DOES MANDATORY DIVORCE EDUCATION FOR PARENTS WORK?

In a court-mandated, child-focused class for divorcing parents, parental mastery of skills taught were evaluated both immediately after the class and 6 months later. Parents perceived the classes to be realistic and useful. Skills were effectively learned and were maintained over the evaluation period. Parents reported that they were successful in dramatically lowering exposure of their children to parental conflict. Relative to a comparison group of parents divorcing the year before the classes were initiated, parents completing the class were better able to work through how they would handle difficult child-related situations with their ex-spouses and were willing to let their children spend more time with the other parent. Few gender differences were observed—mothers perceived the class as more realistic; fathers showed greater improvement on some skills. Similarly, interest level in further training was not predictive of class benefits, suggesting that enthusiasm for parenting training is probably not essential.     

New Zealand

European Journal of Political Research -     

THE PLURALITY OF FACTORS INFLUENCING POLICYMAKINC: SCHOOL REFORM LEGISLATION IN THE AMERICAN STATES, 1982–84

This paper attempts to explore recent efforts of American state legislatures to improve the quality of public schools. Which state legislatures have passed school reform legislation? At what aspects of public education is this reform legislation aimed? Are there significant variations across states in such reform legislation? What has contributed most to the passage of such legislation? Is it the socioeconomic characteristics of individual states or the structural and procedural characteristics of their legislative branch that better explain school reform legislation? Analysis of data from the 50 states reveals greater variation in legislative results that reform public schools. The regional locus of most reform was the south. Most importantly, school reform legislation was found to be influenced by the interaction of a multitude of divergent forces. This finding suggests that researchers interested in the determinants of legislative action must move beyond analysis of whether economic or political forces shape legislative outcomes to inquire how economic, political and other forces interact when a given reform effort reaches the legislative halls of the states.