‘Recovery’ after age 7 from ‘externalising’ behaviour problems: the role of risk and protective clusters

This study uses data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) to track behaviourally disturbed children at 7 through to adolescence in order to assess the extent to which clusters of protective factors can offset the negative effects of clusters of risk factors. Behavioural measures at ages 7, 11 and 16 from NCDS were used to identify children with ‘externalising’ behaviour problems. Children whose scores fell into the top 20% of Rutter ‘A’ scores at 7 but not at age 11 and 16 were deemed to have ‘recovered’. Controlling for gender, social class, family structure, parental mental health, domestic tension at age 7 and a cluster of protective factors in childhood (high reading skills at 11, father's interest in child's education at 16, good relations with parents at 16, good school attendance at 16), a cluster of risk factors present as the child grew up (clumsiness, social services involvement, family involvement with police/probation, family mobility at 7) was significantly associated with lack of recovery from behavioural problems. Although individual protective factors were significantly associated with recovery in the bivariate analysis, their power was not strong enough in the multivariate model to overcome the strength of the risk factors.     

Support for state opting out and stateless national identity in the Basque Country

Preferences for state opting out are thought of as being the expression of underpinning conflicts of states national identity, empirical evidence on its underlying behavioural processes is scarce. This paper draws upon evidence form the Basque Country to examine the support for a hypothetical opting out from the Spanish State in the light of a reformulation of [Ackerlof, G.A., Kranton, R.E., 2000. Economics and Identity. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115, 715–753]. We use representative survey data from the Spanish Institute of Sociological Research for the Basque Country. To adjust our empirical specification to the prevalent hypothesis we employ a recursive seemingly unrelated probit approach. Our results suggest evidence for a simultaneous and endogenous influence of national identity on political preferences for the opting out of the Basque Country from Spain. We find evidence consistent with an instrumental conception of identity as motivating preferences for nation-state opting out, and status quo bias.     

Risking the rural: nature, morality and the consumption of unpasteurised milk

The BSE crisis, concern over genetically modified foods, and E. coli and Salmonella food scares have prompted widespread public disquiet over food safety. For consumers, this has led to a demand for new ‘safer’ foods which are usually ‘local’, ‘natural’ and/or organic. Research into reactions to food risk has to a large degree focussed on this ‘quality turn’. In doing so, there is a danger of failing to fully problematise risk and providing a dualistic appreciation of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ natures, rather than exposing nature's fluid and multiple identities. Moreover, it suggests that consumers always attempt to minimise risk and do not challenge the need to change their behaviour. Instead, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from an English village, the paper uses a case study of unpasteurised milk to analyse why rural consumers continue to buy foods labelled by official scientific discourses as ‘risky’. The paper argues that food risks in rural areas are configured by a concern to protect a rural identity from one implicated in scientific discourses of safety. These identity-related definitions of risk are also constructed by various moral behaviours which are integral to the process of becoming rural. In particular, the paper shows that these moral behaviours include establishing relations with specific forms of nature, maintaining community relations and adopting rural knowledgeabilities which together configure food safety and define rural status.     

Crossing divides: Ethnicity and rurality

This paper draws on research with people from African, Caribbean and Asian backgrounds regarding perceptions and use of the English countryside. I explore the complex ways in which the category ‘rural’ was constructed as both essentialised and relational: how the countryside was understood most definitely as ‘not-city’ but also, at the same time, the English countryside was conceived as part of a range of networks: one site in a web of ‘nature places’ across the country, as well as one rural in an international chain of rurals – specifically via embodied and emotional connections with ‘nature’. I argue that alongside sensed/sensual embodiment (the non-representational intuitive work of the body), we need also to consider reflective embodiment as a desire to space/place in order to address the structural socio-spatial exclusions endemic in (rural) England and how they are challenged. I suggest that a more progressive conceptualisation of rurality – a ‘transrural’ open to issues of mobility and desire – can help us disrupt dominant notions of rural England as only an exclusionary white space, and reposition it as a site within multicultural, multiethnic, transnational and mobile social Imaginaries.     

Tamworth, Australia's ‘country music capital’: place marketing, rurality, and resident reactions

Since the 1970s, Tamworth has become well known as Australia's ‘country music capital’. Its annual Country and Western Music Festival has become the leading event of its type in Australia, attracting over 60,000 visitors every year. The festival, and country music more generally, have become central to the town's identity and tourism marketing strategies. This article discusses the social constructions that have surrounded Tamworth's transition to ‘country music capital’—of the ‘rural’, and of ‘country’—within the context of debates about the politics of place marketing. Textual analysis of promotional material and built landscapes reveals representations of rurality (or ‘senses of the rural’). In their most commercial form, representations of rurality converge on a dominant notion of ‘country’, quite different from the ‘countryside’ and ‘rural idyll’ in England. This dominant, or normative ‘country’ forms the basis of imagery for the festival, the Town's marketing strategy, and associated advertising campaigns by major sponsors. It is predominantly masculine, white, working class and nationalist. But links between musical style and discourses of place are complex. Colonial British histories, Celtic musical traditions and North American popular culture all inform ‘country’ in Tamworth, dissipating nationalist interpretations. Normative constructions also contrast with other, heterogeneous ruralities in Australia, that include the lived experiences of rural Australians, and on stage—in country music—where multiple ‘ruralised’ identities are performed. Even those who stand to benefit from place promotion have been uncertain about country music and ‘the country’, because of associated discourses of Tamworth as ‘hick’ and ‘redneck’. In the final section of the paper, reactions of residents to constructions of Tamworth as country music capital are discussed, via the results of a simple resident survey. In contrast to previous studies of the disempowering politics of place marketing, Tamworth residents were on the whole supportive of the new associations and images for the town, despite ‘hick’ connotations, as it has become a centre for ‘country’, and for country music. Reasons for this are explored, and resistances discussed. The result is a complex and entangled politics of national identity, gender, race and class, where meanings for place are variously interpreted and negotiated.     

A simple theory of ‘meso’. On the co-evolution of institutions and platform size—With an application to varieties of capitalism and ‘medium-sized’ countries

This paper deals with institutional emergence in the well-known ‘evolution of cooperation’ framework and focuses on its size dimension. It is argued that some ‘meso’ (rather than ‘macro’) level (to be numerically determined) is the proper level of cultural emergence, diffusion, and retention. Also Schumpeterian economists (K. Dopfer et al.) have discussed institutions as ‘meso’ phenomena, and Schelling, Axelrod, Arthur, Lindgren, and many others have dealt with ‘critical masses’ of coordinated agents, including related segregations of populations. However, the process and logic of emergent group size has rarely been explicitly explored so far. In this paper, ‘meso’ will be explained, in an evolutionary and game–theoretic frame and a population perspective, in terms of a cooperating group smaller than the whole population involved. Mechanisms such as memory, monitoring, reputation chains, and active partner selection will loosen the total connectivity of the deterministic ‘single-shot’ benchmark and thus allow for emergent ‘meso’-sized arenas, while expectations to meet a cooperative partner next round remain sufficiently high. Applications of ‘meso-nomia’ include the deep structure of ‘general trust’ and the surprisingly high macro-economic and macro-social performance in ‘small’ and ‘well-networked’ countries which helps to explain persistent ‘varieties of capitalism’. A strategy for empirical application of the theoretical approach and some first empirical indications of its relevance are presented.     

Frontier imaginings and subversive Indigenous spatialities

One of the most powerful and enduring aspects of publicly projected Anglo-Australian national identities is part of what [Howitt, R., 2001. Frontiers borders, edges: liminal challenges to the hegemony of exclusion. Australian Geographical Studies 39, 233–245.] has referred to as frontier imaginings: the carving out of the Australian physical and socio-cultural landscape into familiar, settled, and productive spaces. These frontier imaginaries have been leveraged to exact social control and ‘zealously order rural space’ [Philo, C., 1992. Neglected rural geographies: a review. Journal of Rural Studies 8, 193–207, 197]. Government policy has historically been imbued with frontier imaginaries, privileging population movements that are constructed as appropriately bounded, and disciplining those which are not. Much Indigenous mobility falls into the latter category. This paper tells a story of competing rationalities about the purpose and nature of rural ‘settlement’, both past and present, and the implications of these rationalities for contemporary Indigenous population dynamics. In so doing, it creates a discursive space for examining the cultural content and hidden assumptions in constructions of appropriate ‘settlement patterns’. Ultimately, it speaks of spatial struggles across the Australian geographical and temporal landscape. It also opens windows onto the fragile geographies of co-existence that need to be engaged with to shift the discourses of rural livelihood and well being toward discourses of accommodation, recognition and sustainable ways of being together.     

Measurement invariance matters: A case made for the ORTOFIN

In this paper, it is argued that the measurements of an underlying, latent variable cannot straightforwardly be used in group comparisons without testing whether the measurements relate to the latent variable in the same way for all groups. The procedure for testing this is discussed and is illustrated by assessing measurement invariance across groups with a different socio-economic status (SES) for the ORTOFIN, a scale measuring an individuals’ orientation toward finances [Loix, E., Pepermans, R., Mentens, C., Goedee, M., & Jegers, M. (2005). Orientation toward finances: Development of a measurement scale. The Journal of Behavioral Finance, 6, 192–201]. The results show that one factor of the ORTOFIN, i.e. ‘‘financial information”, is invariant across SES groups while ‘‘personal financial planning” lacks measurement invariance. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Managing disability and enjoying life: How we reframe dementia through personal narratives

Rhetoric referring to Alzheimer's disease as ‘the never ending funeral’ or ‘a slow unraveling of the self’ implies that diagnosed individuals and their families alike are victims of a dreaded disease. Data gathered from web-based surveys with twenty-seven individuals with dementia demonstrate how some persons living with the condition actively negotiate their everyday lives to counter such pejorative assumptions. Grounded theory methods were used to consolidate textual data into overarching themes. Findings depict persons with dementia who do not experience an inherent ‘loss of self’ but rather consciously strive to incorporate a ‘manageable disability’ into their existing identities. Respondents give numerous examples of how they can and do live with dementia. These data portray an empowered identity that suggests the need for a reframing of dementia to challenge the normative victim-orientation and the social disadvantages of such biomedical reductionism.     

Rural studies: Modernism, postmodernism and the ‘post-rural’

In response to Philo [(1992b), Neglected rural geographies: a review. Journal of Rural Studies8, 193–207), who calls for rural studies to take the study of ‘others’ more seriously, we argue the need to take postmodernism more seriously. The paper focuses upon the production of knowledge about rural areas by academics. In the narrative that we provide here, the ‘rural’ had a strong presence until Pahl's critique of the rural-urban continuum which both diminished the status of the rural and emphasised the role of class in shaping particular spaces. Newby and his colleagues applied class analysis to agriculture, likewise undermining the significance of the rural. Further applications of general social theory, such as the political economy and restructuring approaches, show how modernist rural studies seem to be fighting a losing battle to posit the indispensability of the significance of the urban-rural division as an explanation; articulating and rearticulating the divide within a whole range of processes: economic, social and cultural. Rural social scientists have woven this modernist narrative, but, as Philo shows, one effect has been the neglect of certain social groups, cultures and identities. However, in contrast to Philo, we argue that a rather fundamental reassessment of social scientific approaches to the rural is required if these ‘neglected others’ are to be satisfactorily considered. We believe a ‘sociology of postmodernism’ would offer a more reflexive perspective on the processes which give rise to ‘the rural’. We thus call for an end to the use of universal or global concepts such as ‘rural’ (or the ‘urban’) and for a concern with the way places are ‘made’. This will entail a focus on ‘power’ as certain actors impose ‘their’ rurality on others. We term this the study of the ‘post-rural’.     

The new squirearchy and emergent cultures of the new middle classes in rural areas

In part prompted by a recent spate of media reports this paper explores the emergence of a ‘new squirearchy’ in the English countryside. In doing so, it aims to both illuminate a particular facet of rural social life and help reignite interest in the cultures of rural class. Whilst relationships between rural class and culture were a source of excitement during the 1990s, much of this interest has apparently spluttered if not died, despite class itself remaining very much a live issue for rural dwellers. The paper draws on the findings of an in-depth ethnographic study to highlight the significance of performance and symbolic boundary-marking in the construction and reproduction of social identity. The focus is the activities and sites of ‘the pub’, ‘the hunt’ and ‘the shoot’, which have been key in the emergence of the new squirearchy in the study area. The paper shows the importance of lay classifications based on evaluations of cultural (in)competence and morality, and suggests that the performance and boundary-marking of the new squirearchy in tandem with other identities is evidence of a more extensive, complex and ambiguous ‘culture of middle-classness’ in rural areas.     

A theory of age exclusion through closure: ‘Chronological age’ to ‘clinical need’

In an approach, I term ‘age exclusion through closure,’ I describe the exclusion of older people, from the workforce, and from hospital-based continuing care in Britain. Nineteenth century socioeconomic changes—the introduction of workplace technology, social surveys, the New Poor Law, and workhouse isolation, culminated in workforce exclusion on the grounds of chronological age. In the 20th century, the Poor Law ‘therapy’/‘succour’ divide, was recast in the Welfare State ‘health’/‘social care’ divide. Socioeconomic changes—the rising cost of health care, demographic change, the development of geriatric medicine, and economic restructuring, have served to allocatively ration ‘continuing care’ at this interface through the criteria of ‘clinical need.’ To conclude, age has become forged to clinical need, to become a formidable force of exclusion and exploitation perpetuating Poor Law closure between those ‘able’ and ‘unable’ to work, and creating a consequent ‘process of subordination’ within Welfare State capitalism.     

Constituents’ economic interests and senator support for spending limitations

Peltzman [Peltzman, S., 1984. Constituent interest and congressional voting. Journal of Law and Economics 27, 181–210] argues that if constituents’ economic interests have well-defined “winners and losers” and are appropriately measured, then constituents’ economic interests, and not legislator ideology, are the most important determinates of legislator voting. We test Peltzman's theory by examining senatorial voting on three mandated spending limitation bills. We find, consistent with Peltzman's theory, that the ratio of federal spending in a senator's state to federal taxes paid by that state, and not a senator's personal ideology, matters on legislation where there are well-defined economic “winners and losers.” This is particularly important because unlike other constituents’ economic interest measures that only impact a fraction of the constituency, the ratio of federal spending to federal taxes in a state represents the economic interests of all the constituents in a state.     

There's more to the picture than meets the eye: Measuring tangible and intangible capital in two marginal communities in rural Denmark

A missing link in economics has been what Veblen in 1908 termed intangible capital. This includes common norms, trust and high levels of cooperative performance. Intangibles are invisible to the eye and not easily measured in quantitative terms. They nevertheless involve visible, socioeconomic outcomes and should therefore rightly be seen as productive, like tangibles. Thus, uneven levels of intangible capital would explain Differential Economic Performance (DEP) between, say, two firms containing exactly the same stock of physical, economic and human capital. Despite this common sense observation, most economists have failed to see that ‘there's more to the picture than meets the eye’, as Neil Young once sang. We use statistical, historical and fieldwork data from two Danish, marginal rural communities both rich on intangible capital. This to show how intangible capital in the form of social, organisational and cultural capital is accumulated and utilised in situ, at the microlevel. We suggest that the difference between these two, very similar communities should be explained in their varying ability to utilise local stocks of tangible and intangible capital. Drawing on seminal ideas from Bourdieu [The forms of capital. In: Richardson, J.G. (Ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Greenwood Press, New York, Westport, CT and London, 1986, pp. 241–58] and the DORA project [Bryden, Differential economic performance in rural areas. In: International Conference on Rural Communities and Identities in the Global Millennium. Malpasino University College, Nainamo, BC, Canada, 2000], we want to develop a ‘total capital’ assessment tool for mapping and measuring socioeconomic development in marginal rural communities. In this way, we hope to count in ‘all’ capital as Schultz [Investment in human capital. In: Kiker, B.F. (Ed.) Investment in Human Capital. Columbia, 1971, pp. 3–21] prophesised. This in order to explain what we term Differential Local Development (DLD), where ‘good’, sustainable development is associated with high economic performance and increase in population.     

Just-in-space: Certified rural products, labor of quality, and regulatory spaces

Since the mid-1990s, the number and diversity of ‘quality-certified’ products has increased dramatically. This article examines labor practices and regulatory spaces within 3rd party quality certification and suggests that this distinct configuration be termed ‘just-in-space’ production. A privileging of space derives, on the one hand, from the character of qualities certified. ‘Extrinsic’ qualities, such as biodiversity conservation or fair-trade labor practices, may only be introduced into the commodity through monitoring of labor at the point of production and along the commodity chain to retailer venues. This monitoring, accomplished via inspections and document production on a track that parallels the commodity movement, occurs within a semi-public space and results in an uneasy tension between a social interest in open inspections of ecological and socially-just production and retailer interest in controlling certification information about ‘green’ products. At the same time, transnational institutional regulation of certification (e.g., ISO), together with popular support for quality certification, limits the power of retailers and activists to alter certification practices and sustains the semi-public character of this space. Using a literature review and research on certified organic coffee, this paper examines practical and theoretical implications of just-in-space production, and concludes that while this configuration facilitates public action in support of social-justice and environmental conservation, it is also susceptible to manipulation by large retail firms that chose to evade 3rd party certification by setting up private certifications.     

Resilience in parenting among young mothers: Family and ecological risks and opportunities

The present study used a person-centered approach to examine resilience in parenting among a sample of young mothers (under age 21 at childbirth). Resilient functioning as a parent was defined as the lack of perpetration of child maltreatment (substantiated reports of child abuse and neglect) in the context of risk. Risk factors were assessed at multiple levels, including family (e.g., negative childhood histories in family of origin) and ecological (e.g., neighborhood poverty, mother's financial stress) levels. Analyses revealed a group of mothers who demonstrated resilience in parenting despite a context of substantial risks from their childhood histories (e.g., negative family relationships) and current ecologies (e.g., economic and neighborhood conditions). Mothers in the resilient group were less likely to a) live with their families of origin, and b) to rely on their own mothers as sources of emotional or caregiving support. Data also indicated that young mothers' resilient functioning as parents was associated with higher rates of depressive symptoms among these mothers, perhaps suggesting a “cost” or limit to resilient parenting functioning in young mothers. Results are discussed in a resilience framework.     

Investigations of the british rural middle classes — Part 1: From legislation to interpretation

This is the first of two papers concerned with understanding the causes and consequences of middle class presence in rural areas. This paper explores debates over the future of class analysis and in particular whether it is possible to avoid a dualistic choice between a ‘modernist class analysis’ or a ‘postmodernism’ where class has completely receded from view. Attention is drawn to notions of an ‘interpretative approach’ to class, which while accepting many of the claims of postmodernism still sees value in the notion of class and in conducting class analysis. Drawing on a number of recent discussions of class within and beyond rural studies it is argued that class analysis should be seen as an ‘interpretative accomplishment’ and that attention needs to be paid within it to at least four issues: (i) the processes of knowledge construction and communication; (ii) differences in conceptualisations of power and related concepts such as domination and exploitation; (iii) differences within the processes of class formation; and (iv) the impact of identity recognition on class analysis, class relations and classes practices. In a later paper these issues will be explored in a more substantive manner through consideration of some of the results of research conducted in five locations in rural Britain.     

Parenting a child with Autism Spectrum disorder: parental work context

This research contributes to the literature on work-related factors for parents raising a child with a disability. Specifically, we used questionnaire methodology to compare two parent families raising a child with Autism Spectrum (AS) with similar families raising ‘typical’ children. Our findings suggested that parents raising a child with AS self-report higher parenting stress and more mental health symptomatology, as well as lower overall job satisfaction, less satisfaction with supervisors and less workplace contentment. In addition, our findings suggested that parents raising a child with a disability self-report similarly to parents raising ‘typical’ children with respect to work interest, commitment and quality, as well as time missed. In conclusion, our results appear to suggested that despite increased parental stress related to parenting a child with AS, with respect to several work-related factors, there are more similarities than differences among these parenting groups.     

Re-discovering the social: neo-liberalism and hybrid practices of governing in rural natural resource management

Since the 1980s, natural resource management (NRM) in rural Australia has been underpinned by rationalities and technologies of governing that constitute agricultural landscapes and resource managers in economically rational terms. While it is tempting to interpret these forms of regulation as part of a broad shift away from social forms of governing, this paper argues that ‘the social’ remains of crucial significance in understanding how both natural environments and the capacities of individuals to manage these environments are constructed. Drawing upon recent work in the Foucauldian-inspired literature on governmentality and, in particular, Stenson and Watt's (Urban Studies 36(1) (1999) 189–201) concept of hybrid governance, this paper examines how particular representations of ‘the social’ are assembled through strategies of NRM. Using the National Landcare Program (NLP) and Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) as examples, we consider how ‘social’ data is being incorporated into resource management strategies, and how this re-shapes both ‘the social’ and NRM as domains of governance. While the NLP and NHT incorporate concerns about social responsibility, they define these in terms of the capacity of individuals to respond to changing economic circumstances. This effectively defines land managers as socially and ecologically responsible only to the extent that they have the managerial capacities to pursue economically ‘rational’ practices. In concluding, we argue that hybrid practices of governing are indeed evident in NRM in Australia and that the concept of ‘hybrid governance’ requires further attention in understanding how rural spaces are made knowable and shaped as objects of knowledge.