The Delta Dental case: "Fair procedure" comes to managed care. Delta Dental Plan of California v. Banasky

All providers contemplating managed care contracts, both individual and institutional, should carefully review the health plans' internal administrative review and dispute resolution procedures before making their decisions, especially if the contracts will represent significant income for the provider. While there may be judicial recourse in California and in other states that adopt the holding in Delta Dental, in other states providers may well be held to the health plans' internal administrative decisions as a matter of contractual agreement. Health plans should also review their own policies and procedures for adequacy under applicable state law. The health care community will not know the full extent of Delta Dental's implications until later cases area decided, but for now it seems certain that another wave of change in this area is just beginning.     

Policies toward North Korea: A time for new thinking

It is a commonplace among students of Northeast Asian security issues to regard North Korea as a rogue state, one which operates outside the norms of global society and which presents an ever-present threat to regional security. In this article, however, the authors present an unorthodox line of analysis which attempts to see North Korea as it sees itself: a state whose external support system rapidly and traumatically disappeared a decade ago; a state confronted by hostile neighbors who wish to undermine its regime and who are heavily armed for possible military actions against it; and a state whose limited ability to participate in the global economy is confined to selling abroad for hard currency the few things that it does well: military equipment, including missile technology. Thus viewed, the authors find wanting the policies pursued towards North Korea by the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China. They stipulate a series of precise policy shifts that these four states must undertake to encourage North Korea to play a more active and positive role in building a durable framework for Northeast Asian regional security.     

TRANSITION OR NOT?

The article focuses on a quantitative evaluation of Families In Transition (FIT), a court-mandated divorce education program. In this evaluation, the operationalization of the impact of FIT on its participants is guided by a social psychology theory. Findings indicate that parents view FIT as a valuable experience, and they gain in their attitude toward and likelihood to engage in child-centered divorce adjustment behaviors from pre- to post-FIT. Factors are highlighted, such as counseling and conflict status of the parents that affect the degree of influence of FIT. Implications for evaluations of these programs and for the structure of these programs are discussed.     

Understanding and assessing school police officers: A conceptual and methodological comment

Although law enforcement officials have been involved in the provision of school security services for the past half century, prior to the 1990s the practice of assigning sworn police officers to serve in schools on a full-time basis was uncommon. Over the past decade the number of police officers serving in schools increased substantially, but few studies of school police officers were conducted and little attention was devoted to understanding the role of school police officers. This article contributes to the literature on school police officers by providing an overview of the development of school police officers, an outline of issues which should be considered in conceptualizing school police officers, and a discussion of methodological issues pertaining to the assessment of school police officers.     

Do the Ladies Run This Mutha? The Relationship between Political Rap and Black Feminist Attitudes

Music has been thought of as an art form that expresses ideas and sentiments of the artist. This article examines the relationship between political and non-political rap and Black feminist attitudes. This study includes data from original experiments conducted at Benedict College; a historically Black college in Columbia, SC, where Black males and females were exposed to various genres of music and their support of Black feminist attitudes were measured. Blacks exposed to political rap display increased support of Black feminist attitudes compared to those exposed to non-political rap and the control group, subjects who were not exposed to any form of music. Our research finds that those exposed to non-political rap have less affinity for Black feminist attitudes than those in any other group. This research is important to political science because it furthers our knowledge about public opinion and political attitudes. Specifically, this article demonstrates that non-traditional media forms also have an impact on political attitudes. Specifically, exposure to political rap has a significantly positive impact on the agreement with Black feminist attitudes when compared to exposure to non-political rap. Therefore, not all subgenres of rap music are consistently harmful to Black feminist attitudes and attitudes toward women.     

Urbanization,Rural Mobility,and New Class Relations in Darjeeling,India

Throughout the developing world, rapid urbanization is leading to new social relations and new conflicts between urban and (formerly) rural populations. This paper examines this process of change through a detailed examination of changing rural–urban relations in the town of Darjeeling, in the Himalayan foothills in Eastern India. In Darjeeling, increased rural mobility, accelerated rural-to-urban migration and the increased participation of rural people in local politics have led to major changes in the town. We demonstrate that the upward trajectory of rural classes who were previously subordinate is leading the more established urban residents to feel threatened, resulting in a redrawing of local political issues along rural–urban lines and a reconfiguration of class consciousness and social relations. The urban middle class, whose opportunities in the town have stagnated or declined, see rural migrants as a source of competition for increasingly scarce resources and blame them for the overall decline in the quality of urban life. They mobilize their (predominantly cultural) capital to reinforce markers of cultural distinction between them and the rural migrants and to delegitimize the political gains they have made. We argue that rural–urban conflict is emerging as the chief source of tension in the town and that this tension is largely grounded in class issues.