A Note on the Hyperbolic-Secant Distribution

This note discusses briefly some basic properties of the hyperbolic-secant distribution (e.g., Johnson and Kotz 1970; Manoukian 1986; Perks 1932; Talacko 1956), which has not received sufficient attention in the published literature, and may be useful for students and practitioners.     

Measuring children's needs: how are we doing?

Children's services in England and Wales are legally required to determine the nature and extent of children's needs in their areas as a precursor to providing needs-led services. However, few needs assessments are ever published. This article analyses 83 such reports conducted between 1999 and 2007 in two local authorities in England (one urban, one rural), focusing on their quality and usefulness. It makes recommendations for improving practice in this important area, both in terms of the type of needs assessment required and how best to produce and use them.     

Review of Australian Health Related Social Work Research 1990–2009

Abstract

Social workers form a critical component of the Australian health workforce. While their roles as practitioners are very strategic within the health system, less clear is their contribution to health research. This paper reviews the published record of social work research in Australian health from 1990–2009 in order to discern the patterns of the social work contribution to new knowledge in health. The results of this review indicate a tendency to focus on discursive commentary rather than empirical research as well as a less-than-expected focus on client studies. Given the rise of evidence-based practice, there are potentially serious implications for social work in terms of how it positions itself as a contributor to new knowledge within the health field.     

Critical Analysis of the Relationship between Local Ownership and Community Resiliency*

Abstract Collectively, current resource‐development literature has given little attention to organizational features of ownership as important variables in community resilience. By drawing from six local buyout cases in Canada's forest sector, we reveal the complexity and numerous constraints on local ownership and expose a more nuanced context than most sociologists tend to consider. Our findings suggest that the meaning of local ownership and community resilience varies depending upon the composition (e.g., private vs. public; mill vs. forest license vs. coupled mill & forest license), type (social, cooperative, trust and/or direct‐share ownership), extent of ownership (percentage of local versus extra‐local shares), and the level of control (e.g., proportion of locally held seats on the Board of Directors) associated with ownership. Future research on local ownership should more carefully differentiate between the nature of local ownership and its associated outcomes.     

Tenures in Transition,Tenures in Conflict: Examples from the Zimbabwe Social Forest1

The landscapes of rural communities are commonly divided into areas in which distinctive resource uses are practiced and for which there exist particular types of property rights. Such tenure niches for different resources may overlap where those resources themselves occupy the same space (e.g., land and trees). Further, competing legal and utilization systems (e.g., national and local) may place the same resource in different incompatible tenure niches. Conflict may involve overlapping tenure niches. Co-management by conflicting right-holders may offer a solution.     

La construction des figures de l'«autre>>: les communautésculturellesau Québec

This paper analyses the ways in which a contemporary state—in this case, Quebec—categorizes and mobilizes its inhabitants. Official documents published by the Quebec government during the last 30 years served as the basis for study. The authors found that the state fragments its members in nebulous cultural categories. Through these categorizations, the inhabitants are simultaneously included in and excluded from the mythical realm of “nationhood.” In the beginning, knowledge of the French language sufficed as a condition for inclusion in the national in-group. Nowadays, the cultural criteria are increasingly “naturalized”: one does not become an insider anymore. Cet article analyse le processus de categorisation et de mobilisation des acteurs sociaux par un État contemporain. Les documents publics de 1'Etat québécois des 30 dernières années constituent le corpus de cette étude. L'État fragmente les acteurs sociaux dans des categories floues en les incluant et en les excluant simultanément de l'entité mythique que represente la nation. Jadis, la langue française était utilisée comme critère d'inclusion nationale. Or, ces dernières années, la frontière entre le «nous» et les «autres» est devenue «naturelle», done infranchissable. Ainsi, on ne devient plus membre de la nation par l'apprentissage du français: on l'est ou on ne l'est pas dès la naissance. «Un anthropologue est-il à même de donner I'indice céphalique d'un peuple chez lequel régnerait la coutume de déformer par des bandages la tête des enfants dès leurspremières années?» (Sigmund Freud) «Monprobléme avec les classements, c'est qu'ils ne durentpas; à peine aije fini de mettre de I'ordre que cet ordre est déjà caduc.» (Georges Perec)