Common Themes and Treatment Approaches in Working with Families of Runaway Youths

Running away behavior in youth has long been recognized as a significant social problem affecting not only the youth themselves but their families, schools, the local community, and law enforcement efforts. We describe common themes these youth and their families present when they enter treatment in a program that works in conjunction with local law enforcement. These themes include problematic interactions in relation to school performance, parents' inabilities to cope with their children's mental health concerns, cultural differences, divorce-related issues, and inappropriate family boundaries. The treatment philosophy and approach of the program are provided as are case examples.     

How Adolescent Children of African Jamaican Immigrants Living in Canada Perceive and Negotiate their Roles within a Matrifocal Family

This research project examined the adolescent/young adult-parent relationships of African Jamaican immigrants currently living in Canada. Specifically, we focused on the transmission of cultural values and beliefs within these relationships and how the adolescents navigated and negotiated potential changes in these values because of their acculturative experiences. An examination of various mundane family/cultural practices provided insight into perceived transmission attempts by parents and the adolescent/young adult interpretation of these attempts. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with adolescent/young adult members of African Jamaican immigrant families living in Canada. Using Grounded Theory methodology (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), several themes emerged during the analysis of the interviews—the most significant being the issue of matrifocality within the African Jamaican family. Issues of respect and adolescent agency are also discussed as they related to the manner in which the adolescent/young adult attempted to negotiate various roles within the family.     

SOMNIUM BOSWELLI

I had a strong curiosity to be satisfied if he persisted in disbeleiving a future state even when he had death before his eyes. I was persuaded from what he now said, and from his manner of saying it, that he did persist. … and he added that it was a most unreasonable fancy that he should exist for ever. …'Well', said I, 'Mr Hume, I hope to triumph over you when I meet you in a future state; and remember you are not to pretend that you was joking with all this Infidelity.
— from James Boswell's last interview with David Hume ¹     

Inefficient Unanimity

ABSTRACT The notion of consensus plays an important epistemological role in modern welfare economics, in that unanimous consent is a (unique) conceptual test for those changes that are 'Pareto-desirable' (that is, make someone better off and no-one else worse). In this paper, we seek to show that unanimous consent does not logically imply Pareto-desirability—that a rational individual may fail to veto policy changes that make him/her worse off. The central element in the proof of this proposition is the observation that in social agreements involving a significant number of participants, any one individual's veto is decisive if it is the only veto. If the individual does not expect to be decisive, he will rationally exercise his vote 'expressively', and without sole regard to its consequences. When all individuals so act, a sort of prisoners' dilemma interaction may emerge, even under explicit consensus.     

China's Case Against the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty: rationality and morality

Abstract  China, India, Brazil and other major Third World nations have long refused to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. This position might at first sight appear to be without any question morally unjustified and even irrational. Yet their claim that the treaty is 'discriminatory' merits the serious attention which it has not received. Only if certain aspects of this claim are accepted by the nuclear weapons signatories does a moral and rational onus to sign become unquestionable.