Young People as Co‐producers in Policing across England. An Evaluation of the ‘Youth Commission’ on Police and Crime

This paper discusses a recent study on three ‘Youth Commission’ on police and crime projects. Professional viewpoints were interpreted to understand how they valued young people's participation and made sense of their experiences and capabilities. Framed within policing reforms, the ‘Youth Commission’ projects regard young people as co‐producers, who work in partnership with professionals to address police and crime issues. The focus is upon professionals and their relationships with young people for transformative participation and social outcomes. Working in partnerships showed interdependency but identifies further challenges if professionals do not truly value young people's participation.     

Carnivalesque activism as a public relations genre: A case study of the New Zealand group Mothers Against Genetic Engineering

This paper argues that carnivalesque protest comprises a particular genre of activist public relations which articulates conflict with, and resistance to, dominant discourses on controversial issues. A case study of the New Zealand group Mothers Against Genetic Engineering illustrates how the carnivalesque, by promoting community relationships and influencing public opinion through values of affect, can open up new spaces for public dialogue about social issues. It is argued that carnivalesque protest challenges the notion that collaboration should be a core professional value of public relations practice.     

‘When you're boxing you don't think so much’: pugilism,transitional masculinities and criminal desistance among young Danish gang members

This paper draws upon international research evidence that suggests a relationship between protest masculinity and the manifestation of violent crime among young males, and that criminal desistance may be linked to (inter-) subjective processes such as the reconstruction of masculine identity. The paper considers the potential that pugilism (the art and practice of boxing) may have on enabling young, disadvantaged minority male gang members to find avenues for alternative identity construction and to gain transitional experiences which trigger self-confessed desistance actions. Drawing upon an ethnographic study conducted in a boxing rehabilitation centre on the outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark, the paper reports on data gleaned from participant observation and qualitative interviews with 22 ethnic minority young men. Findings suggest that the masculine context within the rehabilitation programme provided the young men with a safe space to perform broader versions of locally dominated views on masculinity and to reflect on their current situations and dilemmas. The young men were clearly in transition and their desistance journeys were characterized by hope and ambition but also disappointment and despair. In some cases it appeared that the young men's dogged attempts to desist from crime became a new way for them to ‘do masculinity’. The authors draw upon the findings to make recommendations for policy, practice and research.     

Fear of crime among vulnerable populations: Homeless women

Are the factors associated with the fear of crime in the general population the same as those operating with especially vulnerable subgroups? If not, how and why are they different? Previous studies concerning the fear of crime have identified certain vulnerability factors as being associated with higher levels of fear. These include, for instance, being female, living in certain ghetto areas, and being elderly. Because many of these studies focused upon fear in the general population, however, they assumed a certain homogeneity of fear, whether it be among women, among the elderly, among Blacks, etc. They failed to make distinctions based upon relative degrees of vulnerability. They also generally neglected the notion of fear management—of coping. This research addresses these concerns. Two hundred homeless women (defined here as homeless adult females living on the streets), were interviewed in New York City. Among other things, they were asked about their crime risks and their crime fears. Results indicate that fear of crime is higher among those street women who have suffered past victimization. It is also slightly higher among those who perceived themselves to be more vulnerable. Perhaps most interesting is the finding that there is only a low correlation between self-perceived vulnerability to victimization and the fear of crime. This supports the proposition that these are two distinctive concepts; and, most importantly, it does so in the context of a particularly vulnerable population. Possible explanations of a seemingly paradoxical situation, namely high vulnerability existing side by side with a low fear of crime, are explored and discussed.     

Young People Leaving Care: Participatory Research to Improve Child Welfare Practices and the Rights of Children and Young People

Abstract

This paper discusses participatory research with young people who are leaving public care in Finland to begin independent lives. The aim of the research, organised by SOS Children's Villages International, was to bring about change in alternative care arrangements, particularly those involving young people's transition to independence. The project used a participatory research design based on employing care-leaving peers as co-researchers. This paper adheres to the methodological principles of empowerment in analysing the personal experiences of young people leaving alternative care with the goal of informing good practice. The findings suggest that the peer research method can be an effective means of empowering young people to develop research skills and to be involved in knowledge production, as well as serving as a means of promoting improved services for “care-leavers”, those young people who are leaving either foster care or institutional care. The participatory and peer research method challenges the traditional understandings of expertise and knowledge production. Although the hierarchy between adult researchers and young people as co-researchers is still evident, the method provides possibilities for better understanding the social- and health-service systems and their challenges and pitfalls from a user's perspective.     

Fear of Crime and Collective Action: An Analysis of Coping Strategies

Recent research addressing fear of crime largely concerns the causes of that fear; this article expands our understanding of fear of crime by examining whether people cope with their fear individually or collectively. Our guiding questions were two: Do coping strategies differ by those individual-level characteristics established in the fear-of-crime literature? And do strategies differ based upon conceptually distinct types of fear? This research, based on a 1995 telephone survey of a random sample of New Orleans residents, suggests that the answer to both questions is yes. Commodified, individual-level precautionary techniques are explained primarily by characteristics that reflect differential abilities to pay for such precautions. Conversely, collective-level coping strategies are predicted primarily by degree of affective fear based on emotional reactions, regardless of actual levels of victimization.     

What's Wrong with Being Poor? The Problems of Poverty,as Young People Describe them

This article explores how young people living in low‐income neighbourhoods problematise their own lives, using data generated as part of a participatory policy project with five groups of young people, aged 11–21. Three common problems were identified; housing, education and crime, as well as one common silence around their own agency. This silence is perhaps substituted by a focus on collective agency and politics, suggesting that perhaps young people can see poverty as a more collective problem than previous research may highlight.     

Narratives of Crime and Criminals: How Places Socially Construct the Crime Problem1

A common narrative about crime in the contemporary United States is that offenders are primarily young black men living in poor urban neighborhoods committing violent and drug‐related crimes. There is also a local context to community, crime, and fear that influences this narrative. In this article, I address how narratives of crime and criminals play out differently within particular places. The article is based on participant observation and interviews conducted in two high‐crime Boston‐area communities. Although both communities are concerned with stereotypical offenders, there are differential community constructions of crime, formed through interactions between crime narratives and place identities. In one, crime is a community problem, in which both offenders and victims are community members. In the other, outsiders commit crime against community members. Media portrayals of crime and community, community race and class identities, and concerns over neighborhood change all contribute to place‐specific framing of “the crime problem.” These frames, in turn, shape both intergroup dynamics and support for criminal justice policy.     

Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs and perspectives on incorporating culture in EFL classes

ABSTRACT

Researcher and teacher beliefs towards culture and teaching culture have changed over the last decade. Nowadays, the main objective of language teachers has shifted from teaching communicative competence to intercultural communicative competence. The purpose of this study was to investigate the beliefs and perspectives of a number of Iranian EFL teachers towards incorporating culture teaching into their classrooms. More specifically, the study strived to reveal what Iranian EFL teachers thought about the concept of culture, what cultural information they focused on in their classes, and what obstacles they believed should be removed in order to allocate more time to culture teaching in their classes. The non-random purposive sampling method was used to select the participants for this study. A total number of 10 Iranian EFL teachers with a PhD degree in Applied Linguistics participated in this study. Data were collected through a semi-structured interview and a closed-ended questionnaire based on a 5-point scale. The main finding of this study indicated that even though the Iranian EFL teachers favoured including cultural information in their classes, a number of obstacles prevented them from teaching culture in their English classes. Implications for further study have been provided in the article.     

Nonviolent youth in a violent society: resilience and vulnerability in the country of Colombia

Despite the ample literature on crime and violence, little research has been done outside English-speaking developed countries. Colombia has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. In order to identify individual factors related to resilience and vulnerability for violence and offending behavior in Colombia, we explored the life histories of 46 young men from high-risk families and compared those who had committed an offense to those who did not (resilient). The findings show that resilient men (compared to offenders) in Colombia have been less exposed to serious life stress, perceive stronger support from their families, narrate their past histories with greater detail and affect, and perceive greater degrees of control and coherence in their lives. The results are consistent with the existing literature and are interpreted within the framework of attachment theory.     

The Sliding Scale of Snitching: A Qualitative Examination of Snitching in Three Philadelphia Communities

We conducted an in‐depth interview study with 77 young men in three moderate to high‐crime neighborhoods in Philadelphia to hear their stories about community violence and relations with police. In this article, we have analyzed how Latino, African‐American, and white young men experience policing and how they discuss the guidelines around cooperation with the police and what they view as snitching. Contrary to popular perception, talking to the police is not always banned in poor or high‐crime neighborhoods. Instead, the respondents present a variety of personal rules that they use to assess when cooperation is called for. We argue that the policing they experience within disadvantaged neighborhoods shapes their frame of legal cynicism, which in turn makes decisions not to cooperate with the police more likely.     

Life Experiences and Vulnerabilities of Homeless Women: A Comparison of Women Unaccompanied Versus Accompanied by Minor Children, and Correlates with Children's Emotional Distress

The histories and service needs of 2 groups of homeless women, those unaccompanied by minor children (n = 46) and those accompanied by minor children (n = 22), were compared, on the basis of their responses to a biennial survey of homeless people in a midsize city in the southeast United States. Mothers of children aged 2–10 also completed a measure of stress symptoms for their children (n = 20). Irrespective of family status group, problems such as substance abuse, history of mental illness, health problems, chronicity of homelessness, and crime victimization tended to cluster together. The findings also suggest that declining and/or inadequate levels of public benefits, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and Medicaid-funded health care in particular, have adversely affected the 2 groups, particularly families with children. The young children in this sample experienced elevated levels of stress, and significant associations were found between children's stress levels and certain risk factors of their mothers. Implications for service delivery are discussed.     

Life Experiences and Vulnerabilities of Homeless Women: A Comparison of Women Unaccompanied Versus Accompanied by Minor Children,and Correlates With Children’s Emotional Distress

The histories and service needs of 2 groups of homeless women, those unaccompanied by minor children (n = 46) and those accompanied by minor children (n = 22), were compared, on the basis of their responses to a biennial survey of homeless people in a midsize city in the southeast United States. Mothers of children aged 2-10 also completed a measure of stress symptoms for their children (n = 20). Irrespective offamily status group, problems such as substance abuse, history ofmental illness, health problems, chronicity of homelessness, and crime victimization tended to cluster together. The findings also suggest that declining and/or inadequate levels ofpublic benefits, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and Medicaid-funded health care in particular, have adversely affected the 2 groups, particularly families with children. The young children in this sample experienced elevated levels ofstress, and significant associations were found between children’s stress levels and certain riskfactors oftheir mothers. Implications for service delivery are discussed.     

Inequality,Unemployment and Crime: A Cross-National Analysis*

In order to contribute to the development of an international perspective on crime and to examine a central tenet similar to many theoretical perspectives on the etiology of crime, cross-national data on inequality, unemployment, and crime rates were analyzed. It was hypothesized that nations having a high rate of unemployment and an inequitable distribution of income would have a high crime rate. The results of the correlational analyses indicate a moderate positive relationship between the rate of unemployment and homicide rates, whereas there are small negative relationships between unemployment rates and (1) the rates of property crime, and (2) the total crime rates. The variable of inequality is strongly related to the three indices of crime and the directions of the relationships are consistent with those involving unemployment rates. The results were further investigated to examine the possibility that the observed relationships were due to the effects of industrialization. The direction of the zero-order correlations involving property crime rates and total crime rates are not changed in the partial correlations and the strength of the relationships are not consistently reduced. These results are discussed in reference to their implications for criminological theory and the development of a comparative criminology.     

Hamjensgara belongs to family; exclusion and inclusion of male homosexuality in relation to family structure in Iran

This paper looks at current struggles of Iranian gay men to form new sexual identities that are directly tied to family structure and based on values of emotional bond and commitment to a same-sex partner. Based on fieldwork conducted among Iranian gay men in 2012–2014 and through looking at Iranian gay men’s terminologies, Hamjensgara and Gay in particular, I will clarify how Iranian gays, in a way different from that of Western LGBT activists, are trying to portray a positive image of their sexuality in relation to local family standards so they can be integrated into the Iranian family structure, which is the central space of regulating identities in Iran.     

Reflections of older Iranian women: Adapting to life in the United States

Age is an important and often overlooked attribute that influences adjustment to a new cultural context. This paper focuses on the ways in which older Iranian women, who spent their youth and middle adult years in Iran, have adapted to life in the United States. The results are based on extensive interviews with 19 Iranian women over the age of 65 (age range was 65 to 85). Although the majority of women interviewed expressed positive feelings about themselves and a sense of satisfaction with the transitions in their lives, considerable individual differences were identified. These differences focused primarily on the ways in which they attempted to adapt or cope with the new cultural environment in which they were living. Analysis resulted in the identification of three general strategies of adaptation to immigration. These strategies were labeled as withdrawn, insular, and assimilative.     

Amazonian Native Youths and Notions of Indigeneity in Urban Areas

The indigenous presence in urban areas of Amazonia has become more visible as Indian populations have negotiated their own spaces and acted in new contexts previously reserved for the dominant society. This article looks at ways in which today's young Indians in an urban area define and interpret their new cultural and social situations, drawing from research conducted with Apurinã, Cashinahua and Manchineri youths in Rio Branco, a city in Acre state, Western Brazil. These young people occupy a variety of “native” and “non-native” habituses and develop their notions of indigeneity within complex social networks as part of their strategy for rupturing the otherness associated with indigeneity. The text contributes to the discussion on the theory of practice and identity politics, as well as embodiment. Young Indians in urban Amazonia constitute their agencies in multiple ways and use various embodiments based in the practices and knowledge of their native groups and those of urban national and global society. The young natives break with the image of Lowland South American Indians as peoples uncontaminated by urban influences and help promote new interactions between native populations in the reserve and the city.     

Paving the Way for A Normal Life: A Qualitative Study of Coping Strategies Among Iranian Divorced Women

Regarding the devastating aftermath of divorce among Iranian divorced women, which is mainly affected by sociocultural factors, this qualitative study was conducted to explore their applied strategies in reorganizing their lives. Data collection started through deep unstructured interviews followed by semistructured interviews with 18 divorced women who were chosen by purposive sampling from mental health clinics, social work centers, or available cases. Gathered data were analyzed using the qualitative content analysis method. Two main themes—behaviors of self-preservation and abstinence and struggling for balance—emerged. Subcategories were concealing the divorce, feminine self-restriction, avoidance behaviors, replacement of losses, seeking support, role development, handling the tensions, and defending oneself against the divorce failure. This study provides comprehensive knowledge of how Iranian divorced women reregulate their lives and also highlights their unique and culture-based coping strategies. Therefore, it provides specialists with a context-specific foundation for mental health care and enables them to intervene more effectively.     

The experiences of youth serving as caregivers for mentally ill parents: a background review of the literature

Young caregivers of mentally ill parents are a vulnerable population. These vulnerabilities include risks for developmental issues, poor socialization, and poor school performance. The purpose of this background review of the literature is to explore the experiences of young caregivers of mentally ill parents and detect the gaps in the literature. The guiding research questions were: What is the experience of young caregivers of mentally ill parents? and What is the experience for those who witness or must assist their parent during a crisis? The majority of research has been conducted outside the United States, primarily in the United Kingdom, and studies have focused mostly on young caregivers of parents with physical rather than mental illness. No studies focused on young caregivers who witnessed or assisted their mentally ill parent in crisis. Information gained through this review will add to the body of knowledge for child mental health and build a case for additional research.     

Engage In or Refrain From? A Qualitative Exploration of Premarital Sexual Relations Among Female College Students in Tehran

This study explored the factors that educated young Iranian women consider when they decide whether to have premarital sex. Using a purposive sampling method, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted with female college students in both government and private universities in Tehran in 2005–2006. The respondents included unmarried women who had experienced sexual relations, unmarried women who had abstained, and married women. Young women’s considerations for premarital sex included (1) marriage meaning and motivations; (2) compliance with family values and expectations; (3) perceived gender and social norms of premarital sex; (4) importance of religiosity; and (5) sexual knowledge and self-efficacy. Marriage meaning and motivation seem to be the central pillar in the complex decision to engage in or refrain from premarital sex among female college students. These considerations have theoretical implications for understanding premarital relationships and sex in a conservative setting. Finally, some shifts are occurring in the meaning of marriage and sexual mores among educated young women in Iran; these changes are discussed.