Financial journeys of Australian parents after separation – transitions into and out of poverty

It is well established that relationship separation has greater negative economic consequences for mothers than for fathers in Australia and other developed countries. While research has shown that, at an aggregate level, such negative impacts tend to diminish with time, the rate of change is generally slower for mothers than fathers, and a higher proportion of mothers than fathers continue to experience entrenched financial difficulties. Less is known about the variability of economic journeys experienced by women and men, taken separately, and factors influencing diverse economic trajectories. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Study of Separated Families (LSSF), which followed up a large sample parents at three post‐separation points, this article examines poverty rates across a 4‐year period, transitions into and out of poverty and factors affecting these pathways.     

‘I shouldn’t be living there because I am a sponger’: negotiating everyday geographies by people with learning disabilities

Learning disability policy has for some time been framed by the goal of inclusion which purports to enable people with learning disabilities to lead a ‘life like any other’ person. This article examines the extent to which this is the case in England, by tracing the lived experiences of people with learning disabilities within their communities. The article draws on two interlinked qualitative studies involving interviews that examined their local place-based experiences of inclusion and exclusion. The findings reveal ‘moments of inclusion’ and opportunities for social encounter from peer support, but these were situated amidst wider experiences of exclusion and harassment.     

Photographs of disasters. An ethnomethodological approach

The essay analyses the photographs produced and circulated during the March 2011 tsunami and earthquake disaster in Japan, which show destroyed buildings, flooded landscapes, desperate people. Disaster destroys existing order. On first sight, the photographs of disaster depict this dissolution of order. The empirical analysis shows that the disastrousness of disaster is (also) created through the pictures of the disasters. The paper discusses why and in what way certain pictures reveal themselves to be iconographic of disaster and how they enter the visual memory as its representative. To achieve this, the study will invoke ethnomethodology. At the centre of the analysis is the question of the particular means with which these images illustrate the destructive force of the disasters and how pictures showing destruction and pain (‘pictures of pain’) turn into pictures effecting pain in the viewer (‘painful pictures’). The empirical study demonstrates: the photographs show the destruction of order; however, they do this in an orderly manner.

for Jörg Bergmann’s 70th birthday     

Racial/Ethnic Minority Community College Students' Critical Consciousness and Social Cognitive Career Outcomes

A need exists to better understand how racial/ethnic minority students' critical consciousness development in response to marginalization may be involved in their educational and career development. We therefore examined the link between critical consciousness development and career decision self-efficacy and career outcome expectations among racial/ethnic minority community college students. Following social cognitive career theory's conceptual pillars, we developed a testable model integrating critical consciousness and social cognitive variables. This model was tested with 135 racially and ethnically diverse community college students. Data analysis included path analyses and tests of model fit using structural equation modeling. Results suggested that (a) higher critical agency is linked to higher career decision self-efficacy and outcome expectations and (b) critical action and reflection have a bidirectional link and predict higher critical agency. Implications for research and practice aiming to close educational and career gaps among racial/ethnic minorities are discussed.     

Towards a performative understanding of deservingness: Merit,gender and the BBC pay dispute

Drawing largely on a high‐profile case of unequal pay at the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) as an illustrative example, this conceptual article considers differences and interrelationships between merit and deservingness, where the latter captures how, through appropriate performances, merit is given recognition and value. We propose a performative understanding of deservingness that highlights its gendered and embodied dimensions. Informed by Judith Butler's account of gender performativity, we show that, while merit is conventionally conceptualized as a relatively fixed set of attributes (qualifications, skill) 'attached' to the individual, deservingness captures how, in gendered terms, value and recognition are both claimed and conferred. As we argue, a gendered, deserving subject does not pre‐exist but is performatively constituted through embodied practices and performances of what is seen as worthy in a particular time and place.     

Discourses of cultural heritage in times of crisis: The case of the Parthenon Marbles

The paper focuses on the commodification and politicisation of cultural heritage using as a case study the ongoing debate on the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the U.K. to Greece, recently reignited by the press release for the movie The Monuments Men in 2014. Greece has been in the throes of a severe financial crisis for over six years with the ever imminent threat of Grexit constantly disputed. In parallel with this ongoing turmoil, discourses of Greek antiquity have been persistently prominent in the media. In this context, we problematise the complex nexus of relationships between the financial crisis, national identity and cultural heritage. We combine the Discourse‐Historical Approach and Interactional Sociolinguistics drawing data from an online forum, and investigate how the users negotiate pro‐/anti‐return positions and make the financial crisis relevant in the argumentation process. The analysis shows that history, identity, value, and debt are recontextualised in relation to the Parthenon sculptures. The analysis identifies an underlying process of value trade off and brings the current political and economic environment to the fore. We close the paper by foregrounding the implications of our study and provide directions for further research.     

Illuminating the Phenomenological Challenges of Cross-Cultural Supervision

ABSTRACT

The authors discuss transference enactments that occur during cross-cultural supervision. Previous research has shown that few mental health professionals willingly talk about race during supervision and that White supervisees experience significant difficulty when directly engaged in discussions about race. They introduce a new phenomenon, “stereotypical” transference enactments, as a means for understanding the countertransference Black female clinical supervisors experience during clinical supervision of White supervisees. The findings indicated that effective cross-cultural supervision should address the intersectionality of race and gender to enhance the development of multicultural clinical skills. The clinical and educational challenges are discussed by using two case vignettes.     

Child learning and family mealtime environment,parenting style and family functioning among preschoolers in Hong Kong

A two-wave longitudinal study on 470 parent–child dyads examined the impact of family mealtime environment, parenting style and family functioning on preschoolers’ (three to six years old) learning. Measures included parent report on parenting style, family functioning, family meal frequency, mealtime television, feeding practice, teacher/parent report of academic competence and individual assessment of preschoolers’ preschool concepts. Family mealtime environment variables were associated with pre-schoolers’ learning, in addition to parenting style and family functioning, after controlling for family income and wave 1 preschoolers’ learning. The results highlighted the importance of family mealtime environment on preschoolers’ learning.     

Is diversity in capabilities desirable when adding decision makers?

When the benefit of making a correct decision is sufficiently high, even a slight increase in the probability of making such a decision justifies an increase in the number of decision makers. Applying a standard uncertain dichotomous choice benchmark setting, this study focuses on the relative desirability of two alternatives: adding individuals with capabilities identical to the existing ones and adding identical individuals with mean-preserving capabilities that depend on the states of nature. Our main result establishes that when the group applies the simple majority rule, variability in the capabilities of the new decision makers under the two states of nature, which is commonly observed in various decision-making settings, is less desirable in terms of the probability of making the correct decision.