Issues in the Conceptualisation and Measurement of Socioeconomic Background: Do Different Measures Generate Different Conclusions?

Parental occupation and education are used extensively in the analysis of socioeconomic inequalities in education and subsequent social and economic outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to examine if different ways of measuring socioeconomic background substantially alter substantive conclusions on cross-national differences in socioeconomic inequalities in student achievement. The effects of father’s occupational group are largely consistent across countries, with students from teaching backgrounds scoring very highly in many countries. Student performance by mother’s educational group is quite similar across countries although the relative performance of students whose mothers completed vocational education differs between countries. Notwithstanding these differences, continuous measures of father’s and mother’s occupation and education, and composite measures comprising combinations of these four indicators and additional indicators produce similar, but not identical, orderings of countries in terms of socioeconomic inequalities in student performance. However common single indicator measures, mother’s education and father’s occupation do not show a particularly high correspondence, cross-nationally. On theoretical and empirical grounds, the preferred measure is a composite of both parents’ occupation and education.     

Erving Goffman: The Reluctant Apprentice

The intellectual relationship between Erving Goffman and Everett C. Hughes is explored in the context of an apprenticeship model derived from correspondence between the two sociologists. Goffman is identified as a “reluctant apprentice” because his work and his letters to Hughes display a tension between a striking originality and a fidelity to his “master.” Three phases of their ambivalent relationship are described and an explanation for Goff‐man's reluctant acknowledgment of Hughes's influence is briefly explored.     

Picking up the pieces: local government reorganisation and voluntary sector children's services

Between 1995 and 1998, most of British local government was reorganised, leading to the creation of more, generally smaller, local authorities. Although social services were then the direct responsibility of local government, the potential impact of reorganisation on social work departments and partner organisations was barely considered prior to reorganisation. This article explores the consequences of reorganisation for children's services provided by voluntary sector organisations in Scotland, England and Wales. Drawing on two separate but complementary studies, the paper reviews the impact on funding, boundary problems, changing structures and the fragmentation of local authorities. It concludes that although some advances may be stimulated in the medium term by reorganisation, the overall short‐term impact for projects and their users is likely to have been damaging. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The declining place of music education in schools in England

This article addresses the provision of music education in schools in England, arguing that access to music education is the right of every child and therefore that a high‐quality and sustained curriculum offer must be provided in all state‐funded schools. Music education in England is widely recognised as being marginalised in state schools, despite it being a statutory requirement as part of the National Curriculum. This policy review examines several threats to music education, such as accountability measures, funding cuts, curriculum narrowing and erosion of the teaching workforce, identifying some of the key evidence in each case.     

Prevention of family maltreatment in the U.S. Air Force: A systematic review of research on active-duty military personnel

ABSTRACT

Systematic review procedures are used to empirically evaluate the “implicit” logic model that guides the Air Force Family Advocacy Program’s secondary prevention efforts of family maltreatment among active-duty Air Force members. Searches of seven electronic databases and manual searches of 10 journals yielded 586 peer-reviewed articles published in 2000 or later. This review synthesizes the findings of 23 quantitative studies meeting inclusion criteria, including the prediction of some form of family maltreatment among U.S. active-duty military members. Based on review results, we identify critical success variables that function as family protective factors to decrease the likelihood of family maltreatment. These modifiable variables include formal supports, such as ecosystem supports from installation and unit leaders; informal supports, such as the social support of fellow service members and their families; and safe, stable, and nurturing family processes. The results generally align with the implicit logic model but suggest the model should be extended to include intrapersonal vulnerabilities and assets as well as contextual risks and assets. In addition to informing secondary prevention efforts in the Air Force, this novel use of systematic review procedures offers a strategy for evaluating logic models in other areas of prevention research, practice, or policy.     

Spirituality and social work practice at historically Black colleges and universities

ABSTRACT

In 2011 the Council on Social Work Education Religion and Spirituality Work Group was organized “to promote social workers’ knowledge, values, and skills for ethical and effective practice that takes into account the diverse expressions of religion and spirituality among clients and their communities.” In this article we discuss how the mission, charters, and goals of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) addressed the domains of religion and spirituality from their inception. More specifically, the focus of this discussion is the epistemology of spirituality and religion at HBCUs from historical and contemporary perspectives. Content on the exploration of the related themes, religion and spirituality, as manifested in the curriculum, cultural milieu, and social environment of HBCUs will be described. Additionally, we document the role and influence of the African American community, church, and political insurgency. These forces, coupled with the inability or unwillingness of established social service agencies and other social institutions to address issues of inequality and marginalization of African Americans, influenced the essence of the content offered in HBCU schools of social work. Spirituality, advocacy for material aid, and critical race theory are themes that were prevalent in HBCUs curriculum. Finally we show that this “unique HBCU curriculum” was brought about primarily by environmental factors such as racism, segregation, and financial uncertainty, leading to what Du Bois referred to as a double-consciousness.     

Acceleration of Expectation-Maximization algorithm for length-biased right-censored data

Vardi’s Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm is frequently used for computing the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator of length-biased right-censored data, which does not admit a closed-form representation. The EM algorithm may converge slowly, particularly for heavily censored data. We studied two algorithms for accelerating the convergence of the EM algorithm, based on iterative convex minorant and Aitken’s delta squared process. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the acceleration algorithms converge more rapidly than the EM algorithm in terms of number of iterations and actual timing. The acceleration method based on a modification of Aitken’s delta squared performed the best under a variety of settings.