Incidence of depression in early adolescence: A preliminary study

The authors wished to determine whether depression was present in an early adolescent nonpatient identified school population. Questionnaires were administered to seventh and eighth grade students in a parochial extended elementary school. The findings indicated that 33.3% of this school population were experiencing moderate to severe depression and 35% of the sample acknowledged current suicidal ideation. A comparison of mean scores showed a trend toward more depressive symptomatology in the eighth grade, possibly indicating a developmental critical period. A correlation of individual scores and teacher ratings suggests that teacher evaluation may have some direct effect on the student's emotional health. The authors make specific suggestions for promoting improved mental health in a school setting.This research was supported in part by Grant MH 19989 from the National Institute of Mental Health.Received her M.A. from Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania, in 1974. Main interests include developmental guidance in schools, family therapy, and career guidance for women in transition.Received his M.D. from Yale University in 1946 and completed specialty training in psychiatry at the Austen Riggs Center in 1952. Main interests include depression, cognition, and psychotherapy.     

Perceptions and practices of farmer empowerment in Tanzania

The purpose of this article is to review the implementation of various empowerment interventions in Tanzania. Data for the review are based on field visits to programmes/projects/organisations involved in implementing empowerment interventions in various regions of the country. These visits involved key-informant interviews, sample surveys, and focus-group discussions with farmers. The review highlights the perceptions of empowerment at the levels of project staff and practitioners/beneficiaries, as well as the approaches used by various organisations and projects in implementing empowerment activities. In addition the article discusses the factors perceived to lead to empowerment, as well as its consequences.     

Doing family: Responses to the constructions of ‘the migrant family’ across Europe

This paper draws on how constructions of ‘the migrant family’ in political discourse influence migrants' and their families' lives. In specific national contexts, ‘the migrant family’ is determined according to the national and European debates and expressed by their respective rules and regulations. By ‘doing family’, migrants and their families develop strategies in order to fit these requirements of living a certain family life. Fulfilling specific norms and perceptions which are not necessarily required for the majority of society is a precondition to succeed. Who is and who is not part of the family, who holds responsibility — such aspects have to be proved and repeatedly reproduced by migrants and their families. This not only affects their position in society, but also has strong implications on their lives as a couple and family, since it requires the continuous adaptation and reconstructions of their everyday reality.     

Managing Value Conflicts in Public Innovation: Ostrich,Chameleon, and Dolphin Strategies

ABSTRACT

This paper develops a theoretical understanding of the management of value conflicts in public innovation. Drawing from the literatures on public values and on public innovation, various strategic approaches to managing conflict are discussed, conceptualized, and applied to two cases. The paper identifies three basic approaches for dealing with value conflicts: avoidance (ostrich strategy), coping (chameleon strategy) and learning (dolphin strategy). This model is used to analyze two technological innovation processes in the Netherlands, showing its value for empirical research. The paper concludes that continued high-level deliberation can impede innovation processes while local experimenting may support learning about value conflicts.     

Comparing the Life-Cycle Costs of New Construction and Acquisition-Rehab of Affordable Multifamily Rental Housing

The cost of producing multifamily affordable housing may differ based on development type. Past attempts to compare the costs of producing multifamily housing through new construction or acquisition-rehab have been limited by an inability to adjust for variations in unit quality among different projects. The authors overcome this challenge by estimating the costs of developing and maintaining a property over a 50-year life cycle. Applying this approach to a convenience sample of 269 properties, the authors find new construction associated with life-cycle costs that are 25% to 45% higher than those of acquisition-rehab.     

Comparable worth in the united states legal and administrative developments in the 1980's

During the 1980's, the concept of comparable worth has become closely identified with women's rights and sex discrimination concerns, and is now recognized by advocates and critics alike as one of the major affirmative action issues of the decade. Simply put, comparable worth refers to the idea of equal pay for dissimilar jobs of equal value to an organization.

According to comparable worth proponents, jobs traditionally associated with women have been systematically undervalued in the marketplace. The net result is a disparity in pay for women when compared with that for jobs largely held by men. It is also argued that this compensatory bias against women can be revealed and eliminated by assessing the economic value of disparate occupations through the use of objective standards of evaluation. For example, although secretarial and janitorial jobs are dissimilar in function, it is argued that pay equity can be achieved by assessing such factors as working conditions and the amount of training, responsibility and effort required for each job.

Critics of comparable worth take strong exception to these assertions. They argue that the wage differential between men and women is more the result of career choice and market forces than sex discrimination. Moreover, they contend that employers must often pay a higher wage for some occupations than others in order to remain competitive and to attract the best qualified personnel. Finally, critics of comparable worth maintain that job evaluation systems are inherently subjective. Therefore, any comparison of dissimilar jobs is at best arbitrary.

These conflicting points of view have formed the crux of the comparable worth debate during the past 10 years. The purpose of this review is to assess some of the outcomes and trends established by this debate as well as what those trends appear to indicate for the coming decade. To do so, we shall examine the comparable worth issue from legal, legislative and administrative perspectives.