Significance of Family Risk Factors in Development of Childhood Animal Cruelty in Adolescent Boys with Conduct Problems

The literature suggests that physical child abuse, sexual child abuse, paternal alcoholism, paternal unavailability, and domestic violence may be significant in development of childhood animal cruelty. Two groups of early- to late adolescent boys (CTA and N-CTA) in residential treatment for conduct disorder were compared in the current study on histories of these family risk factors. The adolescents in Group 1 were comprised of boys who had conduct problems with documented histories of animal cruelty (n = 50; CTA). Group 2 consisted of adolescent boys (n = 50; N-CTA) with conduct problems, but without documented histories of animal cruelty. Results showed that children in the CTA group had significantly greater histories of physical and/or sexual child abuse and domestic violence in comparison to children in the N-CTA group. These results suggest that physical and/or sexual abuse to a child, and exposure to domestic violence, may be significant in the development of childhood animal cruelty.     

Lost in Translation: A Multi‐Level Case Study of the Metamorphosis of Meanings and Action in Public Sector Organizational Innovation

This paper explores the early implementation of an organizational innovation in the UK National Health Service (NHS) – Treatment Centres (TCs) – designed to dramatically reduce waiting lists for elective care. The paper draws on case studies of 8 TCs (each at varying stages of their development) and aims to explore how meanings about TCs are created and evolve, and how these meanings impact upon the development of the organizational innovation. Research on organizational meanings needs to take greater account of the fact that modern organizations like the NHS are complex multi‐level phenomena, comprising layers of interlacing networks. To understand the pace, direction and impact of organizational innovation and change we need to study the interconnections between meanings across different organizational levels. The data presented in this paper show how the apparently simple, relatively unformed, concept of a TC framed by central government is translated and transmuted by subsequent layers in the health service administration, and by players in local health economies, and, ultimately, in the TCs themselves, picking up new rationales, meanings and significance as it goes along. The developmental histories of TCs reveal a range of significant re‐workings of macro policy with the result that there is considerable diversity and variation between local TC schemes. The picture is of important disconnections between meanings, that in many ways mirror Weick's (1976) ’loosely coupled systems’. The emergent meanings and the direction of micro‐level development of TCs appear more strongly determined by interactions within the local TC environment, notably between what we identify as groups of ’idealists’, ’pragmatists’, ’opportunists’ and ’sceptics’ than by the framing (Goffman 1974) provided by macro and meso organizational levels. While this illustrates the limitations of top down and policy‐driven attempts at change, and highlights the crucial importance of the front‐line local ’micro‐systems’ (Donaldson and Mohr 2000) in the overall scheme of implementing organizational innovations, the space or headroom provided by frames at the macro and meso levels can enable local change, albeit at variable speed and with uncertain outcomes.     

Underpinning success in the real world of corporations law

This paper reports on an action research project which sought to evaluate and guide ongoing teaching and learning development in Principles of Corporations Law, a semester-long unit of study. Typically, enrolments in this subject area include students from a range of cultural contexts for whom the legislative and administrative concepts of the unit are unfamiliar and who also experience significant difficulties with cultural conventions of communication and business practice. At our university, unit enrolments include a high proportion of distance education as well as non-English speaking background (NESB) students, predominantly from China, who have not studied units formerly considered as prerequisite, and many of whom experience difficulties with basic academic skills. As the development team planned and created teaching features to ensure better learning outcomes for these students, it was clear that some truly contextual thinking as well as some practicable solutions would be required. While we had determined in the redesign planning that scenario- or problem-based learning (PBL) with its emphasis on finding, understanding and using information in context, was best suited to help students acquire the skills that underpin success in the unit, our experience in the project indicated students had a broader range of more basic needs. It emerged that students were struggling with fundamental issues that would need to be addressed before real change could occur.     

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty in retrospect: The case of North Korea

Abstract

In June 1994 the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) tested a nuclear device, and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) announced its intention to withdraw from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a specialized agency of the United Nations. A brief look at the history of the effort to control the development and proliferation of atomic, and later nuclear, weapons provides some perspective on the actions of each country in 1994.