Infusing Financial Capability and Asset Building Content Into a Community Organizing Class

As social work’s fight for social and economic justice returns to its historical attention to finances, faculty are called to infuse financial capability and asset building (FCAB) content into their classes. Given few published models, this study contributes a redesign that infuses FCAB in a community organization course, with additional attention to Fink’s taxonomy of significant learning experiences. Results of a pre- and posttest survey suggest an overall pattern of students’ increased interest in further learning about FCAB, understanding its importance to social work, confidence about helping clients with FCAB, likelihood of offering to help a client to manage her or his household finances, and changes to students’ own financial practices.     

Identifiable state‐space models: A case study of the Bay of Fundy sea scallop fishery

State‐space models (SSMs) are now popular tools in fisheries science for providing management advice when faced with noisy survey and commercial fishery data. Such models are often fitted within a Bayesian framework requiring both the specification of prior distributions for model parameters and simulation‐based approaches for inference. Here we present a frequentist framework as a viable alternative and recommend using the Laplace approximation with automatic differentiation, as implemented in the R package Template Model Builder, for fast fitting and reliable inference. Additionally we highlight some identifiability issues associated with SSMs that fisheries scientists should be aware of and demonstrate how our modelling strategy surmounts these problems. Using the Bay of Fundy sea scallop fishery we show that our implementation yields more conservative advice than that of the reference model. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 47: 27–45; 2019 © 2018 Statistical Society of Canada     

Five-Hundred Life-Saving Interventions and Their Cost-Effectiveness

We gathered information on the cost-effectiveness of life-saving interventions in the United States from publicly available economic analyses. "Life-saving interventions" were defined as any behavioral and/or technological strategy that reduces the probability of premature death among a specified target population. We defined cost-effectiveness as the net resource costs of an intervention per year of life saved. To improve the comparability of cost-effectiveness ratios arrived at with diverse methods, we established fixed definitional goals and revised published estimates, when necessary and feasible, to meet these goals. The 587 interventions identified ranged from those that save more resources than they cost, to those costing more than 10 billion dollars per year of life saved. Overall, the median intervention costs $42,000 per life-year saved. The median medical intervention costs $19,000/life-year; injury reduction $48,000/life-year; and toxin control $2,800,000/life-year. Cost/life-year ratios and bibliographic references for more than 500 life-saving interventions are provided.     

Children and the Modern Farming Movement

In the twenty‐first century, a small percentage of U.S. children have ties to family‐based agriculture. Yet with the rise of the modern farming movement that emphasizes local and family‐based production, new spaces may exist for involving children and youth in farming. This article focuses on the social value of children to family‐based agriculture in the contemporary era. Drawing on a qualitative study of families that farm in the capital region of New York—an epicenter for the modern food movement—we consider why families farm, how they involve children in their farms, and how they understand children's contributions. Interviews with 76 adult members of 50 families show children to be central to families' goals; they often rationalize farming as a lifestyle choice undertaken for the benefit of their children. Families also actively involve their own children—and other people's children—in their farms. By documenting the way families talk about children and farming, we shed light on the logic used to incorporate children into modern productive enterprises. The centrality of children, we argue, helps explain the success of the modern food movement and the persistence of family‐based agriculture despite conditions that make it economically difficult to accomplish.     

Nursing-Home Resident Quality of Life: A Longitudinal Case Study Approach

Longitudinal quality-of-life (QOL) research incorporating multiple perspectives can add to knowledge about how nursing home residents experience QOL, but these methods are seldom used. This study employed interviews and participant observation to conduct multiple-perspective, longitudinal case studies of six residents. Close, reciprocal relationships with staff members, staff knowledge of residents, and autonomy were fundamental to QOL. Autonomy was experienced through choice and self-advocacy. Changes in QOL over time related to changes in resident health status, acclimation to the setting and family member availability. Study results may have implications for staffing and staff training.     

The operation and subversion of gendered war discourses: soldierhood,motherhood and military dissent in the public production of Kimberly Rivera

This article undertakes a discourse analysis of texts concerning a recent high profile case of opposition to war by Kimberly Rivera, a US soldier and a mother of five. Developing on previous research concerning how female soldiers, anti-war women and anti-war soldiers have been made intelligible within understandings of war and gender, the analysis traces the discursive repertoires constituting Rivera as a political subject. The article considers how, when and with what implications for broader discourses of gender and war, and their transformation, the categories of soldierhood and motherhood were invoked to construct and obstruct Rivera as an intelligible dissenting subject. The most common presentation of Rivera centered on her motherhood, understood to be in crisis due to her military role. With motherhood and soldierhood seen to be antithetical this crisis could be “solved” through opposition to war. This limited the extent to which Rivera was intelligible as a “thinking citizen” and reproduced motherhood and soldierhood as stable categories leaving their immanent discourses concerning war and gender untroubled. The article then considers ways in which alternative avenues for transformative interventions could open up if dissenters like Rivera were “written” as other than fundamentally contradictory figures.     

Making connections: Severe mental illness and closeness with other people

Much has been written about social lives of people with severe mental illness (SMI). Before social lives can flourish, however, people with SMI must first get close to other people. We studied this closeness by holding three hour-long focus groups at Fountain House, a community mental health agency in New York City. We found that closeness between two people with SMI is challenging because someone with depression, for example, may have trouble understanding someone with a different disorder (e.g., schizophrenia). Romantically, closeness is also challenging—SMI is hard to explain to partners. In the workplace, closeness is difficult because SMI can alienate co-workers. It could push them away. In mental health programs, we found that closeness has more of a chance to develop (1) during evening and weekend activities; (2) when activities are planned often enough to prevent isolation; and (3) when staff reach out to people before extended absence causes distance.     

A Risk Assessment for Consumers of Mourning Doves

Recreational and subsistence hunters and anglers consume a wide range of species, including birds, mammals, fish and shellfish, some of which represent significant exposure pathways for environmental toxic agents. This study focuses on the Department of Energy's (DOE'S) Savannah River Site (SRS), a former nuclear weapons production facility in South Carolina. The potential risk of contaminant intake from consuming mourning doves ( Zenaida macroura ), the most popular United States game bird, was examined under various risk scenarios. For all of these scenarios we used the mean tissue concentration of six metals (lead, mercury, cadmium, selenium, chromium, manganese) and radiocesium, in doves collected on and near SRS. We also estimated risk to a child consuming doves that had the maximum contaminant level. We used the cancer slope factor for radiocesium, the Environmental Protection Agencies UptakeBiokinetic model for lead, and published reference doses for the other metals. As a result of our risk assessments we recommend management of water levels in contaminated reservoirs so that lake bed sediments are not exposed to use by gamebirds and other terrestrial wildlife. Particularly, measures should be taken to insure that the hunting public does not have access to such a site. Our data also indicate that doves on popular hunting areas are exposed to excess lead, suggesting that banning lead shot for doves, as has been done for waterfowl, is desirable.     

Gossip as strategy: The management of talk about others on reality TV show 'Big Brother'

In this paper we examine the nature of gossip talk as an activity type in the context of the TV game show 'Big Brother'. Using a detailed analytic approach to the situated nature of gossip sequences, we show how participants in the show manage gossip talk strategically to establish social relationships within the house, as well as to present themselves in a positive way to the viewing (and voting) audience. We argue that there is a contextual double framing for talk in the Big Brother (BB) house which participants are orienting to, both as members of a social group, and as players in a TV game show. The paper thus contributes to existing work on the social function of gossip, as well as exploring its strategic function in this particular interactional context, calling into question the nature of 'natural' discourse.