Who Is Poorest? An Asset‐based Analysis of Multidimensional Wellbeing

Recent studies have endorsed asset‐based approaches as a strategy for attaining the Millennium Development Goals. This article discusses asset indices as a diagnostic tool for these policies, systematically breaking them down into separate dimensions of private household wealth and basic public‐goods access and discussing how shortfalls in public‐goods supply can be related to deprivations in basic human capabilities under the asset framework. It then illustrates how asset indices can be used for the targeting of public infrastructure investments and private asset‐accumulation policies, with the help of a detailed case study of deprivations in household wealth and public‐service supply in Madagascar.     

Who returns home? Study on placement outcomes of Flemish foster children

Until recently, Flemish family foster care was a temporary measure with as its most important goal, the reunification of the foster child with the birth parents. To date, nothing is known on the number of reunifications, nor has any study been undertaken into the factors (child, parent, foster parent and foster care process) associated with reunification. Case files of 127 foster children who exited foster care in 2007 were analysed. Dependent variables were type of foster care placement outcome (reunification, successful placement without reunification or breakdown) and place of residence after placement ending (with birth parents, extended family, foster family, residential care or living independently). After placement ending, only 40% of foster children went living with their parents, including foster children who were reunified (26%) and foster children who moved to their parents after a placement breakdown (14%). Characteristics of the foster children, and in particular absence of problem behaviour, were associated mainly with a return home. This may indicate that too much attention is paid to the functioning of the foster child and too little to improving the competencies of the parents and the (future) home environment.     

Holy Grail or inflated expectations? The success and failure of integrated policy strategies

Governments and international organizations increasingly pursue the development of integrated policy strategies to govern persistent societal problems that crosscut the boundaries of traditional jurisdictions. In spite of the rising popularity of such integrated strategies, little is known about their effects. Although it is generally assumed that integrated strategies result in better outcomes, the evidence base to support this claim is sparse. This is not to say that no attempts to study the relationship between integrated strategies and policy outcomes have been undertaken at all; this paper presents a research synthesis of the fragmented evidence base. Eligible studies are interpreted and discussed by using a heuristic that distinguishes between programmatic and political success and failure. Apart from synthesizing the impacts that integrated strategies have had, the paper reflects on associated explanatory conditions and methodological approaches that have been used. The review almost exclusively finds reports of failure and constraining conditions. At the same time, methodological approaches are found to be largely unconvincing and considerable research gaps remain. The paper, therefore, ends with a nuanced answer to the question of whether integrated strategies are worth pursuing and sets out various avenues for further research.     

The ethnic composition of schools and students’ problem behaviour in four European countries: the role of friends

This study examines the relation between the proportion of co-ethnics in school and adolescents’ problem behaviour in school (e.g. skipping class and arguing with teachers) and whether friendship patterns are underlying this relationship. We use data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries on ±16,000 students in England, Germany, The Netherlands, and Sweden and find that children display less problem behaviour when the proportion of co-ethnics in school is higher. This relationship is mediated by the characteristics of the friends that students have: the proportion of co-ethnics in school positively relates to students’ proportion of in-school friends and co-ethnic friends in class, which are in turn negatively associated with problem behaviour in school. The strength and significance of these paths depend on students’ ethnicity and country of residence. Implications of this study are discussed in the conclusion.