Reclaiming Futures considers an anti-oppressive frame to decrease disparities

The Reclaiming Futures mandate is to improve substance abuse service interventions within the juvenile justice system, and concurrently to ensure that racial disparities are avoided. But traditional efforts to reduce disparities have not been adequate to preclude these almost universal trends from reappearing in the initiative. In response, the authors have introduced anti-oppressive practice (AOP) to the initiative, beginning first with workshops at the national gatherings, and following up with webinars, discipline-specific training for judges, probation professionals, alcohol and drug treatment professionals, community members, and project directors, and finally, an in-depth course to advance the approach more deeply into the initiative. This paper begins with a review of the status of racial disparities in the United States, and shares details of the evolution of Reclaiming Futures to consider an innovative response to such disparities, namely anti-oppressive practice. We detail the ways in which AOP has been incorporated into Reclaiming Futures. The paper then discusses two key elements of our initiative: the theoretical and conceptual elements of AOP that make it a desirable approach to reducing disparities, and an introduction to the core competencies that are affiliated with AOP. We anticipate that this paper will be of interest to program administrators and service providers who are searching for practice innovations that offer a positive prognosis for reducing racial disparities.     

Demand for health risk reductions: A cross-national comparison between the U.S. and Canada

Using a large stated preference survey conducted across the U.S. and Canada, we assess differences in individual willingness to pay (WTP) for health risk reductions between the two countries. Our utility-theoretic choice model allows for systematically varying marginal utilities for avoided future time in different adverse health states (illness-years, recovered/remission years, and lost life-years). We find significant differences between Canadian and U.S. preferences. WTP also differs systematically with age, gender, education, and marital status, as well as a number of attitudinal and subjective health-perception variables. Age profiles for WTP are markedly different across the two countries. Canadians tend to display flatter age profiles, with peak WTP realized at older ages.     

Now What Do People Know About Global Climate Change? Survey Studies of Educated Laypeople

In 1992, a mental‐models‐based survey in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, revealed that educated laypeople often conflated global climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion, and appeared relatively unaware of the role of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in global warming. This study compares those survey results with 2009 data from a sample of similarly well‐educated laypeople responding to the same survey instrument. Not surprisingly, following a decade of explosive attention to climate change in politics and in the mainstream media, survey respondents in 2009 showed higher awareness and comprehension of some climate change causes. Most notably, unlike those in 1992, 2009 respondents rarely mentioned ozone depletion as a cause of global warming. They were also far more likely to correctly volunteer energy use as a major cause of climate change; many in 2009 also cited natural processes and historical climatic cycles as key causes. When asked how to address the problem of climate change, while respondents in 1992 were unable to differentiate between general “good environmental practices” and actions specific to addressing climate change, respondents in 2009 have begun to appreciate the differences. Despite this, many individuals in 2009 still had incorrect beliefs about climate change, and still did not appear to fully appreciate key facts such as that global warming is primarily due to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the single most important source of this carbon dioxide is the combustion of fossil fuels.     

Brain Electrical Activity Associated With Cognitive Processing During a Looking Version of the A‐Not‐B Task

This work was designed to investigate individual differences in brain electrical activity during a looking version of the A‐not‐B task. It was proposed that this spatial task required the cognitive skills of working memory and inhibitory control, each associated with frontal lobe function. Electroencephalograms (EEGs) were recorded from 54 8‐month‐old infants during baseline and task. Only high performers on the looking task exhibited increases in 6‐ to 9‐Hz EEG power from baseline to task. These task‐related changes were evident at frontal and posterior scalp locations. High performers on the looking task exhibited lower EEG coherence values at right hemisphere frontal locations relative to the low performers. These lower coherence values were evident during baseline and task. All infants showed increased frontal‐parietal coherence during the spatial working memory task relative to baseline values. These data confirm previous cognitive neuroscience work associating frontal lobe function with cognitive performance levels during infancy.     

Managing the Care Home Closure Process: Care Managers' Experiences and Views

This paper reports case study research that set out to identifywhat care managers do during independent care home closures.Little research has focused on the way in which care homes forolder people are closed in England, or what those involved thinkabout the process. This paper reports the activities and viewsof care managers directly involved in helping older people relocatefrom care homes that were closed by their owners. During suchclosures, residents and their families have no choice but tomove, usually to a deadline, and with little control over theprocess. Care managers have a responsibility to help arrangealternative care for those current residents who are publiclyfunded, and to offer information and support to those fundingtheir own care (the ‘self-funded’). Closure relatedactivities could involve considerable staff time. Care managementarrangements, including the organization of teams and provisionof needs assessments, varied across authorities. The care managersdescribed drawing on emotional counselling and inter-personalskills, as well as practitioner knowledge and experience, particularlywhen offering support and advice about finding appropriate newhomes. Tensions between aims, constraints on their actions andviews of good practice are identified.     

Gender differences in risk behaviour in financial decision-making: An experimental analysis

This paper examines whether gender differences in risk propensity and strategy in financial decision-making can be viewed as general traits, or whether they arise because of context factors. It presents the results of two computerised laboratory experiments designed to examine whether differences in risk preference and decision strategies are explained by the framing of tasks and level of task familiarity to subjects. The results show that females are less risk seeking than males irrespective of familiarity and framing, costs or ambiguity. The results also indicate that males and females adopt different strategies in financial decision environments but that these strategies have no significant impact on ability to perform. Because strategies are more easily observed than either risk preference or outcomes in day to day decisions, strategy differences may reinforce stereotypical beliefs that females are less able financial managers.     

The relationship between criminality and home background

There are two extensive literatures which deal with this subject. One is that on criminality, defining the distinctions between morality and cultural definitions. The other is on how parents ought to influence their offspring. And there is also a smaller literative on the causal or statistical relationship between the two. This research tradition attempts to isolate particular hypotheses—like lone parents or genetics. What is missing is both a study of why certain influences are significant, and a connection between the actual cases of criminality and criminals' own experiences of their parents. For this purpose lengthy semistructured interviews with young offenders were carried out, exploring their memories and perceptions of home life and their attitudes to their parents and their subsequent experiences. This paper discusses the factors that the interviewees raised consistently, openly and articulately; violence in the home, neglect, laissez-faire: and turning to peer groups for alternative support. At the heart of the evidence lies a lack of dialogue and the perception of a lack of active interest in them by parents. The consequences are discussed, including the inability to develop normal social relationships, leading to frustration and the repetition of violence in the home in different circumstances.     

An application of cartographic area interpolation to German administrative data

In many situations the applied researcher wishes to combine different data sources without knowing the exact link and merging rule. This paper considers different cartographic interpolation methods for interpolating attributes from German employment office districts to German counties and vice versa. In particular, we apply dasymetric weighting as an alternative to simple area weighting, both of which are based on estimated intersection areas. We also present conditions under which the choice of interpolation method does not matter and confirm the theoretical results with a simulation study. Our application to German administrative data suggests robustness of estimation results of interpolated attributes with respect to the choice of interpolation method. We provide weighting matrices for regional data sources of the two largest German data producers.