Ageing in the bush: The role of rural places in maintaining identity for long term rural residents and retirement migrants in north-east Victoria,Australia

As a consequence of local population ageing, which is more pronounced in rural areas, the issue of maintaining a positive quality of life for rural older people is attracting significant attention. While environmental psychology theory has advocated the role of place identity in defining the self, there has been little applied research exploring how this occurs in later life. This exploratory, qualitative study (n = 16) utilises 6 and 7 identity process theory to investigate how rural older Australians (retirement migrants and long-term residents) use place to sustain and build a sense of self at a time when many are susceptible to age-related loss. The paper draws on the concepts of distinctiveness, continuity, self-esteem and self-efficacy in order to explore how place identity is supported and maintained. Findings suggest that rural places are beneficial in terms of identity maintenance, with differences between long term and more recent rural residents. Furthermore, findings also highlight that place-related change or growth can potentially threaten older people’s identification as a ‘rural’ person.     

Interpersonal justice: the importance of relationships for child and family social workers

There is still much to learn about what it means to be a child and family social worker. Child and family social workers have a job that often entails making difficult decisions regarding vulnerable children and families in collaboration with other professionals, under stressful conditions in an increasing cost-restrictive climate with diminishing resources. The organisational justice framework has primarily been used to ascertain employee’s perceptions of fairness and can be used to explain a variety of organisational behaviours. Here, it was used qualitatively as a framework to structure the research aims of exploring the lived experience of child and family social workers. The results suggest that the relationships’ social workers have with their peers and managers are significant components to how they manage emotions involved with practice.     

‘My grandchild has a disability’: Impact on grandparenting identity, roles and relationships

Being a grandparent is an important and valued role for many older adults, who often have strong views about the type of grandparent they will be and what they will teach their grandchild. When their grandchild has a disability, grandparents may have to significantly adjust their expectations and interactions. This research explores if and how having a grandchild with a disability influences grandparents' sense of identity and enactment of the grandparent role. Using qualitative purposive sampling, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 grandparents of children with an intellectual and/or physical disability residing in Brisbane, Australia. A thematic analysis identified three key themes characterising grandparent's views: formation of grandparenting identity, styles of grandparenting, and role enactment. The results highlight the critical role of grandparents when a child has a disability, illustrating that the grandparenting experience and role enactment may be universal with only the context and delivery varying.     

Utopian thought: Re-visioning gender,family, and community

Utopian ideals are vital to sustained engagement in the struggle to create a better society. However, the problematic aspects of utopian traditions also need to be addressed as part of the work of social movements. This paper offers a framework for exploring the interplay of healthy and pathological forms of idealization in groups and for analyzing the non-rational dimensions of group life. In critiquing communitarian thought, the paper develops a socialist— feminist and psychoanalytic perspective focusing on the connections between family, sexuality, and democratic community. The paper concludes with political strategies for grounding utopian ideals in contemporary struggles for reform. Les visions d'utopie jouent un rôle très important dans les mouvements visant àfaire une transformation sociale. Pourtant, dans ces projets tranformatifs, il faut aussi tenir compte des aspects les plus problématiques des traditions utopiques. Dans cet article, les auteurs proposent une stratégie pour l'exploration de l'effet réciproque des formes d'idéalisation saines et pathologiques et pour analyser les aspects non-raisonnables en la vie des groupes sociales. En critiquant les idées des ‘communitarians’, une perspective socialist—feministe et psychoanalytique est présentée qui met au centre de l'analyse les rapports entre la famille, la sexualité et la communautédemocratique. Pour conclure, on propose quelques stratégies politiques pour intégrer des idéales utopiques dans les luttes actuelles pour la réforme.     

Finding Love: Passion,Intimacy, and Commitment in the Relationships of Gay Men

This paper identifies the stages of gay male relationships through a qualitative analysis of the interviews of 12 gay men within the context of the Sternberg ( 1986 ) three component model of love. Four stages were identified: Confrontation with sexuality: Preparing for intimacy, Exploration of Sexuality: Engaging with passion, Experimentation with Relationships: Uniting intimacy and passion, and Formation of Committed Relationships: Integrating passion, intimacy, and commitment. Confrontation with Sexuality was a necessary first step before forming intimate relationships, as it provided a context for the second stage of Exploration of Sexuality, where passion could be explored. Once sexuality had been explored, Experimentation with Relationships was the next stage which involved uniting passion with intimacy, often including a period of experimenting with the types of relationships that are usually explored much earlier for heterosexuals. Finally, the fourth stage of Formation of Committed Relationships was identified which involved the integration of passion, intimacy, and commitment. The therapeutic implications of these results are elaborated by an analysis of these stages in clinical cases.     

Social capital in community,family, and work lives of Brazilian migrant parents in Ireland

The paper examines a recent phenomenon of Brazilian migration to Ireland using social capital as a framework of analysis. The analysis specifically makes use of Portes and Sensenbrenner's typology of social capital sources (1993; Portes, 1998): bounded solidarity, value introjection, reciprocity, and enforceable trust. The paper examines the processes and dynamics inhering within these sources of social capital to account for the differential experiences of family, work, and community life in Ireland. The absence or presence of social capital sources, it is argued, is important in the experience of settlement and adaptation, especially in exacerbating or countering the disadvantages facing migrants. The evidence used is based on recent research from qualitative interviews with Brazilian parents in a small town in the west of Ireland, and residing in Ireland for several years.     

Conceptualizing community in the context of work and family

In recent years, many work-family scholars and practitioners have called for expanding the analysis of work and family to include community. This paper uses the ecological systems approach as a framework for selecting and reviewing community concepts thought to be relevant to the analysis of work, community, and family. Based on the work-family literature and the review of community concepts, the paper creates a set of common categories of characteristics for the analysis of relationships among community, work, and family. The development of such categories is a first step in understanding work, community, and family as interrelated domains. Hopefully, they will be useful for developing and testing hypotheses regarding interrelationships among work, community, and family and the effects of work, community, and family characteristics on domain quality and individual well-being. On a vu, au cours de ces dernières années, de nombreux professeurs et praticiens demander que soit étendue l'analyse du travail et de la famille pour inclure la communauté. Cet article utilise l'approche des systèmes écologiques comme base de sélection et d'étude des principes de communauté considérés pertinents dans l'analyse du travail, de la communauté et de la famille. Ensuite, en s'appuyant sur la littérature visant le travail et la famille, ainsi que sur l'étude des principes de communauté, l'article établit un jeu de catégories communes des caractéristiques permettant l'analyse de rapports entre communauté, travail et famille. L'établissement de telles catégories constitue un premier pas envers une meilleure compréhension de l'interrelation entre les domaines du travail, de la communauté et de la famille. Il est à espérer que cela sera utile envers le développement et l'évaluation des hypothèses visant à établir une relation entre le travail, la communauté et la famille, ainsi que l'influence qu'auraient les caractéristiques du travail, de la communauté et de la famille sur la qualité du domaine et la qualité de la vie.     

Physical and social barriers to social relationships: voices of rural disabled women in the USA

Through exploring the lived experiences of disabled women, this study investigates how physical and social barriers affect their social relationships. In‐depth tape‐recorded interviews investigating a variety of social and interpersonal issues were conducted with 24 women with physical or visual impairments who lived in a rural region of the midwestern USA. Using content analysis, the researchers examined interview data for common themes and patterns relating to social relationships. The findings indicate that physical barriers, related to the physical environment and personal physicality, along with social barriers, involving preconceptions of others about impairment and restrictions in personal networks, hamper the initiation and maintenance of social relationships. Further, the experiences of this group of disabled women corresponded most closely with the premises of a social relational understanding of disability.     

From attitudes to social networks: National gender-role attitudes and gender differences in late-life social relationships

Studies often find gender differences in social networks in later life, but are these findings universal, or do they differ in various cultural contexts? To address this research gap, the current study examines the association between gender differences in social relationships and country-level gender-role attitudes. We combined data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) of individuals aged 50 years and older with country-level data on gender-role attitudes from the European Values Survey (EVS) for 15 European countries. We estimated a series of multivariate hierarchical regression models that predicted the size of the personal social network, its emotional closeness, and the proportion of the spouse, children, and friends in the network. The results indicated gender differences in social network characteristics. Women reported larger social networks and were more likely to have larger proportions of children and friends but smaller proportions of the spouse in their social networks. The magnitude of gender differences was associated with country-level gender-role attitudes. In countries with more egalitarian gender-role attitudes, women had larger networks with a larger proportion of friends compared to men. In countries with more traditional gender-role attitudes, women had larger proportions of their children and spouse in their social networks and had emotionally closer networks. Our findings suggest that the societal context and opportunity structures for social interactions play an important role in shaping the structure of women’s and men’s social relationships in later life.     

Reduced-hours careers in medicine: A strategy for the professional community and the family

This paper discusses the part-time professional career option, a career alternative thought to promote work-family integration, and asks whether this alternative would increase responsiveness to fluctuations in the demand for professionals. For illustrative purposes, we focus on the current oversupply of physicians in the United States, and discuss: (a) existing strategies to reduce this supply; (b) how current full-time schedules restrict professionals' ability to successfully combine work and family; and (c) the potential consequences of promoting part-time careers for the professional community and for families. Este papel describe la opcion de la carrera profesional tiempo medio, una carrera alternativa que se supone provee la integracion de trabajo y familia y hace la pregunta si esta alternativa aumentaria respuestas a altas y bajas en la demanda de profesionales. Para ilustrar, enfocamos en la actual sobre fuente de medicos en los Estados Unidos y discutimos: (a) estrategias existentes para reducir esta fuente; (b) como horarios de tiempo completo existentes resrictan a profesionales que equivale a la abilidad de positivamente combinar el trabajo y la familia; y (c) las consecuencias potenciales de promover carreras a tiempo medio para la comunidad profesional y sus familiares.     

Supervision and social work students: relationships in a team-based rotation placement model

Social work has historically privileged one-to-one supervision in field education. However, in recent decades, the relentless pressure on organisations to innovate for efficiency gain has created an impetus to explore alternative placement formats. This article reports on how students and supervisors experienced their placement relationships in the context of one such alternative—a team-based rotation placement model where students routinely engaged in group and peer supervision as well as one-to-one supervision with various supervisors. A total of 128 Masters of Social Work students and 92 student supervisors participated in rotation placements across five hospitals over a three-year period; 2011–2013. The study adopted a mixed methods approach using online surveys and post-placement interviews each year. The findings suggest that, although both supervisors and students viewed the one-to-one supervisory relationship as pivotal, they experienced this relationship differently. Supervisors were more likely to highlight the interpersonal connection within the supervisory relationship as the primary vehicle for practice learning. Students were more likely to view their supervisory relationships as the conduit to the practice experiences that aligned with their placement goals. Ultimately, the study highlights the centrality of role and positioning when exploring perceptions and experiences of teaching and learning relationships on placement.     

A literature review of overnight work travel within individual,family and social contexts

ABSTRACT

This paper presents results of a comprehensive literature review of empirical studies investigating travel for work and how it relates to individual lives. The paper presents information on how work travel has been operationalized in the literature. The paper describes findings concerning how feelings about travel, individual well-being, the work/family interface, family relationships and social connections have been found to be affected by work travel. The empirical articles on workers who travel have been conducted in multiple countries and via diverse methodologies, which provides richness to the findings. The lack of uniformity in how work travel has been operationalized presents challenges for drawing conclusions about the effects of work travel. Recommendations concerning how to move the field forward are presented, including uniting the employment-related literature with the family literature to provide more holistic and useful implications for the study of work travel.     

Intersectionality and social movements: Intersectional challenges and imperatives in the study of social movements

Intersectionality emerged in the border space between social movements and academic politics as a means of better understanding and confronting interlocking systems of oppression. For scholars studying social movements, it offers a framework for better understanding the power dynamics of movements (the inclusions and exclusions). It is also something to be studied. Women of color, and other groups at the intersection of multiple marginalities conceptualized intersectionality as not only a type of integrated analysis or heuristic, but as an active political orientation to be put into practice. In this essay, I review and discuss the benefits and challenges of studying social movements intersectionally (an analysis that might be applied to the study of any movements), as well as the growing literature focused on social movement intersectionality, that looks for and at intersectionally oriented movements and the praxis of intersectionality within movements. This developing area of study provides new ways of understanding and troubling social movement solidarity.     

Minority ethnicity,social status and Uyghur community involvement in urban Xinjiang

Using a dataset (n = 4,012) from a 2001 survey in Xinjiang, I examine the effect of minority status and social status on neighbouring behaviour in urban China. Data analysis indicates that Uyghur Muslims are more neighbouring than Han Chinese. However, there is no evidence that the Uyghur approach to neighbourhood interaction can be attributed to Uyghur culture as many inter-group differences fade away once ethnic parity in social status is attained. I use my study to consider some methodological approaches used in research on ethnic behaviour in China.     

The strength of family ties: A meta-analysis and meta-regression of self-reported social support and mortality

Perceived social support has long been recognized as associated with better health and longevity. However, important factors that may moderate this relationship have not been sufficiently explored. The authors used meta-analyses and meta-regressions to examine 178 all-cause mortality risk estimates from 50 publications, providing data on more than 100,000 persons. The mean hazard ratio (HR) for mortality among those with lower levels of perceived social support was 1.11 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.05, 1.17) among multivariate-adjusted HRs. Meta-regressions suggest that support from family members was more beneficial than support provided by friends, and that a moderate level of support may be enough to achieve positive results. The results also show that the importance of having support increases with age. No substantial difference was found between men and women with respect to the relationship between support and mortality.     

Being close: The quality of social relationships in a local organic cereal and bread network in Lower Austria

Experience of the drawbacks of a globalised and industrialised food system has generated interest in localised food systems. Local food networks are regarded as more sustainable food provision systems since they are assumed to have high levels of social embeddedness and relations of regard. This paper explores the social relations between food actors and how ‘local’ and ‘organic’ are expressed by detailing how actors describe qualities of their intra-network relationships, how they understand ‘local’ and how they are connected within the food system. A study from the province of Lower Austria in Austria, where organic cereals and bread are produced and marketed, serves to illuminate these issues. Actors agreed that geographical closeness contributed to the social closeness they experienced and that social relationships were a strong reason for being in the network. However, the meaning of ‘local’ was elastic depending on where inputs and consumers could be found. Furthermore, despite strong commitment to organic production methods and the local market, actors faced constraints that made them hybrids between organic and conventional, and between locally focused and globally dependent. Thus, the binary thinking along the local-global and organic-conventional divide does not hold. While it is important to not make a causal link between high quality of social relationships and local food networks, the case described here indicates the possibility of such a link.     

Performative family: homosexuality,marriage and intergenerational dynamics in China

Using in‐depth interview data on nominal marriages – legal marriages between a gay man and a lesbian to give the appearance of heterosexuality – this paper develops the concept of performative family to explain the processes through which parents and their adult children negotiate and resolve disagreements in relation to marriage decisions in post‐socialist China. We identify three mechanisms – network pressure, a revised discourse of filial piety and resource leverage – through which parents influence their gay offspring's decision to turn to nominal marriage. We also delineate six strategies, namely minimizing network participation, changing expectations, making partial concessions, drawing the line, delaying decisions and ending the marriage, by which gay people in nominal marriages attempt to meet parental expectations while simultaneously retaining a degree of autonomy. Through these interactions, we argue that Chinese parents and their gay adult children implicitly and explicitly collaborate to perform family, emphasizing the importance of formally meeting society's expectations about marriage rather than substantively yielding to its demands. We also argue that the performative family is a pragmatic response to the tension between the persistent centrality of family and marriage and the rising tide of individualism in post‐socialist China. We believe that our findings highlight the specific predicament of homosexual people. They also shed light on the more general dynamics of intergenerational negotiation because there is evidence that the mechanisms used by parents to exert influence may well be similar between gay and non‐gay people.     

The role of social relationships in the association between adolescents' depressive symptoms and academic achievement

While research has established that depression interferes with academic achievement, less is understood about the processes by which social relationships may buffer the relationship between depression and academic outcomes. In this study we examined the role of positive relationships in the school, family and peer contexts in the association between depressive symptoms and academic achievement among 894 adolescents aged 12–17 years living in Santiago, Chile. Depressive symptoms were associated with lower levels of academic achievement; parental monitoring, school belonging, positive mother relationships, and having academically inclined peers moderated this relationship, though some interactions differed by sex and age. Implications for promoting the academic success of adolescents experiencing depressive symptoms are discussed.