Review essay: Slavery now: Unfree labour and modern capitalism

Capitalism and Unfree Labour: Anomaly or Necessity? Robert Miles. London and New York: Tavistock Publications. 1987. 250pp. £10.95 pbk.

The New Helots: Migrants in the International Division of Labour. Robin Cohen. Aldershot: Gower Publishing Co. 1987. 290pp. £8.95 pbk; £27.50 hbk.

Sugar and Modern Slavery: A Tale of Two Countries. Roger Plant. London: Zed Press, 1987. 177pp. £7.95 pbk; £24.95 hbk.

Slavery in the Twentieth Century. Roger Sawyer. London and New York: Routledge &; Kegan Paul. 1986. 274pp. £15.95 hbk.     

Reasoning Together Through Telling Stories: How People Talk about Social Controversies

Qualitative Sociology - We use focus groups of ordinary citizens talking about social controversies to analyze the role of storytelling in collective reasoning. Prior research has emphasized...     

Social,Relational and Network Determinants of Unprotected Anal Sex and HIV Testing Among Men Who Have Sex with Men in Beirut,Lebanon

Objectives: We examined the social, relational and network determinants of condom use and HIV testing among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Beirut. Methods: Two-hundred thirteen men were recruited via respondent driven sampling and administered a survey. Results: Sixty-four percent reported unprotected anal intercourse (UAI), including 23% who had UAI with unknown HIV status partners (UAIU); 62% of participants had tested for HIV. In multivariate analysis, being in a relationship was associated with UAI and HIV testing; lower condom self-efficacy was associated with UAIU and HIV testing; gay discrimination was associated with UAIU; MSM disclosure was associated with UAI, UAIU and HIV testing; and network centralization was associated with HIV testing. Conclusions: Multi-level social factors influence sexual health in MSM.     

The Interview for Decisional Abilities (IDA): a tool to assess the decisional capacity of abused and neglected older adults

We present the Interview for Decisional Abilities (IDA), a semi-structured tool for use by adult protective services (APS) workers as part of their comprehensive assessments of clients. The IDA was created in response to a Federal mandate to standardize the procedures and competencies of APS agencies with a view to improving client assessments and facilitating cross-jurisdictional research on adult mistreatment. The proximal aim of the IDA is to guide workers in gathering information on the ability of suspected victims of adult mistreatment to make decisions about the risks they face.     

Influence of National Qualifications Frameworks in Conceptualising Feedback to Students

Social work students in Britain receive feedback on a range of academic and practice issues as they progress through qualifying courses, however the way in which feedback differs to reflect the increasing complexity of learning as the course progresses is unclear. There is little, if any, guidance at a national level and the most widely known documents that provide information about the hierarchy of qualifications are the National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs). Despite the widespread acceptance of NQFs there is little evidence supporting their use in professional areas such as social work. This study uses a documentary analysis to critique the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF). The findings suggest that there are fundamental difficulties with the SCQF and its value in helping academics to better conceptualise feedback that reflects the increasing complexity of learning throughout the social work qualifying course. Whilst the SCQF is specific to a Scottish context, it is suggested that the inherent limitations and dominance of a neo-liberal ideology are common to other NQFs. It may be necessary to create the conditions where academics and students are able to discuss and debate the merits of NQFs and their implementation in social work qualifying courses.     

Changes in At-Risk American Men's Crime and Substance Use Trajectories Following Fatherhood

Fatherhood can be a turning point in development and in men's crime and substance use trajectories. At-risk boys (N = 206) were assessed annually from ages 12 to 31 years. Crime, arrest, and tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use trajectories were examined. Marriage was associated with lower levels of crime and less frequent substance use. Following the birth of a first biological child, men's crime trajectories showed slope decreases, and tobacco and alcohol use trajectories showed level decreases. The older men were when they became fathers, the greater the level decreases were in crime and alcohol use and the less the slope decreases were in tobacco and marijuana use. Patterns are consistent with theories of social control and social timetables.     

Preparing Social Work Doctoral Students for Teaching

The results of a national survey of 51 social work doctoral program directors indicate that, although the majority of doctoral programs include preparation for teaching as a program objective, they offer limited formal course work and few opportunities for supervised teaching experiences. The authors discuss the results of this survey and make recommendations for better preparing social work doctoral students for their roles as teachers.     

Standard Errors for Elasticities: A Comparison of Bootstrap and Asymptotic Standard Errors

This article compares two methods of deriving standard errors for elasticities in a linear expenditure demand system with first-order autoregressive errors. The first is the ordinary Taylor series method and the second is Efron's bootstrap. In an example problem, these two methods yielded similar values for the standard errors, with the exception of the income elasticity standard errors, for which the asymptotic standard errors were apparently too large by a factor of two.     

Financial stress, family relationships, and Australian youths’ transitions from home and school

We analyze the effect of mothers?? and youths?? reports of family financial stress and relationship dissatisfaction on Australian youths?? transitions into adult roles. We find that mothers?? reports of financial stresses and borrowing constraints are associated with earlier transitions to inactivity, while youths?? reports of financial stresses are associated with earlier nest-leaving. Youths reporting unsatisfactory relationships with parents leave school and move out earlier than their peers, while unsatisfactory relationships between parents are associated with youths making later transitions. Overall, financial stress and dissatisfaction have independent associations with youths?? transitions and youths?? perspectives have different consequences to those of their mothers.