Corporatisation and Community Service Obligations: Are They Incompatible?

This article asks whether corporatisation is compatible with the notion of community service obligations (CSOs). Corporatisation provides only a minimal framework for the identification of social objectives as CSOs and their funding by government from budget. The community has certain expectations of utilities in relation to CSOs, which may be different from expectations held by governments. Models of corporatisation which have two shareholding ministers with competing objectives introduce a further potential source of conflict.
Historically, the characteristics of a CSO are ambiguous (IC 1991:81) and this presents difficulty in their costing and identification. Governments and corporatised entities have attempted to clarify the issues of definition, identification and costing. These and other issues such as transparency, budget funding, coverage, jurisdiction, public interest and community spirit are discussed in the context of corporatised government electricity utilities.     

Beyond the Overall Balance: The Significance of Particular Tasks and Procedures for Perceptions of Fairness in Distributions of Household Work

This paper outlines an approach to perceptions of fairness that extends beyond the usual emphasis on the overall balance of what each person does. The emphasis falls instead on perceptions of fairness associated with particular tasks and particular procedures (ways of achieving a task division or a redistribution of tasks). The approach is illustrated by the summarized results of a series of studies. Results are discussed in terms of research questions that might now be taken further and in terms of expectations that appear to underlie perceptions of fairness: in particular, ideas about the ownership of tasks and about behaviors appropriate in family relationships.     

A Prospective,Longitudinal Examination of the Influence of Childhood Home and School Contexts on Psychopathic Characteristics in Adolescence

Much of the existing research examining etiological contributors to psychopathic characteristics considers only biological and physiological deficits, with little consideration given to contextual factors that may play a role in their development. This prospective, longitudinal study examined the influence of childhood home and school environments on adolescent psychopathic characteristics among 390 youth (50.5% female; 46.2% Black/African American, 44.9% Hispanic/Latino, 6.9% Asian or Native American/Alaska Native, and 2.1% Non-Hispanic White). Specifically, this study examined (1) the effect of home chaos and poor parental monitoring on adolescent primary and secondary psychopathy and callous-unemotional traits through the lens of multiple reporters, and (2) whether classroom climate quality across three years of childhood moderated these relationships. The results indicated that delinquency and home chaos in childhood were related to primary psychopathy in adolescence and that exposure to higher quality classroom climates across childhood acted as a buffer by mitigating the negative relationship between parental monitoring in childhood and secondary psychopathy in adolescence. These findings have implications for designing interventions to mitigate the manifestation of youth psychopathy.     

Beyond Participation: The Association Between School Extracurricular Activities and Involvement in Violence Across Generations of Immigration

Participation in extracurricular activities is purported to protect the broad spectrum of youth from a host of behavioral risks. Yet, empirical research on the extent to which this assumption holds for involvement in violence by immigrant youth is limited. Thus, using data for 13,236 (51.8% female) adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study explores how the relationship between extracurricular activities and youth violence varies by type of extracurricular activity profile (sports alone, non-sports alone, and a combination of sports and non-sports) and by generations of immigration (first, second, and third-plus). The sample is composed of 9.3% (n = 1,233) first-generation youth, 15.7% (n = 2,080) second generation, and 74.9% (n = 9,923) third-plus generation. The results reveal that adolescents from the third-plus generation (i.e., non-immigrant youth) who participate in non-sports alone or sports plus non-sports have lower odds of involvement in violence than adolescents from the same generation who do not participate in extracurricular activities. However, for first- and second-generation adolescents, participation in extracurricular activities is associated with higher rather than lower odds of violence compared to their non-participating counterparts. These findings challenge the viewpoint that participation in mainstream extracurricular activities as afforded by US schools is equally beneficial for all youth. They also call for additional research that explores why immigrant youth are less likely than non-immigrant youth to gain violence-reducing benefits when they participate in extracurricular activities.     

The Fate of ‘Big Government’ in the United States:Not Over,But Undermined?

Big government in the United States has never been as expansiveas the big state abroad. Whatever its scope, there is little evidence that the days of big government are numbered. Among both the public and organized interests there is at once antagonism toward big government and yet consistent support for many of the protections it affords, including those provided by the U.S. federal government's largest, and sure to get larger, social programs. The most important story is not the threat of a reduced state, but rather itstransformation. Continuing attempts to privatize its administration could put much of the big state, including its social programs, in the hands of big business.