FAMILY IMPACT ANALYSIS: CONCEPTS AND METHODOLOGIES*

A brief introduction to the background, current concerns, and methodologies of Family Impact Analysis is presented. The concept of Family Impact Analysis will be delineated by a discussion of the background of Family Impact Analysis, its particular timeliness now, the relationship of Family Impact Analysis to other policy or program analyses, the nature of potential policy impacts on families, and different research strategies appropriate for Family Impact Analysis. The basic elements of a step-by-step methodology for engaging in family impact analysis is briefly outlined. These steps include: 1) identification of the policy for analysis; 2) identification of family impacts of concern; 3) specification of the relationship between policy components and hypothesized family impacts; 4) design and implementation of the research; 5) analysis of findings; and 6) evaluation of and presentation of findings. The current state of the art regarding family impact analysis as a methodology will be reviewed, and recommendations for further development and utilization of this methodology will be offered.     

Policy Diffusion and Strategies for Promoting Policy Change: Evidence From California Local Gun Control Ordinances

Recent research efforts on policy innovation and diffusion largely have focused upon policymaking at the state government level. In this article we seek to develop an understanding of the ways momentum for policy change can be generated among receptive local governments. We use gun control policymaking within California to illustrate how local government characteristics, the presence of regional associations, and the establishment of interest groups may lead to policy development and diffusion. We also identify linkages between interest groups, focusing events, and the successful use of a new image of gun violence as a public health problem, yielding insights into strategies that may be used successfully to promote policy change.     

Undue Hardship and Reasonable Accommodation: The View From the Court

Title I of the Americans With Disabilities Act prohibits employment discrimination against disabled people. This article provides an overview of how the courts have interpreted the duty to accommodate an individual with a disability, focusing on the concepts of "reasonable accommodation" and "undue hardship."     

“Doing” Agency: Introductory Remarks on Methodology

As a theory of social reproduction, agency provides an attractive framework for understanding how material culture relates to everyday social action, to long-standing cultural institutions, and to wholesale culture change. What remains under-explored in archaeology is the question of how to proceed in linking observable material patterning to the agency of ancient social reproduction and how to understand the role of material culture in this dynamic process. This introduction (to this and the next issue of JAMT (Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory)) explores why there is a need for archaeology to develop explicitly articulated “middle range interpretive methodologies” that are appropriate for agency-oriented research in the past.