Using natural language processing technology for qualitative data analysis

Social researchers often apply qualitative research methods to study groups and their communications artifacts. The use of computer-mediated communications has dramatically increased the volume of text available, but coding such text requires considerable manual effort. We discuss how systems that process text in human languages (i.e. natural language processing [NLP]) might partially automate content analysis by extracting theoretical evidence. We present a case study of the use of NLP for qualitative analysis in which the NLP rules showed good performance on a number of codes. With the current level of performance, use of an NLP system could reduce the amount of text to be examined by a human coder by an order of magnitude or more, potentially increasing the speed of coding by a comparable degree. The paper is significant as it is one of the first to demonstrate the use of high-level NLP techniques for qualitative data analysis.     

‘Sticking with your Mates?’ Children's Friendship Trajectories during the Transition from Primary to Secondary School

For many children, the transition to secondary school is marked by both anxiety and excitement, particularly in relation to friendship. This article draws upon the concept of social capital — the resources individuals and collectives derive from their social networks — in order to understand the significance of change and continuity in children's friendships during a challenging period in their lives. Children's social networks often provide important, but under‐researched resources which aid their progress through the transition. This article presents findings from a three‐year ESRC study exploring children's and parents’ use of social capital during their secondary school transfer.     

Neuro Linguistic Programming and Listening Behavior

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) was employed in this study to determine whether its application would enhance the listening skills of subjects. Messages based on NLP were presented to the subjects. The messages that were presented in the auditory format proved to be most persuasive for the recipients. These results supported the recommendations of previous research. Implications for further research are presented.     

Freedom,necessity, judgement Trilling,Arendt and '9/11 liberalism'

Abstract

This article examines the thought of Hannah Arendt and Lionel Trilling in order to explore some core ideas crucial to past and present framings of liberal politics. More specifically, their interpretations of Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd are situated in their cold war context and the strengths and limits of each are discussed. This context – and the place of Arendt's and Trilling's Melville-inspired understandings of the notions of 'freedom', 'necessity' and 'judgement' within it – are then finally pressed into the service of an analysis of contemporary political questions. The article closes by arguing that the predicament of contemporary liberalism is, given some of the moral and political issues raised since 9/11, in some ways analogous to that confronted by the 'Cold War liberalism' associated with Arendt and Trilling. The intelligence, perspective and appreciation of complexity that characterize their work provide an example that liberals, whatever their position on the 'war on terror', can ill afford to ignore.     

A historical perspective on the working contributions of children in britain: 1800-1914

This paper considers the work of children and their contribution to modern societies by looking at this from a historical perspective. Children's work today is often characterised as being little and of no consequence, while it is expected that children should enjoy a childhood free from the cares and worries of the adult working population. In this article I show how children's experience of work moved from the 'public' world of the street and workplace outside the home, to one where children's work is centred in the 'private' realm of the home and school. Children were denied the status and benefits associated with receiving a wage and were therefore a role assumed to be dependent upon others and undervalued. It is argued that children's place in society is similarly devalued and their contributions to the reproduction of that society marginalised. Children's activities and contributions are merely represented as being unworthy of any kind of economic, political or legal reward. The subsequent exclusion from social, economic and political reward separates children from the independence normally enjoyed by adults. While not of course condoning the exploitation of children, or even suggesting that children today are not entitled to a time where they are free of the burdens of paid work, I discuss how children's contributions are redefined, undermined and undervalued. I do so by focusing on the experience of the city of Manchester between 1800 and 1914, and the effects of the slow introduction of legislation curbing children's paid work.     

Coparenting and Nonresident Fathers' Monetary Contributions to Their Children

The percentage of children in the United States living apart from their biological father has increased, while public assistance for single mothers has diminished. This has resulted in a need to better understand and promote nonresident fathers' economic support of their children. In the present study the author used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,752) to examine how coparenting—the degree to which parents are mutually supportive and cooperative in raising their child—is related to nonresident fathers' monetary contributions. Results from pooled regression and fixed effects models indicate that coparenting is positively associated with fathers' likelihood of paying formal and informal child support and the amount of these payments. Findings from cross‐lagged structural equation models suggest that the association between coparenting and fathers' payments is reciprocal but that coparenting has a stronger effect on fathers' payments than fathers' payments do on coparenting.     

Children of prisoners: exploring the impact of families' reappraisal of the role and status of the imprisoned parent on children's coping strategies

Qualitative data from a larger study on the impact of parental imprisonment in four countries found that children of prisoners face fundamentally similar psychological and social challenges. The ways that children cope, however, are influenced by the interpretative frame adopted by the adults around them, and by how issues of parental imprisonment are talked about in their families. This article argues that families have to reappraise their view of the imprisoned parent and then decide on their policy for how to deal with this publicly. Their approach may be based on openness and honesty or may emphasise privacy and secrecy, or a combination of these. Children are likely to be influenced by their parents'/carers' views, although these may cause conflict for them. Where parents/carers retain a positive view of the imprisoned parent, children are likely to benefit; where parents/carers feel issues of shame and stigma acutely, this is likely to be transmitted to their children. This is important for social workers and practitioners involved in supporting prisoners' families and for parenting programmes.     

Caring at a distance: Learning and practice issues

Emphasis on support for informal carers focuses on those who provide, in the words of the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995, 'substantial' and 'regular' care. Following research and policy, professional education has also developed interest in those who live with the people they support, such as co-resident spouses and children of all ages. This article considers those who probably do not define themselves as carers and are usually referred to as 'relatives' or 'family', living at a distance from an older relative. It explores their possible need for support as well as the form and level of their involvement in relation to care managed services. It describes key areas or events to draw out practice issues and concludes with a discussion of the extent to which care management can work with such relatives. In many ways caring at a distance forces an examination of what is meant by 'care' and who can legitimately claim this as an emotion or status. The rationale for such interest is therefore three-fold. If social workers and social work educators restrict the meaning and their definitions of carers to those who provide 'hands on' services, as part of the care package, they risk alienating relatives from the learning experience of students. In doing so they may neglect these highly valued supports of older people and may leave relatives distressed and disempowered by anxiety over their contract with social work agencies.     

“Every Place Has a Ghetto…”: The Significance of Whites' Social and Residential Segregation

The residential and social segregation of whites from blacks creates a socialization process we refer to as “white habitus.” This white habitus limits whites' chances for developing meaningful relationships with blacks and other minorities spatially and psychologically. Using data from the 1997 Survey of College Students' Social Attitudes and the 1998 Detroit Area Study, we show that the spatial segregation experienced by whites from blacks fosters segregated lifestyles and leads them to develop positive views about themselves and negative views about blacks. First, we document the high levels of whites' residential and social segregation. Next, we examine how whites interpret their own self‐segregation. Finally, we examine how whites' segregation shapes their racial expressions, attitudes, cognitions, and even their sense of aesthetics as illustrated by their views on the subject of interracial marriage.     

Children's understandings of rurality: exploring the interrelationship between experience and understanding

Prompted by current debates within rural studies, this paper explores children's understandings of rural New Zealand. Previous research has focused on children as “doers” rather than “thinkers”. This paper reverses this emphasis by exploring children's material and discursive experiences and the ways these are negotiated to develop their understandings of rurality. While it highlights common constructions of rurality based on experiences of agriculture, nature, and recreation, it also illustrates children's varied experiences and understandings of rurality from each other and from adults. This heterogeneity becomes apparent through the examination of individual children's biographies. These reinforce the importance of making room to consider children individually and with regard to their own personal context—that is, to enable the complication of academic/adult understandings of rurality.     

Intimacy,trust, and exploitation: Sex workers' relationship with their intimate partners in a Bangladeshi brothel

Being pushed to the margins of society, brothel-based sex workers in Bangladesh develop relations with their intimate partners, referred to as babus. This study, based on fieldwork in a Bangladeshi brothel, documents how sex workers' relations with intimate partners are shaped by intimacy and exploitation and the ways meanings of such relations are rooted in cultural norms. This paper shows that sex workers' intimate relations involve trust, dependency, and emotional attachment, which extend to choices of condom use. This paper argues that sex workers' relations with their intimate partners derive meaning from the broader culture of Bangladesh, in which femininity and domesticity play a dominant role. Understanding sex workers' intimate relations in the Bangladeshi context is important because it sheds light on the nature of the private life of the sex workers from a culture-specific point of view.     

Transferring friendship: girls' and boys' friendships in the transition from primary to secondary school

This paper seeks to explore the issues and concerns that impact upon girls' and boys' friendship groups as they transfer from primary to secondary school. Using the girls' and boys' own voices, we document the extent to which their existing social relationships are disrupted as they adapt to and engage with a new school setting. Through semi‐structured interviews and questionnaires conducted in the final year of primary school and the first year of secondary school, we identify students' concerns regarding their attitudes to friendship. We consider the extent to which account is taken of this aspect of children's friendships and explore and analyse commonalities and differences in their responses. We argue that the priorities of our student groups are different to those advocated by the school. We further attempt to examine how the girls and boys in our sample negotiate their new environment.     

An intensive perinatal mentalisation-based intervention for women at risk of child removal and the role of restorative relationships

Pregnant women with a history of child removal are at greater risk of being found unsuitable to care for their new babies. Neglect, showing a lack of capacity to provide for the child's physical and/or emotional needs, is the most frequent reason why infants are removed from their parents' care. Parents with a history of child removal have often been themselves subject to maltreatment as children and suffer the sequelae of relational trauma which then becomes a barrier to establishing nurturing relationships with their own children. Attachment, and particularly mentalisation-based, parenting interventions focus on restoring relationships by developing parents' capacity to reflect upon their own internal mental experiences as well as those of the child, helping them to better understand themselves and their children. The DAISY programme is an intensive perinatal attachment and mentalisation-based intervention for pregnant women with a history of child removal, aiming to improve mothers' mentalising capacities and care proceeding outcomes. This article uses a case study to describe the programme's model and mechanisms of change. Additionally, we present preliminary observations about the programme's delivery and impact from the perspective of one of its practitioners.     

Agency Practices Affecting Social Workers Who Treat Substance-Abusing Clients

Abstract

This study interviewed 115 MSWs with substance abuse training working in general social service agencies to determine if they viewed their settings as facilitating or hindering their work with substance-abusing clients. This study builds on the work of Lightfoot and Orford (1986) who found that social workers were more hindered than helped by their agencies' practices regarding substance-abusing clients.

Results: A majority of workers viewed their agencies as facilitating substance abuse-related work through support from supervisors and administrators, availability of substance abuse training, workers' freedom to choose clients, and opportunities to supervise others on substance abuse-related issues. Supervisor data corroborated these findings. This is a hopeful sign for the profession contrasting with considerable social work literature documenting the profession's historic ambivalence toward substance-abusing clients.     

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.     

Is your church “liked” on Facebook? Social media use of Christian congregations in the United States

Despite the increasing interests in social media platforms among religious congregations, little is known about the patterns of these organizations' social media use. This study examines religious congregations' adoption of Facebook, using the data from the 2012 National Congregations Study. The results show that Christian congregations' involvement in nonreligious activities, both social service and political activities, predicts their Facebook adoption. Congregations' membership size and staff resources are also positively associated with their Facebook use. Other organizational characteristics, including religious tradition, clergyperson's age, and urban location, also explain congregations' Facebook use. Overall, the findings suggest that Christian congregations' adoption of social media platforms is closely related with their community outreach and social marketing activities as well as their resources. This study concludes with suggestions for narrowing the gap in social media use between resource‐rich and resource‐restricted congregations, as well as between urban and rural congregations.     

Participation for children exposed to domestic violence? Social workers' approaches and children's strategies

This article explores social workers' approaches to children exposed to domestic violence and children's strategies in encounters with these professionals in the context of family law proceedings. Investigator approaches as well as child strategies are reconstructed from children's narratives. Furthermore, possible links between the social worker's approach described by a particular child, and the child's own strategies are outlined. Participation can offer children validation of their experiences and support their recovery after exposure to violence. However, it is suggested that it seems to be a challenging task for social workers to both validate children's experiences of violence and simultaneously offer them participation in the investigation process.     

Caseworkers' perspective on risk factors in the family environment influencing mothers' difficulties in meeting children's needs

ObjectivesThis study examines, from the caseworkers' point of view, which needs of children are the most difficult for parents in neglectful contexts to respond to and which risk factors make this response more difficult.MethodA sample of 55 parents being followed by child protection services for neglect or high risk of neglect accepted to participate in the study. Their caseworker filled out a grid regarding the response provided to the children's needs and the risk factors in the family environment.ResultsThe results indicate that the children's age is related to the difficulties of responding to their needs. The caseworkers are particularly concerned about guidance and boundaries provided to preschool-age children, but less so about that provided to school-age children. When the children's age is controlled for, parents' mental health problems explains a significant proportion of the variance in parents' response to their children's need for stimulation, emotional warmth, and guidance and boundaries. Caseworkers' worries about drug and alcohol misuse also explain a significant proportion of their concerns about the mothers' ability to ensure their child's safety.ConclusionCaseworkers are more worried about the parental response offered to preschool children than to school-age ones. However, a constant and coherent response to growing children is still important for their developmental trajectories. Moreover, mental health and substance abuse explain caseworkers' concerns about mothers' engagement toward their child. These data raise questions about which type of services to offer, because intervening in families where parents deal with personal issues while addressing child neglect is complex.     

Getting Into It: Farm Roles and Careers of New Zealand Women1

Abstract Researchers have challenged the stereotype that farm women's roles and influence are primarily domestic by documenting the number of women's on-farm roles. This study extends this approach by considering the interrelationships among women's roles and influence in reproductive and productive domains. A qualitative research method was used to investigate women's ways of describing the range of their on-farm roles and the process of entry into and exit from those roles. Participants were farm women from south island, New Zealand. Findings showed women's wide range of involvement in household and farm labor, management, and ownership of their farms. Levels of involvement differed throughout the three phases of their farm careers: making a place, getting into it, retirement. Hypotheses were developed from the findings for further delineation of the range of women's on-farm involvement and barriers and opportunities to the development of women's on-farm careers.