Typologies of Violence Exposure and Cognitive Processing in Incarcerated Male Adolescents

Incarcerated youth experience high rates of violence exposure (VE), cognitive processing (CP) deficits, and mental health (MH) problems. It is not clear whether VE combined with CP deficits are particularly salient risk factors for MH dysfunction. Male incarcerated youth offenders (n?=?115) completed standardized self-reports of MH and VE. CP was measured with executive functioning tasks and academic assessments. Person-centered Ward’s Squared Euclidian Distance cluster analysis was used to examine unique patterns of CP and VE. Cluster analysis defined five distinct profiles of MH functioning, CP, and VE rates within incarcerated adolescents. Two groups, with high rates of VE and CP deficits, showed high rates of MH problems. Linear techniques may obscure important differences within this population.     

The Policy Sciences: The Challenge of Complexity

This essay reviews some of the recent criticisms of positivist science. It interprets this criticism, more generally, as directed towards the complexity of social science phenomena and the difficulty of dealing with complexity epistemologically and methodologically. Rather than ignoring complexity, changing the subject matter or explaining it away, we argue that complexity may be acknowledged and studied systematically withn the context of post-positivist approaches. The essay than proposes several strategies for conceptualizing and researching complexity (at a "meta-level" from substantive policy research) that are based in systems theory.     

Heifer International: Growing a learning organisation

Heifer International (HI) has been applying participatory approaches to rural development for nearly 60 years. Organisationally, HI focuses on building the capacity of its country programmes and NGO partners to work independently toward a unifying mission. An open structure allows HI to validate and incorporate the rich and diverse experience of its project holders and country programme offices into organisational planning and daily operations. This article analyses three recent HI initiatives which incorporate deliberate processes to facilitate organisational learning. It outlines different strategies that HI uses to institutionalise learning without imposing limitations on it.     

Women,microfinance, and savings: Lessons and proposals

Microfinance--both credit and savings--has potential to improve the well-being of poor women in developing countries. This paper explores practical ways to achieve that potential. Based on lessons from informal savings mechanisms that women already use, the paper proposes two savings services designed to address the development issues that confront women. The proposals call for safe-deposit boxes and for matched-savings accounts for healthcare or education.