This meta-analysis involved 92 studies that compared children living in divorced single-parent families with children living in continuously intact families on measures of well-being. Children of divorce scored lower than children in intact families across a variety of outcomes, with the median effect size being .14 of a standard deviation. For some outcomes, methodologically sophisticated studies yielded weaker effect sizes than did other studies. In addition, for some outcomes, more recent studies yielded weaker effect sizes than did studies carried out during earlier decades. Some support was found for theoretical perspectives emphasizing parental absence and economic disadvantage, but the most consistent support was found for a family conflict perspective.

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BackgroundRain-fed agriculture remains the source of employment for a majority of Ghana’s population, particularly in northern Ghana where annual rainfall is low. The purpose of this study is to examine farmers’ perceptions and adaptation practices to climate change and variability in accordance with actual recorded weather data of the Vea catchment in Upper East Region of northern Ghana during the time interval from 1972 to 2012.MethodsClimatic data over 41-years (1972–2012) from four stations in vicinity of the catchment was evaluated to identify actual weather outcomes. A survey questionnaire targeting farmers with at least 30-years of farming experience in the area was administered in six of the eleven agricultural enumeration areas in the catchment covering 305 km2. Of the 466 farmers interviewed, 79 % utilized rain-fed practices while 21 % utilized some form of irrigation.ResultsResults indicate that nearly 90 % of the farmers interviewed believe that temperature increased over the past 30-years, while over 94 % of the farmers believe that amount of rainfall, duration, intensity and rainy days has decreased. Nearly 96 % of the farmers believe that their farms are extremely vulnerable to decreased rainfall, droughts and changed timing of rainfall events. Climatic data of the catchment indicates a rising trend in temperature but no long-term changes in annual and monthly rainfall, thereby possibly increasing levels of evapotranspiration. While no statistical differences were found between rain-fed and irrigation agricultural types regarding receipt of external support, their approaches to climatic change adaptation do differ. Patently, 94 and 90 % of farmers relying on rain-fed and irrigation strategies respectively receive some form of support, primarily via extension services. Farmers using rain-fed practices adjust to climate variability by varying crop types via rotation without fertilizer while farmers employing irrigation practices are more likely to offset climate variability with a greater use of fertilizer application.ConclusionThe Vea catchment faces rising temperature and evapotranspiration trends. Farmers are aware of these climatic changes and are adapting strategies to cope with the effects but require support. Adequate extension services and irrigation facilities are needed to assist farmers in order to sustain their livelihoods on the long run.

Sociology is often portrayed as an errant discipline, driving forward without any apparent direction or purpose. We contend that these perceptions about the central tenets of our discipline derive from a lack of standardization of core material, which reduces the social value of sociology as a scientific field and erodes its credibility as a discipline. Insofar as common conceptual knowledge exists in the field of sociology, one ought to find evidence of it in the introductory textbook. To this end, our study examines 35 introductory sociology textbooks published in the 1940s (n=16) and the 1990s (n=19) in search of common concepts that represent cumulative core disciplinary knowledge. While our findings reveal uniformity in the structure of the textbooks' major chapter headings within their respective decades, our analysis of concepts—the language used to introduce disciplinary content—reveals that the vast majority are referenced by only one text, with fewer than three percent of all concepts shared in common. Moreover, neither the number of concepts introduced only once nor the variability in the total number of concepts referenced declined across the two decades. In sum, while introductory sociology textbooks are structured in similar ways, we find little commonality in the concepts used by texts' authors to frame the discipline, either within the two cross-sections or between them.

While state legislatures are increasingly enacting articulation policies, research to date provides little evidence that these policies enhance students' likelihood of transfer. Based on a careful historical review of state statutes, the authors propose that articulation policies do not improve transfer rates because that is not their intended purpose; the main goal of articulation policies is to prevent the loss of credits when students transfer within state higher education systems. Subsequently, the authors use the National Education Longitudinal Study to evaluate articulation policies based on an alternative set of outcomes: attainment of a bachelor's degree, time to degree, and credits required to complete a bachelor's degree. They discuss the limitations of existing data and propose that future studies be designed to specifically evaluate the transfer or loss of credits applicable toward general education requirements.