The role of animation as a program development strategy

As an approach to community organization, animation involves the activation of people to take responsibility for their own affairs, with the aim of achieving their own, self-defined ends. The authors analyze the use of animation as a strategy of social program development undertaken by a nonprofit organization to initiate a clubhouse serving people with serious mental illness. Six animation strategies and their impact on the local community, sponsoring organization, and subsequent clubhouse program development are examined. The authors recognize the intensive resource requirements of animation, but they conclude that successful animation results in a program that enjoys high levels of community support, understanding, and legitimacy.     

A Problematic Integration Approach to Capturing the Cognitive, Cultural, and Communicative Experiences of Hurricane Katrina Volunteers

This essay outlines an applied approach for examining message reception and processing among natural disaster volunteers. It is argued that an applied approach provides analysis of volunteers' decision-making processes that extends to cognitive, cultural, and communicative influences on the decision to volunteer. Implications for future research on volunteerism in natural disasters are discussed and policy-making implications are addressed.     

Analysing US State Legislative Resolutions on Immigrants and Immigration: The Role of Immigration Federalism***

Immigration in the United States is traditionally thought of as a federal‐level policy, but in recent years, states have been exceedingly active in this domain. We analyse the context and discourse of immigration‐related legislative resolutions from Southern border‐states, recipients of the heaviest immigration flows, and find that states do not respond in the same way to immigration challenges, and these differences occur over time and space. Some states seek to federalize the issue and push Congress to take action, while others are slowly incorporating immigrants into domestic politics and have begun to treat them as yet another state constituency. These findings have significant implications both for federal‐state relations in the immigration realm, and for immigrants themselves.     

The empowerment of marginals: strategic paradoxes

This article is about the disability movement in the Netherlands and its strategies for empowerment of disabled people. Only since the end of 2003 has the Netherlands enjoyed anti‐discrimination legislation for disabled people. But, how important actually is legislation for the empowerment of disabled people? To answer this question, we take a closer look at social movements and their involvement in empowerment and active citizenship. We criticise the disregard of differences and care in notions of active citizenship and propose instead the idea of a ‘varied society’ based on the notions of diverse and ‘careful citizenship’. One of our main arguments is that empowerment strategies necessary to create this kind of society are above all bottom‐up strategies. However, the highly organised disability movement in the Netherlands is confronted with strategic paradoxes that have ‘de‐powering’ consequences. Based on these paradoxes, five recommendations for the disability movement in the Netherlands are presented.     

“I'll Be There for You”: Teen Parents' Coparenting Relationships

Marriage promotion policy agendas have focused research attention on coparenting relationships, but little is known about coparenting among teen parents. Using qualitative interviews with 76 teen mothers and fathers supplemented with site observations at a school and clinic, the authors investigated coparenting relationships and those relationships' embeddedness in extended families and social institutions. They identified prevalent coparenting trajectories and analyzed individual‐, interaction‐, and institutional‐level influences on coparenting. Coparenting trajectories diverged depending on whether the couple stayed together and assumed traditionally gendered parenting roles. Participants perceived that coparenting relationships strongly shaped their current and future socioeconomic, emotional, and practical circumstances and their success at “being there” for their child. Extended families, institutions, and social programs often pushed teen parents apart, although many participants felt they needed a functional relationship with the other parent. Coparenting relationships, considered jointly with extended families and social institutions, are fundamental for understanding teen parenthood and shaping effective social policies.     

The Biodemography of Fertility: A Review and Future Research Frontiers

The social sciences have been reticent to integrate a biodemographic approach to the study of fertility choice and behaviour, resulting in theories and findings that are largely socially-deterministic. The aim of this paper is to first reflect on reasons for this lack of integration, provide a review of previous examinations, take stock of what we have learned until now and propose future research frontiers. We review the early foundations of proximate determinants followed by behavioural genetic (family and twin) studies that isolated the extent of genetic influence on fertility traits. We then discuss research that considers gene and environment interaction and the importance of cohort and country-specific estimates, followed by multivariate models that explore motivational precursors to fertility and education. The next section on molecular genetics reviews fertility-related candidate gene studies and their shortcomings and on-going work on genome wide association studies. Work in evolutionary anthropology and biology is then briefly examined, focusing on evidence for natural selection. Biological and genetic factors are relevant in explaining and predicting fertility traits, with socio-environmental factors and their interaction still key in understanding outcomes. Studying the interplay between genes and the environment, new data sources and integration of new methods will be central to understanding and predicting future fertility trends.