Networking practitioner research: synthesising the state of the ‘art’

The aim of this paper is to examine what we know about the experience and outcomes of networked initiatives aimed at facilitating practitioner research. We outline the roles and significance of practitioner research within social work; review emerging understanding of practitioner research network initiatives; and draw conclusions from a comparative analysis of three such initiatives in Auckland, New Zealand, Arhus County, Denmark, and across Scotland. We consider the nature and challenges of practitioner research and a number of responses to how such work should be formulated and conducted. Central to our argument is an empirically informed consideration—from our separate and shared experiences—of how well networks enhance the process and consequences, and art and craft, of such research projects.     

The effects of family stressors on substance use initiation in adolescence

Smoking and drinking are critical problems in adolescence that have long-term adverse impacts on health and socio-economic factors. We examine the extent to which family stresses influence the timing of initiation of smoking and drinking. Using national panel data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) we capitalize on the survey design and use school-level fixed effects that control for the local environments, including prices of cigarettes and alcohol. In addition, we narrow our control group to classmates who will experience a similar stressor in the future. We find that a composite measure of family stressors when young increases the likelihood of initiating tobacco and alcohol use, with much of the impact attributable to parental divorce. In our baseline estimates, the composite stress measure is associated with a 30% increase in the likelihood of smoking and a 20% increase in drinking. When we control for multiple sources of confounding, the impact shrinks and remains significant for smoking but not for drinking. We conclude that studies which do not control for confounding are likely to significantly overestimate the impact of family stress on substance use. Our approach helps to move the literature forward by separating causal results from spurious associations.     

Poly-victimization and resilience portfolios: Trends in violence research that can enhance the understanding and prevention of elder abuse

ABSTRACT

This literature review assesses the current state of knowledge about elder abuse and mistreatment, focusing on the lack of incorporation of all forms of elder victimization and the benefits of a poly-victimization framework. This review also includes existing knowledge on risk factors and calls for a greater focus on protective factors and a greater inclusion on family and community factors. Future research, prevention, and intervention would benefit from considering the true burden of elder victimization and a greater implementation of strengths-based approaches to programs.     

Comparing several experimental groups with a control in the multivariate case

This paper presents a multivariate extension of Dunnett's test for comparing simultaneously k treatment group means with a single control group mean. A test based on Hotelling T²statistics is presented and approximate critical values are evaluated for the case of equal numbers of observations in each group, for the .05 and .01 levels of significance, for 1 to 5 variates, for 1 to 10 treatment groups, and for varying degrees of freedom. The accuracy of the procedure for generating approximate critical values is assessed via simulation studies conducted for selected cases and an example is presented using real data.     

Revisiting the model of creative destruction: St. Jacobs,Ontario, a decade later

Ten years ago, the model of creative destruction was developed to predict the fate of communities that base their development on the commodification of rural heritage (Mitchell, C.J.A., 1998. Entrepreneurialism, commodification and creative destruction: a model of post-modern community development. Journal of Rural Studies 14, 273–286). Its application to the village of St. Jacobs, Canada, demonstrated that entrepreneurial investment had fostered the creation of a setting for aestheticized consumption. In this paper we demonstrate that creative destruction has continued to unfold in the village over the course of the past decade. The evolutionary path taken is assessed in light of current literature on rural space. It is concluded that to fully understand the transformative process, one must integrate the demands of myriad sub-cultures, whose social relations, ideologies and actions will contribute to the development of a contested landscape of consumption. This finding necessitates that modifications be made to the model and its various stages. The most significant is recognition that the “heritage-scape” is an interim state of landscape change; one that displaces the productivist landscape of the industrial period, and precedes the creation of the “neo-productivist” leisure-scape of post-industrialism. Whether or not such a “final” state is achieved is dictated by the power struggle that inevitably arises amongst sub-cultures engaged in the transformation of rural space.     

美的三次方

赏雪景,看礼花,品美食,观走秀。在这个时尚的夜晚,迷醉。     

A comparison of Japanese failure models: Hybrid neural networks,logit models,and discriminant analysis

This article looks at the ability of a relatively new technique, hybrid artificial neural networks (ANNs), to predict Japanese banking and firm failures. These models are compared with traditional statistical techniques and conventional ANN models. The results suggest that hybrid neural networks outperform all other models in predicting failure for one year prior to the event. This suggests that for researchers, policymakers, and others interested in early warning systems, the hybrid network may be a useful tool for predicting banking and firm failures.     

Education and the changing shape of the income gradient in health

Research on the social determinants of health has increasingly sought to understand the relative importance of different features of socioeconomic status. Much of the ensuing debate has wavered between education and income, with recent research leaning increasingly toward income. This research has not, however, consistently explored interactions between different features of socioeconomic status and, in trying to understand the independent effects of different components of socioeconomic status, may have missed important features of socioeconomic position. With an eye toward examining how features of socioeconomic status combine and coalesce, this paper examines variation in the income-health association by level of education. Theories derived both from medical sociology and health economics suggest synergistic interactions between income and education, but they are unclear as to the direction and magnitude of these interactions. Results from two large and nationally representative data sets (the 1996-1997 Community Tracking Study and the 1972-2000 General Social Survey) indicate that the positive relationship between income and health varies substantially in both its strength and shape by level of education. Education improves health, and its effects are larger at lower levels of income. Moreover, education reduces the strength and curvature of the income-health relationship. Consequently, those with more education have better health for all levels of income, and fewer income-based disparities exist among the well educated than among the less well educated. The linear "gradient" relationship between income and health is, thus, more characteristic of groups with higher levels of education. Additional analyses indicate that these interactions existed in the United States in each of the last three decades. The results are discussed in light of theory regarding the perpetuation of health disparities, as well as current debates regarding the apparent incompatibility of distributive versus aggregative goals in health policy.     

Factors influencing middle and high schools' active parental consent return rates

The authors examined factors influencing the return rates for attempting to collect active parental consent forms from 21,123 students in the 7th through 10th grades in 41 middle and high schools. Overall return rates from middle schools were higher than from high schools. Schools that offered high levels of staff support for collecting consent forms had higher return rates. Procedures where the consent form was attached to a school form that parents had to complete and return to the school yielded the highest return rate. Implications for how researchers can obtain a high parent consent form return rate are discussed.