Improving evidence-based social work practice with youths exhibiting conduct problems through structured assessment

A key task in evidence-based case management of youth is the assessment of research-based risk and protective factors. In the present study we compare assessments of social workers using a structured assessment instrument with assessments of social workers not using such an instrument. Assessments of the exact same case—a vignette about a 14-year-old boy—conducted by 30 social workers using a structured assessment instrument and 30 social workers not using such an instrument were compared. The 60 assessments were also rated by independent researchers and senior social services managers, blind to whether an instrument had been used in the assessments or not. As hypothesized, using a structured assessment instrument resulted in the identification of a greater number of research-based risk and protective factors, and the assessments were rated as better in terms of general adequacy, quality, accuracy and potential treatment effectiveness, than when an instrument was not used. The present study demonstrates that social workers’ assessments of youth become more evidence-based, adequate and potentially more treatment effective when a structured assessment instrument is used as compared to when it is not.     

Keeping the family balance – adult daughters’ experiences of roles and strategies when supporting caring fathers

The Scandinavian countries represent a progressive approach to gender equality and transitions of traditional gender roles but little attention has been paid to gender equality in old age and how normative constructions of gender intersect in the lives of family carers. The aim of this study was to understand how adult daughters experience their roles and strategies when supporting fathers caring for an ill mother. A sample of eight daughters shared their experiences through in-depth interviews. The findings show that the daughters provide substantial and crucial effort and are intimately involved in the caring for their father and the sole contributors towards the emotional support of their fathers. They tend to devote a lot of energy towards picturing their family as ‘normal’ in terms of the family members adopting traditional roles and activities inside as well as outside the family context. In conclusion, the lack of understanding about gender as a ‘norm producer’ is something that needs to be further elaborated upon in order for professionals to encounter norm-breaking behaviours. The daughters’ position as family carers is often assumed and taken for granted since the intersecting structures that impact on the situations of the daughters are largely invisible.     

Using continuation-ratio logits to analyze the variation of the age composition of fish catches

Major sources of information for the estimation of the size of the fish stocks and the rate of their exploitation are samples from which the age composition of catches may be determined. However, the age composition in the catches often varies as a result of several factors. Stratification of the sampling is desirable, because it leads to better estimates of the age composition, and the corresponding variances and covariances. The analysis is impeded by the fact that the response is ordered categorical. This paper introduces an easily applicable method to analyze such data. The method combines continuation-ratio logits and the theory for generalized linear mixed models. Continuation-ratio logits are designed for ordered multinomial response and have the feature that the associated log-likelihood splits into separate terms for each category levels. Thus, generalized linear mixed models can be applied separately to each level of the logits. The method is illustrated by the analysis of age-composition data collected from the Danish sandeel fishery in the North Sea in 1993. The significance of possible sources of variation is evaluated, and formulae for estimating the proportions of each age group and their variance-covariance matrix are derived.     

Trees for urban environments in northern parts of Central Europe – a dendroecological study in north-east Romania and Republic of Moldavia

A limited number of species and genera currently dominate the tree stock in streets and urban sites. There has been considerable and persistent argumentation for the necessity of using a more varied and stress-tolerant selection of tree species. This paper reports results from a dendroecological study of six steppe forest reserves in north-east Romania and in the adjacent part of the Republic of Moldavia, where water stress regimes during the growing season and winter temperatures are comparable to those of inner city environments in northern parts of Central Europe and adjoining milder parts of Northern Europe (CNE-region). In each forest reserve, tree growth patterns were studied in five 20 m × 20 m plots, resulting in a total of 30 plots with an allocated area of 1.2 hectares. For all trees, height and diameter were measured and related to tree age by coring in order to detect the species growth and performance in these sites. In total 23 tree species were found, 13 of which were represented by 25 or more individuals with documented good growth in the study plots. The majority of these 13 species have very limited use in urban greenery in the CNE-region today and thus have the potential to increase the species diversity of the current urban tree population through further selection work.     

Summerhouse Dialogues between Mobilier and Immobilier

Abstract

Addressing processes of cultural memory and mental appropriation in leisure architecture, this study relies on the fact that, in Denmark, summerhouses are often sold with furniture and objects representing the former owners and their ways of life. The theoretical starting point is formed by a discussion of Gaston Bachelard’s notion of “childhood home.” A menaced phenomenon in today’s urbanized reality, the childhood home and its mental values may indirectly be cultivated and reinterpreted by way of summerhouses. Buying a partly furnished summerhouse involves a joint encounter with immobilier (real estate) and mobilier (movables). In this way, a dialogue between the actual residents and a larger cultural history comes about. Built 1960/1971, the summerhouse studied here belongs to the author and his family. Archival and photographic experiments carried out after the acquisition in 1998 support reflections on space and life, now and in the previous history of the house.     

Book notes

The Social Mind: Language, Ideology and Social Practice By James Paul Gee. New York: Bergin & Garvey, 1992. 175 pages. $14.95 (paper).

The Afterlife of the Life History. A special issue of the Journal of Narrative and Life History, 2(1). M. Blackman (Ed.), Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992. 79 pages, $17.50.

Teaching Thinking: An Agenda for the 21st Century. C. Collins & J. N. Mangieri (Eds.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992. 362 pages, $69.95; $34.50 (paper).     

The Institutionalization of Solidarity and Globalization: The Case of Darfur1

This article uses the suffering in Darfur and the world's responses to it to discuss how contemporary solidarity and globalization is characterized by an institutionalization that contains elements of both extension and limitation. The extension thesis is supported by the involvement of international institutions such as the UN, the EU, and the AU. It also draws support from the involvement of civil society organizations. The limitation thesis is supported by observations of state activities, which do not always adhere to cosmopolitan norms. The limitation thesis is also strengthened by the fact that civil society organizations played a relatively marginal role in the debate and that those who did take part were a small group of large professional organizations. This leads to the conclusion that solidarity and globalization risk becoming de-popularized and de-democratized. On the other hand, it is also remarked that this institutionalization of civil society responses is an advance because it allows a routine professional response to distant suffering.