Resilience and Survival: Black Teenage Mothers ‘Looked After’ by the State Tell their Stories About their Experience of Care

‘Looked after’ young people are among the most disadvantaged members of our society. While their disadvantaged status should not be ignored, poor outcomes are often emphasised at the expense of good ones. This article reports a study that adopts the concept of resilience to understand the narratives of the participants’ experience of care and foster care. A total of 15 young mothers, aged 16–19 and mainly from black African backgrounds, were interviewed. Despite lacking a ‘secure base’, informants invested in a sense of moral identity and a source of self‐directedness, which enabled them to move from victim of circumstances to individuals who overcome their circumstances.     

Which is the ‘self’ in ‘self‐interest’?

This article contends that homogenisation of the term ‘self‐interest’– in sociological and economic discourse – has resulted in many misconceptions about what particular doctrines of ‘self‐interest’ were instituted to achieve at certain historical periods and in specific cultural milieux. At its worst, the article argues, this has led to a misunderstanding of the import of particular doctrines of self interest,which are read in terms of general tradition – such as that which views self‐interested conduct as a natural faculty – rather than in terms of the context specific aims of those advocating them. The article attempts to show how, historically, there have been quite significant changes in the characterisation of the ‘self’ deemed to be ‘self‐interested’. In particular, it focuses on the ‘self’ of certain early modern conceptions of self interest, and suggests this creation is best viewed not as a subjectivity transcendentally presupposed by experience, but as one historically cultivated to counter the exigencies of particular circumstances – the disaster of perpetual ‘warre’ in 17th century Europe – and to meet the purposes of a certain way of life – existence in the civitas.     

The History and Timing of Depression Onset as Predictors of Young Adult Self‐Esteem

Depression often emerges early in the lifecourse and is consistently shown to be associated with poor self‐esteem. The 3 main objectives of the current study are to (1) evaluate the association between a history major depression and self‐esteem in young adulthood, (2) assess the relationship between timing of depression onset and young adult self‐esteem, and (3) help rule out the alternative interpretation that the relationship between major depression and self‐esteem is due to state dependence bias stemming from recent depressive symptoms and stressful life events. To address these objectives we use data from a 2‐wave panel study based on a community sample of young adults in Miami‐Dade County, Florida (n=1,197). Results indicated that a history of major depression during sensitive periods of social development is associated with negative changes in self‐esteem over a 2‐year period during the transition to young adulthood. Among those with a history of depression, earlier onset was more problematic than later onset for young adult self‐esteem, although the difference disappeared once the level of self‐esteem 2 years prior was controlled. The linkages between the history and timing of depression onset with self‐esteem were observed net of recent depressive symptoms and stressful life events and are thus robust to an alternative interpretation of state dependence. The findings support the argument that major depression, especially if it develops earlier during child‐adolescent development, has negative consequences for one's self‐esteem.     

Self‐Employment as a Strategy for Dealing with the Competing Demands of Work and Family? The Importance of Family/Lifestyle Motives

In this paper, we test the argument that self‐employment may be a strategy for dealing with competing demands of work and family. We do this by comparing work–family conflict experienced by self‐employed and employed men and women. By examining to what extent the self‐employed versus regularly employed value time for themselves and their family — i.e., whether they are driven by family/lifestyle motives in their working life — we examine whether self‐employment can help reduce work–family conflict among those guided by family/lifestyle motives. Using data from a 2011 Swedish survey of 2483 self‐employed and 2642 regularly employed, the analyses indicate that experiences of work–family conflict differ between self‐employed and employees. Self‐employed men and women, especially those with employees, generally experience more work–family conflict than do employees. However, self‐employment can sometimes be a strategy for dealing with competing demands of work and family life. The presence of family/lifestyle motives generally decreases the probability of experiencing work–family conflict, particularly among self‐employed women with employees.     

‘If the Social Worker had Called at Least it Would Show they Cared’. Young Care Leaver’s Perspectives on the Importance of Care

Young people leaving local authority care are frequently discussed in terms of being socially excluded and having ‘poor life outcomes’. In terms of educational achievement, employment and involvement in the criminal justice system, those with an experience of the care system fare the worst. Within the context of these poor outcomes, the Government Green Paper ‘Care Matters’ has emerged. However, the Green Paper’s outcomes framework for looked after children’s well‐being risks simplifying the complex nature of children’s experiences and needs. It is children’s experiences of care, both before entering the care system and whilst growing up within the care system that shapes their well‐being and their life outcomes. The basis of improving children’s outcomes should include listening to and understanding what children need from the care system. This knowledge helps to develop an understanding of how failings within the care system are experienced by children in care and how these experiences are subsequently translated into negative outcomes for young care leavers. Drawing upon qualitative, empirical data, this study aims to explore young care leavers’ experiences of care. Through this, the extent to which feelings of care shape self esteem and a sense of self will be explored. Finally, this study will outline themes of trust and stability in the provision of care services and how these can shape positive outcomes for care leavers.     

Social Constructionism and Supervision: Experiences of AAMFT Supervisors and Supervised Therapists

A phenomenological research process was used to investigate the supervision experience for supervisors and therapists when supervisors use a social constructionist perspective. Participants of the one‐to‐one interviews were six AAMFT Approved Supervisors and six therapists providing counseling to individuals, couples and families. The findings suggest supervisors were committed to their self‐identified supervision philosophy and intentionally sought out congruence between epistemology and practice. The shared experience of therapists indicates they associated desirable supervision experiences with their supervisors’ social constructionist perspective. Our findings also indicated that supervisors’ and therapists’ understanding of social constructionism included the more controversial concepts of agency and extra‐discursiveness. This research has taken an empirical step in the direction of understanding what the social constructionist supervision experience is like for supervisors and therapists. Our findings suggest a linkage between epistemology and supervision practice and a satisfaction with the supervision process.     

End‐of‐Life Treatment Preferences Among Older Adults: An Assessment of Psychosocial Influences1

We explore the content and correlates of older adults’ end‐of‐life treatment preferences in two hypothetical terminal illness scenarios: severe physical pain with no cognitive impairment, and severe cognitive impairment with no physical pain. For each scenario, we assess whether participants would reject life‐prolonging treatment, accept treatment, or do not know their preferences. Using data from the 2004 wave of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (N = 5,106), we estimate multinomial logistic regression models to evaluate whether treatment preferences are associated with direct experience with end‐of‐life issues, personal beliefs, health, and sociodemographic characteristics. Persons who have made formal end‐of‐life preparations, persons with no religious affiliation, mainline Protestants, and persons who are pessimistic about their own life expectancy are more likely to reject treatment in both scenarios. Women and persons who witnessed the painful death of a loved one are more likely to reject treatment in the cognitive impairment scenario only. Consistent with rational choice perspectives, our results suggest that individuals prefer treatments that they perceive to have highly probable desirable consequences for both self and family.     

Attachment Change in the Beginning Stages of Therapy: Examining Change Trajectories for Avoidance and Anxiety

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of self‐reported attachment change (avoidance and anxiety) in the context of six sessions of couple therapy designed to emphasize both therapist‐centered and couple‐centered (i.e., enactment‐based) clinical process during the beginning stages of therapy. A total of 48 couples with at least one partner who reported clinically significant relationship dissatisfaction participated in this study. Findings confirmed that some couples experience positive attachment‐related change (anxiety or avoidance), while also identifying a subset of individuals who may not experience optimal levels of attachment‐related change. In addition, findings point toward both differences and similarities between change trajectories for avoidance and anxiety. Finally, there was evidence that socio‐demographic factors may be associated with attachment change.     

Adolescents’ Daily Experience of Fathers’ Emotional Support and Self‐Evaluation in Korea

Recently, fathers’ role in children's development has been recognized internationally. In Asian countries, similar conversations have emerged but there has been a lack of empirical studies that considered the unique cultural contexts. As a response, based on Bronfenbrenner's process‐person‐context‐time model, the present study examined the daily dynamics and individual differences in the experience of fathers’ emotional support and self‐evaluation in social roles among 283 Korean adolescents in 5th and 8th grade. Through Hierarchical Linear Modeling, within‐person associations between adolescents’ experience of fathers’ emotional support and self‐evaluation in social roles on the same day and the next day were found, with individual differences by grade level and family affluence. Theoretical and practical implications within the relevant cultural context are discussed.     

DIY Entrepreneurship? – Self‐reliance for Women Refugees in Australia

In this paper, we call for a re‐examination of the self‐reliance ideology based on a neoliberal perspective to make policies for refugee women's (self‐)employment and integration. We use a social constructionist perspective to conduct a narrative analysis of data from the lived experience of twelve women refugee entrepreneurs. Three prominent themes emerge from the women’s own narratives of their entrepreneurial journey – self‐reconstruction, social capital, and resilience. Our findings reveal the complexities of self‐reconstruction and socialization as experienced by refugee women entrepreneurs – for whom “push” factors take precedence over “pull” factors with the explicit understanding that the onus is on them to survive with their own resilience. We argue that offering people hope of a new life means offering them meaningful choices, built on forms of economic activity whose sustainability over the long term is evidenced by the positive supports available to make sure economic activity succeeds.     

Young,successful, precarious? Precariousness at the entry stage of employment careers in Germany

ABSTRACT

The article investigates entry-stage employment trajectories of young people in Germany, asking whether transitions into continuous employment indicate successful labour market integration. Applying a novel multidimensional approach to precariousness to individuals’ employment and household trajectories, we understand entry-stage employment trajectories holistically. The balanced-panel sample is drawn from the German Socio-Economic Panel, with a focus on young men and women between 15 and 25 years of age in the first year of the sample period who had been employed at least once (n?=?1360).

Dual-channel sequence-cluster analysis reveals considerable variation in the precariousness of young people’s entry-stage employment. While almost all young men and women experience periods of precariousness, the durations vary substantially. Precarious employment or precarious living conditions frequently occur during education. Our results confirm that individuals with disrupted employment trajectories are seldom successfully integrated into the labour market and frequently experience precarious employment. In previous research, transitions into continuous employment have been understood as the hallmark of successful labour market integration. This holds true for young women but not for young men, who experienced continuous and precarious entry-stage employment. To correctly identify young men’s successful labour market integration, additional information about their employment precariousness is required.     

The intersection of class origin and immigration background in structuring social capital: the role of transnational ties

The study investigates inequalities in access to social capital based on social class origin and immigration background and examines the role of transnational ties in explaining these differences. Social capital is measured with a position generator methodology that separates between national and transnational contacts in a sample of young adults in Sweden with three parental backgrounds: at least one parent born in Iran or Yugoslavia, or two Sweden‐born parents. The results show that having socioeconomically advantaged parents is associated with higher levels of social capital. Children of immigrants are found to have a greater access to social capital compared to individuals with native background, and the study shows that this is related to transnational contacts, parents’ education and social class in their country of origin. Children of immigrants tend to have more contacts abroad, while there is little difference in the amount of contacts living in Sweden across the three groups. It is concluded that knowledge about immigration group resources help us predict its member's social capital, but that the analysis also needs to consider how social class trajectories and migration jointly structure national and transnational contacts.     

Transcultural Differentiation: A Model For Therapy With Ethno‐culturally Diverse Families

This article evolved out of the writer's experience of being an immigrant, a systemic thinker, and a therapist involved in working with individuals and families from many different cultures. It proposes a model of ‘transcultural differentiation’, drawing on Western notions of separation‐individuation (Mahler) and differentiation of self (Bowen), but arguing that these concepts may have equivalents within non‐Western philosophies (e.g. Indian cultural beliefs). The model suggests that families co‐existing with both a culture of origin and an adoptive culture must inevitably change, and that in this process, they necessarily evolve into entities which transcend both culture of origin and adoptive culture. Implications for therapy are explored; in particular, it is argued that the therapist's awareness of, and sensitivity to, the transcultural experience may be more crucial than whether or not she/he shares the client's culture of origin.     

Parenting Disputes After Separation and Divorce: Who Needs a Family Lawyer?

Australia's family law system continues to be plagued by serious delays. This article acknowledges the need for legal interventions in post‐separation parenting disputes in which individuals may be at risk, or in cases of genuine emergency. The article next contrasts cases involving significant risk or urgency with the many ‘ordinary’ (even if sometimes complex) post‐separation disputes over parenting in which these circumstances are not present. I argue that in such cases, legal advice, legally informed dispute processes, and court hearings are remnants from earlier attitudes to separation and divorce. These interventions are expensive, frequently destructive of ongoing parental relationships, and at their heart, inappropriate for considering the needs of children. They also divert time and resources from the critical investigative and legal decision‐making processes needed in urgent or risk‐related cases. I propose that legal narratives in ‘ordinary’ post‐separation parenting disputes be replaced by narratives focused on the main drivers of these disputes, which are invariably expressed in terms of relationship difficulties. Such narratives are amenable to facilitative, therapeutic, and systemic interventions aimed at achieving self‐determined resolutions. They contrast markedly with narratives reflecting common law notion of normative resolutions derived from the application of legal precedent. Key issues in the first section of the article are then teased out via the reflections of an imaginary separated parent in an ‘ordinary,’ albeit difficult and emotionally intense, dispute about how to care for the children. In the final section, I offer brief clinical and systemic reflections on past practice and on future narratives focused on individual self‐determination.     

Parental Anger and Trajectories of Emotional Well‐Being from Adolescence to Young Adulthood

This study assesses the relationship of parental anger on children’s anger and self‐derogation from adolescence to young adulthood. We examine a life‐course perspective and incorporate theories of emotion regulation and self‐referent behavior. Using structural equation models and hierarchical growth curve models with the Kaplan Longitudinal and Multigenerational data, the results indicate that parental anger leads to anger in adolescence, supporting theories of learning through modeling in adolescence. In young adulthood, as predicted by self‐referent behavior theory, parental anger contributes to increases in self‐derogation. Interestingly, maternal anger, but not paternal anger, is correlated with child’s anger and self‐derogation.     

Men's Work–life Conflict: Career,Care and Self‐realization: Patterns of Privileges and Dilemmas

This article aims at contributing to a better understanding of men's work–life reconciliation by developing a typology of work and care adaptations drawing on a sample of 102 European men, aged 21–64, working in different work organizations. The article combines qualitative and quantitative data. Multiple correspondence analysis is used to investigate the men's actual adaptations to work, care and self‐realization. ‘Volume of work’ and ‘volume of care’ constitutes separate dimensions that render visible the traditional gendered opposition between a high amount of care combined with low amount of work and vice versa. However, two more untraditional adaptations (low–low and high–high) are identified. Additional analyses show that, even within this all male sample, the distribution of working life privileges corresponds with a high amount of paid work and a low amount of care responsibilities. The structure of the gendered division of labour, status and material privileges is correspondingly rediscovered. A typology of four different positions is derived: the ‘career' position', the care’ position the ‘care and career’ position and the ‘patchwork career’ position. These positions are further investigated utilizing in‐depth interviews, discussing dilemmas and advantages of dilemmas and the advantages of each position. The article concludes that even if the number of available work–life adaptations open to men rise, this change will not necessarily contribute to alter the hierarchical distribution of career and care, privileges and costs in society.