Does More Schooling Reduce Hospitalization and Delay Mortality? New Evidence Based on Danish Twins

Schooling generally is positively associated with better health-related outcomes—for example, less hospitalization and later mortality—but these associations do not measure whether schooling causes better health-related outcomes. Schooling may in part be a proxy for unobserved endowments—including family background and genetics—that both are correlated with schooling and have direct causal effects on these outcomes. This study addresses the schooling-health-gradient issue with twins methodology, using rich data from the Danish Twin Registry linked to population-based registries to minimize random and systematic measurement error biases. We find strong, significantly negative associations between schooling and hospitalization and mortality, but generally no causal effects of schooling.     

From Work to Welfare: Institutional Arrangements Shaping Turkish Marriage Migrants’ Gendered Trajectories into a New Society

Using a mixed methods approach, this article examines gendered patterns of employment and of unemployment benefit uptake among Turkish marriage migrants in Denmark. The results show that men use co‐ethnic networks to access entry positions. Subsequent eligibility for unemployment benefits enable these men to search for better jobs. Women enter employment more slowly and tell of such entry being related to entering the unemployment insurance system, enabling them to periodically conform to gendered expectations as homemakers. Pakistani marriage migrants display similar patterns, indicating the centrality of this institutional arrangement in low‐skilled marriage migrants’ active adaptation to a new society.     

The role of professional judgement in social work assessment: a comparison between Norway and England

ABSTRACT

Good quality assessment has a significant role to play in contributing to better outcomes for children in need of protection, so it is important to understand what supports best practice. This paper focuses on the role of professional judgement in assessment, and compares two very different national approaches. In England, governmental responses to perceived failings in the child protection system have led to a highly proceduralised and bureaucratised system and a corresponding down playing of the role of professional judgement. In Norway, professional discretion and judgement have been seen as key to the assessment process, and governmental response to criticism of child protection practice has been to support their use through provision of increased resources. However, too much emphasis on professional judgement and too little procedure may be as problematic as the reverse [Report of Auditor General of Norway. (2012). Document 3:15. Norway: Fagbokforlaget]. So this paper explores the different ways in which professional judgement is understood and addressed in each system and asks what we can learn from them in terms of best assessment practice. Acknowledging child protection as a ‘wicked problem’, we propose a model of Grounded Professional Judgement based on notions of epistemic responsibility and accountability to support the exercise of professional judgement in situations of uncertainty.     

Transporting attachment and biobehavioral catch-up to Norwegian child welfare services: A feasibility study

Transportation of evidence-based programs (EBPs) to a new cultural setting is often preferred over the comprehensive process of developing a new program. Intervention fidelity has been suggested as a predictor of successful transportation. The present study examined whether fidelity and parent behavior improved when implementing the U.S.-developed Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) intervention in Norwegian child welfare services (CWS). 11 child welfare workers received training and supervision to become ABC parent coaches. Fidelity was assessed through video-recordings of parent coaches' in vivo feedback at each home-visit session. Parent sensitive behavior was assessed using video-recordings of parent–child interactions, recorded before each ABC session. Mixed effects modeling showed that ABC fidelity increased over the course of training and supervision. Furthermore, parent behavior improved over the course of families' exposure to the intervention. These demonstrate that an EBP transported to a novel cultural setting can obtain promising levels of fidelity and intervention outcomes.     

Eine neue Methode zur Untersuchung von Mikroprozessen in Lerndyaden: Eine Videostudie unter Berücksichtigung von kognitiven Grundfähigkeiten und Zielorientierungen

The study at present uses a new video method with individual audio tracks to investigate micro processes within learning in a simulation based learning setting. Visible and listenable behaviour was coded with regard to peer tutoring and problem solving. The frequencies and durations of these categories were summarized and used as dependent variables in regression models with cognitive abilities and goal orientations as predictors. Results showed that variation in the dyadic interactional behaviour was systematically related to these properties of the partners. For example, while overt problem solving behaviour is related to goal orientations there was no such effect for the cognitive abilities. Implications for the composition of dyadic learning groups and for further video study arrangements applying the new method will be discussed.     

Differences in Male and Female Employees’ Personal Attributes? Myth or a Reasonable Assumption: Even Within Professions?

A growing literature on work place gender diversity and emotional labor has emerged. Both build on more or less implicit assumptions of gender differences in personal attributes. However, it still needs to be tested whether differences are prevalent among male and female employees within the same professional occupation. Based on data from 1,320 Danish public employees in five professional occupations, the article tests the prevalence of gender-based differences—while controlling for age—in empathy, systemizing and competitiveness—three attributes that are commonly argued in both sociology and neurology to be gender-based and commonly argued to be important among scholars studying work behavior and gender. Findings show that differences in empathy, systemizing and competitiveness are prevalent among male and female employees within same the professional occupation—but not always. In some professions, selection mechanisms minimize and sometimes even eliminate particular differences between the two sexes. Hence, both managers and scholars need to reflect on selection mechanisms before assuming fundamental gender differences in personal attributes within professions.