The caring child: an evaluative case study of the Cornwall Young Carers project

This paper reports on an evaluation of the Cornwall Young Carers project (jointly funded by social services and the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Health Action Zone), conducted during the period 2000–2002. A diverse range of methodological approaches were adopted (comparative national statistics, local pilot study, monthly and quarterly data capturing instruments, and a service user focus group) in monitoring and evaluating the project's high level statements/outcomes. Four evaluative themes are discussed, namely: identification of young carers; assessment of young carers' needs; direct service provision; and partnership working. Recommendations and action steps are proposed with a view of informing future planning and service delivery, as well as developing an ethos of integrating evaluation into everyday practice for the Cornwall Young Carers Project. Overall, the project has made significant progress in meeting and exceeding its original targets. The fact that the project has been able to identify 202 new young carers over this period is a key milestone in demonstrating the critical need for the project's services. It is suggested that existing referrals are only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ for work with young carers in Cornwall.     

Children's involvement in their parents' divorce: implications for practice

The paper reports findings from a research study that explored children's experience of divorce. It shows that children experience parental divorce as a crisis in their lives but that they are able to mobilise internal and external resources to regain a new point of balance. In doing so, children demonstrate the degree to which they are active and competent participants in the process of family dissolution. The implications of the data are then considered in relation to engaging with children involved in divorce and in relation to some of the cultural presumptions that might militate against hearing what they have to say about their experiences. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gendered Elements of the Alternative Agriculture Paradigm

Abstract The alternative agriculture paradigm has been a useful device to both define and direct a social movement toward a more sustainable agriculture. But because that paradigm was defined by male movement leaders, it reflects their gendered perspective and may be lacking elements that make it more useful for both women and men. In-depth interviews of women involved in sustainable farming organizations and on family farms experimenting with new practices validated the elements of the Beus and Dunlap paradigm: independence, decentralization, community, harmony with nature, diversity, and restraint, but also suggested the addition of two other elements that the women identified as part of an alternative agriculture vision: quality family life and spirituality. The highly gendered nature of agriculture in the V.S. and Canada, where male identity is highly conflated with the role of farmer in the conventional paradigm, may make it more difficult for men who have just joined the' movement to articulate the aspects of quality family life and spirituality which the women saw as critical.     

Managing from the Inside Out: Drawing on 'Receptivity' to Explain Variation in Strategy Implementation

With the rise of 'New Public Management' (NPM), government policy has encouraged public-sector organizations to downsize and outsource their services. There is, however, local variation in the use of outsourcing – this is 'managing from the inside out'. This paper draws on the notion of receptivity for organizational change to explain variation in strategy implementation. Four receptivity factors are identified which seem to explain the success of two contrasting English local government outsourcing strategies: ideological vision, leading change, institutional politics and implementation capacity. The organization level of change is interconnected with two other levels of change (the public service and environment levels) to illustrate the dynamic nature of change.     

Curating the Soul: Foucault's concept of hupomnemata and the digital technology of self-care

This paper explores how online actions such as the practice of digital self-writing shape our offline identity. We start with an examination of the concept of hupomnemata – a practice of self-writing in which notes are kept as a ‘material record of things read, heard, or thought’ in the intent of shaping the self [Foucault (1997). Self writing. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics, subjectivity and truth. The essential works of Foucault, 1954–1984. Volume 1 (pp. 207–222). New York, NY: The New Press p. 209] – before arguing that the practice of digital content curation can be understood as a modern-day variant of the Greco-Roman hupomnemata. Although the work of the digital curator is conducted online, this paper positions contemporary curatorial practices as acts of self-exploration, self-cultivation, and self-care, which nourish offline identity and which ultimately work to shape the offline, corporeal self.     

Leadership research and cognitive neuroscience: The state of this union

Advances in cognitive neuroscience and other approaches to understanding human behavior from a biological standpoint are only now beginning to filter into leadership research. The purpose of this introduction to the Leadership Quarterly Special Issue on the Biology of Leadership is to outline the organizational cognitive neuroscience approach to leadership research, and show how such an approach can fruitfully inform both leadership and neuroscientific research. Indeed, we advance the view that the further application of cognitive neuroscientific techniques to leadership research will pay great dividends in our understanding of effective leadership behaviors and as such, a future symbiosis between the two fields is a necessity.     

The Importance of Racial Socialization: School‐Based Racial Discrimination and Racial Identity Among African American Adolescent Boys and Girls

This study examined various parental racial socialization messages as mediators between school‐based racial discrimination and racial identity formation over 4 years for African American boys (N = 639) and African American girls (N = 711). Findings indicated that school‐based racial discrimination was associated with racial identity beliefs. For African American boys, behavioral racial socialization messages mediated the relation between school‐based racial discrimination and racial centrality over time. Mediation also resulted for African American girls, but for a different set of race‐related messages (negative messages and racial barriers) and racial identity beliefs. The developmental significance of the findings and implications for future research are discussed.     

Asking about the future: methodological insights from energy biographies

Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal (QLL) research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a QLL and multimodal approach to investigating how everyday energy use can be understood in relation to biographical pasts and imagined futures. In particular, we detail innovative techniques developed within the project (e.g. SMS photograph activities) to elicit data on anticipated futures, in ways that engender thinking about participants’ own biographical futures and wider societal changes. We conclude by considering some of the significant benefits and challenges such techniques present. These methodological insights have a wider relevance beyond the substantive topic for those interested in eliciting data about futures in qualitative research.