Likes,dislikes, supports and barriers: the experience of students with disabilities in university in Ireland

There are more students with disabilities going to college than ever before. It is important that colleges understand the experiences of students with disabilities when in university. This research project was carried out by 12 students with intellectual disabilities who are enrolled in an Irish university, under the guidance of their lecturers. The project looked at four research questions: (1) what do we like about going to college; (2) what do we dislike about going to college; (3) what supports do students with disabilities experience to participation in college; and (4) what barriers do students with disabilities experience to participation in college? The results show many interesting findings about what students with disabilities experience in college and this information can be used to help colleges better support students with disabilities.     

Getting behind the closed door of care leavers: understanding the role of emotional support for young people leaving care

There have been significant changes in the legislative frameworks and guidance that surround social work practice with young people leaving the care system over the recent years. However, care leavers continue to face a range of challenges, achieve poor outcomes and research has consistently highlighted the insufficient attention paid to sources of emotional support. This paper provides empirical data from a small number of care leavers reflecting on their experiences of transitioning to independence. The findings provide further evidence of the lack of attention paid to emotional support by professionals and highlight the impact that this had on the young people's experiences. The young people identify their changing perceptions and needs as their experiences post‐care change, the complex reasons for why they may have rejected offers of support and make key recommendations for practice. This paper provides valuable insight into the process of leaving the care system from the perspective of care leavers themselves and raises key questions that challenge the structure of the current support systems, the nature of the professional relationship with young people in care and the priorities of current policy initiatives.     

Affective and Autonomic Responses to Erotic Images: Evidence of Disgust-Based Mechanisms in Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder

Disgust has recently been implicated in the development and maintenance of female sexual dysfunction, yet most empirical studies have been conducted with a sexually healthy sample. The current study contributes to the literature by expanding the application of a disgust model of sexual functioning to a clinically relevant sample of women with low sexual desire/arousal and accompanying sexual distress. Young women (mean age = 19.12 years) with psychometrically defined sexual dysfunction (i.e., female sexual interest/arousal disorder [FSIAD] group) and a healthy control group were compared in their affective (i.e., facial electromyography [EMG] and self-report) and autonomic (i.e., heart rate and electrodermal activity) responses to disgusting, erotic, positive, and neutral images. Significant differences were predicted in responses to erotic images only. Specifically, it was hypothesized that the FSIAD group would display affective and autonomic responses consistent with a disgust response, while responses from the control group would align with a general appetitive response. Results largely supported study hypotheses. The FSIAD group displayed significantly greater negative facial affect, reported more subjective disgust, and recorded greater heart rate deceleration than the control group in response to erotic stimuli. Greater subjective disgust response corresponded with more sexual avoidance behavior. Planned follow-up analyses explored correlates of subjective disgust responses.     

Disability,identity and disclosure in the online dating environment

This paper examines how disabled people construct self-identity and negotiate disclosure of impairment in the online dating environment. Grounded theory was used to code and analyze 108 responses to an online open-ended questionnaire completed by disabled people who engaged in online dating. Findings reveal that while the body and impairment may not be present in digital space, it plays an important role in how disabled people present themselves online. This paper suggests that the embodied/disembodied dichotomy that has been traditionally used to distinguish offline and online interaction is blurred in the online dating environment.     

Beyond Public Opinion Polls: Punitive Public Sentiment & Criminal Justice Policy

The punitive turn in criminal justice policy, epitomized by policies like three-strikes, truth in sentencing, and mandatory minimums, is often attributed in part to demand for harsher criminal justice responses from an increasingly punitive public. It has been argued that public opinion, known to be both largely uninformed and often misunderstood, might both indirectly and directly affect policy. This survey article on punitiveness in public opinion opens with a discussion of competing depictions of the nature of the relationship between a punitive public and increasingly punitive criminal justice policies. The article then focuses on some of the most influential explanations for variations in punitiveness within individuals and across groups. A review of what we know about public attitudes toward punishment and a brief explanation of how we know what we know (e.g. the methodologies by which we gauge public opinion) follow. The article concludes with the observation that as methodologies continue to improve and the literature in this area continues to grow, so too does our understanding of punitive public opinion in all of its complexity.     

Sustaining transitions from welfare to work: the perceptions of employers and employment service providers

Successive Australian Governments have sought to improve the capacity of the employment service system to build jobseekers' skills and capabilities and to promote transitions from income support to paid work. Yet despite these efforts, many jobseekers experience only short periods of employment, moving repeatedly between joblessness and positions with low skill requirements, low pay and few or fluctuating hours. This article explores ways to achieve more sustained transitions from welfare to work for disadvantaged jobseekers. We draw on data from a qualitative study of employment service providers who assisted jobseekers into work and the managers in the organisations that employed them. These informants' perspectives underline the importance of improving the quality of jobs that require low levels of skills and experience and demonstrate some ways employers and employment services can better work together and provide more enduring and effective forms of support.