Perceptions of Problem Behavior in Adolescents’ Families: Perceiver,Target, and Family Effects

Considerable research has focused on the reliability and validity of informant reports of family behavior, especially maternal reports of adolescent problem behavior. None of these studies, however, has based their orientation on a theoretical model of interpersonal perception. In this study we used the social relations model (SRM) to examine family members’ reports of each others’ externalizing and internalizing problem behavior. Two parents and two adolescents in 69 families rated each others’ behavior within a round-robin design. SRM analysis showed that within-family perceptions of externalizing and internalizing behaviors are consistently due to three sources of variance; perceiver, target, and family effects. A family/contextual effect on informant reports of problem behavior has not been previously reported.     

The Role of Public Sociology in the Development of Cultural Policies in Chile: a Transformation of Cultural Expertise

This paper seeks to analyze the policies on the cultural field implemented in Chile in recent years, explaining how expertise became fundamental and, more specifically, how this expertise evolved from that of an expert intellectual to that of an expert professional. The paper is based on the general hypothesis that the cultural field needs to be viewed in the context of a growing differentiation and autonomization of Chilean society, but that there are some interesting nuances to its evolution, particularly with regard to the transformation of expertise. This article argues that the expert in culture has a twofold nature, which is illustrated through drawing a timeline from the 1980s to the present, marking certain milestones in Chile’s national and cultural history. This timeline incorporates the intellectual work of two of Chile’s most important contemporary sociologists and experts in culture and cultural policies, Manuel Antonio Garretón and José Joaquín Brunner. A sample of their publications is analyzed and then contrasted to documents on cultural policy since the approval of the country’s institutional framework for culture in 2003, when the National Council for Culture and the Arts was created, gauging the influence of the expert intellectual on this new institutional framework and the thrust of public policies on culture. The paper concludes that the figure of the expert in culture has shifted from the “expert intellectual” to the expert of a professional kind, although the theoretical work of the former has continued to influence the debate around cultural policies to this day.     

Gender Discrimination in Microfinance? Some Evidence from Uganda

Abstract

Microfinance literature has proved the existence of gender discriminatory practices against women in some specific contexts. Discrimination is often explored from the access side (loans approved or denied). Following Agier and Szafarz (2013), we deviate from this practice and use the variable loan size, considering up to four loans for each client. Drawing on data from a microfinance programme in Uganda, we find no evidence of gender discrimination against women clients, even though our results show that the loan size is influenced by personal characteristics and that women, in contrast to men, are rewarded according to their credit history.     

Urbanisation and the Shifting of Boundaries: Contemporary Transformations in Kinship and Child Circulation amongst the Sakha

In this article, we outline some of the most salient features of kinship transformations amongst the Sakha of northeastern Siberia, including the creation of new social and symbolic boundaries between individual subgroups and members of extended family groups leading to de-traditionalisation of Sakha kinship practices. We specifically focus on the shifts in people’s views on personhood and children. One of the key mechanisms of maintaining kinship-based economies and relations, ‘child circulation’ is losing its previous value in an urban environment. We suggest that these transformations have become more visible as a result of the mass migration of a traditionally rural population to towns.     

Measuring and managing ‘state fragility’: the production of statistics by the World Bank,Timor-Leste and the g7+

Indicators are currently being widely used in international policy making to substantiate analyses and justify decisions on the basis of their alleged scientific objectivity. This article analyses the role of indicators and statistics in the labelling and managing of ‘fragile states’, examining the powerful consequences of these classifications but also discussing the untraceable nature of numbers and the difficulties in attributing ownership of numerical claims and assigning responsibility for their many unforeseen impacts. Focusing on the education sector in Timor-Leste and on the World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (cpia) programme, the article shows how accountability and ownership are negotiated within the context of the g7+ group of self-labelled ‘fragile states’, encouraging an examination of the power relations involved.     

Russia as a New Immigration Country: Policy Response and Public Debate

Both the Russian public and its elites were taken by surprise by the fact that Russia has become an immigration country. It has resulted in widespread anti-immigrant sentiments and inconsistency in government actions. Russian immigration politics, as well as immigration politics in liberal democracies of the West, are characterised by a wavering between protectionist and liberal laissez faire approaches. This leads to a mismatch between public rhetoric and legal decisions. However, two features seem to make the Russian situation specific: open borders with most of the countries of the former Soviet Union and omnipresent corruption. Corruption results in a discrepancy between formal (legal) decisions and informal (illegal) practices.