Telephone support for parenting: an evaluation of Parentline Plus

Recent Government policy has advocated universal support services for parents, including a national telephone helpline (for example, Department for Education and Skills, 2003). The Home Office funded just such a helpline—Parentline Plus—as part of the Supporting Families initiative. The efficiency and effectiveness of this service in supporting parents were evaluated through secondary analysis of call data, assessment of taped calls, and interviews with callers. The helpline offers anonymous non‐stigmatising support to a growing number of callers, and most callers interviewed valued highly the service they received. Many had significant support needs that were not met by other forms of service provision.     

Forming an institutional culture with multinational administrators and teachers at Effat College,Saudi Arabia

This article describes the teaching and learning culture of a newly established women’s college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The academic culture at Effat College in 2002 included administrators and teachers from many nations, which created unique challenges in cross‐cultural communication. These challenges, in turn, affected the development and organization of the institutional culture at Effat. Using a cultural lens, archival data were used to analyze the expectations and relations between the multicultural faculty and administration at the college. Our research revealed that the faculty related to one another through their own cultural perspectives. Faculty from the western nations promoted more reflective and constructivist classrooms, while those from eastern nations were more authoritarian. With a diverse faculty from multiple nations holding significant differences in cultural expectations, it is important to acknowledge that all beliefs hold value and deserve respect. Whether or not people accept one another’s views, just having a more clear understanding of the differences may allow them to seek out commonalities and explain varying perspectives and actions. Therefore, we need to be conscious of the cultural assumptions faculty and administrators bring with them into higher education.     

Elementary proof that mean–variance implies quadratic utility

An extensive literature overlapping economics, statistical decision theory and finance, contrasts expected utility [EU] with the more recent framework of mean–variance (MV). A basic proposition is that MV follows from EU under the assumption of quadratic utility. A less recognized proposition, first raised by Markowitz, is that MV is fully justified under EU, if and only if utility is quadratic. The existing proof of this proposition relies on an assumption from EU, described here as “Buridan’s axiom” after the French philosopher’s fable of the ass that starved out of indifference between two bales of hay. To satisfy this axiom, MV must represent not only “pure” strategies, but also their probability mixtures, as points in the (σ, μ) plane. Markowitz and others have argued that probability mixtures are represented sufficiently by (σ, μ) only under quadratic utility, and hence that MV, interpreted as a mathematical re-expression of EU, implies quadratic utility. We prove a stronger form of this theorem, not involving or contradicting Buridan’s axiom, nor any more fundamental axiom of utility theory.     

Children and Parents Deserve Better Parental Discipline Research: Critiquing the Evidence for Exclusively “Positive” Parenting

This article critiques the scientific evidence for the emerging view in nonclinical parenting research and in popular books that parents should use only positive methods of parenting and rarely resort to any disciplinary consequences. Four methodological fallacies pervade research used to support this viewpoint: the correlational fallacy (inferring causation from correlations), the trumping fallacy (permitting correlational conclusions to trump stronger causal evidence), the extrapolation fallacy (extrapolating favorable comparisons of under-usage versus over-usage to zero usage), and the lumping fallacy (lumping inappropriate and appropriate usages together). Conclusions based on any of these methodological fallacies are premature at best and counterproductive at worst. These fallacies would incorrectly make many medical procedures appear to be harmful, such as radiation treatment. Premature conclusions supporting exclusively positive parenting may partially explain the immigrant paradox in the United States and escalating criminal assaults against minors according to Swedish criminal records (where positive parenting is most prominently advocated). Exclusively positive parenting needs to be supported by stronger research, including randomized trials with oppositional defiant children, before being accepted as definitive. We also need research to understand how the parental management skills featured in effective clinical treatments for young oppositional defiant children generalize to parenting in nonclinical families.     

Body Dissatisfaction and the Relevance of Religiosity: A Focus on Ultra-Orthodox Jews in a Community Study of Adult Women

Body image dissatisfaction (BID) is one of the most robust risk factors associated with eating disturbances. However, much remains unknown about it especially regarding a potentially protective factor, namely religiosity. As shown in hundreds of studies, religiosity has consistently been associated with better health and mental health outcomes. Utilizing a large, community-based study of adult Jewish women, we compare ultra-Orthodox and Secular Jewish women, two groups at opposite ends of the religious observance spectrum. Detailed telephone interviews were conducted with a broadly representative sample of adult women (mean age 44) in Israel from distinct religious observance groups. Frequency of 13 BID symptoms was assessed in addition to two clinical correlates, weight and self-criticism. Separate hierarchical regressions use bootstrapping to explore predictors of BID severity within each group. Contrary to expectations, no significant differences in body dissatisfaction emerge between rigorously religious and non-religious Jewish respondents. In addition, the findings reveal surprisingly similar patterns of predictors of BID severity with self-criticism making a noteworthy contribution for both groups. However, despite strong similarities, it is premature to dismiss potentially protective aspects of religiosity vis-à-vis BID without additional studies. In the interim, clinical prevention and treatment interventions that focus on reducing self-criticism may be extremely important for addressing BID issues among adult women—regardless of degree of religious observance.     

The Potential of Labour−Management Partnership: A Longitudinal Case Analysis

Issues of labour?management cooperation have long attracted the attention of management researchers, practitioners and policymakers. In Britain, the most recent wave of interest has been under the rubric of labour?management partnership, normally concerning the development of cooperative relations between unions and employers. A recurring theme is that cooperative relations can be difficult to develop and sustain, especially in liberal market economies. This paper advances the debate by examining the dynamics of labour?management partnership within the context of a British financial services organization over a 25‐year period. Drawing upon empirical case study data collected between 1990 and 2014, we assess the dynamics of the relationship between a building society and the recognized staff union. We confirm the possibility of sustaining collaborative relationships associated with a mutual gains agenda within a liberal market economy as well as the fragility of such arrangements. While we acknowledge that sustaining cooperative regimes can be difficult, we also caution against the tendency towards institutional determinism and underplaying of agency in many of the partnership critiques. Given the lack of a credible alternative, we conclude that labour?management partnership remains an important public policy goal and should not be dismissed as a chimera.     

The evolution of fetal protection policies

This article examines the evolution of fetal protection policies (FPPs) by detailing their historical legacy and a range of contemporary social forces that have contributed to their maintenance. It is based on a case study of the 1977 U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) hearings to revise the industrial lead standard, the 1991 U.S. Supreme Court decision that such policies are unconstitutional (United Auto Workers v. Johnson Controls, 1991), and the case law preceding that decision. A primary issue is the notion that women and fetuses are disproportionately susceptible to lead. This study reveals the ways in which this belief is framed, disputed, and appropriated by various parties to the fetal protection policy debate. Implications of this case study for family health policy are also discussed. Her research interests include work-family linkages, intergenerational relations, and caregiving across the life course. She received her Ph.D. from The University of Pennsylvania. She gratefully acknowledges Tadlock Cowan and Beth Anne Shelton for helpful comments and Marc Hallee for research assistance.     

The two ANSI standards for serial holdings statements: A comparison

The ANSI Standard on Serial Holdings Statements at the Summary Level is being withdrawn and a new holdings standard developed by NISO, entitled Serial Holdings Statements, is being approved in its place. This article compares the two standards, and describes the changes users will need to make when adopting the new standard.