“You Learn So Many Things”: Youths’ Subjective Perceptions of Growth in a Drama-Based Sexuality Education Program

Many studies document the benefits of positive youth development programs, yet few examine youths’ own understanding of the growth they experience through participation. We conducted a qualitative exploration of 11 youth participants’ impressions of a drama-based sexuality education program and its impact on them. Participants credited the program with increasing their intra- and interpersonal competence. Importantly, several also asserted that many of their strengths predated their involvement. They saw the program as a platform on which they could demonstrate these qualities, not necessarily their origin. Our findings highlight the importance of providing the opportunities that will enable youths’ community engagement.     

USE OF EXPERT RATINGS AS SAMPLING STRATA FOR A MORE COST-EFFECTIVE PROBABILITY SAMPLE OF A RARE POPULATION

We consider situations in which externally observable characteristics allow experts to quickly categorize individual households as likely or unlikely to contain a member of a rare target population. This classification can form the basis of disproportionate stratified sampling such that households classified as "unlikely" are sampled at a lower rate than those classified as "likely," thereby reducing screening costs. Design weights account for this approach and allow unbiased estimates for the target population.We demonstrate that with sensitivity and specificity of expert classification at least 70%, and ideally at least 80%, our approach can economically increase effective sample size for a rare population. We develop heuristics for implementing this approach and demonstrate that sensitivity drives design effects and screening costs whereas specificity only drives the latter. We demonstrate that the potential gains from this approach increase as the target population becomes rarer. We further show that for most applications, unlikely strata should be sampled at 1/6 to ? the rate of likely strata.This approach was applied to a survey of Cambodian immigrants in which the 82% of households rated "unlikely" were sampled at ? the rate as "likely" households, reducing screening from 9.4 to 4.0 approaches per complete. Sensitivity and specificity were 86% and 91% respectively. Weighted estimation had a design effect of 1.26 so screening costs per effective sample size were reduced 47%. We also note that in this instance, expert classification appeared to be uncorrelated with survey outcomes of interest among eligibles.     

Outsiders and Intrapreneurs: The Institutional Embeddedness of Social Entrepreneurship in Germany

The social entrepreneurship discourse in Germany has become more prominent at a time when the deeply rooted corporatist traditions of social provision have come under pressure for marketization. This article examines the potential role of “social entrepreneurs” in the institutionally established German welfare state. The article analyzes the opportunities and constraints that new players face. Drawing on survey data and case studies in the areas of elderly care and advancement of children with immigrant background, the analysis retraces the structure and diffusion of social entrepreneurial projects. It concludes that the simple transfer of the social entrepreneurship model is unlikely. The analysis suggests that successful social ventures in Germany adapt the notion of social entrepreneurship to prevalent institutional realities. In the context of more encompassing social services, dense decentralized networks, and different cultures of philanthropism, new players have a complementary role that stimulates rather than dominates the process of social innovation.     

Engaging diverse experts in a global environmental assessment: participation in the first work programme of IPBES and opportunities for improvement

The need for interdisciplinary expert groups from different regions of the world to be involved in the fields of sustainability science and environmental change research is increasingly recognised. The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IBPES) was established in 2012 as a science-policy interface and has gone beyond previous initiatives in its articulation of a clear commitment to inter- and transdisciplinary approaches that mandate a diversity of genders, disciplines and regional backgrounds within its expert groups. The first IPBES work programme, carried out between 2014 and 2018, has been supported by 17 expert groups, comprising over 1000 experts, who have been selected from over 2000 government and stakeholder nominations through formal procedures. In this paper, we present and critique the framework through which IPBES identifies and selects experts to participate in its processes. In addition, we synthesise and carry out a quantitative analysis on the expert nomination and selection data relating to the first assessment activities of IPBES. Identifying that the balance of regions, genders, disciplines and knowledge systems represented within these expert groups is still disproportionally dominated by male natural scientists from the Global North, the paper makes recommendations of how to better engage knowledge holders from different disciplines and diverse knowledge systems in future iterations of the IPBES work programme.     

Die Umzugsentscheidung von Paaren als Verhandlungsproblem

Recently bargaining models became a popular theoretical concept within family research. Especially compared to household economic theory, bargaining models are less abstract and provide a tool for analysis of conflicting interests and their consequences in family relationships. However, although there are many different topics which can be tackled with this kind of theory, there is still a lack of direct empirical tests concerning this concept. The aim of this article is to provide such a test by using a special type of a quasi-experimental research design. With a so-called factorial design we vary systematically incentives for a household move in order to model different structural conditions of a relationship like earning possibilities or chances for a career of a partner. This allows us to observe varying power allocations within the relationship. The empirical results support the hypotheses derived from the bargaining model: the respondent anticipates a loss of his or her bargaining power as well as an increasing power of the partner. Consequently they answer such a change with a reduced tendency for a household move and a higher perceived potential for conflicts within the relationship. However, due to our limited knowledge about the validity of the quasi-experimental design these results need to be validated by future research.     

Health and Well–Being in the Young Old and Oldest Old

Most individuals experience a decline in health status during old age. Paradoxically, there are proposals that older adults nevertheless maintain a positive sense of well–being, an indicator of successful aging. Data from the Berlin Aging Study (BASE: Baltes & Mayer, 1999), a locally representative sample of men and women aged 70 to 100+ ( N = 516, M = 85 years), suggest that cumulative health–related chronic life strains set a constraint on the potential of oldest old individuals to experience the positive side of life. The young old in BASE reported significantly higher positive SWB than did the oldest old. Chronic illness and functional impairments (e.g., vision, hearing, mobility, strength) limit well–being especially in very old age.     

Cognitive Components of Risk Ratings

This study examined what lay people mean when they judge the "risk" of activities that involve the potential for accidental fatalities (e.g., hang gliding, living near a nuclear reactor). A sample of German and American students rated the "overall risk" of 14 such activities and provided 3 fatality estimates: the number of fatalities in an "average year," the individual yearly fatality probability (or odds), and the number of fatalities in a "disastrous accident." Subjects' fatality estimates were reasonably accurate and only moderately influenced by attitudes towards nuclear energy. Individual fatality probability correlated most highly with intuitive risk ratings. Disaster estimates correlated positively with risk ratings for those activities that had a low fatality probability and a relatively high disaster potential. Annual average fatality rates did not correlate with risk ratings at all. These findings were interpreted in terms of a two-dimensional cognitive structure. Subjective notions of risk were determined primarily by the personal chance of death; for some activities, "disaster potential" played a secondary role in shaping risk perception.     

Clinical application of anxiety management and relaxation training: A multi-referral workshop

Anxiety may be so significant a block to problem-solving and the treatment process that clinicians, regardless of their treatment orientation, often find it useful to have tranquilizing medications prescribed for their clients as a concomitant to therapy. This paper reports on the practical application of group relaxation training as an anxiety management tool for clients at mental health centers. Besides teaching relaxation, this training, for which there are no contraindications listed in thePhysicians Desk Reference, teaches body awareness and self-regulation, specificity and clarifying thoughts, and is a useful model for the rational, problem-solving process.     

„Unkündbar und nun?“ Lebensziel oder Schicksalsschlag – Chancen für eine faire Trennungskultur in der öffentlichen Verwaltung

Job security is seen as a very high value by employees regarding their professional objectives. Especially for employees in public service that secure professional status is one of their main reasons for working in public servance. Therefore, any dismissal may have severe negative effects on health of the employees and also negative effects on the image of the employer. From their perspective, an outplacement program could be an expedient element within the employee-life-cycle (recruiting—retention—exit/outplacement). A fair culture of separation in the organizational context in public sector which is accompanied by an outplacement program can give new perspectives to the employees and strengthen the image of the employer. An interview study with clients of an outplacement consultation will be mentioned. The participants were asked about their expectations and experiences with the consultation. Basically, the results clearly show that the consultant has a tremendous importance and is thus one of the most important success factors. If he or she meets the needs of the client, he or she works up the separation and promotes the confidence of his clients, nothing stands in the way of a successful consultation.