Comparing long-term care systems: A multi-dimensional,actor-centred typology

Like other fields of social policy, the organization of long-term care (LTC) varies temporally and geographically. The present article aims to advance the comparison of LTC systems worldwide by proposing a conceptual framework to analyse variation, putting a special focus on analysing the role of public and private actor types. In a precluding literature review of existing LTC typologies, we find that there are various promising classification approaches, but with an overwhelming concentration on European countries and often constructed in-transparently and superficially. Building on the concept of the care/welfare mix, we develop a multi-dimensional, actor-centred typology of LTC systems. In doing so, we employ the methodological procedure of theoretically constructing a typological attribute space. We argue that three dimensions, that is service provision, financing and regulation, are crucial for differentiating types. Furthermore, we chose an actor-centred approach, asking who bears the main responsibility in each dimension. Five relevant types of corporate actors are distinguished: state, societal actors, private for-profit actors, private individual actors, and global actors. Finally, we present and discuss the resulting attribute space and further illustrated the typology's use by exemplarily classifying three countries.     

What is child protection? Historical and methodological issues in comparative research on lastensuojelu/child protection

This article addresses comparative research on what has come to be called, in (British) English, 'child protection' or, rather differently, in Finnish ' lastensuojelu '. In developing a cross-national research project on lastensuojelu /child protection practices in England and Finland, we found it necessary to go back a few steps, to address what might usually be considered as 'background issues'. This article discusses the welfare state traditions in both countries, especially with respect to families and children, in order to contextualise the focus of ongoing qualitative research on micro comparisons. When comparing the mundane practices of child protection and the ways problems and clienthoods are constructed, as in this study, historical, social, cultural and linguistic issues matter. Indeed, very basic concepts such as 'child protection' and 'child protection case' become problematic in the comparison.     

争议之地：无家可归者与亚特兰大市中心公园

在此项研究中,我们调查了公园利益相关方超过20年控制无家可归者在市中心公园活动规模的举措,以及无家可归拥护者对付这些举措的一系列回应。我们发现,伍德拉夫公园的用途和价值伴随一天的不同时间、一周的不同日子和不同季节而变化。此外,公园利益相关方虽会随时间而变更,但当局使用的策略不一定必然会朝着某个始终如一的方向发展,或者按一种常规模式变化。最终,虽然无家可归的拥护者比起过去已很少看到,但他们仍然保护了公园内的无家可归者。案例研究认为,一个公园应该是一个基础空间,即作为共有地向所有人开放;也应该是一个典范空间,在这里,没有人会被看作是入侵者。     

隐喻与诠释——诗的诠释学美学意义解读

本文以当代诠释学美学的观点,探讨中国诗学以诗作为意义之理解与解释,所隐含之隐喻的诠释学与美学的问题,尤其诗学中有关隐喻的认知、理解与解释的作用。本文首先讨论诗与诠释的美学问题,探讨孔子所谓的"言诗"和孟子所谓的"说诗"所隐含的有关以诗作为意义之理解与解释之隐喻的诠释学与美学的问题。其次,探讨诗的诠释学美学的意义,指出当代哲学美学除了一方面重新对美与艺术的概念提出定义的解释外,另一方面则以所提出的艺术或美学理论作为解释意义的方法,亦即以美学为方法,作为解释存在意义的理论基础。不过,本文的主旨并不在于套用西方美学的研究成果来解释中国传统的经典或文献意义,而是从当代美学尤其是诠释学的角度,从中国传统文献所遗留之文字片段,来理解中国以诗作为艺术存在的解释意义的方式以及其中所隐含的美学问题的向度。     

Connected in Seattle? An exploratory study of student perceptions of discipline and attachments to teachers

How do students' perceptions about their treatment in school differ along racial and gender lines?     

Defining and redirecting a school-to-prison pipeline

The school-to-prison pipeline needs to be better defined and redirected toward greater opportunities for all youth.     

Estimating Particle Shape and Orientation Using Volume Tensors

We develop statistical procedures for estimating shape and orientation of arbitrary three‐dimensional particles. We focus on the case where particles cannot be observed directly, but only via sections. Volume tensors are used for describing particle shape and orientation, and we derive stereological estimators of the tensors. These estimators are combined to provide consistent estimators of the moments of the so‐called particle cover density. The covariance structure associated with the particle cover density depends on the orientation and shape of the particles. For instance, if the distribution of the typical particle is invariant under rotations, then the covariance matrix is proportional to the identity matrix. We develop a non‐parametric test for such isotropy. A flexible Lévy‐based particle model is proposed, which may be analysed using a generalized method of moments in which the volume tensors enter. The developed methods are used to study the cell organization in the human brain cortex.     

Cash versus Child Care Services in Finland

In 1985 the Finnish Parliament passed a law which stipulated that all children under age three were to be guaranteed a day care place as from the beginning of the 1990s. The law was made possible by a political compromise in which the agrarian Centre Party won the backing it needed to push through a system of state subsidies for the home care of children. As an alternative to a day care place, parents were now given the option of taking a child home care allowance and using that allowance either for purposes of looking after their child themselves or for paying for a private place. Measured in terms of the number of users, the child home care allowance was a hugely successful innovation. Most parents of small children have used the allowance for at least some period of time. This was due above all to the size of the allowance compared with other social benefits. However, following cutbacks in allowance expenditure of more than 20 per cent from 1995, the use of home care allowances declined at almost the same rate as the allowances were reduced. This brought significant short-term savings to the Government and to local authorities, but in the longer term other costs have been rising. There has even been a sharp, unexpected decline in the birth rate. The case of Finland goes to show that, even in a country where wage-earning motherhood has become firmly established, income transfers through family policy can have a very significant influence on the numbers opting temporarily for homemaking.     

The future of grand challenges research: Retiring a hopeful concept and endorsing research principles

Editorial notes in leading management journals have urged scholars to address Grand Challenges (GC) as an opportunity for producing knowledge that matters for society. This review explores whether current conceptualizations of GC support a productive path for management and organizational scholarship by guiding empirical inquiry, facilitating cumulative theory development, and informing practice. We systematically examine scholarly articles, calls for papers, and editorial notes published in management journals for consistency in how researchers use and define the concept of GC and the scope of associated phenomena and attributes. We find three prominent conceptual architectures in use: discursive, family resemblance, and phenomenon driven. The variety and incoherence of current uses of the GC concept and the lack of efforts to improve its analytical competence lead us to suggest its retirement. Instead, we propose building on the enthusiasm around GC research and using GC as a term to define research principles that collectively help align research efforts and improve theoretical development and practice. The principles we propose capture a genuine origin story for management research on GC.