Juggling and Dealing: The Creative Work of Care Package Purchasing

In conventional diagrams of the new service delivery process, assessment of need is linked to purchase by a single line or arrow; the implication is that purchase follows more or less logically and directly from assessment. This paper focuses on the complex creative work that goes on in the "space" between assessment of need and purchase of service, and the changing influences on that work. "Purchase" is deconstructed to reveal the complex processes and calculations involved, and the ways in which budgets "free" resources and markets influence the final outcome. The paper describes the effects on care package construction and purchase of changing policies, budget arrangements and financial limits; it goes on to outline the difficulties and complications in using information on unit costs in purchasing. Unit costs are only part of a complex equation in which prices are negotiated and total cost juggled in the context of budgets, financial limits, real accessibility and balanced by quality considerations. It is suggested that talk of "playing shops" and use of "off-the-shelf" services underestimates the complexity of care package construction and purchase. Micro-purchase of care services has more in common with dealing and juggling than with lifting standardized, packaged, pre-priced goods off shelves in Sainsbury's.     

GENDER AND HEGEMONY IN FASHION MAGAZINES:

Women's responses in the context of focus groups to fashion photographs and clothing advertisements in Vogue magazine and to a brief questionnaire eliciting their attitudes toward clothing and fashion are used to examine the nature and extent of hegemonic influences in fashion. Participants' sources of information about fashion suggest that the authority of the fashion press is limited. The magazine's conceptions of women's roles as expressed in its fashion photography fit a model of "conflicted" hegemony characteristic of American media and popular culture in general. Empowered by the cultural context of conflicted hegemony, women were generally critical of fashion photographs. Their responses to photographs were influenced by their acceptance of traditional norms of feminine demeanor but varied by age and race. They rejected the magazine's orientation toward the use of fashionable clothing for postmodernist roleplaying in favor of a modernist outlook.     

Did Australia’s Baby Bonus Increase Fertility Intentions and Births?

In May 2004, the Australian government announced a “Baby Bonus” policy, paying women an initial A$3,000 per new child. We use household panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (N = 14,932) and a simultaneous equations approach to analyze the effects of this bonus on fertility intentions and ultimately births. The results indicate that opportunity costs influence intentions and births in predictable ways. Fertility intentions rose after the announcement of the Baby Bonus, and the birth rate is estimated to have risen modestly as a result. The marginal cost to the government for an additional birth is estimated to be at least A$3,000 per new child. We use household panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (N = 14,932) and a simultaneous equations approach to analyze the effects of this bonus on fertility intentions and ultimately births. The results indicate that opportunity costs influence intentions and births in predictable ways. Fertility intentions rose after the announcement of the Baby Bonus, and the birth rate is estimated to have risen modestly as a result. The marginal cost to the government for an additional birth is estimated to be at least A126,000.     

The Capacity of Community‐Based Organizations to Lead Local Innovations in Welfare Reform: Early Findings from Texas

Community‐based organizations (CBOs) are now cast among the lead actors in welfare reform. But do they have adequate capacity to perform this critical leadership function? Early findings from fifteen state‐funded projects in Texas show that state planners must carefully assess the capacity of a CBO to initiate and sustain an innovation at the local level. The authors examine six organizational variables that predict success or failure: goals, management, technology, funding, community involvement, and performance.     

Successful Aging And Creativity In Later Life

This study examined the meanings older people attached to successful aging and its relationship to creative activity. Thirty-six contributors to a senior art exhibition participated in this study and ranged in age from 60–93. Interviews with participants explored their understandings of successful aging and creativity, the factors viewed as necessary for each, and the benefits of creative activity and its relationship to successful aging. Qualitative data were coded by two independent reviewers. Content analysis confirmed six features of successful aging: a sense of purpose, interactions with others, personal growth, self-acceptance, autonomy, and health. The findings indicate that creative activity contributes to successful aging by fostering a sense of competence, purpose, and growth. Artistic creativity also facilitates successful aging by encouraging the development of problem-solving skills, motivation, and perceptions that translate into a practical creativity in the way these individuals manage their everyday lives.     

Addressing common forms of child maltreatment: evidence‐informed interventions and gaps in current knowledge

This paper reviews interventions for preventing the occurrence and recurrence of major types of child maltreatment. We begin with an overview of the challenges of establishing evidence‐based interventions to prevent child abuse and neglect in many countries, and underscore the importance of this need with child maltreatment incidence rates in the USA, and how much each type and subtype contribute to child out‐of‐home placement. Next, we identify the well‐supported, supported and promising interventions for each child maltreatment type and subtype, according to their level of research evidence using an evidence‐based clearing house. The paper closes with a discussion of the implications for practice, evaluation, policy and agency management, including intervention knowledge gaps that showcase areas that need additional practice research.     

Positive Changes in Perceptions and Selections of Healthful Foods by College Students After a Short-Term Point-of-Selection Intervention at a Dining Hall

Abstract

Objective: Determine the effects of a short-term, multi-faceted, point-of-selection intervention on college students’ perceptions and selection of 10 targeted healthful foods in a university dining hall and changes in their self-reported overall eating behaviors. Participants: 104 college students, (age 18–23) completed pre-I and post-I surveys. Methods: Pre-survey collected at dining hall in April 2007, followed by 3-week intervention then post-survey collected via email. Healthy choice indicators, large signs, table tents, flyers and colorful photographs with “benefit-based messages” promoted targeted foods. Response rate to both surveys was 38%. Results: Significantly more participants reported that healthful choices were clearly identified in the dining hall after the intervention. Over 20% of participants reported becoming more aware of healthful food choices in the dining hall after the intervention. Significant increases in self-reported intake were reported for cottage cheese and low-fat salad dressing, with a trend toward increased consumption of fresh fruit. Seven of the 14 assessed eating behaviors had significant changes in the desired direction. Increased awareness of healthful foods was the top reason for self-reported changes in overall eating behaviors. Conclusion: Short-term, multi-faceted, point-of-selection marketing of healthful foods in university dining halls may be beneficial for improving college students’ perceptions and selections of targeted healthful foods in the dining hall and may improve overall eating behaviors of college students.     

Exploring rigour in autoethnographic research

Abstract

The changing face of qualitative research has opened up discourses on the validity and rigour of research processes and products. A current debate is whether the criteria traditionally used to judge the rigour of quantitative research are appropriate to assess the academic integrity of qualitative research including autoethnography. The purpose of this article is to appraise views on the academic rigour, validity and scientific accountability of research in general and autoethnographic research in particular. The researcher reports on issues of rigour in conducting autoethnographic research from her own experience and that of published autoethnographic researchers. The issue of relevant appraisal criteria against which the research integrity and rigour of autoethnographic studies can be assessed is investigated. It is concluded that the academic rigour of autoethnographic studies should be established to enhance its credibility and value and that the criteria used need to be judiciously determined and applied.     

Military Invasion and Women's Political Representation

The bodies produced by the violent practice of suicide bombing are a source of horror and disgust. They are, in feminist psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva's concept, abject: that which defies borders and is expelled to create the self. As ‘abject bodies’, suicide bombers' bodies frustrate attempts at calculation and rational control of security risks, and, in their mutilated flesh, expose as unstable the idea of the body as a whole with clearly defined boundaries between inside and outside. Female suicide bombers, whose bodies are already considered ‘abject’, produce a politics of the body that exceeds narratives of victimhood, and whose very monstrosity symbolically threatens the foundations of the nation-state. Attempts at constructing subjects out of the mutilated bodily remains of victims and perpetrators of suicide bombings are key practices in the production of the state and gendered subjects. The practice of suicide bombing and efforts to recover and resignify bodies reveals how power molds and constitutes the border of the body and state simultaneously. The explosive body of the suicide bomber thus has destabilizing effects beyond the motivations of its perpetrators and exposes the political work necessary to maintain the illusion of secure, bounded bodies and states.