Young People's Images of Self and Others

In an analysis of the validity of popular stereotypes of youthful conflict with adult society, based upon surveys carried out in Melbourne, the attitudes of young people are compared with the attitudes which they impute to their friends, parents and teachers. The results indicate that young people are influenced in their estimate of the friends' attitudes by the popular stereotype of young people which may in turn, influence their own attitudes. This interpretation explains the distribution of responses along the conservative-innovative continuum, except in regard to opposition to de-humanization where the respondents are more likely to attribute innovative responses to themselves than to their friends. Most young people perceive their interpersonal environment to be supportive of their own attitudes.     

Altruism and culture as social products

The historical core of the independent sector is comprised of churches, charitable organisations and higher education. What distinguishes these and other independent sector organisations from the governmental and commercial sectors is the fact that participation in the independent sector is free from state compulsion and not for the purpose of monetary gain. The independent sector is a modern development which could not have occurred without the disestablishment of religion. Disestablished churches have given rise to secular charities, higher education and other independent sector organisations in the United States. The independent sector is the arena in which cultural production and altruistic activities with a distinctive moral quality take place. Participation in the independent sector is the only mechanism for status legitimation in a democractic society with no compulsory state religion or traditional forms of authority.     

Sanctions Peers,and Deviance: Preliminary Models Of A Social Control Process*

Research on sanction threat-behavior relationships has suffered because investigators, using cross-sectional data, have failed to meet methodological requirements concerning the causal order of variables and the statistical control of other relevant variables. We estimate several models of a social-control process that meet these requirements, using longitudinal panel data from a sample of 265 adolescents. Our models consider the relationships among an inhibitor (threat of sanction), a generator (peer-group influence), and a measure of deviance (use of marijuana). The results obtained from the best-fitting model indicate that sanction threat does not exert any long-term effects (at least of one year), although there was evidence that it has modest instantaneous effects on deviance. Having marijuana-using friends has the greatest effect on marijuana use. The pattern of coefficients suggests that peers may initially be selected because of their deviant conduct, and that once chosen, they exert independent generative (or causative) influence on deviance.     

A note on glejser's test for heteroscedasticity

Glejser published a test on the residuals of a regression model where the parameters are estimated by OLS that purports to detect “mixed” heteroscedasticity. This note addresses the problem of detecting this type heteroscedasticity from,both a theoretical and pragmatic point of view. We conclude that “mixed” heteroscedasticity cannot be separated from non zero expected errors and thus cannot be detected using Glejser s technique.     

Outstanding leadership in nonprofit organizations: Leadership competencies in Roman Catholic religious orders

Effective leadership is essential for nonprofits to focus their energies beyond survival and toward accomplishment of their unique missions. This article describes a study of the leadership competencies of a sample of outstanding and typical leaders of Roman Catholic religious orders. The authors present a framework for understanding the characteristics that define excellence in the leadership of nonprofits.     

Working with Signs of Safety: Parents' perception of change

Signs of Safety (SoS) is an approach used to work with families involved with children's services that was developed in Australia during the 1990s. Despite the fact that it has been adopted by countries across the globe, the evidence for its effectiveness in relation to improved outcomes for children has not been established. This study attempted to take an initial step in measuring the impact of SoS on families. In the course of evaluating SoS in 10 areas across England, the authors collected data from social workers using the approach and from families with whom they were working who also gave permission for their case records to be examined. Where social workers were more confident about using SoS and had consistently applied its elements, more families reported improvements in their lives. Families with social workers who had higher confidence in using SoS were also more likely to say that they had achieved more than expected against their earlier stated goals and were more likely to report positively against self‐defined goals.