How did we get here? The career paths of higher education fundraisers

University‐based fundraisers have career paths that are unique in that most do not come to their careers through traditional training programs that are available to other professions, which may impact their expectations of and experiences in their work. Using the conceptual framework of person‐in‐environment fit, this study uses qualitative data from semistructured interviews of 44 higher education fundraisers to understand factors influencing their career trajectories. While formal educational backgrounds do not necessarily provide specific skills necessary for a fundraising career, findings show that many rely on on‐the‐job training, which was at times inadequate. Findings also counter common reports of fundraisers as “falling into the profession” when choosing to join the fundraising field and demonstrate how organizational factors can influence recruitment and retention.     

How early is early intervention and who should get it? Contested meanings in determining thresholds for intervention

The latest wave of reforms of the child protection system in Australia have been based on attempts to provide support to all families with vulnerable children, rather than increasing surveillance of ‘at risk’ families and forensic responses to incidents of maltreatment. This includes a drive to widen the remit of child protection from the statutory child protection agency and involve other government agencies such as health and education as well as the non-government sector in child protection. This paper reports on the effects of one such reform, the NSW initiative Keep Them Safe. It focuses on the classification of families as needing either early intervention or intensive support, using thematic analysis of qualitative interview data.MethodInterviews and focus groups were conducted with practitioners and managers from human service agencies (total n = 115), and discussed their perceptions of the initiative and the changes it had introduced to service delivery.FindingsPractitioners discussed family needs in ways which contested the policy meanings of ‘early intervention’: whether families are conceptualised in terms of their needs or risk; whether engagement with services should be voluntary or mandated; and whether the agencies to support them should be the statutory agency or an NGO. The implications for these tensions, in terms of policy and practice, are discussed.     

Who is fighting with whom? How ethnic origin shapes friendship,dislike, and physical violence relations in German secondary schools

This study examines the role of ethnic background for friendship, dislike, and violence networks in secondary school. We analyze data on multiple networks from a large-scale study of more than 2500 seventh-graders in Germany. In addition to ethnic homophily in friendship networks, our results reveal a tendency among students to dislike ethnic outgroup members (ethnic heterophobia). However, students are more likely to engage in violence towards same-ethnic peers than outgroup members. This is partly due to the greater prevalence of violence among students who are close in the friendship network and students who spend time together outside of school. Moreover, schools marked by stronger ethnic homophily in friendships tend to display higher levels of ethnic heterophobia but exhibit higher levels of intra-ethnic rather than inter-ethnic violence.Keywords: Ethnic homophily; Violence; School networks; Multiplex networks; Exponential random graph models; Bullying     

Who should be considered ‘Indigenous’? A survey of ethnic groups in northern Thailand

On 22 May 2014, the Thai military conducted a coup d’état and discarded the previous constitution. In April 2015, a new draft constitution was prepared. Although eventually rejected by the military, it represented an exciting moment for activists, as it recognized the existence of ‘indigenous peoples’ (referred to as chon pheun muang in the draft). This prompted us to conduct interviews in 2015–2016 with people belonging to four different ethnic groups and living mainly in Chiang Mai province, northern Thailand: the Lua, Khon Muang, Hmong, and Lisu, in order to determine their understandings of who should be considered ‘indigenous peoples’, and what rights should they have. The findings indicate that there is considerable variation amongst people regarding the meaning of the term ‘indigenous peoples’; who should be considered indigenous; and what rights those defined as being indigenous should be entitled to.     

Active parental consent in school-based research: how much is enough and how do we get it?

Active parental consent policies have been blamed for low participation rates and selection bias (i.e., loss of "high-risk" youths) in school-based studies. In this article, the authors describe active consent procedures that produced an overall active consent rate of 79% in a sample of more than 4,500 middle school students attending 29 schools in seven cities across the United States. Consent rates, however, varied considerably both within and between schools. To better understand factors associated with active parental consent rates, the authors examined district-level, school-level, and teacher-specific effects on consent rates.     

Who is bullying whom in ethnically diverse primary schools? Exploring links between bullying,ethnicity, and ethnic diversity in Dutch primary schools

This study investigated associations between ethnicity, ethnic diversity, and bullying among 739 pupils enrolled in their last year of primary school. Hypotheses derived from social misfit and inter-ethnic relations theories were tested using the multilevel p₂ model. Our key findings were: (1) inter- and intra-ethnic bullying are just as common in ethnically heterogeneous as in homogeneous classes; (2) pupils belonging to the Turkish and Moroccan minority groups bully significantly more than native Dutch (in particular according to victims); the chance to be victimized does not depend on the ethnic background of the pupil; (3) the prevalence of inter- and intra-ethnic bullying depends on the level of ethnic diversity in the class; inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic bullying increase with increasing levels of ethnic diversity.     

How is participation related to well-being of homeless people? An explorative qualitative study in a Dutch homeless shelter facility

The majority of homeless people is socially excluded which negatively affects their well-being. Therefore, participation-based programs are needed. The current research is conducted within a Dutch homeless shelter facility that offers educational, recreational, and labor activities to clients in an environment which is designed to feel safe (an enabling niche). The main aim of these activities is to facilitate social participation. We conducted two qualitative studies consisting of 16 semi-structured interviews, to explore clients’ experiences with participation in activities in relation to their well-being. The findings showed that clients experienced that participation had led to an improvement of physical, social, and mental well-being. In general, clients reported that due to participation in activities they have strengthened their social support network, improved their (mental and physical) health, self-esteem and personal growth. We concluded that in order to facilitate long-term positive outcomes of participation in practice, it is necessary to focus on group cohesion, and on the social worker’s behavior and attitude.     

Who do you think they were? How family historians make sense of social position and inequality in the past

How do social comparisons over time shape perceptions of inequality? In thinking about subjective inequality, it is important to ask which social comparisons matter in establishing people's sense of relative social position and wider inequalities. These issues are discussed by drawing on a qualitative study of popular genealogy, which examines how people make sense of social position in the past, and explores how social change affects people's sense of social hierarchies. The gaze of family history promotes certain sorts of social comparisons, between ‘then and now’, and between immediate kin, which can flatten the sense of social hierarchies. However, the ability to determine social position also depends on the quality of information available, and how different practical engagements facilitate ‘sideways’ comparisons between contemporaries, affording different fields of vision on relative inequalities. On this evidence, when exploring subjective inequality it is necessary to examine when and how people engage in social comparison as part of everyday practical activities.     

The development of education indicators for measuring quality in the English-speaking Caribbean: How far have we come?

Education evaluation has become increasingly important in the English-speaking Caribbean. This has been in response to assessing the progress of four regional initiatives aimed at improving the equity, efficiency, and quality of education. Both special interest groups and local evaluators have been responsible for assessing the progress of education and providing an overall synthesis and summary of what is taking place in the English-speaking Caribbean. This study employed content analysis to examine the indicators used in these education evaluation studies since the declaration of the Caribbean Plan of Action 2000–2015 to determine these indicators’ appropriateness to the Caribbean context in measuring education progress. Findings demonstrate that the English-speaking Caribbean has made strides in operationalizing quality input, process, and output indicators; however quality outcome indicators beyond test scores are yet to be realized in a systematic manner. This study also compared the types of collaborative partnerships in conducting evaluation studies used by special interest groups and local evaluators and pinpointed the one that appears most suitable for special interest groups in this region.     

Advice given to women undergoing gynaecological surgery in relation to menopause, symptoms and hormone replacement therapy: could and should we improve the service we provide?

A retrospective case-note study was undertaken to look at recorded details relating to information/advice given to women prior to or at the time of their gynaecological surgery with regard to possible effects of menopause/menopausal symptoms or advice given about hormone replacement therapy.     

“Who else is gonna do it if we don't?” Gender,education, and the crisis of care in the 2018 West Virginia teachers' strike

In 2018, a sequence of powerful education strikes and work stoppages across the United States sent shock waves through the country's public education system. This eruption of collective workers' organization was strongly led by women teachers responding to the current crisis of care, demanding resources, dignity, and justice for themselves, the children they teach, and their communities. While mainstream reports often represent these actions as traditional labor and/or feminist struggles, our research demonstrates that they were sites of more nuanced response to “care extraction” in education, and for understanding how constructions of gender and gender injustice both gave rise to the strikes and shaped their unfolding. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 10 teacher-activists who participated in the West Virginia strikes, we examine how teachers' labor is being transformed in a context of postindustrial austerity, illustrate the complex political identity of the strike actions, and explore the relationship between specific constructions of gendered labor and collective organizing in US public education today.