Books in review

the author of numberous works in U.S. Jewish history and culture. Her most recent book is The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture, 1880–1950.     

PARENTAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Six-, 12-, and 15-month follow-up data are presented evaluating a program for high-conflict parents. Funded by a grant from Health and Human Services, the program's content reflects an extensive review of research literature, including the relevant literature on personality disorders. Introduced in Phoenix, Arizona in October 1999, the program has served more than 1,000 families in several jurisdictions. Whereas other programs for entrenched, high-conflict cases are typically time intensive, involving 2 to 6 months, this is a one-time 4-hour program. As such, the authors are heartened to report a suprisingly positive—and enduring—response from the parents.     

Drug levels found in cases of fatal self-poisoning

A list of drug levels found in cases of fatal self-poisoning is presented here. These are all cases where only one drug was found and the cause of death in each case was attributed to an overdose of that particular drug. For each case a full drug screen was carried out. In general thin-layer chromatography (TLC) was used as the initial screening technique and any positive findings were then confirmed by gas liquid chromatography (GLC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). When the drug had been positively identified, the blood level was measured.     

The Implications of National Competition Policy

The Competition Policy Reform Bill 1995 is part of a national policy package which aims to free up competition in Australian markets. The objective is to systematically remove anti-competitive behaviour so that efficiency is improved to the public benefit.
While one can endorse the concept that economic efficiency is best served in a purely competitive market, where businesses can get on with their responsibilitiy to maximise profits, concerns exist as to whether it is possible to impose legislatively and unilaterally an economic principle or philosophy on a nation that will achieve its lofty objectives.
These proposals were developed before the 1996 federal election.     

The MMPI and adolescent patients in a state hospital

Because of the increasing number of adolescents being admitted to state hospitals and because of the lack of sufficient information regarding the use of the MMPI with these patients, this study was undertaken in order to provide normative data for the MMPI with this particular clinical population. The subjects were 113 male and 97 female psychiatric patients from the Adolescent Unit (AU) at Rusk State Hospital (RSH). As each patient was admitted to the AU, he was scheduled for psychological testing, with the MMPI being a part of this testing. The results indicate that, with this particular psychiatric population, background variables had no significant relationship to MMPI performance. The validity scales were characterized by an extremely elevated F scale for males and females, while male and female performance on the clinical scales showed elevation (above T score of 70) on the Pd and Sc scales. In conclusion, it seems that the most outstanding characteristic of young state hospital patients on the MMPI is extreme elevation on the Pd and Sc scales and the F scale. In interpreting the MMPI, it would seem necessary then to reevaluate the meaning being associated with these scales, especially the F scale, when dealing with this particular psychiatric population.Received B.S. and M.S. in Psychology at North Texas State University in 1967 and 1968. Interests are personality characteristics of psychiatric in-patient adolescents and personality characteristics of drug users, drug experimenters, and non-drug users. In general, most of his interests are confined to describing the characteristics of psychiatric in-patients in our state hospitals.Received A.S. in Data Processing at Miami-State Junior College in 1966; received B.S. in Mathematics at the University of South Florida in 1968; received M.S. in Statistics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1970. Major interest is in statistical methodologies in the field of mental health and mental retardation.Received B.S. and M.S. in Psychology at North Texas State University in 1968 and 1969, respectively. Major interest is in personality characteristics of adolescent patients in our state hospitals.     

Student achievement in charter schools: A complex picture

Since the inception of charter schools over a decade ago, policymakers have wanted to know how charter schools are performing. This is difficult to answer because there is no single charter school approach to educating students. By design, charter schools have innovative and distinctive education philosophies. In this research, we capture some of the uniqueness of charter schools by clustering them into four major categories: charter schools that convert from conventional public schools, charter schools that start from scratch, charter schools that rely primarily on classroom‐based instruction, and charter schools that have a significant portion of instruction outside of the classroom. Based on these four distinctions, we find significant differences in performance. These differences suggest that policymakers may want to focus greater resources on certain types of charter schools versus others. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Context, Conversation and Conviction: Social Networks and Voting at the 1992 British General Election

After some initial interest, analyses of contextual effects in British voting behaviour have tended to downplay or ignore the role of face to face conversations between electors. However, evidence from the 1992 British Election Study shows that conversations with partisan discussants do act as a statistically significant influence on voting. Those who discuss politics with supporters of a particular party are more likely to switch their votes to that party, if they had not previously voted for it, and less likely to switch to other parties. Conversations with family members are particularly important, though talking to other discussants also plays a part.