Evaluating social exclusion interventions in university-community partnerships

Most university-community partnerships (UCPs) involve elements of community-level social exclusion interventions. As such, they face substantial challenges in management and evaluation. This paper highlights the central challenges associated with evaluation of UCP and other social exclusion interventions at the community level, and suggests methods to overcome them. The main body of the paper presents a case study based on a four-year action research involving evaluation of a social exclusion intervention initiated and implemented by a UCP in Israel. The case study highlights the challenges faced by the evaluation team, the solutions provided, and the contribution of the evaluation to improvement and accountability.     

Developing social work students’ professional identity: the role of England’s Professional Capabilities Framework

ABSTRACT

Developing professional identity is a key aim of social work education. This paper argues that the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) – a holistic, capability approach to student assessment used in England’s social work education programmes – is ideally placed to promote the development of students’ professional identities. The paper discusses two research studies, each of which was stimulated by significant policy changes in England’s social work profession. The author draws out the implications of both studies for supporting social work students to develop their professional identities. It is concluded that the PCF is valued by practice educators as an assessment and teaching tool, while acknowledging that its future is uncertain due to the lack of continuity impacting on England’s social work profession. This paper is equally of relevance for social work educators outside the UK who may be developing and evaluating their assessment approaches and also for those experiencing the impact of rapid policy changes in their own countries.     

Computational approach test for inference about several correlation coefficients: Equality and common

In this article, we consider inference about the correlation coefficients of several bivariate normal distributions. We first propose computational approach tests for testing the equality of the correlation coefficients. In fact, these approaches are parametric bootstrap tests, and simulation studies show that they perform very satisfactory, and the actual sizes of these tests are better than other existing approaches. We also present a computational approach test and a parametric bootstrap confidence interval for inference about the parameter of common correlation coefficient. At the end, all the approaches are illustrated using two real examples.     

Bootstrap approach to test the homogeneity of order restricted mean vectors when the covariance matrices are unknown

Testing homogeneity of multivariate normal mean vectors under an order restriction when the covariance matrices are unknown, arbitrary positive definite and unequal are considered. This problem of testing has been studied to some extent, for example, by Kulatunga and Sasabuchi (1984 Kulatunga, D. D. S., Sasabuchi, S. (1984). A test of homogeneity of mean vectors against multivariate isotonic alternatives. Mem Fac Sci, Kyushu Univ Ser A Mathemat 38:151–161. [Google Scholar]) when the covariance matrices are known and also Sasabuchi et al. (2003 Sasabuchi, S., Tanaka, K., Tsukamodo, T. (2003). Testing homogeneity of multivariate normal mean vectors under an order restriction when the covariance matrices are common but unknown. Annals of Statistics. 31(5):1517–1536.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Sasabuchi (2007 Sasabuchi, S. (2007). More powerful tests for homogeneity of multivariate normal mean vectors under an order restriction. Sankhya 69(4):700–716. [Google Scholar]) when the covariance matrices are unknown but common. In this paper, a test statistic is proposed and because of the main advantage of the bootstrap test is that it avoids the derivation of the complex null distribution analytically, a bootstrap test statistic is derived and since the proposed test statistic is location invariance the bootstrap p-value defined logical and some steps are presented to estimate it. Our numerical studies via Monte Carlo simulation show that the proposed bootstrap test can correctly control the type I error rates. The power of the test for some of the p-dimensional normal distributions is computed by Monte Carlo simulation. Also, the null distribution of test statistic is estimated using kernel density. Finally, the bootstrap test is illustrated using a real data.     

A martingale-based test for independence of time to failure and cause of failure for competing risks models

In this article, we introduce a class of tests, using a martingale approach, for testing independence of failure time and cause of failure for competing risks data. Asymptotic distribution of the proposed test statistic is derived. The procedure is illustrated with a real-life data. A simulation study is carried out to assess the level and power of the test.     

Disability,personalisation and community arts: exploring the spatial dynamics of children with disabilities participating in inclusive music classes*

This paper uses personalisation and the capabilities approach to explore inclusive music classes for children with disabilities in Scotland. It provides a unique insight into the impact of participation through the voices of the disabled young musicians, their parents and tutors. The study highlights the power of inclusive spaces to transform lives, to build confidence and contest disabled identities. It engages in the spatial dynamic of opening up inclusive spaces, as well as exposing emerging tensions in the liminal space that is created through movement between safe and supported spaces and the antithesis, spaces that disempower and marginalise. The findings suggest good practice around personalisation, when conceived of from a social justice perspective, as a template for working with other marginalised groups and in other professional settings.     

改变道德习俗:生活德育的最佳切入路径

习俗有道德习俗与非道德习俗之分。道德习俗对人德性生成有巨大影响。这样,生活德育的最佳切入路径在改变道德习俗,其中,学校生活德育的最佳切入路径是改变学校的道德习俗;家庭和社会生活德育的最佳切入路径是改变本国、本地区的道德习俗。     

中国城镇居民功能不平等计量分析——基于阿马蒂亚·森的能力方法

以阿马蒂亚.森的能力方法为基础,利用问卷调查获得的数据对我国城镇居民功能不平等进行测算的计量结果表明,我国城镇居民功能不平等程度远低于收入分配不平等程度。从城镇居民功能不平等计量结果来看,目前我国社会相对稳定,但局面不容乐观,社会不稳定因素仍然存在。当前我们要关注收入分配不平等,也要关注人们在住房、休闲、人际关系、健康、工作满意度等功能分配方面的不平等。     

关于大学生个人品德建设途径的思考

加强大学生个人品德建设是公民个人品德建设的重要内容,对提升社会的道德水平和保障大学生的个人发展均具有重要的意义。对此,从以下两方面入手：一方面,高校要转变教育理念,通过高校思想政治理论课、大学生党员的率先垂范和校园文化建设,加强大学生个人品德的教育;另一方面,通过大学生自我教育、自我约束,提升个人品德建设的自觉性。     

汉字的表音化取向

长期以来大家都普遍认为汉字属表意体系的方块文字,汉字不是音素文字,但汉字表音的方式仍是十分明显的。它用特殊的形式来表现读音,这就是汉字里占80%以上的形声字。汉字这种形声化的取向从甲骨文开始就表现得极为清晰,经金文、篆文、隶书到今天的简化汉字,汉字表音的取向已经发展成为汉字发展的主流。