Family Drug Court,Targeted Parent Training and Family Reunification: Did this Enhanced Service Strategy Make A Difference?

This article reports findings from an evaluation of reunification outcomes for children and families who participated in a family drug court (FDC) that incorporated the use of two innovative evidence‐based parenting programs. In addition to comprehensive FDC services, families participated in the Strengthening Families Program and Celebrating Families!^TM programs in a sequential format. Data analyses were conducted on a sample of 214 children whose child welfare cases were adjudicated through the FDC and 418 matched comparison cases. Entry‐cohort survival analysis results indicated that families receiving FDC services were more than twice as likely to reunify in a 45 month observation window.     

Pay-for-performance in local governments: the views of personnel directors

This article provides new information about the use of pay-for-performance in local governments by presenting findings from a national survey of personnel directors in municipalities and counties. The findings show that most respondents view pay-for- performance as a useful tool, even though it is only used in a minority of local governments. An in-depth analysis of 40 possible benefits and problems showed that PFP benefits are relatively undefined and that users do experience some potentially serious problems, though these problems appear less serious than the existing literature would predict.     

Woodrow Wilson and The Birth of a Nation: American Democracy and International Relations

President Woodrow Wilson led the United States into World War One, promising to make the world safe for democracy. Advocating liberal internationalism, he called for collective security and national self-determination. He wanted democratic states to create the League of Nations as a partnership for peace in a new world order. But in his thinking and statecraft, the text of modern liberalism was intertwined with the subtext of White racism. His friendship with Thomas Dixon, Jr., and his contributions to David W. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation revealed this nexus between liberalism and racism. His liberal civic ideals appeared quite different from the ultra racism of the film, which was based on Dixon's novels. He seemed to advocate inclusive nationalism, in contrast to its exclusive Americanism. The president's apparently universal principles, however, were still influenced by the White South's Lost Cause. His diplomacy and his legacy of Wilsonianism combined racism with liberalism. He adhered to the color line at home by promoting Jim Crow segregation in the federal government and abroad by limiting his liberal internationalism in practice. Historians and political scientists have typically identified Wilsonian diplomacy only with liberalism. To see him and his legacy in international history from a different perspective, which brings into focus the experience of people of color, it is necessary to recognize the subtext of racism in the text of Wilson's liberalism. Racism shaped his understanding of America's national identity and global mission, and thus his vision of liberal democracy and peace.     

Immigrant Health Care Access and the Affordable Care Act

In spite of major coverage expansions under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), a large proportion of immigrants will continue to remain outside the scope of coverage. Because various provisions of the ACA seek to enhance access, advancing knowledge about immigrant access to health care is necessary. The authors apply the well‐known Andersen model on health care access to two measures—one focusing on perceptions of unmet health care needs and the other on physician visits during the last year. Using data from the New Jersey Family Health Survey, the authors find that prior to implementation of the ACA coverage expansions, immigrants in New Jersey reported lower levels of unmet health care needs despite poorer self‐rated health compared with U.S.‐born residents. The article concludes with a discussion of the use of Andersen model for studying immigrant health care access and the broader implications of the findings.     

Words that hurt: a qualitative study of s parental verbal abuse in the Philippines

This article investigated opinions on what constitute parental abuse with interviews of 30 high school students, 30 parents, and 28 counselors. Despite increased reported cases of emotional abuses and child maltreatments in the Philippines, few empirical studies have explored the exact nature of parental verbal abuses in this country. This study is designed to address this gap in the literature. The results revealed nine categories of parental verbal abuses namely: (a) Put downs and shaming, (b) Rejection, (c) Blaming, (d) Fault Exaggerating, (e) Threat, (f) Invoking harm, (g) Regrets, (h) Unfair comparison, and (i) Negative prediction. Implications for research and practice were discussed.     

苏里南——文化多元化的缩影

苏里南是一个既年轻又古老的国家。目前,在全球化进程越来越快的大环境和本国力求更好地适应大环境以求发展的情况下,苏里南逐渐融入整个世界大文化中,形成了具有"苏里南特色"的多元文化。这种文化现象不仅仅只发生在苏里南,当今的许多亚、非、拉国家正经历着与苏里南相似或相同的过程,因此,深入探讨和研究苏里南社会的文化现象具有借鉴意义。本文从苏里南的人口、族群的构成、土著人对本国历史的影响、苏里南语言的形成及目前国内存在的宗教问题等诸方面,从社会学的角度分析了苏里南在经历了几百年的西方殖民统治之后的国家概念的重要性及由此产生的重大影响。20世纪后半叶苏里南取得独立,之后发生的社会变化、目前存在的社会问题及应采用何种方式解决这些社会问题,应引起广泛关注。