The Community Action Framework in Practice: An Illustration Based on the Ready by 21 Coalition of Austin/Travis County

The field of positive youth development has expanded focus from articulating and measuring desired manifestations of positive well-being to assembling the environmental conditions known to promote these desired outcomes. Evidence of the effectiveness of community-level efforts promoting positive youth development is still emerging, in particular theory-driven examples of community-driven youth development. This study examined the Community Action Framework, one theory-based community youth development model, through the experiences of the Ready by 21 Austin/Travis County coalition (RB21). The coalition connects youth-serving organizations and also regional coalitions, while promoting the positive development of area youth. Participant observation, interviewing, and archival strategies were integrated to capture information related to the complex and dynamic coalition. Results indicated that RB21 represents a practical and meaningful application of the Community Action Framework. Specific examples and recommendations are provided as guidance for other community level youth development efforts.     

Using research questionnaires with young people in schools: the influence of the social context

Whilst there is an extensive literature on the use of self-completion questionnaires as a research tool, very little attention has been paid to the influence of the social context in determining the ways in which questionnaires are used in practice. This paper describes our experiences of working with 27 English, mixed sex, state schools to carry out a questionnaire survey with 4754 students aged 13–14 years. The survey was part of a randomized controlled trial of peer led sex education. Using data from the questionnaires and from researcher fieldnotes, we highlight ways in which aspects of the social context affected the administration of the questionnaire, students' participation in the survey and the quality of the data collected.     

THE PERFORMANCE EFFECTS OF WISE AND UNWISE MANAGERIAL DISMISSALS

The decision to dismiss a coach is challenging because poor performance tends to coincide with both bad luck and low coaching ability. We differentiate between dismissals following actual poor performance on the pitch (wise dismissals) and dismissals following seemingly poor performance due to bad luck (unwise dismissals). To categorize dismissals, we use “expected goals,” which are less vulnerable to random variation in match outcomes. Using data from European football, we find that wise dismissals increase subsequent performance compared to a control group of nondismissals with similarly poor performance on the pitch. However, unwise dismissals do not improve subsequent performance compared to a control group with similar strings of bad luck. (JEL D81, J44, L83)     

Examining the Administration of Work Sanctions on the Frontlines of the Welfare System*

Objectives. Financial penalties, or sanctions, are a core mechanism for enforcing the work requirements of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and helping clients achieve self‐sufficiency. This study's objective is to examine whether sanctions are being administered consistent with policy goals of encouraging work. Methods. This study uses administrative fair hearing decisions, which are the product of an adversarial‐style procedure triggered when a client appeals an adverse decision by the agency, including work sanctions. Qualitative content analysis is used to analyze the decisions. Results. The study found that despite organizational reforms, local offices had created the welfare‐to‐work version of an eligibility‐compliance culture, where sanctions were based primarily on attendance records and became a paper‐processing function. Transactions between clients and workers were often routinized and mechanical, resulting in improper and arbitrary sanctions that were reversed by the hearing officers nearly 50 percent of the time. Conclusion. This study underscores the importance of scrutinizing and correcting agency errors that may undercut clients' engagement in work activities.     

The Relationship between Change and Satisfaction: Parents' Experiences in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service

In the consumer satisfaction literature, there is little exploration of the relationship between change and satisfaction and the two are often conflated. This qualitative study interviewed parents a year after using child and adolescent mental health services. Eliciting an account of their experiences enabled the development of ‘grounded theories’ about what constitutes satisfaction for parents. The outcomes suggest that in addition to the expectable stories of ‘high change and satisfaction’ or ‘no change and low satisfaction’, considerable numbers of people are satisfied with a service despite experiencing little or no change, while others who experience positive change are not satisfied. Understanding these alternative stories helps address critical issues that affect the way therapists respond to people's needs and provide services — these matters are often within the capacity of therapists and services to address, even when working with limited resources.     

Using elections to represent preferences

This paper takes voting theory out of the realm of mechanism design and studies elections as tools for representing preferences: every preference relation on a set of n elements is the outcome of pairwise voting by approximately 2 log₂ n voters with transitive preferences. Results like this one provide representation for preference relations not representable by utility functions. They also motivate definitions of the levels of intransitivity, nonlinearity and nonrepresentability (by utility function) of a preference relation. Received: 25 March 1999/Accepted: 19 June 2000     

The anti-policy of European anti-smuggling as a site of contestation in the Mediterranean migration ‘crisis’

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the European anti-smuggling agenda as an anti-policy that derives legitimacy from fighting ‘bad things’, in terms that mask political disagreement. By juxtaposing the agenda to the experiences and understandings of those whom such measures affect most directly – people migrating without authorisation to the EU – it uncovers the productivity of anti-smuggling and the political contestations surrounding it. Based on a qualitative analysis of 257 interviews carried out with 271 people who travelled – or sought to travel – across the Mediterranean Sea by boat using smuggling networks, the article highlights the complicity of governing authorities and officials with smuggling networks and practices, as well as the diversity and ambivalences of relationships between smugglers and the smuggled. Going further, the article points to the specific ways in which anti-smuggling is contested by those on the move, which expose a central political disagreement over the legitimacy of mobility across borders.