The Impact of Nonprofit Collaboration in Early Child Care and Education on Management and Program Outcomes

The use of interorganizational relationships such as collaboration, partnerships, and alliances between public, private, and nonprofit organizations for the delivery of human services has increased. This article contributes to the growing body of knowledge on collaboration by exploring one kind of interorganizational relationship—interagency collaboration—in the field of early care and education. It examines variations within interagency collaborations and their impact on management and program outcomes. The findings show that interagency collaboration has a clear impact on management, program, and client outcomes: Specifically, the intensity of the collaborative relationship has a positive and statistically significant impact on staff compensation, staff turnover, and school readiness.     

Nominating women for Europe: Exploring the role of political parties' recruitment procedures for European Parliament elections

Drawing on an original dataset covering more than 100 political parties in over 20 European Union Member States, this article analyses how political recruitment procedures affect the proportion of women nominated on party lists in the context of the 2009 European Parliament elections. The findings show that the inclusiveness of the selectorates in the early stage of candidate selection processes is a key determinant of the representativeness of lists regarding their gender composition. Moreover, it is found that neither territorial centralisation nor the inclusiveness of the selectorate in the later stage of candidate selection play a significant role. The key to the puzzle, therefore, lies in the composition of the initial pool of potential candidates and those who make initial nominations.     

A New Language of Equality: Jews and the State in Nineteenth-Century Morocco

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, the Moroccan government’s concern for its image abroad ushered in a new approach to understanding Jews’ rights. Although the sultans never abandoned the dhimma contract in favour of religious egalitarianism, government officials increasingly adopted a new language of equality to describe how Jewish subjects should be treated. This language of equality borrowed vocabulary from Western notions of tolerance, but did not fundamentally conflict with Islamic ideals of justice. Mawlāy ?asan (reigned 1873–1894) refused to declare that Jews and Muslims were equal, but he increasingly insisted that Jews and Muslims must be treated equally before the law. Jews trod a similarly fine line, between pushing the envelope of their legal rights as dhimmīs and affirming their status as the personal protégés of the sultan. Through an examination of correspondence among Moroccan government officials, Jews and foreign diplomats, this article locates the shifting relationship between the state and its Jewish subjects in the language which the Makhzan used to define justice.     

Identities,Boundaries, and Accounts of Women Methamphetamine Users

Drug users often define themselves as functional users and depict others as dysfunctional (i.e. junkies). Previous research on the social identities of drug users has focused on the symbolic boundaries they create to distance themselves from stigmatized others. Investigators have yet to focus on how users account for their own boundary violations. Here, we examine the narratives of 30 former women methamphetamine (meth) users to determine how they make distinctions between functional and dysfunctional meth users (i.e. “meth heads”). The distinctions they make are based on users’ abilities to maintain control of their lives and to hide their use from outsiders. Those who saw themselves as functional but who engaged in behaviors inconsistent with this image accounted for these behaviors to maintain desired identities. We show the complexity of drug users’ identities and illustrate how anti-drug campaigns that provide grotesque caricatures of drug users may prolong drug using careers.     

False papers and family fictions: household responses to ‘gift children’ born to Indonesian women during transnational migration

When parents pursue transnational labour migration, challenges arise around ensuring the social belonging of children, especially ‘gift children’ who are conceived or born abroad as a result of out-of-wedlock relationships or sexual assault. Families we interviewed in Lombok, Indonesia, displayed complex social ingenuity to ensure the gift child’s social belonging. Caregivers described how they address discrimination by manipulating and falsifying family histories in identity documents, including census forms and birth registration. These family strategies drive home the local role of identity documents as a tool to enhance belonging rather than as proof of legal identity. We spotlight the time lag between birth and obtaining an official birth record as a crucial space in creating ‘citizenship from below’ in communities with high out-migration and low birth registration rates.     

Investigating perceptions of race and ethnic diversity among prospective police officers

Many have suggested police diversity will improve police-community relations, but research testing this hypothesis is inconclusive. We investigated perceptions of police race, ethnicity, and diversity in a heterogeneous sample of prospective police officers. Data are drawn from interviews with 42 criminal justice college students in the Southwestern United States, of which 15 were Hispanic, and who each wanted to become a police officer. Participants supported diversity in policing, and collectively expressed a belief that race plays a central role in policing today. Furthermore, participants expressed support for the ideals of both passive and active representative bureaucracy. Hispanics in the sample in particular anticipated they would positively affect police relations in Hispanic neighborhoods and encourage immigrants to cooperate with police.