Suchergebnisse

AbstractEvidence from several countries has shown the over‐representation of racial/ethnic minority groups in child protection services (CPS). The objective of the present study was to explore whether racial/ethnic and socio‐economic biases influence Spanish CPS caseworkers' judgements of the severity of child maltreatment. Moreover, the study attempted to explore the influence on these judgements of the use of structured instruments and professional experience. Two case vignettes of child maltreatment were presented to 405 CPS caseworkers and 169 students of social work and psychology. Family ethnic origin and income were manipulated in the vignettes. The findings showed no statistical evidence of biases related to family ethnic origin or socio‐economic status (SES) in Spanish CPS caseworkers' judgements of maltreatment severity. Biases related to family SES were found for students for the vignettes of physical abuse. CPS caseworkers and students who did not use a structured instrument to assess maltreatment severity tended to underestimate the severity for the vignettes of parental incapacity to control child/adolescent behaviour and to overestimate it for the vignettes of physical abuse. CPS caseworkers who used a structured instrument showed higher percentages of accuracy and inter‐rater agreement, supporting the relevance of structured tools in reducing potential caseworkers' biases.

United States metropolitan area data for three ethnic groups—African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics—are used to explore the dimensions of residential segregation at the 1980, 1990, and 2000 censuses at the census tract scale. Although set within Massey and Denton's five-dimensional conceptual schema, the study was unable to replicate their identification of five empirical dimensions that correspond with the conceptual set. Instead, separate analyses for each ethnic group at each of the three censuses suggested two superdimensions: separation and location. These apply across all three groups and three censuses, although the degree of separation varies considerably among the three groups.