What is educational entrepreneurship? Strategic action,temporality, and the expansion of US higher education

Theory and Society - The massive expansion of US higher education after World War II is a sociological puzzle: a spectacular feat of state capacity-building in a highly federated polity. Prior...     

Informal Work in Nonmetropolitan Pennsylvania1

Abstract It is well recognized that the informal economy—unregulated economic activities that generate real or in-kind income—features prominently in the day-to-day lives of many in the developing world. Researchers have begun to explore the informal economy in developed countries but this work has focussed primarily on urban areas to the neglect of rural areas. In this paper the nature and correlates of informal work in nonmetropolitan Pennsylvania are described through an analysis of survey data on 505 families. Results indicate that participation in informal activities is widespread, is not more typical of the poor, does not contribute greatly to family income on average but does help many poor families weather difficult economic times, is both economically and noneconomically motivated, and, net of other sociodemographic variables, is positively related to rurality of residence and formal labor supply.     

Asylum Seeking in Australia

The rise in the number of asylum seekers in Australia presents considerable challenges to the state as they are a self‐selected, demand‐driven group, whose numbers, country of origin, ethnic background, and social demographic characteristics cannot be determined in advance of their arrival. People who apply for protection at the border are regarded primarily as illegal immigrants, and only secondarily as asylum seekers, and the illegality of their entry has become the primary factor in the way they are treated by the state, rather than their need for protection. Two streams of asylum seekers and two streams of refugees have been created. There are marked differences in the treatment given while claims for protection are examined and once decisions have been made in their favor. This article examines the development of asylum policy in Australia and sets the discussion within a review of the number of people who have applied for and been granted protection in recent years.     

The influence of risk and protective factors on burnout experienced by those who work with maltreated children

The aim of the study was to explore the degree (and type) of burnout and trauma symptoms, personal histories and coping strategies retrospectively reported by those who work with maltreated children and their families. A self‐selected sample of workers (N = 44) completed a self‐report questionnaire assessing childhood maltreatment, family background characteristics, current adjustment, coping strategies and burnout. Workers reported high levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and a low to moderate sense of personal accomplishment. Family background characteristics predicted the occurrence of maltreatment and current adjustment, and a personal history of maltreatment predicted current trauma symptoms, but not burnout. Workers most frequently used problem‐focused coping strategies and sought social support; however, coping strategies were not associated with the level of either trauma symptoms or burnout. Despite employing positive coping strategies, their efficacy may be affected by other interpersonal, intra‐individual and job resource issues. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Case study in the Bayesian analysis of a cost‐effectiveness trial in the evaluation of health care technologies: Depression

We present a case study based on a depression study that will illustrate the use of Bayesian statistics in the economic evaluation of cost‐effectiveness data, demonstrate the benefits of the Bayesian approach (whilst honestly recognizing any deficiencies) with respect to frequentist methods, and provide details of using the methods, including computer code where appropriate. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The cost‐effectiveness of UK parenting programmes for preventing children's behaviour problems – a review of the evidence

Parenting programmes are widely used in the UK, promoted in policy documents as a cost‐effective way for children's services to address behaviour problems and thereby the longer‐term costs associated with conduct disorders, particularly antisocial behaviour and criminality. To explore whether these programmes are a cost‐effective component of family intervention, this paper examines evidence from cost‐effectiveness studies based on randomized controlled trials, modelling studies estimating longer‐term costs and outcomes, and studies estimating costs of UK parenting programmes, including evidence from routine practice. Findings indicate that parenting programmes have the potential to be cost‐saving in the long term; however, gaps in the evidence include: lack of follow‐up of families who drop out of programmes, absence of control groups in longer‐term follow‐ups, and little information about costs and effects of programmes in routine practice. The size of savings resulting from implementation of effective parenting programmes will depend on the extent to which families likely to be most costly to society attend and experience lasting benefit.     

The Social Economy in Bolivia: Indigeneity,Solidarity, and Alternatives to Capitalism

The social economy (SE) is alternatively conceptualized as a third sector (between the private and public sector); or by a typology of the organizations involved (such as cooperatives, non-profit organizations and social enterprises); or by the principles and values driving such activities (such as cooperation, mutual benefit, and democracy). One important consideration is often overlooked, namely that the SE emerges in different forms and with varied emphases depending on location. The SE is ‘place-based’—rooted in specific geographic, historical, cultural, and socioeconomic settings. This article explores the conceptualization of the SE in the Bolivian context from the perspective of government and civil society actors. The research took place after the country recognized the importance of the social, cooperative and community economy in their new constitution and found that the understanding of the SE in Bolivia relates strongly to the country’s indigenous and colonial heritage.     

Trustworthiness in evaluation practice: an emphasis on the relational

As canons for trustworthiness developed explicitly in the discourse of qualitative inquiry, the emphasis was on procedural matters rather than fundamentally relational ones. A nod was made to the relational in such strategies as “member checks” but the issues of how the evaluator actually relates to participants and to the larger communities of practice and discourse—matters subsumed under moral principles and ethical standards—were often marginalized. This chapter posits that the first consideration in designing and conducting rigorous evaluation inquiry, and in critiquing the results of any research, should be the study's trustworthiness. Judging a study's trustworthiness, however, should focus on much more than procedural matters; it should also rely on moral principles and ethical standards which specifically address how we relate to an evaluation's participants. Central to these considerations are cross-cultural sensibilities about the nuanced meanings associated with any principles and standards. The chapter provides a theoretical framework for this position and offers two illustrative examples in the form of dialogues.     

Pricing in Electricity Markets

The technical characteristics of electricity generation and transmission have implications for the way in which economic principles are adapted to evaluate pricing and regulation issues in electricity markets. In particular, there is an externality associated with the way in which electricity flows in networks because of Kirchoff's laws. In this paper, a mathematical programming model is presented that simulates a competitive electricity market, based on the spatial-intertemporal equilibrium models pioneered by Takayama and Judge (1971). The model is used to simulate the operation of a hypothetical electricity market, illustrating some of the issues arising from the network externality.