Comparing child protective investigation performance between law enforcement agencies and child welfare agencies

This study examines the comparative effectiveness of using law enforcement agencies for child protective investigation (CPI), in contrast with the traditional approach of CPI conducted by the public child welfare agency. The analysis uses 2006-2007 data from a natural experiment conducted in Florida to show modest differences in performance and cost-efficiency between the two approaches to CPI. These findings may have implications for other states considering outsourcing CPI to law enforcement.     

Children placed in out-of-home care: risk factors for involvement with the juvenile justice system

In previous research, child maltreatment has been associated with several negative outcomes, including delinquency. This study uses administrative data to examine risk factors, including the severity and chronicity of maltreatment, for juvenile justice involvement among children, ages 7 to 17, who were placed in out-of-home care in Florida (N = 13,212). The results of multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that among specific types of maltreatment, sexual abuse was associated with the risk of faster placement only in a detention center. Additionally, findings from this study suggest that maltreatment chronicity but not maltreatment severity increases the chances of earlier involvement with the juvenile justice system among children who were placed in an out-of-home care. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

SWOT Analysis of Serbia and Montenegro’s Accession to the EU

The first generation of reforms in Serbia, especially in 2001–2002, was carried out “by the book” but the initial successful results blurred and concealed numerous problems that, especially in 2003, were becoming more evident and, finally, caused a delay in, and the blockade of, the further reform processes. It turned out that the political élite failed to reach a consensus on the second generation of reforms which, above all, refers to the rounding-off and functioning of the institutions of a market economy and the rule of law in full. After the October 2000 changes, relations between the FRY/SM and the European Union have altered dramatically. Joining the EU became strategic priority of our foreign policy, as well as reintegration of the SM in the international community. Nevertheless, these processes have their strengths and weaknesses, potential opportunities and threats, which are summarized in this paper.     

世纪之交俄罗斯东北地区人口发展状况研究

20世纪90年代,俄罗斯政治经济领域发生的深刻变革使其国内的社会经济条件发生了改变,同时,也直接影响到俄罗斯个别地区乃至整个国家的人口发展。本文对俄罗斯东北地区1990年至2014年的人口分布与发展特点进行研究。研究结果显示,人口的流出以及自然增长率下降是导致俄罗斯东北地区人口衰减的主要原因,而出生率和死亡率的变化与东北地区人口的年龄结构也有着紧密的联系。     

The Dying Mother

In a culture where concerted attempts are being made to postpone or circumvent inevitable processes of human life, the poignancy of a mother diagnosed with cancer provides a platform from which to explore broader cultural understandings of mothering. This paper examines four films that contend with the theme of mothering with terminal cancer. Despite being made decades apart and for different audiences, the films share seemingly unchanging representations of mothers. They are portrayed as having a choice between dying as “good” mothers or risking being labeled as unfit mothers. Instead of using cancer as an opportunity to become better selves (as expected of others who are dealing with cancer), dying mothers are expected to find better selves for their children. In the process they must learn the difficult lesson that they are required to both sacrifice all for their children and acknowledge being imperfect as mothers, that is, being replaceable as mothers. Young mothers, in particular, are assumed to be incapable of being good mothers.     

Crossing Age and Generational Boundaries: Exploring Intergenerational Research Encounters

Academics and professionals who aim to understand and plan for aging societies are most often younger than study participants and the benefactors of social programs themselves. However, the appropriateness of such intergenerational practice is beginning to be questioned. It has been suggested that only older people should conduct research, consult on and plan programs for older people. To understand the benefits and pitfalls of such an approach, research encounters between younger and older people will be used as examples from which to explore the question: what happens when individuals attempt to reach across age and generational boundaries? Situating age and generation as organizing principles, insights will be gleaned from the anthropological insider–outsider debate, linguistic work on age-based differences, and emotional associations and identification across age and generational boundaries. This paper argues that the ways older and younger people relate to each other may hold the potential for connection and/or conflict between the generations. Results suggest that age and generation be considered one of the many social locations that may impact the research process and outcomes. Researchers and policy makers of all ages must begin to reflect on their involvement with age and generational boundaries.     

The specifics of Balkan ethnic identity construction: ethnicisation of localities

This article analyses specifics of the process of ethnic identity formation in the Balkans in some comparison with Western European national identity construction. It ascertains that Balkan nationalism is based not on assimilation of local communities into the national whole as in the West but on dissolution of local communities by constructing out of them ethnic communities. Ethnicity construction was born from a severe rivalry around which one of the ethnic definitions would be imposed on a single local group. The article concludes that civic vs. ethnic models of nation-formation are applicable for the region.     

Non‐parametric Copula Estimation Under Bivariate Censoring

In this paper, we consider non‐parametric copula inference under bivariate censoring. Based on an estimator of the joint cumulative distribution function, we define a discrete and two smooth estimators of the copula. The construction that we propose is valid for a large range of estimators of the distribution function and therefore for a large range of bivariate censoring frameworks. Under some conditions on the tails of the distributions, the weak convergence of the corresponding copula processes is obtained in l^∞([0,1]²). We derive the uniform convergence rates of the copula density estimators deduced from our smooth copula estimators. Investigation of the practical behaviour of these estimators is performed through a simulation study and two real data applications, corresponding to different censoring settings. We use our non‐parametric estimators to define a goodness‐of‐fit procedure for parametric copula models. A new bootstrap scheme is proposed to compute the critical values.