Special issue: Training and Education for Residential Child Care

This paper begins by locating the (controversial) removal of the ‘minimum age at qualification’ regulation in 2003 within the context of wider changes occurring within social work education and the social work profession. This is followed by a report of a small scale exploratory study designed to gather data regarding the experiences of younger students within one undergraduate qualifying programme. The data are then discussed in relation to literature from within social work and allied disciplines in order to consider themes such as ‘identity’, ‘othering’ and ‘recognition’. It is suggested from data gathered during this project that although the gates to social work education have now been opened more widely to school leaving students, they have in effect become social work's new ‘non-traditional’ students and in some cases, inclusion is experienced as partial rather than complete. A discussion of the implications for further research as well as teaching, learning and group process issues on professional programmes concludes this paper.

The initial phase of the research for this paper was funded by an HEA SWAP ‘small projects’ grant.     

Leaving the parental home in Australia over the generations: Evidence from the Household,Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (Hilda) Survey

The decision to remain in or leave the parental home represents the first housing career choice of young people. In this paper, we examine the parental home leaving outcomes for Australian birth cohorts in the twentieth century using recall questions contained in the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. The findings from survival analysis and hazard function modelling is that a continuous, gradual reduction in the age of first leaving the parental home in Australia is evident up to the 1947–51 birth cohort, followed by stability and then a rise in age of first leaving home for the most recent birth cohorts. Birth cohort effects remain significant even after other measured determinants of parental home leaving are taken into account. The paper confirms the strong roles that education, family background and ethnicity have on parental home leaving outcomes.     

明清社会近代转型及转型障碍

文章重点论述明清社会转型的研究范式和明清社会近代转型开始的标志与时间,同时讨论明清社会近代转型的要素、过程、表现和障碍。认为从明代隆庆年间开始,以＂边禁＂＂海禁＂＂银禁＂等三禁开放为标志的中国传统社会近代转型进程已正式开启。至少江南区域社会已经出现从农业社会向早期工业化社会转型;从自给半自给的产品经济社会向商品经济和市场经济社会转型;从封闭半封闭社会向开放社会和全球化社会转型的趋势。但整个转型在清代曲折迂回,端在障碍众多,其关键原因来自于当时内外环境的特殊性和农牧社会整合的缓慢性。     

Social Policy and Development in Latin America: The Long View

In the new development strategy currently shaping Latin America, alternative social policy models have emerged. This article argues that far from being rival alternatives, each of these models considers the wide differences among countries. The region is emerging from a century of transformation – from a traditional agrarian economy to an urban industrial one – in which countries have taken diverse historical paths. Some have almost completed this transformation, others are taking early steps, and the vast majority are living through it. State‐led transition has followed two successive development strategies. From the 1920s up to the 1980s, state developmentalism has mostly successfully assumed the twin challenges of economic and social progress. In the last two decades of the century, Latin American states adopted the policies of the Washington Consensus, which emphasized the importance of business in the framework of globalization and benefited the affluent few. However, an unambiguous shift in direction has been taking place in Latin America since the 1997 economic crisis. This article suggests that a new developmental welfare state model seems to be in the making. How will it evolve over the wider space of an increasingly integrated Latin America?     

中国人口红利和人口负债的特色与应对策略

人口红利与人口负债是人口转变过程中人口年龄结构对经济发展造成的正面与负面效应,通过与其他国家人口红利与人口负债进行比较,进一步认识中国人口红利与人口负债的特色,并提出了开发人口红利与应对人口负债的策略,应在调整产业结构、建立人力资源市场体系、加强培训、调整教育结构、完善社会保障制度和劳动退休制度等方面做好工作。     

英国的“低碳转型计划”及其政策启示

作为低碳经济的先行者,近来英国正式颁布了低碳转型计划。该计划对电力部门、家庭与社区、工作场所和就业、交通系统、农业等领域的碳排放都给出了详细的应对措施,将减排目标具体量化,并在此基础上提出了明确的时间表。与此同时,计划还突出强调政府在低碳转型中的定位和作用。该计划对我国发展低碳经济具有重要启示。     

Age at First Marriage and Age at Death in the Lincolnshire Fenland, 1252–1478

In five Lincolnshire villages between 1252 and 1478 there is evidence that men and women married fairly late before the Black Death, and that by 1348/9 the Western European marriage pattern of late and prudential marriage was well established. Households were usually nucleated; husbands were on average eight years older than their wives before 1348/9, and five years older after 1348/9. Marriages were short: according to the best calculation shorter before 1348/9 than after, most often terminated by the death of the first husband, and were unlikely to produce more than three children. Since there were more males than females amongst children and young adults, many men remained unmarried, but since the death rate of women was very high, men lived longer.     

Independent attributes control chart for Markov-dependent processes

Statistical process monitoring (SPM) is a very efficient tool to maintain and to improve the quality of a product. In many industrial processes, end product has two or more attribute-type quality characteristics. Some of them are independent, but the observations are Markovian dependent. It is essential to develop a control chart for such situations. In this article, we develop an Independent Attributes Control Chart for Markov Dependent Processes based on error probabilities criterion under the assumption of one-step Markov dependency. Implementation of the chart is similar to that of Shewhart-type chart. Performance of the chart has been studied using probability of detecting shift criterion. A procedure to identify the attribute(s) responsible for out-of-control status of the process is given.     

On square ordinal contingency tables: a comparison of social class and income mobility for the same individuals

Summary.  Square contingency tables with matching ordinal rows and columns arise in particular as empirical transition matrices and the paper considers these in the context of social class and income mobility tables. Such tables relate the socio-economic position of parents to the socio-economic position of their child in adulthood. The level of association between parental and child socio-economic position is taken as a measure of mobility. Several approaches to analysis are described and illustrated by UK data in which interest focuses on comparisons of social class and income mobility tables that are derived from the same individuals. Account is taken of the use of the same individuals in the two tables. Additionally comparisons over time are considered.     

Influence of human immunodeficiency virus infection on neurological impairment: an analysis of longitudinal binary data with informative drop-out

A study to investigate the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status on the course of neurological impairment, conducted by the HIV Center at Columbia University, followed a cohort of HIV positive and negative gay men for 5 years and assessed the presence or absence of neurological impairment every 6 months. Almost half of the subjects dropped out before the end of the study for reasons that might have been related to the missing neurological data. We propose likelihood-based methods for analysing such binary longitudinal data under informative and non-informative drop-out. A transition model is assumed for the binary response, and several models for the drop-out processes are considered which are functions of the response variable (neurological impairment). The likelihood ratio test is used to compare models with informative and non-informative drop-out mechanisms. Using simulations, we investigate the percentage bias and mean-squared error (MSE) of the parameter estimates in the transition model under various assumptions for the drop-out. We find evidence for informative drop-out in the study, and we illustrate that the bias and MSE for the parameters of the transition model are not directly related to the observed drop-out or missing data rates. The effect of HIV status on the neurological impairment is found to be statistically significant under each of the models considered for the drop-out, although the regression coefficient may be biased in certain cases. The presence and relative magnitude of the bias depend on factors such as the probability of drop-out conditional on the presence of neurological impairment and the prevalence of neurological impairment in the population under study.