Should any Child be Placed in Care? The Forgotten Great Debate 1841-74

Summary This paper first describes a system of Day Industrial FeedingSchools in the mid-nineteenth century known as the 'AberdeenSystem'. As originally conceived, it challenged the whole ideaof residential care of children. We argue that while SheriffWatson, with whom the schools are usually associated, is generallygiven a paragraph in histories of social work or of education,the social movement with which he was associated is entirelyoverlooked. This movement gave first importance to family ties,for religious reasons, and then argued on rational grounds theadvantages of a day care system. It attempted to meet withinsuch a system the needs of the whole child in his family andcommunity setting. It also sought to avoid the processes ofstigmatization, arguing that service provision should be basedon recognition of children's rights. We consider briefly theideological context of the movement and finally look very brieflyat some of the implications of the material for social serviceprovision today. We suggest that greater historical awarenesscould enhance opportunities for developing imaginative policiesin relation to the development of social work services     

MULTIPLE-MEASURE ASSESSMENT OF PARTY IDENTIFICATION

Recent research has focused attention on the importance of accountingfor measurement error in party identification when modelingthe stability of partisanship and the determinants of the vote.Measurement error estimates have in the past been based on asingle measure of partisanship observed at multiple points intime, a test-retest methodology that requires fairly strongassumptions about the character of change over time. This articleassesses the reliability of the Michigan party identificationscale using multiple measures of partisanship at a single pointin time. Our data not only corroborate previous test-retestresults but also suggest that the accuracy with which partisanshippredicts candidate preferences can be enhanced using multiplemeasures. One measure in particular, a labeled 7-point self-placementcontinuum, is found to hold significant potential to supplementand illuminate the Michigan scale.     

Social class,social disadvantage and child health

SUMMARY. The examination of the contribution of social factors to child health status by linking mortality and morbidity to social class as defined by parental occupation is critically reviewed. An alternative approach to examining links between health and social factors is proposed that consists in defining several basic environmental needs of children that must be met to ensure their health status is optimised. For each basic need (housing, income, diet, quality of affectionate care etc.) it is proposed that minimal criteria or a ‘bottom-line’ be set below which it should be generally agreed that an unacceptable level of disadvantage exists. The approach is described in outline, but to a sufficient degree to demonstrate that it is already feasible in some respects, although clearly many details would need to be worked out in others     

Psychological and cultural foundations of prejudice: The case of anti-Semitism in Quebec

Cette communication documente l'existence de niveaux d'antisémitisme et d'ethnocentrisme systématiquement plus élevés au Québec qu'ailleurs au Canada, puis examine les facteurs socioculturels, psychologiques et politiques qui sous-tendent ce phénomène. L'analyse des données de l'Enquěte sur la Charte des droits et libertés révèle que les facteurs socioculturels jouent le rǒle prépondérant. Plus particulièrement, la plus forte propension des Québécois à voir les Juifs d'un oeil défavorable est en grande partie attribuable à une plus grande valorisation de la conformité dans la culture québécoise. Ainsi, les Québécois diffèrent des autres canadiens non pas tant parce qu'ils souscrivent à tout l'éventail des préjugés antisémites, mais parce qu'ils acceptent les caractérisations négatives des Juifs sans se poser des questions. D'après les auteurs, l'antisémitisme au Québec ne s'explique ni par le nationalisme politique ni par des traits de personalité. La communication traite également de diverses questions concernant la méthodologie à employer pour mesurer l'antisémitisme. Documenting consistently higher levels of anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada, this article investigates the sources of this prejudice in socio-cultural, psychological and political factors. Analysis of survey data from the Charter of Rights Study show that socio-cultural factors are most important. In particular, the greater readiness of Quebeckers to look unfavourably on Jews is largely a consequence of the high value placed upon conformity in Quebec culture. Quebeckers therefore differ from other Canadians not primarily in a willingness to subscribe to a full syndrome of anti-Semitic sentiments, but in casually accepting negative characterizations of Jews. Anti-Semitism in Quebec is found not to be related to nationalist political sentiments, nor is it substantially personality-driven. A variety of methodological issues pertaining to the measurement of anti-Semitism are also discussed.     

Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State (1977)

Abstract The state is not the reality which stands behind the mask of political practice. It is itself the mask which prevents our seeing political practice as it is. There is a state-system: a palpable nexus of practice and institutional stucture centred in government and more or less extensive, unified and dominant in any given society. There is, too, a state-idea, projected, purveyed and variously believed in in different societies at different times. We are only making difficulties for ourselves in supposing that we have also to study the state - an entity, agent, function or relation over and above the state-system and the state-idea. The state comes into being as a stucturation within political practice; it starts its life as an implicit construct; it is then reified - as the res publica , the public reification, no less - and acquires an overt symbolic identity progressively divorced from practice as an illusory account of practice. The ideological function is extended to a point where conservatives and radicals alike believe that their practice is not directed at each other but at the state: the world of illusion prevails. The task of the sociologist is to demystify; and in this context that means attending to the senses in which the state does not exist rather than to those in which it does.
'When the state itself it is danger', Lord Denning said in his judgment yesterday, "our cherished freedoms may have to take second place, and even natural justice itself may have to suffer a setback'.
'The flaw in Lord Denning's argument is that it is the government who decide what the interests of the state should be and which invokes 'national security' as the state chooses to define it', Ms Pat Hewitt, director of the National Council for Civil Liberties, said yesterday'.     

Bayesian Inference for Stochastic Epidemics in Populations with Random Social Structure

A single-population Markovian stochastic epidemic model is defined so that the underlying social structure of the population is described by a Bernoulli random graph. The parameters of the model govern the rate of infection, the length of the infectious period, and the probability of social contact with another individual in the population. Markov chain Monte Carlo methods are developed to facilitate Bayesian inference for the parameters of both the epidemic model and underlying unknown social structure. The methods are applied in various examples of both illustrative and real-life data, with two different kinds of data structure considered.     

CORRUPTION AND GROWTH UNDER WEAK IDENTIFICATION

The goal of this paper is to revisit Paolo Mauro's influential paper on corruption and growth focusing on the strength of his results under weak identification. The instrument used in his original paper is found to be “weak” as defined by the literature on weak instruments. Our results suggest that there is a high probability that the parameters of interest are locally almost unidentified. We also investigate other instruments commonly used in the corruption literature and obtain similar results. After identifying an instrument with sufficient strength, we fail to reject a zero effect of corruption on investment and economic growth. (JEL C31, D73)