Black Voters,Black Candidates,and Social Issues: Does Party Identification Matter?*

Objective. Much is known about voting behavior generally; less is known about voting behavior of African Americans in particular due in part to the overwhelming support of black voters for Democratic candidates. However, some argue that black conservatism on social issues could lead to more Republican voting. Methods. We test this question with a set of data on black voting behavior in a 2004 congressional race where two black candidates ran against each other. We thus hold race of candidate constant and look at the influence of social issues and party identification on black vote choice. Results. We find evidence to suggest that evangelicalism and support for the war in Iraq is related to being Republican, but that Democratic Party identification plays the dominant role in black voter decision making. Conclusions. Black conservatism on at least certain social issues is real and has the potential to influence vote choice, but the influence of Democratic Party allegiance is still a very powerful cue for black voters.     

The Dynamic Nature of Risk Perceptions After a Fatal Transit Accident

In 2009, two trains of Washington, DC's Metrorail system collided, resulting in nine deaths and 50 serious injuries. Based on a multiwave survey of Metrorail users in the months after the crash, this article reports how the accident appears to have (1) changed over time the tradeoffs among safety, speed, frequency of service, cost, and reliability that the transit users stated they were willing to make in the postaccident period and (2) altered transit users’ concerns about safety as a function of time and distance from the accident site. We employ conditional logit models to examine tradeoffs among stated preferences for system performance measures after the accident, as well as the influence that respondent characteristics of transit use, location, income, age, and gender have on these preference tradeoffs. As expected, respondents appear averse to longer headways between trains, longer travel durations, higher travel costs, a higher number of late trains, and a higher number of fatalities. The models also show evidence of higher aversion to fatalities from transit system operation among females compared to males. In addition, respondents less experienced with Metrorail travel and those with lower household incomes show higher aversion to fatalities, and this aversion increases as a subject's psychological distance from the accident site decreases. Contrary to expectations shaped by previous studies, aversion to fatalities appears to have increased between the early months after the accident and the end of the survey period, and the expected relationship between age and aversion to fatalities is not statistically significant.     

Mediated and moderated effects of political communication on civic participation

Australian scholars and politicians have long been concerned about politically uninformed and inactive young Australians. However, few efforts have been made to explain how the use of traditional and online media may affect youth’s participation in politics. Our research utilises the citizen communication mediation model and extends the expected mediation chain by an additional examination of the possible interactions between news media use and political discussions, as suggested by the differential gains model. Using representative data from Australian 10th graders, we examine whether and how news media usage (newspapers, television, radio, and the Internet) affects expected participation in a range of civic and political activities conditional of discussions about political issues (with family, friends, and online). Path models account for additional mediators (civic knowledge and civic efficacy) and control variables to explain future civic and political participation. The results suggest that news media use stimulates political discussions, although different media exert differential effects. Yet, news exposure hardly influences the second mediators (civic knowledge and civic efficacy) in a direct manner. In fact, civic knowledge and efficacy mediate the relationships between political communication and participation, both directly and sequentially. Moderation analyses clarify that despite the mediating role of political discussions, news media exposure also influences (future) civic participation contingent of students’ engagement in (primarily Internet-based) discussions about political and social issues. We emphasise the significance of these results with reference to previous research, discuss potential directions for future research, and draw conclusions for civics and citizenship education.     

The Bergen Volunteer Medical Initiative

Retired physician Samuel A. Cassell has followed his goal to establish the Bergen Volunteer Medical Initiative, Inc. (BVMI), a free medical service for the uninsured based on the original model developed by retired physician Jack McConnell in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Volunteers in Medicine (VIM) organizations offer free medical services to the uninsured in communities all over the United States following a culture‐of‐caring philosophy, while relying heavily on the donated services of retired health care professionals. However, Cassell found that starting such a facility in wealthy Bergen County, close enough to be a suburb of New York City, was a bigger challenge than anticipated. Cassell and the BVMI board faced the problem of trying to raise funds to build a facility, only to learn that many donors would be more interested in contributing toward needed services in an organization that already had a proven track record; concerns of some area hospitals about potential duplication of efforts or unequal referrals; and concerns of local officials and suburban residents about the presence of a medical facility servicing the working poor in their business community and in their neighborhood.     

Paddling on One Side of the Canoe? The Changing Nature of New Zealand's Development Assistance Programme

New Zealand's aid policy has undergone a revolution under the National Party government elected in 2008. Prior to this, NZAID, a semi‐autonomous unit, had evolved to manage aid in line with internationally agreed principles. Under the new government, NZAID was reincorporated into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, its focus was shifted from poverty reduction to economic growth, and its programme was aligned with foreign policy. This article aims to provide an overview of the shifts in New Zealand's aid policy over four decades, to explore the relationship between the global aid regime and national practice, and to analyse the influence of politics, and of key individuals, in setting the direction of aid policy.     

The Effectiveness of Court Appointed Special Advocates to Assist in Permanency Planning

The effectiveness of permanency planning, which refers to efforts to move children through the court system in a timely and efficient manner, was analyzed by comparing outcome measures from a group of children having a court appointed special advocate (CASA) ordered and assigned to their case, and from a group of children who had no CASA assigned to their case. It was found that those cases having CASA involvement had significantly fewer placements, tended to be more likely to achieve permanency, and spent less overall time under wardship of the court.     

‘My life's been a total disaster but I feel privileged’: care‐leavers’ access to personal records and their implications for social work practice

In Australia, there is no binding protocol that proscribes the processes by which the release of personal records of adults who grew up in care occurs. Individual agencies that hold the records – both government and non‐government organizations – have their own policy and practice guidelines. While not specific to care‐leavers, the existence of freedom of information and privacy legislation means that the subject of the records is entitled to access information about themselves, but this is not unproblematic. Drawing on qualitative in‐depth interviews with a group of Australian care‐leavers, this paper discusses their experiences of accessing personal records. Accessing these records was often highly significant to identity formation, but could produce both positive and negative effects. The negative aspects of the records were that, typically, at least in part, they were incomplete, insulting, incorrect and/or incomprehensible. Currently, the range of support provided to those accessing their records varies significantly across agencies. The findings of this research suggest the need for the greater provision of supported release and the implications for social work practice are discussed.     

Gendered futures, constrained choices: undergraduate perceptions of work and family

Debates about the gendered division of labour tend to focus on negotiation and decision-making by couples in the present, and assume that individuals make rational choices based on present circumstances when deciding questions about workforce engagement, domestic labour and childcare responsibilities. As a result, they overlook the fact that choices made in the present are shaped by past choices. We argue that choices made in the present about work and family are better understood as the outcome of a complex mix of choices that are made across the life course. Drawing on interview data with university undergraduates we show how they were already engaging in ??gendered?? choices about careers long before the spectre of work and family became a daily reality. These choices were made in relation to future identities in which young men imagine a nirvana of seamless work-family balance, while young women imagine a future of compromise and negotiation with inevitable career interruption. In seeking to understand these highly gendered positions our paper contributes to debates about choice in work and family.     

美国环境哲学的两种对立思潮

作为美国环境哲学领域中的两支重要流派,社会生态学与深生态学在生态危机的根本原因、人类自然与非人类自然的关系、人类在自然中的地位和作用、化解当前生态危机的路径以及理性在解决生态危机过程中的作用等六个重要议题方面,都存在着明显而有启示意义的差异和对立.