Foreword.

• Author: Mackwell, Sue

Issue 37 of the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand comprises research papers on a wide range of topics with implications for policy across the social sector.

Research relating to children is always of interest as policies increasingly focus on early interventions. The article by Janis Carroll-Lind, James Chapman and Juliana Raskauskas discusses the findings of a national survey of children's perceptions of violence experienced or witnessed at home, school and in the community, including the extent to which they used violence in their own interpersonal relationships.

Three of the articles in this issue explore research relating to young people: the correlates of early pregnancy, a programme for long-term unemployed and the factors in youth offending. Dannette Marie, David M. Fergusson and Joseph M. Boden report on findings from the longitudinal Christchurch Health and Development Study on the associations between ethnic identity and pregnancy/parenthood by age 20. Robert Maxwell's article is about the outcomes of a programme called Limited Service Volunteers run by the Army at Burnham Military Camp that provides motivational intervention for the unemployed. In the course of Alison Sutherland's research, she spoke at length with serious young offenders about their perceptions of their school experience, concluding that schools might have a real opportunity to break off a young person's trajectory towards youth offending by identifying it early on and intervening in a timely fashion.

Social policy, social capital and citizenship make up another theme for this issue. In an analysis of the Report of the Royal Commission on Social Policy, over two decades since its publication in 1988, Jo Barnes and the late Paul Harris find the document has had a significant impact on policy and debate in New Zealand. Louise Humpage reviews a 20-year span of New Zealanders' attitudes towards social rights of citizenship, and finds evidence that--despite a period of neo-liberal reform and the current tendency to favour tax cuts over redistribution and wage controls--New Zealanders are not willing to sacrifice social spending on health, education and targeted social assistance. In a paper that explores some similar ideas, Penelope Carroll, Sally Casswell, John...