Deaf Families’ Unique Experiences and Obstacles

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on deaf children of deaf parents who grew up using American Sign Language (ASL) in deaf culture. Deaf children of deaf parents described their unique experiences of struggling with obstacles, including quality of education, low expectations from professionals, unwanted sympathy, mental health therapists’ lack of cultural competency, and not being asked for valuable perspectives or advice. The advice from deaf children of deaf parents is included in the article. By bringing greater attention to this population, mental health, school, and other professionals can increase their awareness of deaf families’ unique needs in their work environment.     

Indigenous Sistergirls’ Experiences of Family and Community

ABSTRACT

While increasing attention has been paid to the experiences of Indigenous sistergirls over the past decade there still remains a dearth of empirical research on the experiences of this diverse population of Indigenous people. This paper seeks to add to the small body of existing literature by reporting on a thematic analysis of existing media in which 18 sistergirls shared their experiences of family and community. The thematic analysis identified two themes within each of these topics. Specifically, when talking about family, both familial acceptance and rejection were salient themes. When talking about community, both the traditional role of sistergirls in their communities and negative responses from communities were salient themes. The paper concludes by suggesting that increased knowledge about the lives of sistergirls may assist social workers in supporting sistergirls both in their own outreach endeavours, and in providing more culturally competent services.     

Studying and Living in China Offers Interesting Experiences

JAM-PACKED and alive with culture and commerce, China's capital lures foreign students by the thousands each year—to explore the mysterious Orient, or to learn the centuries-old culture. According to the State Education Commission, the number of foreign students who have studied or are studying in China is     

Experiences of Post‐Qualifying Study in Social Work

This article is based on a research project to explore the experiences of past and current candidates for post‐qualifying awards in social work in England. Also included in the study are the Leads of the post‐qualifying consortia in England. The study used questionnaire survey and nominal group techniques to gather data, which were coded and categorised into themes. The main findings relate to the perceived purposes of post‐qualifying study, motivations for undertaking post‐qualifying study, the factors that sustain and hinder study, the advice that those who have or who are experiencing post‐qualifying study would give to those about to start and future plans and hopes in this area.

Post‐qualifying study is generally valued, especially in relation to the opportunities it provides for professional development. The support of a mentor who has direct experience of the candidate's programme is highly prized, as are clear and consistent guidance from the programme and meaningful study time and workload relief from employers. There are also frustrations for some candidates who do not feel that their post‐qualifying study has stretched them beyond qualifying standards or who experience the teaching as divorced from the realities of daily practice. The appetite for a wider choice of post‐qualifying modules suggests that providers of post‐qualifying study will need to collaborate within and across regions in order to achieve a critical mass of candidates for more specialist or focused learning. The study suggests a need for further research to understand the impact of post‐qualifying study on candidates' social work practice.

The article concludes with two checklists of questions, one for individual candidates and another for agencies and programmes. These questions arise from the findings in the research.     

Standard Bearers: Qualitative Sociologists’ Experiences with IRB Regulation

In response to the system for regulating research with human subjects, researchers have raised two apparently contradictory concerns: that IRBs are excessively inconsistent (often raised by biomedical researchers), and that they are excessively standardizing (often raised by qualitative interview researchers). Why does standardization appear as the dominant theme in qualitative researchers’ experiences with their IRBs? And how do qualitative researchers experience standardization in their IRB encounters? We focus on IRBs role as regulatory bureaucracies, which typically rely heavily on standardized communication and decisions to process information and make large numbers of decisions in a timely manner. We explore the role of standardization in IRB regulation of qualitative research in an analysis of semi-structured interviews with 26 qualitative sociologists from six research universities and three liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States. In a regulatory regime oriented toward the norms of experimental research, these frictions resulted partly from a lack of appropriate standardized language and decision-templates, but also from the inherent difficulties of applying standardized decisions to work that is unpredictable, unique, and difficult to routinize.     

Students Share Experiences with the Law on the Protection of Minors

The call for the solicitation of contributions, known as "The Law on the Protection of Minors and I," was sponsored by the Red Scarf Board to Protect Students' Rights and Interests at the Central Primary School of Majuqiao Township, Tongxian County in the suburbs of Beijing. Shown here are three contributions.     

MSW Student Experiences in Online vs. Face-to-Face Teaching Formats?

Institutions of higher education have embraced online formats as a new form of teaching in order to reach more students. Like other disciplines, social work pedagogy has embraced the use of online technology in higher education. As a professional and ethical responsibility, it is imperative that social work online courses are of high quality and that they meet the stated objectives. The study presented here describes students' perceptions and experiences in online and in-classroom sections in the Theories and Practice with Communities and Agencies course at a large public university in Southeastern USA. A survey was administered to the students at the end of the semester. Qualitative themes show that method of instruction as it related to course content, comfort with the level of instruction, and role of instructor in online courses affected students' perceptions of both the course and method of instruction. Discussions are directed toward improving online instruction in social work education.     

Parents’ Experiences of Reporting Child Sexual Abuse in Urban Tanzania

This article reports parental experiences of legally reporting child sexual abuse in Tanzania. Based on in-depth interviews, four types of sexual abuse incidents are portrayed. Each evokes different reactions from parents and the community. An incident characterized as the innocent child was associated with a determination to seek justice. The forced-sex youth elicited feelings of parental betrayal of their child. The consenting curious youth resulted in uncertainty of how to proceed, while the transactional-sex youth evoked a sense of parental powerlessness to control the child because of low economic status. Differentiating between types of sexual abuse incidents may increase awareness of the complexities of child sexual abuse reporting. Education on laws regulating sexual offenses and a functional national child protection system are needed to address child sexual abuse complexities and safeguard the rights of children in Tanzania.     

Antecedents of Young Women’s Sexual Risk Taking in Tourist Experiences

The purpose of this phenomenological exploration was to shed light on the constellation of factors anteceding young women’s sexual risk taking during their tourist experiences. A total of 15 in-depth interviews (1.5 to 2.5 hours each) with 13 women were conducted and analyzed through the lens of transcendental phenomenology. An analysis of antecedent factors revealed a confluence of sociopersonal characteristics (e.g., sexual definitions, attitudes, double standards, and age) and touristic attributes (e.g., the sense of temporariness/ephemerality, anonymity, and fun-oriented mentality depending on length, destination, and type of tourist experience) that underlie women’s proclivity for and perceptions of sexual risk taking in certain travel scenarios. These result in myriad effects on physical, sexual health, sociocultural, mental, and emotional aspects of women’s health and well-being. While the sociopersonal antecedents highlight the cross-pollination between sex-related perceptions in everyday life and touristic environments, the touristic antecedents emphasize the uniqueness of tourist experiences as the contexts for sexual risk taking. The findings address an underresearched topic in sex and tourism scholarship and offer implications for health education and intervention programs, pointing to the value of constructing the context-specific and gender-sensitive sexual health messages underpinned by the ideas of women’s empowerment and sexual agency.     

The Upside to Hooking Up: College Students’ Positive Hookup Experiences

Objectives: Popular media and research have predominately focused on the risks of hooking up, which may stigmatize young people. In the current study, we identify factors that facilitate positive hookups. Methods: College students (N = 250) in the United States reported hookup motives, sexual self-concept, sexual satisfaction, and emotional reactions to a hookup. Results: Emotional reactions were more positive than negative. Intimacy and pleasure motives predicted sexual satisfaction; self-affirmation motives predicted positive emotional reactions. Hookups with a previous partner were rated as more satisfying. Conclusions: Understanding qualities associated with positive hookups may better equip young adults to make informed decisions about their sexual lives.     

The Invisible Village: An Exploration of Undergraduate Student Mothers’ Experiences

This study explored the experiences of mothers in college using a qualitative design. Results showed that a lack of financial resources was the chief barrier for student mothers in their educational pursuits while social/emotional support was the most important contributor to student mothers’ success in college. Participants relied heavily on student loans to cover costs of childcare or family to help watch their children. Role conflict experienced by student mothers has implications on family and college retention. Implications of this study included the adaptation and revisions of policies at the state and federal levels in addition to implications at the university level. Limitations of the study included a lack of racial and ethnic diversity and only including student mothers currently enrolled in college. Several recommendations for future research are described.     

Finding Meaningful Support: Young People's Experiences of “Risky” Environments

This paper reports on the qualitative phase of a New Zealand study of young people who had been exposed to “risky” environments from a young age. These young people had experienced traumatic events such as abuse, violence, addictions, mental health issues, and many had been excluded from school. The young people (aged between 13 and 17) were users of multiple services (statutory and nongovernmental services including: child welfare, juvenile justice, remedial education, and mental health services). Qualitative interviews (n?=?109) explored young people's experiences in their families, communities, education, and their perspectives on support provided by services and their own support networks. Three thematic clusters emerged as central motifs in young people's experiences and are the focus of this article: navigating “risky” environments; services and support; and, working to find different pathways.     

Young women in a male periphery — Experiences from the Scandinavian north

This paper deals with the migration of young women from rural areas in northern Scandinavia. The way from adolescence to adulthood is discussed and the notion of a male periphery is presented. An attempt is made to shift focus in studies of rural youth migration. The emphasis here is on the socially constructed space that the young women leave. Is one reason behind the rural migration pattern to be found in the male periphery? The periphery is dominated by male economic and leisure activities. Women in the rural areas are less visible, and their activities are not as valued as the male activities. Young men tend to follow in the footstep of their fathers, while young rural women break with the mothers on their life paths. There are few modern role models for the daughters in the periphery. A study of young women and men in Troms county in northern Norway is used to illustrate the women's paths from adolescence to adult life. Young women in rural Troms do, to a much larger extent than the young rural men, take higher education. They have ambitions of highly qualified jobs, either in towns or in their home localities. The young rural women break new ground by continuing in higher education. The young men run the risk of being left behind as losers.     

Young Mothers’ Experiences of Receiving the Baby Bonus: A Qualitative Study

The year 2014 marked the abolition of the Baby Bonus and its replacement with a substantially reduced parenting payment. While often criticised as “middle-class welfare,” or publicly denounced due to its purported misuse by disadvantaged mothers, this paper argues that the Baby Bonus provided valuable financial assistance to families experiencing high financial stress. To investigate young women's experience of receiving the Baby Bonus, 19 semistructured interviews were conducted with young mothers in Melbourne who had recently had babies. Many were experiencing financial stress and this payment provided much needed financial support for the basic costs arising from having a baby. Several mothers perceived work as a luxury that was out of reach due to high childcare costs relative to their earning capacity and therefore saw Paid Parental Leave as a further privilege unavailable to them. Our results suggest that while the concerns of policymakers to achieve the best use of scarce resources are critical, it should also be acknowledged that the policy change may have serious implications for many young mothers and may exacerbate disadvantage, and young mothers’ sense of alienation, ultimately leading to greater inequalities.     

Factors Associated with Adolescents’ Disclosure of Sexual Abuse Experiences in Hong Kong

This research project is the first study conducted in Hong Kong using adolescent subjects to explore predictors of child sexual abuse disclosure. Eight-hundred male and female adolescents aged 13 to 16 years were recruited from the community while another 30 adolescents joined the study from a clinical setting. One hundred and seventy-seven adolescents acknowledged having a child sexual abuse experience. Results showed that the severity of sexual abuse activities and parent attachment were associated with disclosure in the clinical setting, while abuser’s gender and the adolescents’ disclosure tendency were associated with disclosure among participants in the community setting. Among the 104 participants who had disclosed their childhood sexual abuse, 70% of them had disclosed it within one month and 63% of them had disclosed to 2 to 5 people. The majority of the disclosers (81%) shared their child sexual abuse experience(s) with their friends. Participants from the clinical setting tended to reveal the experience more to adults than those from the community. The study suggested that when choosing a potential confidant, adolescents paid more attention to confidant characteristics than to anticipated confidant responses to their disclosure. Limitations and practical implications for increasing child sexual abuse disclosure rates are discussed.     

The Norm among the Exceptional? Experiences of Latino Students in Elite Institutions

This article examines Latino students’ experiences within two elite educational contexts: an elite liberal arts college and an elite law school. Drawing on combined data of 42 in‐depth interviews, we interrogate how elite institutional spaces reify and shape panethnic identities. In the face of marginalization in predominantly white, elite spaces Latino students strategically search for new community and comfort, which in turn influence how they perceive their identities, encouraging a broadening of boundaries to include both panethnic and minority alliances. By documenting the experiences of Latino students in two stages of the educational pipeline, we show how elite institutions influence identity talk lead students to cultivate a sense of shared fate with other Latino‐origin individuals and at times, people of color in general.