Forecasting first grade public school enrollment by neighborhood

The purpose of this study is to develop an alternative method to the traditional cohort survival technique for long-run forecasting of public school enrollment by small area. In the model presented, the difference between first grade enrollment and resident births lagged six years is viewed as a function of new housing, busing, and the percent of lagged births that are white. Least squares regression analysis was used to test the model on data in four neighborhoods in New York City for the period 1958–1969. While the model fits the historical data rather well, its usefulness for long-run forecasting is diminished in areas experiencing substantial structural change.     

Stories of AIDS: The use of narrative as an approach to understanding in an AIDS support group

This paper shows how the co-creation and telling of narratives helped members of an AIDS support group transform their unique and separate experiences of suffering into shared insights, intense connections and comfort. Examples of narratives are drawn from the author's experience as a co-leader of a support group for gay men living with AIDS. Current literature on group work with persons living with AIDS is embedded in a modernist orientation in which the therapist is the scientist/expert, the client has the problem and the therapist helps the client's through exploring and interpreting the client's story according to a superseding theory (Gergen and Kaye, 1992). This approach emphasizes the need for leaders to maintain objectivity and emotional distance to avoid burnout (Gabriel, 1991; Grossman and Silverstein, 1993; Tunnell, 1991). In contrast, in a post-modern therapeutic approach, there is no privileging of the therapist's narrative and the traditional hierarchical relationship is replaced by a mutual effort as therapist and client together develop stories that translate and transcend experience. Using the AIDS work as illustration, this paper offers a post-modern, narrative approach to group work and shows how persons living with AIDS can use narrative to move beyond finite structures and the limits of life.This paper couldn't have been written without the help of the group members and my co-leader Sally Bowie. I want to thank them and other friends and colleagues-particularly the members of my Philosophy Study Group for their suggestions and support.The paper is dedicated to the memory of Jack, Paul, Mark, Alex, Richard, Hugh, Stan, Tim, Michael and Bill—all members of the group who have died and to Dean who, though not a member of the group, also died of AIDS and like the others—taught me much about dignity and courage, about being gay and about living with AIDS.     

The social structure of social problems in New York state

A comparative study of the 52 upstate New York counties replicated a previous state level study that did a principal components analysis of social problems and attempted to predict them by aspects of social structure. In the New York counties the percent Democrat predicted various welfare measures. Population density predicted health and crime problems, and affluence. When population density was controlled, affluence related only to crimes of property. Contrasting with the state study, political competitiveness (per cent voting) was related to few variables.     

Matching children with placements

Utilizing profiles of children in diverse residential programs, a computerized model was developed to explore the possibility of replicating existing placement patterns and to aid practitioners in making future child placement decisions. The model provides a method for rank-ordering placement alternatives for children needing residential care.     

THE IMPACT OF ILLICIT DRUG USE ON NON‐USING SIBLINGS IN THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY

This study explored the issues facing young Vietnamese who have a sibling with an illicit drug addiction and the coping strategies that they and their families employ. This paper concentrated on the results from interviews/focus groups of Vietnamese parents and young people. There were some areas of commonality between the responses of the parent and youth cohorts. Issues of shame, guilt, grief and lack of support were raised by both groups. The reactions of parents and siblings change over time, as the negative impact of the user's behaviour intensified and family systems become strained. There were significant differences in the responses of the two cohorts in relation to parental behaviour. The youth cohort generally was critical of parental behaviour towards both children who are using illicit drugs and their non‐using siblings.     

Why Rights are Never Enough: rights, intellectual disability and understanding

In order to address obvious inequities, rights have been utilised to provide the 'basic' material needs for many groups. Whilst this brings some groups/individuals up to a perceived minimum standard, it unfortunately fails to address the misunderstandings from which the inequities originally stemmed. Via a sociological and philosophical exploration of rights-based strategies relating to intellectual disability, the purpose of this paper is to provide a fuller exploration of the issues surrounding this problem, and to suggest some fruitful alternatives. These alternatives will be concerned specifically with a broadening of rights to facilitate understanding, rather than simple 'protection' from harm and/or the provision of material needs.     

Professional and personal hierarchies of ethical principles

We explore social workers’ perception of the importance and rank ordering of ethical principles. Do they have a generally agreed upon hierarchy of ethical principles? Do they apply similar hierarchies of ethical principles when facing different cases? Are their professional and personal hierarchies of ethical principles similar? The findings based on a structured questionnaire indicated that while social workers attach high importance to most ethical principles closely associated with social work, they do not hold a universal hierarchy of ethical principles. Social workers change their ethical hierarchies in different professional situations but there is no difference between their professional and personal ethical hierarchies. Implications for practice and education are discussed.     

Simultaneous Confidence Intervals for Monotone Contrasts of Normal Means

The one-way ANOVA model is considered. The variances are assumed to be either equal but unknown or unequal and unknown. Two-stage procedures for generating simultaneous confidence intervals (SCI) for the class of monotone contrasts of the means are presented. The intervals are of fixed length and independent of the unknown variances.     

Ways of knowing in clinical practice

Concepts developed by Polanyi regarding personal knowledge and the tacit dimension have particular relevance for social work clinicians. The concept of personal knowledge changes our understanding of the use of theories and points to the imprecision in our use of language. It leads to a relativistic view of knowledge through which the client's story is seen as a constructed narrative rather than a set of facts to be objectively recorded, therapeutic neutrality is considered a myth and difficult ethical questions about value differences and the clinician's influence over clients are brought to the fore.