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.     

Developing congruent children's services to improve child well-being

This paper explores whether different concepts of child well-being call for different 'service styles' and, if so, whether these styles can dovetail together to form a congruent pattern of children's services. The first part draws on the distinguishing features of five approaches to conceptualizing well-being – need, rights, poverty, quality of life and social exclusion – and their empirical manifestations ('conditions') to identify different emphases or 'styles' in service provision. The second, more discursive part of the paper explores potential contradictions between these service styles, for example, between needs-led and rights-based approaches or between policies to tackle poverty and combat social exclusion. The third part examines whether and how such contradictions can be minimized to achieve greater congruence and discusses the need to consider the orientation of children's services in respect of interpretations of child well-being.     

社会与主体性：中国情节剧的政治经济学

学界对于中国电影创作的研究,常常不可避免地会以片中人物（“自我”）与其所处社会空间之间的关系分析作为逻辑起点。学者们认为电影情节中的戏剧性关联从本质上能够反映出意识形态现实,这种例证在中国当代电影中比比皆是。而中国电影创作中常常贯穿、延续着新中国成立前儒家传统与新中国成立后社会主义意识形态之间的矛盾性问题,也恰恰是这种连续性和矛盾性开启了影片中自我、家庭、工作岗位以及国家——这些关涉社会整体性想像的各个基本方面之间的关系。从这些理论前提入手,本文试图讨论中国电影中最为错综复杂且激动人心的流行叙事样式,这一样式体现出传统的社会道德体系与新兴国家意识形态之间的相互妥协,进而清楚有力地阐明处在两者夹缝之间的故事中的人物情感矛盾与情节冲突所能企及的范围与表现力度。这一叙事样式正是在西方早已广为人知的“情节剧”。由于这一分类不同于传统的中国类型电影体系,所以在使用这一概念的时候,有必要进行一些理论观念的跨文化平移。①     

Differences in occupation between ancestry subgroups of Asian birthplace groups in Australia

Asia‐born migrants form a majority of Australia's immigrants. Most of the larger Asian birthplace groups are ethnically heterogeneous. However, the literature on the occupations of migrants in Australia has tended to overlook the diversity within individual migrant groups. Using 2011 census data, this study details for the first time the significant variation in the occupational distributions between ancestry subgroups of the 10 largest Asian birthplace groups in Australia. A majority of the birthplace and ancestry groups have higher overall occupational status scores than the Australia‐born. The European and Australian ancestry subgroups are more likely to be managers, while the Chinese and Indian ancestry groups are more likely to be in particular professional occupations and to have higher overall occupational status than other ancestry groups from the same birthplace. In other ancestry subgroups such as Punjabi and Sikh ancestry India‐born, high proportions of migrants are in low‐skilled occupations, indicating wastage of skills.     

High and low levels of adolescent peer status are associated longitudinally with socioevaluative concern

This study examined linear and curvilinear longitudinal associations between peer status (i.e., likeability and popularity) and socioevaluative concern, a socio-cognitive feature characterized by attunement to judgment from peers. A sample of 716 adolescents (M_age = 16.01, SD = 1.25; 54% female; 46.5% White; 69.5% reduced-price lunch) was assessed twice annually. Likeability and popularity were assessed with peer nominations at Time 1. Measures of general (rejection sensitivity, peer importance) and online (digital status seeking, online status importance) socioevaluative concern were obtained at Times 1 and 2. High and low levels of likeability were longitudinally associated with increased peer importance, while high and low levels of popularity were associated with increased digital status seeking, and decreased online status importance for girls.     

Change in Covert Social Movement Networks: The ‘Inner Circle’ of the Provisional Irish Republican Army

In this paper, we contribute to both the growing body of literature on social movement networks and the growing body of literature on change in networks by exploring patterns and mechanisms of change within the network of the ‘inner circle’ of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Specifically, we focus upon the period between 1969 (when it formed) and 1988 (the last point for which we have been able to gather good data). Our primary aims are substantive. We want to know how this network changed over time. In addition, however, our analysis identifies changes which other analysts might look for in their networks and offers methodological suggestions for those who, like us, find that their networks do not meet the assumptions of mainstream approaches to modelling network dynamics. There is a further dimension to the paper, however. We are studying a covert social movement network. This is a special type of movement network whose organisation and dynamics are predicted to vary from other movement networks. Some have suggested that they are inclined to be relatively static because the need for trust within them is so great and the risk to whatever they hold secret so considerable when new ties are formed that their members tend only to recruit within the pool of their pre-existing ties and actively seek to minimise recruitment and the formation of new ties. One of the aims of our paper was to determine whether and to what extent this is so.     

Achieving impact in ergonomic research

People are central to system functioning and this role has been dramatically extended by new information technology. This makes possible the fundamental transformation of processes across systems of systems. Can Ergonomics research play an effective role in systems integration innovation? To have real world impact on such problems the system of R and D needs to sustain strong designs that address the functionality of socio-technical systems and support the implementation of innovations, taking into account the complexity of change, the importance of values of dignity and trust, and creating a common understanding amongst all stakeholders to enable design for operations. Strong research designs are more expensive, difficult, risky and prolonged than more commonly practiced weaker designs. They require active engagement with the industrial or service provider and involve overcoming cultural and other barriers to effective implementation and change. To create a virtuous cycle of research-generated impact it is necessary for strong designs to be well supported in the research community and for real world impact to be central to performance criteria of research excellence. Unfortunately neither of these criteria appear to be fulfilled. To ameliorate this, deficiencies in the full cycle of systems integration innovation need to be addressed.     

Treatment of postmenopausal vaginal atrophy with 10-μg estradiol vaginal tablets

Postmenopausal estrogen deficiency can lead to symptoms of urogenital atrophy. Individuals with urogenital atrophy have symptoms that include vaginal dryness, vaginal and vulval irritation, vaginal soreness, pain and burning during urination (dysuria), increased vaginal discharge, vaginal odour, vaginal infections, recurrent urinary tract infections, pain associated with sexual activity (dyspareunia) and vaginal bleeding associated with sexual activity. Despite the frequency and effects of vaginal atrophy symptoms, they are often under-reported and, consequently, under-treated. Therefore, care of a menopausal woman should include a physical assessment of vaginal atrophy and a dialogue between the physician and the patient that explores existing symptoms and their effect on vulvovaginal health, sexuality and quality-of-life issues. The development of the ultra-low-dose 10-μg estradiol vaginal tablets is in line with the requirements of regulatory agencies and women's health societies regarding the use of the lowest effective hormonal dose. Because of its effectiveness and safety profiles, in addition to its minimal systemic absorption, the 10-μg estradiol vaginal tablet can offer greater reassurance to health-care providers and postmenopausal women with an annual estradiol administration of only 1.14 mg.     

Gender,the Body and Organization Studies: Que(e)rying Empirical Research

Even in organization studies scholarship that treats gender as performative and fluid, a certain ‘crystallization’ of gender identities as somehow unproblematic and stable may occur because of our methodological decision‐making, and especially our categorization of participants. Mobilizing queer theory — and Judith Butler's work on the heterosexual matrix and performativity in particular — as a conceptual lens, we examine this crystallization, suggesting it is based on two implicit assumptions: that gender is a cultural mark over a passive biological body, or is a base identity ‘layered over’ by other identities (class, race, age etc.). Following Butler, we argue that in order to foreground the fluidity and uncertainty of gender categories in our scholarship, it is necessary to understand gender identity as a process of doing and undoing gender that is located very precisely in time and space. Given this perspective on gender identities as complex processes of identification, non‐identification and performativity, we offer some pointers on how the methodological decision‐making underpinning empirical research on gender, work and organization could and should begin from this premise.