Associations Between Suicidal High School Students’ Help-Seeking and Their Attitudes and Perceptions of Social Environment

Suicide is a leading cause of death among adolescents, many of whom fail to disclose suicide concerns to adults who might help. This study examined patterns and predictors of help-seeking behavior among adolescents who seriously considered suicide in the past year. 2,737 students (50.9?% female, 46.9?% male; racial distribution 79.5?% Caucasian, 11.9?% Hispanic/Latino, and 3.6?% Black/African-American) from 12 high schools in rural/underserviced communities were surveyed to assess serious suicide ideation (SI) in the past year, disclosure of SI to adults and peers, attempts to get help, attitudes about help-seeking, perceptions of school engagement, and coping support. Help-seeking was defined as both disclosing SI to an adult and perceiving oneself as seeking help. The relationship between adolescents' help-seeking disclosure and (1) help-seeking attitudes and (2) perceptions of social resources was examined among suicidal help-seeking youth, suicidal non-help-seeking youth, and non-suicidal youth. Of the 381 (14?%) students reporting SI, only 23?% told an adult, 29?% sought adult help, and 15?% did both. Suicidal help-seekers were similar to non-suicidal peers on all measures of help-seeking attitudes and social environment perceptions. Positive attitudes about help-seeking from adults at school, perceptions that adults would respond to suicide concerns, willingness to overcome peer secrecy requests, and greater coping support and engagement with the school were associated with students' increased disclosure of SI and help-seeking. This study supports prevention strategies that change student norms, attitudes and social environments to promote help-seeking among adolescents with SI. Promising intervention targets include increasing students' perceptions of the availability and capability of adults to help them, and strengthening students' understanding of how existing resources can help them cope.     

Love,sex and the spaces in-between: Kepri wives and their cross-border husbands

In the Riau Islands of Indonesia significant numbers of women have entered into marriages with men from the nearby countries of Singapore and Malaysia. In many cases, neither spouse migrates after marriage: instead, husband and wife continue to reside in their country of origin. Their close geographical proximity means that the couples can see each other regularly while at the same time taking advantage of the economic opportunities presented by living on different sides of the border. These cross-border marriages challenge the normative model of the nuclear cohabiting couple/family. Our research into the motivations and desires of these cross-border couples living in the Riau borderlands reveals that space and mobility mediate their interactions with the Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian states, thus producing localized accounts of citizenship in which class mobility (rather than physical mobility) becomes the dominant frame through which they view state regulation of marriage and migration. This research challenges the state-centric tendencies in some of the scholarly literature on international and transnational marriage which places overwhelming emphasis on the ability of states to regulate access to citizenship rights. In presenting a view of inconsistent and sometimes incoherent states, we highlight the significant differences between perceptions of state influence and actual state practices in relation to the regulation of international marriages.     

How bad is the federal budget deficit?

This paper describes two views on the economic effects of government budget deficits. According to the traditional view, deficits have a variety of adverse economic consequences. In particular, they cause domestic residents to save less and eventually to have a lower standard of living than would have occurred if the same level of government spending had been financed entirely with current taxes. A competing view, known as the Ricardian view, holds that the economy is little affected by whether a given level of government spending is financed entirely by current taxes or by some feasible combination of taxes and borrowing. Most of the empirical research on the economic consequences of deficits has failed to isolate the effects predicted by the traditional view. The paper also discusses why the conventional methods of measuring the government budget deficit are not the most economically meaningful ones.     

Critical reactions to the japanese management model: A public sector perspective

Because there has been considerable interest in the Japanese management model, this study explores its limitations for the American setting and particularly the American public sector. These limitations include (1) cultural barriers, (2) the incompleteness of the model, and (3) undesirable elements in the model. This analysis concludes that there is little new in humanistic or participative terms to be found in the Japanese approach. Despite several objectionable elements in the model, some of its devices are instructive and may be carefully adapted to public sector use, but adoption of the whole model is unlikely and undesirable.     

Civil Service Reform as National Security: The Homeland Security Act of 2002

The events of 9/11 have influenced policy making in public administration. The Homeland Security Act of 2002, which created the Department of Homeland Security, contained language that empowered the secretary of homeland security and the director of the Office of Personnel Management to establish a personnel management system outside the normal provisions of the federal civil service. Why did civil service reform succeed as part of this legislation when previous attempts at large‐scale reform had failed? A case analysis of the enactment of civil service reform in the Homeland Security Act points to theories of policy emergence and certain models of presidential and congressional policy making. In this case, civil service reform became associated with national security instead of management reform. An assessment of the rhetorical arguments used to frame this policy image offers a powerful explanation for the adoption of the personnel management reforms in the Homeland Security Act. This case has implications for understanding how policy makers might approach future management reform agendas.     

Toxic waste as public business

Abstract: That there is some public responsibility for toxic waste management is a point widely taken for granted. However, there has been controversy over whether toxic waste management should become the responsibility primarily of a public corporation. Proposals for a public corporation to assume such responsibility have been advanced in Canada at the provincial level with widely varying outcomes. Through a comparison of three cases – British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario – this article examines the salient issues in this policy debate and questions the prevailing mode of problem definition in order to propose a contrasting approach to public responsibility. Sommaire: On s'accorde généralement pour dire qu'il existe une certaine responsabilité publique face à la gestion des déchets toxiques. Par contre, la question de savoir si la responsabilité de gérer ces déchets devrait incomber surtout à une société d'État a fait, elle, l'objet de controverses. Dans les provinces où on a proposé qu'une société d'État prenne en charge cette responsabilité les résultats ont été fort variés. En comparant trois cas, ceux de la Colombie-Britannique, de l'Alberta et de l'Ontario, cet article examine les principales questions de ce débat et met en doute la façon actuelle de définir le problème, afin de proposer une approche différente en ce qui concerne la responsabilité publique.