What changes during specialized foster care? A study on adaptive functioning and emotional and social problems

Various models of specialized foster care have been developed, but research on them is limited. This longitudinal, exploratory study analysed data on adaptive functioning, emotional and social problems and self-concept in a specialized foster care service in Sweden. The focus of the study was on the development of the children and young people in placement. The Adaptive Behaviour Assessment System (ABAS-II) was used to measure adaptive functioning, and the Beck Youth Inventories of Emotional and Social Impairment (BYI) was used to measure self-rated emotional and social problems and self-concept. Self-ratings showed significant improvements in disruptive behaviour, anger, anxiety and depression. Adaptive functioning as rated by foster parents improved but not enough to catch up with the non-clinical norm group. The average adaptive functioning among the participants at baseline was considerably below the Swedish norm group. Similar to the results of a previous study of the same treatment model, children and young people rated improvement while their foster parents did not do so to the same extent. Possible explanations for this are discussed in the paper. The study is limited by the lack of a control group and by data attrition.     

还原论评价

在还原论概念及其分类的再认识基础上,对广义还原论与狭义还原论进行了综合评价。本体论还原论是错误的;理论还原论是促进科学进步的积极纲领,是实现科学统一的基本途径;方法论还原论则是科学认识与研究所必需的方法论手段。物理学、化学的理论与方法完全适用于生物学研究,但是生物学只能部分地被还原为物理学与化学,因而从根本上生物运动形式不能归结为物理、化学运动形式。     

临床营养治疗与饮食管理系统的设计

本文介绍了营养治疗与配餐系统的设计原理和功能 ,并结合糖尿病患者的营养配餐过程 ,对系统进行了具体说明。本系统具有Windows的图形用户界面和多窗口交互工作的特点 ,首次建立了营养标准库和食物成分库 ,为营养治疗和饮食配餐的科学化和自动化打下了基础     

Wandlungen des Sterbens im Krankenhaus und die Konflikte zwischen Krankenrolle und Sterberolle

Dying in hospital has long been considered as inevitable but talking about it should be avoided, if possible. For some time now, new ideals of dying demand higher social expectations and requirements for the care of dying people (e.g. psycho-social and spiritual care). This trend can also be found in hospitals. On the basis of a running micro-sociological observational study carried out so far in four hospitals and two hospices the social organisation of dying in the hospital is being investigated and results are presented with an example of a case study. Observed dying trajectories show that the staff refers to two competing metaphors as an interpretative frame for performing its work that we call the ideal of the “short and good” dying and the ideal of the “long and laborious” dying. These idealisation correspond with the practice of “discrete” dying (that have been found in hospitals until the 1970s and that are still dominant in the medical world) and with the practice of “intimating” dying (which are drawn from the demands of the hospice-movement). Within this interpretative frame the staff is able to cope with uncertainties of the dying process. The idealisa-tions help to reformulate cumulative mess trajectories as successful and good work and thus tensions between the sick role and the dying role are minimised.     

Inheritance of Welfare Recipiency: An Intergenerational Study of Social Assistance Recipiency in Postwar Sweden

Intergenerational transmission of welfare dependency has received increasing attention among social scientists, especially in the United States, as greater availability of longitudinal data has shed new light on this issue. It remains unclear, however, to what extent the intergenerational correlation of welfare recipiency observed in the United States reflects or interacts with unobserved variables, the racial composition of the population, and the institutional structure of social policies. This study focuses on Sweden, a country with an ethnically homogenous population and institutional social policy structures that differ from those in the United States. It utilizes an internationally unique longitudinal data set to test hypotheses on the inheritance of welfare benefit recipiency as indicated by reliance on means‐tested social assistance. A clear intergenerational effect is observed. This effect, however, reflects a combination of social assistance in the family of origin, children's school adjustment, and parental criminality. Children who lack this combination of problems do not show signs of intergenerational welfare dependency.     

当代大学生政治观现状及教育对策思考

在客观分析当代大学生政治观现状的基础上,找出影响大学生政治观形成的主客观因素,进而提出增强大学生政治观教育实效性的具体措施。     

The Rhetoric of Organizational Change

This study is a discussion of change strategies:the contextual aspects of change and the rhetoric ofchange. Change is analyzed along two dimensions: (1) thecontext of the change initiative in the organization, (2) the relations of the change project to theinstitutional environment. Four cases are used asexamples of inducing change in municipal services. Thefour cases are part of a national reform project. In Norway, municipalities are importantinstitutions both as arenas for political decisions butalso as decentralized instruments for distributing localservices. The main purpose of the reform project was to achieve better adjusted services throughmore interdisciplinary work and local responsibility.Change efforts may be forced on the organization, e.g.,by laws, instructions, and frame budgets or they may be triggered by different voluntarymechanisms. The idea of isomorphismdescribes a passive or incremental adaptation tosignals and from structure imposed by theenvironment. The idea of eruptive change implies enactmentand entrepreneurship in relation to the environmentbased on signals from within. The contexts for change atdifferent levels in the municipality are associated with different rhetorics. Context variablesdescribe the situation or background on which the changeinitiatives are interpreted by the institutional actors.The rhetoric of change is the symbolic expression which defines the change process.     

Managing Expectations, Demands and Myths: Swedish Study Associations Caught Between Civil Society, the State and the Market

Several challenges, external and internal, to the identity and position of civil society organizations exist today. Organizations may be tempted or coerced into closer cooperation with the state. There are also incentives to become more market oriented. This article deals with such struggles in Swedish study associations and how these organizations attempt to gain legitimacy. The tradition of the organization is an important legitimating aspect and so is efficiency. These two aspects can complement each other but may also collide. The article demonstrates how civil society organizations handle an influx of market logics and trends of professionalization when these clash with a civil society identity. The findings indicate that different isomorphic processes are at work. Cultural resources are used to handle conflicting myths, leading to varied discursive strategies and incidences of decoupling.     

Frontiers in population ecology of microtine rodents: A pluralistic approach to the study of population ecology

Current challenges for the study of population ecology of microtine rodents are reviewed. Comparisons with other taxonomic groups (other mammals, birds and insects) are given throughout. A major challenge is to link patterns and processes (i.e. mechanisms) better than is the case today. Other major challenges include the furthering of our understanding of the interaction between deterministic and stochastic processes, and as part thereof, the interaction between density-dependent and density-independent processes. The applicability of comparative studies on populations exhibiting different temporal dynamical patterns is, in this connection, emphasized. Understanding spatiotemporal dynamical patterns is another major challenge, not the least from a methodological point of view. Long-term and large-scale ecological data on population dynamics (in space and time) are critical for this purpose. Looking for consistency between hypothesized mechanisms and observed patterns is emphasized as a good platform for further empirical and theoretical work. The intellectual feedback process between different approaches to the study of microtine population ecology (observational studies, experimental manipulative studies, statistical modeling and mathematical modeling) are discussed. We recommend a pluralistic approach (involving both observational and experimental as well as theoretical studies) to the study of small rodent ecology.