Challenges for Studying Care After AFDC

Mandatory work and low wages after the end of AFDC may propel changes in the caregiving of children and dependent elders in single-mother families. This article suggests some challenges facing researchers who will examine care in single-mother families. Drawing on a qualitative study of care in the last years of welfare, and on social network analysis, it suggests how changes in resources, networks, and norms may affect practices of care and also make it difficult to discover the changes.     

Objectives, missions and performance measures in multinationals

This article examines performance evaluation systems of fifteen multinationals — five German, five UK and five US — and how they relate to corporate strategy or mission statements in each case. The technique of analysis used is the multilayered case study approach, and includes ‘face-to-face’ interviews.The results, by authors Jeffrey Coates, Edward Davis, Stephen Longden, Raymond Stacey (Aston University) and Clive Emmanuel (University of Glasgow), are very instructive. The cases show a consistent use of missions/strategies, objectives and performance measures within the companies, but wide variation between them. Detailed tables are presented which show clearly the range of variation between the companies and countries concerned.     

Safe Schools Policy for LGBTQ Students and commentaries

Two proposed U.S. federal laws would provide explicit protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) students in public schools. These federal laws follow actions by many states and school districts to define and implement laws or policies to protect the safety of LGBTQ students in schools. Research during the past decade has shown that LGBTQ youth are a vulnerable population, and that the negative school experiences of LGBTQ students often contribute to their vulnerability. This Social Policy Report reviews research relevant to these federal, state, and local laws and policies. Research on sexual orientation/identity development is reviewed, with attention to the growing numbers of youth that “come out” or disclose their LGBTQ identities to others during their school-age years. Schools are often hostile environments for LGBTQ students; this evidence is considered along with research on the consequences for compromised achievement and emotional and behavioral health. We then review strategies in education policy and practice that are associated with well-being for LGBTQ (and all) students.     

Attitudes Toward Gay Marriage in States Undergoing Marriage Law Transformation

This study examines attitudes toward gay marriage within the context of concern over the weakening of heterosexual marriage. We use data from a three‐state survey conducted in 1998 – 2000 and designed to explore attitudes toward marriage and divorce reform (N = 976). We find that women, Whites, and younger persons are more approving of gay marriage than men, Blacks, and older persons. Nonparents with cohabitation experience are most approving, whereas parents with no cohabitation experience are most opposed. Heterosexual marriage preservation attitudes are key predictors, net of religiosity and political conservativism. We interpret these findings with theories about vested interest in upholding marriage as an institution and ambivalence resulting from conflicting core values of the sanctity of marriage versus the valorization of individualism.     

The Interface Between Ethnic and Social System Attachment: The Differential Effects of Hierarchy-Enhancing and Hierarchy-Attenuating Environments

Social dominance theory distinguishes between hierarchy-enhancing environments, which promote inequality between groups (e.g., American society), and hierarchy-attenuating environments, which promote equality between groups (e.g., universities). Consistent with predictions derived from this distinction, a panel study that assessed attitudes prior to university exposure and after one year of university exposure yielded three findings: (1) exposure to the university decreased antiegalitarian attitudes; (2) at the end of their first year of college, European Americans exhibited greater national attachment than Asian Americans, Latinos, and African Americans, but members of all groups exhibited similar levels of university attachment; and (3) European Americans exhibited a more positive association between ethnic attachment and national attachment than members of the other three groups, but members of all groups exhibited similar relationships between ethnic attachment and university attachment.     

The Foundations of Democracy: U.S. Foundation Support for Civil Society in South Africa, 1988–96

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This paper analyzes the grantmaking to South African civil society of six major U.S. foundations between 1988 and 1996. It...     

Trust and Risk Communication in High-Risk Organizations: A Test of Principles from Social Risk Research

This study explored the effects of open communication about occupational risks on workers' trust beliefs and trust intentions toward risk management, and the resilience of these beliefs and intentions to further risk information. An experimental survey of 393 student nurses showed the importance of open communication in the development of worker trust in risk management. Consistent with the trust asymmetry principle, we found that the increase in trust beliefs following open communication was weaker than the reduction in trust following a lack of communication. Further, the level of trust developed through communication (or lack of) influenced the way that subsequent risk information was processed. Negative risk information reduced trust beliefs in nurses with already low levels of trust while positive risk information increased trust beliefs only in those with already high levels. A similar pattern of results emerged for nurses' trust intentions, although the magnitude of these effects was weaker. The implications of these findings for occupational risk management are discussed.     

Multiple Views of the Family and Adolescent Social Competencies

This research examined the linkages between congruence in perceptions of family functioning and adolescent competencies with a sample of 223 first‐year college students, their mothers, and their fathers. The primary goal was to explore further the nature and importance of perceptual congruence as related to adolescent social competencies with a more informative analytic strategy than has been used in most past research (one that controls for individual perceptions of family members and takes into account direction of differences among family members), and with more comprehensive, multimethod assessments of adolescent competencies. Our congruence analyses portrayed a more complex picture of congruence and divergence than has emerged from previous studies, and highlight the importance of examining interaction patterns in future research. It is noteworthy, however, that individual perceptions of family members were more important than was congruence in relation to adolescent social competencies. The possibility that congruence effects may be more apparent when the focus is on more specific rather than global measures and on developmental as well as family interaction processes is suggested.     

Incidental findings: a common law approach

Federal regulations governing human subjects research do not address key questions raised by incidental neuroimaging findings, including the scope of a researcher's disclosure with respect to the possibility of incidental findings and the question whether a researcher has an affirmative legal cuty to seek, detect, and report incidental findings. The scope of researcher duties may, however, be mapped with reference to common law doctrine, including fiduciary, tort, contract, and bailment theories of liability.     

Trust: Missing Piece(s) in the Safety Puzzle

While trust is increasingly recognized as a factor that impacts on safety behavior, the exact nature of trust and its role in shaping organizational safety is poorly understood. This special issue contains six articles that examine the relationship between trust and safety behavior in a range of high-risk work contexts. The issue begins with two articles that introduce the complex nature of trust and the positive and negative roles that trust can play in shaping an organization's safety culture. This background is then developed by two articles that explore the role of trust and distrust in safety performance, and uncover a range of significant but often counterintuitive relationships between forms of trust and safe behavior. Finally, the issue concludes with two articles that examine the role that leadership may play in developing trust. These articles examine the conditions important for the development of trust in leaders, and the trust-promoting actions that leaders can employ to influence employees' engagement in safety participation.