Preliminary experiences of the states in implementing the National Family Caregiver Support Program: a 50-state study

Despite increased attention to policy choices to support family and informal caregivers, relatively little is known about states' experiences in providing caregiver support services. This article reports on the first nationwide survey of all 50 states and the District of Columbia in providing caregiver services since the passage of the National Family Caregiver Support Program. State program administrators reported that their program differs from other home and community-based services because of the explicit focus on the family or informal caregiver. Results suggest that despite an increasing availability of caregiver supports in all 50 states, there is also a great unevenness in services and service options for family caregivers across the states and within states.     

When Is It Okay to Exclude a Member of the Ingroup? Children's and Adolescents’ Social Reasoning

Social exclusion of those who challenge group norms was investigated by asking children and adolescents, adolescents, age 9–13 years (N = 381), to evaluate exclusion of group members who deviated from group norms. Testing predictions from social reasoning developmental theories of group‐based exclusion, children and adolescents evaluated exclusion based on group norms involving allocation of resources and group traditions about dress code. Exclusion of deviant members was viewed as increasingly wrong with age, but also varied by the type of norm the deviant challenged. Participants who reported disliking a deviant member who wanted to distribute money unequally also found it acceptable to exclude them. Those who disliked deviants who went against norms about dress codes did not think exclusion was warranted. These findings are discussed in the context of children's social‐cognitive development regarding peer rejection as well as the role played by moral judgment and group dynamics.     

Migration, place and class: youth in a rural area

The claims that locality, kinship, and social class are no longer the basis of ties that bind and of limited significance for identity in late modernity, remain seductive, despite their critics. Those who remain rooted are then presented as inhabitants of traditional backwaters, outside the mainstream of social change. This article presents young people's reasons for leaving or remaining in a rural area of Britain, the Scottish Borders. Young people's views about migration and attachment demonstrate a contradictory and more complex pattern than that of detached late–modern migrants and traditional backwater stay–at–homes. These stereotypes have some resonance in local culture, for example in disdain for rootless incomers lacking real sympathy with 'the community' and in the common accusation of the parochial narrow mindedness of locals who have never been elsewhere. However, such stereotypes emerge from complex social class antagonisms and cross–cutting ties to locality. Many young people's ties contradict the classifications these stereotypes imply. There are young out–migrants who are the children of 'rootless' in–migrants, but also, nevertheless, have lasting attachments to the locality of their childhood. Then there are young 'stayers' who are the children of 'born and bred' locals but yet feel serious disaffection from their locality. These 'attached migrants' and 'detached stayers' may not represent settled orientations to their locality of childhood, but they, nevertheless, contradict both certain local stereotypes and Baumanesque 'late modernist' sociological theorising.     

College Admissions Testing: Current Understanding and Future Implications

Although the use and significance of college admissions tests are controversial, relatively little scholarship has focused on these tests and their role in reflecting prior educational disparity. College admissions tests such as the SAT and ACT are increasingly important as they often serve the dual function of gatekeeper for access to four‐year postsecondary institutions and a benchmark for merit scholarships. This review focuses on social disparities and sociocultural factors that reflect differences in educational outcomes as measured by college admissions tests. The review concludes with an exploration of what students, postsecondary institutions, and even the college admissions test makers can do to reduce social disparities and improve opportunities to prepare and learn     

Improving Ethical Knowledge and Sensemaking from Cases through Elaborative Interrogation and Outcome Valence

The case-based approach to learning is popular among many applied fields. However, results of case-based education vary widely on case content and case presentation. This study examined two aspects of case-based education—outcome valence and case elaboration methods—in a two-day case-based Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) ethics education program. Results suggest that outcome information is an integral part of a quality case. Furthermore, valence consistent outcomes may have certain advantages over mixed valence outcome information. Finally, students enjoy and excel working with case material, and the use of elaborative interrogation techniques can significantly improve internally-focused ethical sensemaking strategies associated with personal biases, constraints, and emotions.     

The major tasks of adolescence: Implications for transition planning with youths with cerebral palsy

Adolescents with cerebral palsy are presented with unique challenges as they make the transition to adulthood. There are a number of considerations that need to be addressed in a collaborative manner by rehabilitation professionals, educators, parents, and adolescents to facilitate the transition process. This article (a) explores the challenges that youths with cerebral palsy encounter as they attempt to accomplish the developmental tasks of adolescence and (b) discusses how those tasks can be integrated into transition planning. An overview of the medical aspects of cerebral palsy is also provided.