Latinos, and African Americans, but members of all groups exhibited similar levels of university attachment; and (3) European Americans exhibited a more positive association between ethnic attachment and national attachment than members of the other three groups, but members of all groups exhibited similar relationships between ethnic attachment and university attachment.     

Estimating Dynamic Models of Imperfect Competition

We describe a two‐step algorithm for estimating dynamic games under the assumption that behavior is consistent with Markov perfect equilibrium. In the first step, the policy functions and the law of motion for the state variables are estimated. In the second step, the remaining structural parameters are estimated using the optimality conditions for equilibrium. The second step estimator is a simple simulated minimum distance estimator. The algorithm applies to a broad class of models, including industry competition models with both discrete and continuous controls such as the Ericson and Pakes (1995) model. We test the algorithm on a class of dynamic discrete choice models with normally distributed errors and a class of dynamic oligopoly models similar to that of Pakes and McGuire (1994).     

HIV/AIDS and return to work: a literature review one-decade post-introduction of combination therapy (HAART)

It has been a little over one decade since the introduction of the first protease inhibitor that ushered in new era of treatment for persons living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). As of the end of 2003, an estimated 37.8 million people worldwide were infected with the HIV. It is estimated that there are 850,000-950,000 persons in the United States living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and that the incident rate is new cases each year. Since AIDS affects so many people of working age in the US, issues of employment, work rehabilitation and AIDS in the workplace have all become major concerns. The paper presents a review of the literature published during a ten year period that is relevant to understanding the various needs and barriers related to work as well as services designed to address them.     

Social workers' attitudes to the law: an Israeli perspective

Doron I, Karpel M, Or‐Chen K. Social workers' attitudes to the law: an Israeli perspective
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 95–103 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. In recent years, there has been a general shift towards integration and cooperation between lawyers and social workers, both professionally and ideologically. The goal of this study was to explore the general attitudes of social workers toward the law. The hypothesis was that, due to the recent legal and professional changes in Israel, social workers would express positive attitudes towards the law. For the purpose of this study, a closed questionnaire containing 25 statements regarding the law and its relationship to social work was used. The research population consisted of 202 social workers from Haifa and the Northern region of Israel. The findings of this study support the hypothesis that there is indeed a tendency to closer ideological and professional proximity between social work and the law in Israel. However, especially regarding courts and the litigation process, their attitudes in response to the statements were relatively less favourable.     

Building the San Francisco Beacons

San Francisco's Beacon Initiative is designed to foster youth development on a large scale. Its intermediary, Community Network for Youth Development, used a theory of change process to forge consensus and create a road map to guide this large collaborative toward its long-term goals.     

"A person to talk to who really cared": high-risk mothers' evaluations of services in an intensive intervention research program

After one to four years of participation in an intensive NIMH intervention project, 30 mothers selected because of extreme high risk for difficulties in parenting gave ratings regarding changes they had made in their lives and the services they were offered. They felt that their lives had changes markedly and ranked the caring relationship with the staff clinicians and abstract rather than concrete services as most important. Training and policy implications are discussed.     

A MULTIDIMENSIONAL MEASURE OF RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS

This article describes the confirmation and validation of a multidimensional measure of religious involvement using data from the National Survey of Black Americans (N = 2,107). This model was developed through a multistep strategy of confirmatory factor analysis and structural-equation modeling. First, a three-dimensional factor structure comprising organizational, nonorganizational, and subjective religiosity was confirmed for twelve religious indicators. This measurement model was found to exhibit excellent overall fit; it compared favorably to alternative models: and all hypothesized factor loadings were strong and statistically significant. Second, several constructs identified by prior research as correlates of religious involvement (gender, age, education, region, and urbanicity) were found to exhibit significant associations with one or more dimensions of the model. All analyses were conducted in LISREL 8.03, using maximum-likelihood estimation and a strategy of split-sample replication.