Formative Years (formative + year)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


IFORS: the formative years

INTERNATIONAL TRANSACTIONS IN OPERATIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2000
G.K. Rand
In 1999 IFORS (The International Federation of Operational Research Societies) celebrated 40 years since its formation. The purpose of this article is to explain how it came into being following the first international conference in Operational Research, and to examine the foundations that were laid in the years leading up to its first General Meeting, held at the second international conference. A further article will examine several themes in IFORS' subsequent history. [source]


"Not the Normal Mode of Maintenance": Bureaucratic Resistance to the Claims of Lone Women in the Postwar British Welfare State

LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 2 2004
Virginia A. Noble
Because of the expansion of the postwar welfare state and its rhetoric of inclusion, the British National Assistance Board (NAB), which provided means-tested relief, faced a dramatic increase in the number of lone women with children claiming assistance in the 1950s and 1960s. In trying to restrict the state's role in social provision, the NAB relied on and tried to extend familial obligations for women's support that had been institutionalized in family law and in the poor law. The largely unsuccessful efforts of the NAB to prevent such women from turning to the welfare state included various forms of persuasion, coercion, and intimidation. Scholars of social policy in the postwar period have called attention to later efforts to discourage applications by lone women between the late 1960s and the 1990s. But the defensive posture against such women was adopted much earlier, in a relatively unexamined portion of the NAB's history. In its early, formative years, the NAB devised new strategies based on the rationales of female dependence that had long been entrenched in family law and the poor law. These methods and rationales became fixed in the postwar bureaucratic repertoire and were later available to bolster gendered attacks on the welfare state itself, particularly those made so aggressively under Thatcherism. [source]


Strategies and tactics in NGO,government relations

NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP, Issue 1 2010
Insights from slum housing in Mumbai
Relationships between nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and government agencies have been variously described in the nonprofit literature as cooperative, complementary, adversarial, confrontational, or even co-optive. But how do NGO,government relationships emerge in practice, and is it possible for NGOs to manage multiple strategies of interaction at once? This article examines the experience of three leading NGOs in Mumbai, India, involved in slum and squatter housing. We investigate how they began relating with government agencies during their formative years and the factors that shaped their interactions. We find that NGOs with similar goals end up using very different strategies and tactics to advance their housing agendas. More significant, we observe that NGOs are likely to employ multiple strategies and tactics in their interactions with government. Finally, we find that an analysis of strategies and tactics can be a helpful vehicle for clarifying an organization's theory of change. [source]


Effects of parental perception of neighbourhood deprivation and family environment characteristics on pro-social behaviours among 4,12 year old children

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 4 2010
Andre M. N. Renzaho
Abstract Objective: To assess the effect family environment stressors (e.g. poor family functioning and parental psychological distress) and neighbourhood environment on child prosocial behaviour (CPB) and child difficulty behaviour (CDB) among 4-to-12 year old children. Methods: Analysis of the 2006 Victorian Child Health and Wellbeing Survey (VCHWS) dataset derived from a statewide cross-sectional telephone survey, with a final total sample of 3,370 children. Results: Only family functioning, parental psychological distress, child gender, and age were associated with CPB, explaining a total of 8% of the variance. Children from healthily functioning families and of parents without any psychological distress exhibited greater prosocial behaviours than those from poorly functioning families and of parents with mental health problems. Neighbourhood environment was not found to contribute to CPB. A total of eight variables were found to predict CDB, explaining a total of 16% of the variance. Poor family and parental psychological functioning as well as poor access to public facilities in the neighbourhood were associated with conduct problems in children. Conclusion: Our results point to the importance of the family environment in providing a context that fosters the development of empathic, caring and responsible children; and in buffering children in exhibiting behaviour difficulties during the formative years of life. Programs aimed at promoting prosocial behaviours in children need to target stressors on the family environment. [source]