Welfare recipients' involvement with child protective services after welfare reform.

OBJECTIVE: This study identifies factors associated with child protective services (CPS) involvement among current and former welfare recipients after welfare reform legislation was passed in the US in 1996. METHOD: Data come from the Women's Employment Study, a longitudinal study of randomly selected welfare recipients living in a Michigan city in 1997 (N=541). In order to identify risk factors for CPS involvement among current and former welfare recipients, multinomial logit analyses with 29 independent variables were employed on a trichotomous dependent variable: no CPS involvement, investigation only, and supervision by CPS after investigation. RESULTS: The relationship between work and involvement with CPS differs by work experience prior to welfare reform. As the percentage of months working after welfare reform increased, the risk of being investigated by CPS declined among those with prior work experience but the risk increased among those without prior work experience. However, work variables were not significant predictors of supervision by CPS after an initial investigation. Further, race, cohabitation, childhood welfare receipt, having a learning disability, having a large number of children, being newly divorced, living in a high problem neighborhood, and being convicted of a crime were associated with one's probability of being either investigated or supervised by CPS. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that employment could have increased the stress levels of current or former welfare recipients without prior work experience to the point where they were prone to minor child rearing mistakes that resulted in a CPS investigation, but were not severe enough to warrant opening the case for supervision. Supports should be provided to welfare mothers who are prone to involvement with CPS; expansions in the childcare subsidy and a reduction or delay in work requirements might also help these families.

Gay marriage, same-sex parenting, and America's children.

Same-sex marriage, barely on the political radar a decade ago, is a reality in America. How will it affect the well-being of children? Some observers worry that legalizing same-sex marriage would send the message that same-sex parenting and opposite-sex parenting are interchangeable, when in fact they may lead to different outcomes for children. To evaluate that concern, William Meezan and Jonathan Rauch review the growing body of research on how same-sex parenting affects children. After considering the methodological problems inherent in studying small, hard-to-locate populations--problems that have bedeviled this literature-the authors find that the children who have been studied are doing about as well as children normally do. What the research does not yet show is whether the children studied are typical of the general population of children raised by gay and lesbian couples. A second important question is how same-sex marriage might affect children who are already being raised by same-sex couples. Meezan and Rauch observe that marriage confers on children three types of benefits that seem likely to carry over to children in same-sex families. First, marriage may increase children's material well-being through such benefits as family leave from work and spousal health insurance eligibility. It may also help ensure financial continuity, should a spouse die or be disabled. Second, same-sex marriage may benefit children by increasing the durability and stability of their parents' relationship. Finally, marriage may bring increased social acceptance of and support for same-sex families, although those benefits might not materialize in communities that meet same-sex marriage with rejection or hostility. The authors note that the best way to ascertain the costs and benefits of the effects of same-sex marriage on children is to compare it with the alternatives. Massachusetts is marrying same-sex couples, Vermont and Connecticut are offering civil unions, and several states offer partner-benefit programs. Studying the effect of these various forms of unions on children could inform the debate over gay marriage to the benefit of all sides of the argument.

Revisiting Recent Research on Social Learning Theory as an Etiological Proposition for Sexually Abusive Male Adolescents.

This article examines social learning theory as a construct that is applicable to adolescent sexual abusers based upon recent published research. Bandura's (1986) work is used to outline the theory and then research on victimization, aggression, criminality, pornography and personality is reviewed to assess the theory as a reasonable fit for adolescent sexually abusive behavior. Research implications are offered that argue for rigorous research methods in the field to allow for further test of this theory.