Community Social Disorganization Theory Applied to Adolescent Academic Achievement

Over the years, the public education system has been transformed by outside political and societal forces to provide an equal opportunity for all students. Investigations of the public education system were not consistent and yielded divergent results on how to improve adolescent academic achievement. These divergent results were caused by different operationalizations of variables, data analytical procedures that possibly provided biased parameter estimates, and a failure to use a comprehensive theory. Although these results were inconsistent, the latest transformation of the public education system currently involves holding schools, administrators, parents, and students accountable for learning. The measurement of success in adolescent academic achievement was reflected by the results of standardized tests. Throughout the relevant literature, a strong link can be found between adolescent development, adolescent academic achievement, and adolescent social deviancy. In past and current research, the community social disorganization theory was used to explain variance in adolescent social deviancy. The purpose of this dissertation was twofold. First was conducting explanatory research using community contextual variables to investigate adolescent academic achievement. Second was the extension of multilevel analyses to investigate the school within its social context of the community. This dissertation employed community social disorganization theory to explain variations in adolescent academic achievement as measured by standardized tests. In addition to employing theory, this dissertation utilized structural equation modeling and multilevel analyses to reduce biased parameter estimates and to investigate the relationships between community contextual variables. These procedures were also used to determine whether contextual variables at the school level or the school district level influenced adolescent academic achievement and which was more significant. The first structural equation model of the school district for school year 1997–98 accounted for 68% of the variance in adolescent academic achievement. This model was replicated on a different school year and it accounted for 75% of the variance in adolescent academic achievement. Next, contextual variables at the school level were modeled and 65% of the variance was accounted for. A multilevel analysis with structural equation modeling was used with both school district and school contextual variables included. Within the school district, 80% of the relative variance in adolescent academic achievement was accounted for and at the between school district level 97% of the relative variance was accounted for. Although these findings of the multilevel analyses should be interpreted cautiously (Bollen, 1989; Gustafsson & Stahl, 2000; Joreskog, 1999b), this study advances the use of multilevel analyses. These strong models hold great promise for investigating adolescent academic achievement using the community social disorganization theory along with appropriate statistical methods of structural equation modeling and multilevel analyses. The multilevel analyses must be replicated with future data to provide confirmation and support of the current results

Explaining differences in regional performance: administrative capacity and political factors. The case of Structural Funds implementation in Italian Objective 1 regions

This thesis starts from the following question: Why, after 16 years of receiving Structural Funds, do some regions still have difficulties in spending their allocated resources? Empirical evidence shows that Funds implementation rates have varied widely among European Union Objective 1 regions. The overall performance of Italian regions, in particular, has consistently lagged behind other countries. However, an investigation into individual Italian Objective 1 regions reveals that not all follow this general trend. Indeed, some regions have outperformed others remarkably. Why is this the case? I explore these differences and identify potential variables that may account for such regional variation. My central hypothesis is that differences in implementation are strongly dependent on the degree of administrative capacity that exists in the recipient regional government. Due to the deficiency in the existing literature of a clear definition of administrative capacity, I attempt to fill this gap by introducing a novel characterization that allows me to operationalize and measure the concept. The core of the methodology is an in-depth case study supported by field research based on personal interviews and documented questionnaires. I investigate two contrasting southern Italian regions, Sicily and Basilicata, measure their respective degrees of administrative capacity and provide evidence to suggest that this latter variable is positively correlated to Structural Funds implementation. Answering my first query has prompted a further question: if it is trite that the variation in implementation of resources between regions can be explained by different degrees of regional administrative capacity, then what is it that determines the degree of administrative capacity at the regional level? In studying this second question I further test the hypothesis that the level of administrative capacity is influenced by three key political factors: namely, political interference, government stability and political accountability

Combinatorial problems in solving linear systems

42 pages, available as LIP research report RR-2009-15Numerical linear algebra and combinatorial optimization are vast subjects; as is their interaction. In virtually all cases there should be a notion of sparsity for a combinatorial problem to arise. Sparse matrices therefore form the basis of the interaction of these two seemingly disparate subjects. As the core of many of today's numerical linear algebra computations consists of the solution of sparse linear system by direct or iterative methods, we survey some combinatorial problems, ideas, and algorithms relating to these computations. On the direct methods side, we discuss issues such as matrix ordering; bipartite matching and matrix scaling for better pivoting; task assignment and scheduling for parallel multifrontal solvers. On the iterative method side, we discuss preconditioning techniques including incomplete factorization preconditioners, support graph preconditioners, and algebraic multigrid. In a separate part, we discuss the block triangular form of sparse matrices

10381 Summary and Abstracts Collection -- Robust Query Processing

Dagstuhl seminar 10381 on robust query processing (held 19.09.10 - 24.09.10) brought together a diverse set of researchers and practitioners with a broad range of expertise for the purpose of fostering discussion and collaboration regarding causes, opportunities, and solutions for achieving robust query processing. The seminar strove to build a unified view across the loosely-coupled system components responsible for the various stages of database query processing. Participants were chosen for their experience with database query processing and, where possible, their prior work in academic research or in product development towards robustness in database query processing. In order to pave the way to motivate, measure, and protect future advances in robust query processing, seminar 10381 focused on developing tests for measuring the robustness of query processing. In these proceedings, we first review the seminar topics, goals, and results, then present abstracts or notes of some of the seminar break-out sessions. We also include, as an appendix, the robust query processing reading list that was collected and distributed to participants before the seminar began, as well as summaries of a few of those papers that were contributed by some participants

Structural Variation and Local Service Delivery: Comparing Municipal Governments and Special Purpose Bodies

In the debate over the governance of metropolitan areas, consolidationists favour single, area-wide, general purpose jurisdictions, while polycentrists make arguments in support of multiple, scale-specific, specialized jurisdictions. This dissertation contributes to this debate through comparisons of municipal and specialized service delivery in two Ontario cities. The cities of London and Hamilton represent positions along a continuum of fragmentation and consolidation, with London being more fragmented and Hamilton more consolidated. Comparisons are undertaken for three local government services: public health, economic development, and watershed management. In London, independent special purpose bodies deliver all three of these services, while in Hamilton the municipality is responsible for public health and economic development and controls the main conservation authority. The central objective of this dissertation is to test the competing claims of consolidationists and polycentrists by comparing the performance of these three functions in the two cities. It looks at such performance measures as efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, coordination, and responsiveness. The results of the comparisons are mixed. On balance, the hypotheses of the consolidationists are supported more often than the hypotheses of the polycentrists, but this debate is overly simplistic. In reality, specialized governments pursue their mandate more single-mindedly than general purpose governments. The policy consequences of this characteristic are more or less pronounced depending upon how autonomous the board is. There are some positive consequences associated with specialized delivery for public health and watershed management, because the benefits of these types of services are enjoyed by most citizens, but they are not always a priority for municipal politicians. However for economic development, the policy consequences were mainly negative. This is because specialization in this functional area enhances the power of business interests. In short, much can be understood about the behaviour of special purpose bodies by how they are controlled and by what function they perform. When applied to more general debates about metropolitan governance, the findings make it clear that even relatively small differences in local government structures can have significant policy consequences