‘What is left…?’: The implications of losing Maintained Nursery Schools for vulnerable children and families in England

This TACTYC funded research highlights the role that Maintained Nursery Schools (MNS) play in supporting families within areas of extreme social deprivation in the UK. Data collected through survey and interview demonstrated the positive impact that these schools have upon disadvantaged children and their families, providing a breadth and depth of ongoing care, against a backdrop of ongoing fiscal cuts and uncertainty. Often this provision was in lieu of the reported minimisation of other social services support for struggling families. We argue in this paper that the loss of these state institutions could be highly detrimental to the families that they currently support.     

EXPERIMENTAL SEARCH FOR SEXUAL ISOLATION IN FLIES

Incipient sexual isolation between two strains of D. metanogaster was tested by male choice experiments. During ten years (150 generations) one strain, named Se, was reared in a food medium containing 10^--⁴ M sodium selenite, while the other, named Co, was kept under normal conditions. Both strains were derived from the same natural population. There was no evidence of preference for a mate of the same strain. There was an interaction between type of female and duration of time available for mating. Se males inseminated fewer females and fewer Se females were inseminated overall.     

Ecological regression analysis of environmental benzene exposure and childhood leukaemia: sensitivity to data inaccuracies, geographical scale and ecological bias

Benzene is classified as a group 1 human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and it is now accepted that occupational exposure is associated with an increased risk of various leukaemias. However, occupational exposure accounts for less than 1% of all benzene exposures, the major sources being cigarette smoking and vehicle exhaust emissions. Whether such low level exposures to environmental benzene are also associated with the risk of leukaemia is currently not known. In this study, we investigate the relationship between benzene emissions arising from outdoor sources (predominantly road traffic and petrol stations) and the incidence of childhood leukaemia in Greater London. An ecological design was used because of the rarity of the disease, the difficulty of obtaining individual level measurements of benzene exposure and the availability of data. However, some methodological difficulties were encountered, including problems of case registration errors, the choice of geographical areas for analysis, exposure measurement errors and ecological bias. We use a Bayesian hierarchical modelling framework to address these issues, and we investigate the sensitivity of our inference to various modelling assumptions.     

Mothers' Cognitions about Relational Aggression: Associations with Discipline Responses, Children's Normative Beliefs, and Peer Competence

Prior research has shown that parental social cognitions are associated with child outcomes such as aggression. The goal of this study was to examine mothers' cognitions about relational aggression, and to explore linkages between mothers' attributions and normative beliefs about aggression and children's competence with peers. Participants included 103 mothers and children in grades 3 through 6. Results showed that mothers viewed relational aggression as more acceptable and normative than physical aggression, and they attributed less responsibility to children for using relational aggression. Maternal cognitions also predicted levels of sternness and disapproval in response to child relational aggression, and children's beliefs about the acceptability of relational aggression, which were associated with children's teacher-rated peer competence. Sex differences in the patterns of associations between maternal cognitions, discipline responses, child norms and peer competence were found. Applications of these results to parent education programs that are focused on relational aggression are discussed.     

Evaluation of an employee assistance program at a transportation company

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) in terms of selected work performance indicators and treatment outcomes. Three primary data sources were utilized: a questionnaire administered to EAP users, reports from EAP counsellors on treatment diagnoses and outcomes, and employee records on absenteeism and other performance criteria over a five year time period. On the whole, EAP clients reported very favourable outcomes regarding the quality of services and improved well being, and the counsellors reported successful treatment outcomes. However, employee records on performance outcomes indicated that EAP clients had higher rates of problems before, during and after treatment, compared to a matched control group. Additionally, rates of sick days significantly increased from before to after treatment among EAP users.     

Inducing fertility change

This paper explores the inducement of fertility change in situations where actual fertility levels do not coincide with socially optimal fertility levels. The motivating example is that of higher than socially optimal levels of fertility in LDCs, but the approach is equally applicable to contexts of lower than socially optimal levels of fertility in DCs. The paper proposes a prisoner's dilemma characterization of higher than socially optimal levels of fertility in LDCs and offers a resolution of the dilemma, and hence a possible route to fertility-reduction policies, through the generation of mutual altruism. The prisoner's dilemma characterization hinges on the assumption that there is some social sharing of the costs associated with a given level of fertility but less or none with respect to the benefits. The mutual altruism solution depends on representing an agent's preferences as a specific convex combination of his/her and the other agent's original utilities. The unique critical level of such altruism is identified and hence a stopping rule is provided. Several examples from the array of extensions and possible implications of this approach are discussed briefly.     

Hidden Agendas in Beratungs-und Veränderungsprozessen

Consulting and organization development claim to boost the client organization’s efficiency — this official goal is frequently foiled by hidden agendas which are not officially communicated. Hidden functions of consulting are to prove to the management’s legitimacy, to explain the failure of change processes, to strengthen the initator’s position in internal power struggles or to relieve the system from conflict. On the consultants’ side there is a tension between professionalism on one side and the necessity to secure follow-up projects and to sell standard products on the other side. The authors present possible interpretations for such hidden agendas and illustrate them with case studies from their practical experience as consultants.