The Role of Family Obligations and School Adjustment in Explaining the Immigrant Paradox

This study examined the role of family obligations and school adjustment in explaining immigrant adolescents’ adaptation. Despite a relatively low socio-economic status, immigrant adolescents have been found to have a pattern of adaptation superior to that of national adolescents. Immigrant adolescents’ strong sense of family obligations and positive school adjustment have been used to explain these positive adaptation outcomes. Using self-reports in a sample of 277 national adolescents (45.5% female) and a sample of 175 non-western immigrant adolescents (58.9% female), both samples with a mean age of 15 years, it was found that despite a lower socio-economic status, the adaptation of immigrant adolescents was as good as the nationals’ adaptation. Immigrant adolescents scored higher on family obligations and school adjustment. Family obligations and school adjustment were found positively related to adaptation outcomes in the national and the immigrant adolescent sample. Findings suggest that, in underprivileged environments, a strong sense of family obligations may help immigrants as well as national adolescents achieve a positive pattern of adaptation.     

Economic development and parental status homogamy: A study of 19th century France

This study investigates the claim that industrialization led to a decrease of parental status homogamy. Contrary to previous research industrialization is not indicated by historical time, nor measured as a macro-development, but instead brides and bridegrooms who are more involved in the industrial labour market are compared with those who are less involved. The theory of preferences, third parties and meeting opportunities is used to derive the hypotheses that young persons (1) with an industrial occupation, (2) who are intergenerationally mobile, and (3) with formal training marry more often outside their parental status group. Hypotheses are tested using the Tra-dataset on France for the period 1803–1899. Brides and bridegrooms working in an industrial occupation and intergenerationally mobile bridegrooms are indeed found to marry less homogamously with respect to parental status.     

When Weak Groups are Strong: How Low Cohesion Groups Allow Individuals to Act According to Their Personal Absence Tolerance Norms

The study described in this article took place in a commercial production organization and a non-profit social welfare organization (N = 377 and N = 582, respectively). The study investigates how group cohesiveness and absence tolerance separately and in tandem are related to company registered absenteeism rates. As predicted, results support the hypotheses that absence tolerance is positively related with absenteeism and interacts with low group cohesion to result in absenteeism. Contrasting earlier studies that found highly cohesive groups to interact with absence tolerance, results of this study are the first to show that low group cohesiveness interacts significantly with absence tolerance. That is, low cohesive groups counterintuitively are related to the lowest levels of voluntary sickness absence together with intolerant views toward absence. This interaction effect is found independently in two different organizations.     

论1960年代前期对《李慧娘》和《有鬼无害论》的批判

昆曲<李慧娘>是作家孟超根据明代周朝俊所作传奇<红梅记>中有关李慧娘的情节创作的,<有鬼无害论>则是作家廖沫沙为<李慧娘>写的剧评.1960年代前期对<李慧娘>和<有鬼无害论>的批判,是为宣传和贯彻阶级斗争扩大化的"左"倾理论而进行的.这场批判所展现的理论逻辑是十分荒谬的,为在文艺界和整个意识形态领域贯彻执行阶级斗争扩大化的"左"倾理论打开了突破口.     

A Dutch revolt? The salience of the nonstrategic nuclear weapons issue in Dutch politics

Transparency, international credibility, democratic accountability, a new realism in defense expenditures – these basic policy goals fit awkwardly with the current deployment of nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) on Dutch territory. Most parties in the Netherlands want the NSNW removed. Some are even willing to challenge the idea that only consensus among all 28 NATO Allies can lead to the removal of the NSNW. The new Dutch minister of foreign affairs for example, Frans Timmermans, has a long track record of calling for an end to the deployment of US nuclear weapons on Dutch territory. Without NATO consent if necessary. His appointment fits with the political shift that we have seen over the past few years in Dutch politics. This article looks at the political rationale behind that shift: who are the main political actors involved? How have domestic and international pressures influenced party positions? The article also looks at the possibilities a new Dutch Government has were it to challenge the NATO consensus on NSNW. Would the USA refuse to take the NSNW away? How would NATO react and what could mitigate Allied concerns?     

Substance use disorders in forensic psychiatric patients

There is a lack of detailed information on the role of substance use disorders (SUD) as a substantial factor in offences and treatment in forensic psychiatric patients. The aim of this study was to get a better understanding of these specifics. Clinical records of 193 male patients admitted to a Dutch forensic psychiatric hospital were scrutinized on anamnestic, diagnostic and risk assessment data. One of the central findings was that the prevalence of SUDs was high. Patients with an SUD had a more extensive criminal history, unstable and deviant lifestyle and higher risk of violent behavior than patients without a substance use disorder. No differences were found in duration of treatment, aggressive incidents and leave. Another important finding was that a distinction could be made between patients with substance use as a primary criminogenic risk factor and patients with substance use as a secondary risk factor. Although substance use is identified as a general risk factor, this study supports the idea of sub categorization of patients with an SUD and emphasizes the need for a different treatment approach. Further study is needed to identify specific treatment approaches, based on more differentiated profiles of these patients.     

When women disappear from the labour market: occupational status of Dutch women at marriage in a modernizing society, 1865–1922

Between 1865 and 1922 the labour force participation of women at marriage dropped considerably in the Netherlands. At the same time, girls' educational participation increased and egalitarian gender values started to spread. We expect these developments to have affected the occupational status of those women who stayed in the labour market. Using a large dataset of Dutch marriages and municipal-level information on female labour force participation, educational participation, and an indicator of gender values, we show that women's status dropped until around 1885 and then started to rise. The retreat of women from the labour market coincided with a decline in the status of the women who remained, whereas, especially after 1900, the increasing educational participation of girls and the dissemination of egalitarian gender values counteracted this trend by causing women's status to rise.     

Effectiveness of a prolonged incarceration and rehabilitation measure for high-frequency offenders

Objectives

To estimate the incapacitation effect and the impact on post-release recidivism of a measure combining prolonged incarceration and rehabilitation, the ISD measure for high frequency offenders (HFOs) was compared to the standard practice of short-term imprisonment.

Methods

We applied a quasi-experimental design with observational data to study the effects of ISD. The intervention group consisted of all HFOs released from ISD in the period 2004–2008. Two control groups were derived from the remaining population of HFOs who were released from a standard prison term. To form groups of controls, a combination of multiple imputation (MI) and propensity score matching (PSM) was used including a large number of covariates. In order to measure the incapacitation effect of ISD, the number of convictions and recorded offences in a criminal case of the controls were counted in the same period as their ISD counterfactuals were incarcerated. The impact on recidivism was measured by the prevalence and the frequency of reconvictions corrected for time at risk. Robustness of the results were checked by performing a combined PSM and difference-in-difference (DD) design.

Results

The estimate of the incapacitation effect was on average 5.7 criminal cases and 9.2 offences per ISD measure. On average 2.5 convictions and 4 recorded offences per year per HFO are prevented. The HFOs released from ISD showed 12 to 16 % lower recidivism rates than their control HFOs released from prison (Cohen’s h?=?0.3–0.4). The recidivists of the ISD group also showed a lower reconviction frequency than the control group recidivists (Cohen’s d?=?0.2).

Conclusions

The ISD measure seems to be effective in reducing recidivism and crime. The estimated incapacitation effect showed that a large portion of criminal cases and offences was prevented. DD analysis and sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of the PSM results. Due to the absence of actual treatment data, the effects found cannot be attributed separately to resocialization, imprisonment, or improvement of life circumstances.