Work Activation Regimes and Well‐being of Unemployed People: Rhetoric,Risk and Reality of Quasi‐Marketization in the UK Work Programme

Well‐being and employment activation have become central and intertwined policy priorities across advanced economies, with the mandation of unemployed claimants towards employability interventions (e.g. curriculum vitae preparation and interview skills). Compelled job search and job transitions are in part justified by the well‐being gains that resulting employment is said to deliver. However, this dominant focus within the activation field on outcome well‐being – the well‐being improvement triggered by a transition to paid work – neglects how participation in activation schemes can itself affect well‐being levels for unemployed people – what we term ‘process well‐being’ effects. Combining theoretical literature with empirical work on the UK's large‐scale quasi‐marketized Work Programme activation scheme, we develop the limited existing academic discussion of process well‐being effects, considering whether and how activation participation mediates the negative well‐being effects of unemployment, irrespective of any employment outcomes. We further relate variation in such process well‐being effects to the literature on activation typologies, in which ‘thinner’ work‐first activation interventions are linked to weaker process well‐being effects for participants compared to ‘thicker’ human capital development interventions. Confirming these expectations, our empirical work shows that Work Programme participants have, to date, experienced a largely ‘thin’ activation regime in which participants are both expected to, and empirically demonstrate, similar if not lower levels of process well‐being than those who are openly unemployed. These concerning findings speak to all nations seeking to promote the well‐being of unemployed people and particularly those perusing ‘black box’ activation schemes based around quasi‐marketization, devolution and New Public Management.     

Managing staged policy implementation: Balancing short-term needs and long-term goals

This study focuses on the agency of governments engaged in implementation processes that take place over a number of years and through multiple stages. The long timeframes associated with staged implementation leave reforms vulnerable to the institutional effects that may ultimately derail policy aspirations. Governments engaged in staged implementation need to be able to plan longitudinally (foresight capacity) and analyse whether implementation processes are creating endogenous sources of institutional change and the likely impact of such change (reflective capacity). In this paper, we argue that being able to exercise foresight capacity and reflective capacity is necessary but not sufficient, if long-term policy goals are to be realised. Governments must also be able to navigate the inconsistent objectives that arise across the different stages of an implementation process by modifying implementation approaches in ways that reduce the likelihood of unwanted implementation effects occurring—what we have labelled “mitigation capacity.”     

‘We need to understand what’s going on because it’s our life’: Using sandboxing to understand children and young people’s everyday conversations about care

Children and young people who live away from birth families (through adoption or being in care) need an understanding of their life story, including reasons for removal from birth family to process what has happened to them and to develop a secure identity. We report data produced with care experienced children and young people using a creative sandboxing method capturing hopes and fears for conversations about care in sand scenes. The themes presented emphasise the need for care-experienced children and young people to be supported to engage in ‘difficult conversations’ about their lives in warm, open and responsive ways.     

Elder abuse and neglect among veterans in Greater Los Angeles: prevalence, types, and intervention outcomes

This study examined the prevalence, types, and intervention outcomes of elder abuse/neglect among a veteran population. A review of medical records of 575 veterans who had received services from the Veteran's Affairs Geriatric Outpatient Clinic in Los Angeles during a three-year period found 31 veterans (5.4%) who had an elder abuse report filed on their behalf. Prevalence of elder abuse/neglect was higher among older (80+) and Caucasian and African American veterans. Eight of 31 victims suffered from more than one type of elder abuse including self-neglect. Financial abuse and self-neglect were the most commonly reported types. Family members were perpetrators in the majority of the cases, excluding self-neglect. However, three-quarters of financial abuse cases were committed by non-family members. Almost one-half of the victims had dementia and eight were clinically depressed. The most common intervention was to move victims from their unsafe home into a nursing home or board and care facility, followed by conservatorship arrangement. These interventions were most frequently used for victims with dementia, and conservatorship was often arranged with another type of intervention, such as a move to a nursing home. Victims who remained at home received conservatorship or outside supportive services or a combination of both. This study calls for more comprehensive and systematic research on elder abuse/neglect at multi-settings in order to generate useful information for prevention and detection of, and effective intervention in elder abuse and neglect in the veteran population.     

我眼中的中国新一代

正在中国已住了11年,除了回新西兰做短暂的停留,参加几场家庭婚礼外,我一直待在这个国家。我希望我能用日记详细地记下这段中国时光。我没想过要在这儿待这么久,但我现在仍然住在中国。我在这里的梦想还没有完成:我要去江西的乡村地区并在那儿创立幼儿教育学校。我清楚我想要去的地方,但一切都要慢慢来。故事开始于2002年10月17日。当时的一切仍然历历     

Performance in Food Retailing: A Cross-national Consideration and Comparison of Retail Margins

The leading United Kingdom food retailers have recently come under considerable scrutiny in respect of their reported profits, margins and accounting policies. Journalists and analysts as well as academics have focused on comparisons with continental European retailers. This paper argues that a number of factors are pertinent to the debate on performance in food retailing. The classification introduced (accountancy practices, cost structures, management structures and control and the environmental context), is illustrated using UK and French company data. The conclusion is drawn that it is not just simple differences but also the operational dimensions of company practices relating to these factors which are important determinants of performance. Simplistic headline comparisons are too inaccurate to be meaningful.     

In search of correlates of learning underlying “learning disability” using a bio-ecological assessment system

A valid and consistent diagnosis of learning disability is constrained by many conceptual and methodological challenges. Chief among them is the lack of diagnostic efficiency of standardized tests to shed much light on the nature and quality of the “potential disability” underlying children's very poor academic achievement. In this paper, we make the point that any assessment measure of learning difficulty should do more than merely identify or confirm the presence of a problem. Rather, assessment in the service of learning should identify learning needs at a sufficient level of detail so as to inform adaptive pedagogical planning and intervention. Toward this end, a discussion of theoretical and empirical research on the correlates of learning from a sociocultural perspective is examined that provides the conceptual basis for a proposed bio-ecological assessment system. The components of the system are delineated and its feasibility explored in order to provide a richer source of information beyond what is possible with current standardized tests.