Family Structure History and Adolescent Romance

This study examined the association between family structure history and adolescent romance. Using a national sample drawn from Add Health (N= 13,570), family structure at Wave I was associated with the likelihood that adolescents were involved in a romantic relationship at Wave II and, among those in a relationship, the number of relationships they had since Wave I. Cumulative family instability and its timing were also associated with these outcomes and largely drove the family structure effects. Gender and age interactions suggest that experiences of family instability were more consequential to the romantic lives of boys and younger teens.     

Children's Voices: The Views of Vulnerable Children on Their Service Providers and the Relevance of Services They Receive

This paper describes and analyses the views of vulnerable childrenof eleven years and under on the relevance of services theyreceived. The two research questions posed were, first, whatare effective practices for engaging with vulnerable children;and, second, how can the voices of vulnerable children be usedto influence the development of policy? The first question wasaddressed through a systematic review of existing literatureon effective strategies for interviewing vulnerable childrenand revealed that few studies that focus on interviewing youngchildren are designed to address effectiveness. As yet, notall young children are asked for their views by those makingdecisions about their lives, though their involvement increaseswith age. The second question was addressed through focus groupsand interviews which revealed that children hold many validviews related to their roles and relationships with serviceproviders and decisions being made concerning their lives. Itwas concluded that whilst children’s lived experienceof services they receive could contribute to the creation ofmore democratic communities in which children and their familiesparticipate, it remains to be seen whether the new Green Paper,Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003), increases their sense of autonomyor merely extends the degree to which they are controlled.     

Retirement and risk: the individualisation of retirement experiences?

A climate of uncertainty and risk exists in the field of retirement and pensions. Many employers have modified their pension schemes shifting the financial risk onto employees. Many individuals with private pensions have watched the value of their savings diminish. Added to this, the trend toward early retirement before state pension age has destabilised the traditional life course notion of a fixed retirement age, (especially for men). As a result, the concept of retirement itself has become more unpredictable and difficult to define. In this article we examine the extent of the individualisation of retirement experiences by reference to a study of retirement transitions in two organisations. The research investigated the influences on people's retirement decisions and the extent to which they experienced choice and control over how and when they retired. It is possible to identify a pattern of individualisation in contrast to its opposite of a mass transition into retirement, collectively understood and embedded in formal, institutionalised arrangements. However, underlying this fragmentation of experience there are clear structural patterns. The form that structured individualisation took here, was less to increase the majority of people's range of alternatives and choices over when and how to retire and more to enlarge the range of risks they had to cope with.     

Family and child characteristics linking neighborhood context and child externalizing behavior

Neighborhood conditions are related to children's externalizing behavior, although few processes that help explain this association have been identified. With data from 189 primarily low‐income Anglo and Mexican American families, we tested a stress process model that included 3 potential mediators of this relationship. The results showed that child stressful life events, association with deviant peers, and parent‐child conflict mediated the relationship between neighborhood context and child externalizing behavior when household income and maternal depression were controlled. The model explained more than 25% of the variance in externalizing behavior. Furthermore, differences in results for families with a U.S.‐born versus Mexico‐born mother showed that neighborhood influences on families and children may be quite complex.     

Hard-to-reach or out-of-reach? Reasons why women refuse to take part in early interventions

The aim of this study was to explore the reasons why vulnerable women refuse to take part in early interventions. In-depth interviews were conducted with 19 women who refused to take part in an evaluation of an intensive home visiting programme. A number of themes were identified including perceptions about vulnerability, misperceptions about the service, misgivings about the service, and lack of trust. It is concluded that women who refuse to take part in early interventions are a diverse group, and that service providers need to take this diversity into account, if they are to improve uptake of services by vulnerable women. Service providers may also need to consider new ways of providing services.     

Demands on Finite Cognitive Capacity Cause Infants' Perseverative Errors

This research unites traditionally disparate developmental domains—cognition and locomotion—to examine the classic cognitive issue of the development of inhibition in infancy. In 2 locomotor A‐not‐B tasks, 13‐month‐old walking infants inhibited a prepotent response under low task demands (walking on flat ground), but perseverated under increased task demands (descending a staircase). Despite elimination of factors previously associated with infant perseveration, infants still perseverated in the difficult stairs condition. Increasing cognitive load by manipulating task difficulty affected infants' ability to inhibit repeated responses that were no longer appropriate. Evidence supports a cognitive capacity account of infant perseveration, in which infants' performance depends on allocation of cognitive and attentional resources.     

Verbal Behavior and Initial Exposure to Delayed Reinforcement

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - Ten subjects responded under a tandem fixed-ratio 1 not-responding-greater-than-t schedule of point delivery during one 75-min session in which the delay was...     

Development,the state,and transnational political connections: state and subject formations in Latin America

Focusing on the processes of making and sustaining transnational political ties between actors, international actors and states, this paper reviews recent work from a number of disciplines on globalization and politics, and outlines an agenda for future research. Rather than seeing transnational political linkages merely as forerunners to the loss of local sovereignty, the paper argues for a wider conceptualization of transnational connections, embedded within processes of state formation in Latin America. Using a variety of examples, it is argued that transnational networks are associated with a wide range of meanings and a variety of responses by diverse actors. Drawing on recent work in political science, post‐structuralism and anthropology, it is suggested that geographical concepts ‐ related to scale, process and networks ‐ offer a means through which to analyze and ‘map out’ these transnational political processes.