Does Material Well-Being Affect Non-Material Well-Being?

Twelve measures of material well-being inthe U.S. States were subjected to factoranalysis. Four factors emerged: Security,Mastery, Harmony and Autonomy. Fiveself-reported measures of stress, mental healthand general health are regressed upon the fourquality of life measures. Only Harmony provedto be significantly associated with thestress-health factors. The elements of Harmonyare shown to have a reasonable causativelinkage to the stress-health factors. Foranother demonstration, money income of arepresentative sample of the U.S. populationis shown to be associated with self-reportedhappiness, but with variation, enabling aclassification of the population as to itsWell-Being, Dissonance, Adaptation orDeprivation in the income-happinessrelationship. Material well-being, thus, isshown to be linked to non-material,self-reported stress and health conditions.     

Contents of Volume 52

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 52     

The U.S. federal effort in developing social indicators

As an introduction to this issue, some historical background of the effort of the U.S. Federal goverment in tracking social trends and making use of social indicators is reviewed. The 1934 study, Recent Social Trends in the United States, and the monographs analyzing demographic trends sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, are seen as antecedents to the current support accorded what has become a kind of triennial Social Indicators publications. The three subject-matter social indicators volumes of the Federal government — Science Indicators, The Condition of Education and Health: U.S.A. — are reviewed in this volume, and the programs of several other agencies, the Bureau. etc., to develop and communicate social indicators are discussed. The forecast for the future of social indicators includes the development of social accounts, the improvement of models that have criterion social indicators as the dependent variable, and the appreciation of the statistical system to provide the information needed for improved monitorship and understanding. These are seen as joint endeavors of the public and private sectors.     

Standards, Competence and Knowledge: Initial Teacher Training and Business

Initial teacher training in England and Wales has undergone a number of reforms which have imposed greater central control on institutions and individual programs. The culmination of this process has been the introduction of a competence based model. In this paper the authors explore the factors which have led to the adoption of a competence based approach in many sectors of education and training. They describe how a Post Graduate Certificate in Education program has been developed to enable students to achieve competence through the establishment of links between education and business. They go onto consider the wider implications of this approach for teaching and learning. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Selections from SINET – The Social Indicators Network News

Social Indicators Research -     

Selections from Sinet – The Social Indicators Network News

Social Indicators Research -     

Telling a Good Story: Using Narratives in Vocational Rehabilitation With Veterans

Because of the high chronicity of work-related problems in a Veterans Administration Medical Center population, many of the traditional methods of career assessment, counseling, and placement have proven ineffectual. In this article the authors detail the development of an intervention based on narrative or storytelling principles. They describe efforts to introduce this model to patients as well as to relate patients' stories to vocational outcomes. The usefulness of stories as an organizing principle for counselors and clients is discussed, and suggestions are offered for further uses of storytelling interventions.     

Bridging the Gap: New Relationships between Primary Care Groups and Local Authorities

Current policy places great emphasis on the development of partnerships, particularly between NHS and local authority services, with the aims of increasing service coordination and delivery and improving health. To this end, primary care groups (PCGs), at the forefront of NHS organizational developments, are required to include a social services representative on their governing boards; similarly, primary care trusts (PCTs) have a social services representative on their executive committees. Drawing on a representative longitudinal national survey of English PCGs, the paper evaluates the contribution of these new governance arrangements to the development of inter-agency partnerships. Despite poor histories of collaboration and some major organizational barriers, there are some signs of progress, with social services representatives playing an active part in PCG affairs and having clear lines of communication about PCG matters with their employing authorities. Equally significantly, PCGs have also quickly established a wide range of contacts directly with other local authority services and departments. However, these early gains risk being limited by traditional professional inequalities between social work and medicine and, in particular, by the prospect of further organizational upheaval as PCGs merge with each other and/or acquire trust status.     

A Route to Safety: Using Bus Boarding Data to Identify Roles for Transport Providers within Contextual Safeguarding Systems

During adolescence, risk to young people's safety shifts from familial to community contexts. Contextual safeguarding has emerged in response to this dynamic; by providing a conceptual framework through which to incorporate extra‐familial contexts (and those who manage them) into traditionally family focused child protection systems. This paper uses Geographic Information System mapping techniques to explore the extent to which bus boarding data could be used to: target protective interventions in public spaces; evidence routes where young people may be vulnerable; and build local area problem profiles. In doing so it provides foundational evidence for including transport providers in contextual safeguarding systems.