Age and gender differences in emotional and behavioural problems during the transition to residential treatment: the Odyssey Project

Utilising a national sample of 1,167 young people in residential treatment, this study explored whether the behav-ioural problems exhibited during the transition to residential treatment varied depending upon the age and gender of the youngsters. Specifically, we asked whether those who were admitted to residential treatment centres (RTCs) aged under 12 had a different set of behavioural problems from those who were 12 years and older when admitted, and whether boys had different characteristics than girls. The 11 scales of the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist were examined. The results revealed statistically significant patterns of associations by age and gender. As populations shift within agencies and across time, knowledge of the behavioural problems associated with age and gender groups can be used to facilitate agency planning and staff training.     

Children's Planning of Classroom Plays with Adult or Child Direction

This study examined the planning that occurred when children participated in classroom playcrafting with either adult or child leadership. In a first‐/second‐grade classroom in an innovative public school, we videotaped 11 sessions in which children volunteered to develop a play with small groups of classmates and seven sessions in which adult volunteers (parents and a grandparent) developed plays with small groups of children. The plays were crafted in one session of about an hour, and then usually performed for the class. More planning took place during child‐ than adult‐directed sessions (averaging 92 vs. 35 percent of the session's duration). The groups led by children were more frequently involved in planning of themes, planning of details of the themes, and especially in improvisationally mindstorming ideas than were the groups led by adults. In adult‐directed sessions, the adults often planned the play before the children joined the activity, and the children spent most of the session in non‐playplanning activities such as gluing and coloring puppets or rehearsal of lines designed by the adult in advance. We argue that opportunities to observe and participate in planning—which occurred more frequently in child‐directed than adult‐directed sessions—are important to the development of planning skills and of co‐ordination of plans with others.     

Linking State and Non‐State Security and Justice

Until recently links between state and non‐state security and justice have been given scant attention, despite being an important part of safety and security provision in the South. This article examines the circumstances in which such linkages occur; the benefits enjoyed by the partners; and the problems encountered. It considers how their success is to be measured, and how and when they can be facilitated and made sustainable. It comes to the conclusion that, for all their limitations, states, donors and international agencies would be foolish to ignore links with non‐state security and justice providers.     

POVERTY,IDEOLOGY AND EMPLOYABILITY: CANADIAN AND AUSTRALIAN POLICIES FOR LOW-INCOME MOTHERS

A similar trend is apparent in Australian and Canadian programs to enhance work incentives and program effectiveness, but the Canadian provinces are increasingly insisting that low-income mothers with school-age children enter the workforce rather than accept social benefits to care for their children at home. There is no Canadian counterpart to the Sole Parent Pension or Parenting Allowance, although the provinces pay higher rates of social assistance to needy families than to individuals. Furthermore, there is little public support for the idea that low-income mothers should care for school-aged children at home at the taxpayer's expense. This paper discusses the similarities and differences in rhetoric and policies for low-income mothers, and seeks reasons for the stronger social support for mothering at home in Australia. Although the current discourse of economic rationalism suggests that enhancing work incentives and ‘employability’ will bring prosperity, this paper illustrates that neither paying mothers to care for their children at home nor pushing them into the workforce has reduced family poverty. To make employability programs more effective, governments need to deal with low female wages, the shortage and high cost of child care, and the lack of full-time permanent jobs.     

Inheritance in Australia: family and charitable distributions from personal estates

This article provides unique empirical evidence of post mortem giving in Australia, through a random sample of probate records in Victoria in 2006. The records show that decedents overwhelmingly leave their estates to their immediate family; first spouses, and then children in equal measure. They also show that there is a significant discrepancy between common practice in the transmission of estates and intestacy laws; that about one in five decedents exercise some measure of testamentary freedom; that about one in twenty decedents leave a charitable bequest; that more than two in three charitable bequests are left by decedents without surviving children; and that (unlike in the United States) wealthier decedents leave a smaller proportion of their estates to charity than their less wealthy counterparts. The article provides an empirical foundation for debates around the relationship between charitable giving and social capital, civil society and the role of government in advanced capitalist societies.