Worker ownership in the united states: an emergent response to cultural forces

Worker ownership evolved in the United States as an emergent response to cultural forces. Historically, worker ownership embraced a variety of formats, each contingent on the peculiar mix of economic, political and social factors operant in the culture. At times, worker ownership has existed in terms of union cooperatives, profit sharing programs, employee stock ownership plans or social reform efforts. This article outlines the development of worker ownership in the United States and the concomitant social, economic and political forces that shaped that development.     

Pain-Related Symptom Reporting Among Hispanics: Implications for Forensic Psychological Evaluations

Competent forensic psychologists constantly pursue the understanding of cultural differences. The purposes of this paper were to describe and explain the literature regarding the influences of the Hispanic culture on reports of pain-related symptoms and disabilities, and to illustrate ways in which culture-specific factors can impact a forensic psychological evaluation that includes malingering identification. The reviewed literature indicates that, as a group, Hispanics do not consistently differ from other ethnic groups on pain-related symptom reports. However, when examining culture-specific indicators, individuals from a Puerto Rican background and those with high acculturation to the American culture tend to report more pain and psychological distress than non-Hispanic Whites and other Hispanic subgroups. Additionally, language barriers and cultural-structured views of health and illness seem to hinder help-seeking options among the Mexican and less-acculturated Hispanics. Based on these results, we discuss a number of recommendations to make forensic psychological evaluations more sensitive to differences in acculturation and country of heritage. By taking these within-culture characteristics into consideration, the forensic psychologist can most accurately comprehend the meanings associated with the Hispanic client’s pain-related experience.     

Accusatorial and information-gathering interview and interrogation methods: a multi-country comparison

Suspect interviewing and interrogation practices have been studied in many different countries, including those in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. These studies have produced useful and interesting findings, while also leaving an opening for future inquiry. Specifically, previous research has noted that we might expect interrogation and interviewing practices to vary among different countries or regions, due to distinct approaches to suspect questioning. However, to our knowledge, few previous studies have examined the comparative use of tactics, techniques, and procedures employed to elicit confessions and information from criminal suspects across multiple countries. In the present study, using a consistent survey, we contrasted the interviewing and interrogation practices of 185 practitioners from America, Canada, and Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In large part, we found that American and Canadian interrogators were similar to one another, and conformed to an accusatorial approach (in both deception detection and questioning techniques). In contrast, interviewers from Europe, Australia, and New Zealand conformed more to an information-gathering approach.     

Factors that influence engagement in pre-proceedings practice: presenting the roles of professionals working within the family justice system through personal narratives

Public discourse around changes introduced as part of a drive to tackle spending on welfare, reflect a less than tolerant attitude towards welfare generally, but more specifically towards parents who require state involvement to care safely for their children. The introduction of a deadline of 26 weeks for the completion of care proceedings, together with a clear steer to resolve disputes wherever possible prior to making an application to court has introduced further instrumental approaches to working with parents. In this paper we explore practitioner experiences and understandings of working within the new legislative frameworks and consider the dominant cultural narratives they are working within. However, in some cases professionals felt able to challenge the economic narrative of the pre-proceedings protocol, and they experienced the legal and policy changes as an opportunity to engage in a helping alliance with families with the provision of support that otherwise they would not have been able to offer.