‘Reach Out,Rise Up’: The efficacy of text messaging in an intervention package for anxiety and depression severity in young people

BackgroundDepression and anxiety are among the most commonly experienced mental health issues faced by young people in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Considerable barriers exist that prevent young people from engaging with face-to-face mental health services. Young people's preference for technology-based counselling mediums such as text messaging opens up new pathways for intervention.ObjectiveA pilot text message-based intervention package was trialled for use by young people to evaluate the potential efficacy of the text package as an intervention for depression and anxiety symptoms.MethodThe text package was piloted using a 10-week longitudinal cohort pilot with 21 young participants (12–24 years) who demonstrated mild to moderate anxiety and/or depression symptoms.ResultsParticipants' post-package scores were significantly lower than their pre-package scores for both anxiety (Z = − 2.83, p = .005, r = − 0.65) and depression (Z = − 2.49, p = .013, r = −.056). ‘Feeling encouraged and supported’ increased as a result of receiving support from a trained supporter (Z = − 2.06, p = .039, r = − 0.45), but not from friends/family (Z = − 1.72, p = .130, r = − 0.37). Anxiety and depression scores did not change as a result of support from either trained supporters or friends/family.ConclusionsFindings support the potential efficacy of the text package, justify wider trials of the text package, and support the use of text message-based interventions as potentially effective therapies for young people.     

Adolescents’ experiences of school belonging: a qualitative meta-synthesis

School belonging is associated with positive social and academic outcomes. This meta-synthesis aimed to explore adolescents’ accounts of the experience of school belonging, and to promote their understanding of this experience in order to inform policy and practice. A meta-ethnographic methodology was used; this involved a process of reciprocal translation and subsequent synthesis of eight qualitative studies. The synthesis generated four main concepts: (1) school belonging and intersubjectivity; (2) school belonging and knowledge, understanding and acceptance of individual identity; (3) school belonging and experiences of in-group membership and (4) school belonging and safety/security. The synthesis of translation generated the higher-order concept of school belonging as ‘feeling safe to be yourself in and through relationships with others in the school setting’. This concept considers the experience of school belonging for adolescents as a foundational prerequisite of academic engagement and achievement. The implications of these findings for education, social care and mental health practitioners and policymakers are discussed.     

Developing elementary school students’ intercultural competence through teacher-led tutoring action plans on intercultural education

The increasing cultural diversity in the current Spanish educational system has had dramatic consequences for school population demography and relationships between students in culturally diverse classrooms. In this context, the development of students’ intercultural competence can contribute to strengthening communication, as well as preventing misunderstandings and coexistence problems. In this study, the effects of a teacher-led intercultural tutoring action programme (TAP) on elementary students’ intercultural competence (IC) were assessed as a function of treatment condition and grade level. Participants were 187 third- to sixth-grade pupils (84% Spaniards and 16% immigrants) who were assigned randomly to treatment conditions (TAP versus comparison). After 20 weeks of programme implementation, the findings revealed that the TAP was successful. Conceptual intercultural competence was better achieved by fifth- to sixth-grade students, while IC skills and attitudes were significantly better developed by third- to fourth-grade students. Implications for teachers and counsellors/schools psychologists are discussed.     

The effects of a workplace intervention on employees’ cortisol awakening response

Work-related stressors are known to adversely affect employees’ stress physiology, including the cortisol awakening response (CAR) – or the spike in cortisol levels shortly after people wake up that aids in mobilizing energy. A flat or blunted CAR has been linked to chronic stress and burnout. This daily diary study tested the effects of a workplace intervention on employed parents’ CAR. Specifically, we tested whether the effects of the intervention on CAR were moderated by the type of days (workday versus non-work day). Data came from 94 employed parents from an information technology firm who participated in the baseline and 12-month diurnal cortisol components of the Work, Family, and Health Study, a group-randomized field experiment. The workplace intervention was designed to reduce work-family conflict (WFC) and implemented after the baseline data collection. Diurnal salivary cortisol was collected on 4 days at both baseline and 12 months. Multilevel modeling revealed that the intervention significantly increased employees’ CAR at 12 months on non-workdays, but this was not evident on workdays or for employees in the usual practice condition. The results provide evidence that the intervention was effective in enhancing employees’ biological stress physiology particularly during opportunities for recovery that are more likely to occur on non-work days.     

The neoliberal mom: how a discursive coalition shapes low-income mothers’ labor market participation

Research has elucidated the conflict low-income mothers face when trying to comply with the imperatives of the neoliberalism and mothering discourses. Feminist scholars have argued that low-income mothers’ alternative conceptions of morality and behavior constitute an act of resistance to inferiorizing definitions embedded in these discourses. Drawing on this literature, I offer a new conceptualization of the seemingly contradictory discourses. Based on interviews with 48 low-income Israeli mothers, I suggest that the neoliberal ideology is not limited to the neoliberal discourse, which primarily measures the individual's commitment to the labor market, but rather has diffused into the mothering discourse, which sets the standards for good mothering. This diffusion constructs a discursive coalition of ‘neoliberal moms’, wherein the current hegemonic notion of good mothering and the neoliberal call for personal responsibility intersect and shape mothers’ perceptions and decision-making processes. Moreover, the neoliberal mom constructs an alternative morality: moral motherhood. Accordingly, the moral component of good mothering means taking personal responsibility to act in ways that promote one's children's future inclusion. I argue that the discursive coalition framework helps us to better understand mothers’ labor force entries and exits, and how these constitute a way of negotiating paths to social inclusion.     

A longitudinal study of children’s outcomes in a residential special school

ABSTRACT

This study presents findings from a longitudinal study of the Mulberry Bush School (MBS), a therapeutic residential special school in England which provides an integrated approach to education and care for children aged between 5 and 13 years. Four cohorts were followed (23 = boys; 13 = girls), each for a consecutive 3-year period, approximating children’s time at the MBS. Children showed significant improvements in their socio-emotional, behavioural and academic development. The picture is more mixed for children’s attachment representations, which might be expected of the vulnerable and severely traumatised children who make up the MBS population. The importance of these improvements stem from the fact that they were achieved in the face of the exceptional disadvantages and challenges that characterise the lives of all children who attend the MBS. This is testimony to their achievement, and to the potential of the residential special school as a therapeutic learning environment.     

Folate/folic acid knowledge,intake, and self-efficacy of college-aged women: impact of text messaging and availability of a folic acid–containing supplement

ABSTRACT

Objective: To evaluate the impact of educational text messages (TMs) on folate/folic acid knowledge and consumption among college-aged women, and to evaluate the impact of providing folic acid supplements on folate/folic acid intake among college-aged women. Participants: A total of 162 women (18–24 years) recruited from a university. Methods: The protocol included 3 study visits and a 6-week intervention for 4 groups: control; TM only; supplement only; and TM+supplement. Supplement groups received folic acid–containing supplements. TM groups received 18 folate-related TMs. Participants completed knowledge quizzes, supplement intake questions, a self-efficacy scale, and dietary recalls. Results: Despite receiving the same folic acid education, intake of folic acid and total folate was greater in the supplement groups compared with the non-supplement groups at mid- and post-study. TMs had no impact on any study measure. Conclusion: Provision of a folic acid–containing supplement enhanced short-term folic acid intake, supporting the provision of supplements to this population group.     

Cultural Responsiveness: a framework for re-thinking students’ interculturality through study abroad

While intercultural competence is commonly a goal of university study abroad programmes, debates around criteria for assessing this competence have highlighted the challenges in appropriately identifying students’ intercultural learning in relation to specific university programmes. To overcome these issues, this research moves beyond conceptualising the intercultural in terms of ‘competence’ and instead proposes a framework termed Cultural Responsiveness to illustrate students’ intercultural learning. Through questionnaires and interviews, the experiences and perceptions of undergraduate students after a year of exchange in France or Switzerland were collected and analysed. Using the Cultural Responsiveness framework, three parameters of students’ intercultural experiences emerged: Awareness, Engagement and Bringing Knowledge Home.     

‘Is it a mosque?’ The Islamization of space explored through residents’ everyday ‘discursive assemblages’

This article examines the Islamization of suburban space in southeast England. Its microgeographies of racialization challenge binary either/or logic, favoured by ‘mosque conflict’ approaches and instead demonstrate how residents’ negotiations are channelled through everyday both/and logic rooted in multiplicity and indeterminacy. A key element in negotiations is the ‘sometimes quality’ of the ‘Islamic Centre’ that allows it to be both a ‘mosque’ and ‘not-a-mosque’. Moreover, each of the differently positioned residents shows uneven discursive capacities for identity, belonging and community in relation to the Islamization of suburban space, and each is afforded differential empowerment and capabilities under social discourses of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘tolerance’. In examining these microgeographies of racialization, this paper also extends representational accounts of lived experiences surrounding the Islamization of space by attending to affect, emotion and materiality. To do so, the notion of ‘discursive assemblage’ is developed.     

“I’m Just a Woman. But I’ve Never Been a Victim”: Re-conceptualizing Prostitution Policy through Individual Narratives

Drawing on narrative theory in political science and policy studies, this article argues that narratives serve definitional purposes in the prostitution policy process, but not all narratives are equally influential here. To illustrate, it shares Gloria Lockett’s narrative. Lockett is a 65-year-old African American former sex worker, prostitutes’ rights activist, and the cofounder and the current executive director of the California Prostitutes Education Project, an HIV/AIDS prevention and education nonprofit in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although Lockett’s narrative does not represent all women in prostitution, it complicates dominant understandings of prostitution in the United States, contests the current criminalization regime, and alerts health authorities to sex workers’ occupational health and safety concerns. Yet even as others share and support her narrative, various legal and ideological factors limit its impact in the policy process.     

The making of ‘Brother Time’: extending a traditional project through visual methods

Previously interested on how the Internet was shaping science in less developed regions, the World Science Project turned its research lenses to document the often-tragic setting of science in less developed regions. Based upon 100 hours of video documentation and extensive interviews (conducted in 2008 and 2009) with Kenyan research professionals, university administrators, religious leaders, journalists, shopkeepers, farmers, college students, and internally displaced refugees, our international research team investigated the unique role played by universities and research institutes during a violent political episode following presidential elections. Conducting video research that focuses on a sensitive political issue in a developing nation, involves a variety of logistical, cultural, and methodological obstacles that continued through post-production. Despite these challenges, the video documentary dimension of the research project proved instrumental in (1) reflecting upon, as well as extending, our empirical research on science in less developed regions and, as importantly, (2) elaborating upon a theoretical perspective that has evolved out of this research – Re-agency.     

‘We don’t have any limits’: Russian young adult life narratives through a social generations lens

A social generation framework attends to how emergent historical patterns of social organization shape young adult contemporaries, noting shared strategies to constructing subjectivity within a common political, social, and economic milieu. However, the perspective has given scant attention to how young people engage in reflexive life management outside of well-documented Western contexts. Additionally, the framework needs further consideration of how youth lives are shaped by the social relations of globalization. To address these omissions, this article examines how educated, urban Russian young adults engage in reflexive life management. In drawing on a social generations rather than transitions approach, youth meaning-making is analyzed through grounded analysis rather than reliance on previously conceived categories. The study of youth reflexive life management can be reframed as a question: ‘what does making a life mean to educated urban post-adolescents in Russia?’ We explore how respondents interpret difference and inequality through transnational comparisons, center globality in the biographical project, and encounter citizenship constraints. We focus on three meaning-making projects: idealized globality, assuming nonlinear paths, and vigilant evaluative work.     

A PEP grant’s influence on change in a school district: One year post funding

This study examined teachers’ and administrators’ perceptions of the institutionalization phase of the Carol M. White Physical Education for Progress (PEP) grant. A qualitative exploratory single case study (Yin, 2014) was utilized to examine the elements of the PEP grant that sustained or did not sustain after its conclusion, along with elements that were institutionalized and influences on this process. The findings were represented in the following three themes: (a) positive shifts, (b) backsliding, and (c) new directions, each with their own subthemes. Positive shifts includes sub-themes: (a) philosophy, (b) instruction, assessment and curriculum, (c) collaboration, and (d) respect. Backsliding includes sub-themes: (a) wellness team functioning, (b) the loss of PD and collaboration time, and (c) reduced data collection. New directions includes sub-themes: (a) mastery learning, (b) during school physical activity, (c) stress, and (d) administrative support. The factors that were institutionalized were quality physical education leadership roles, change in teachers’ philosophies that influenced their instruction and assessment, and garnered administrative support. These elements were embedded into the physical education program and the school so much so that principals now expect the same type of programming from any new hire.     

Shildrick’s monster: exploring a new approach to difference/disability through collective biography

Working with memories generated in a collective biography workshop on difference/disability and drawing in particular on Shildrick’s analysis of monstrosity, this article analyses the ambivalent processes through which difference is othered and abjected. The article argues that through the process of abjection we disown for ourselves whatever qualities are being categorised as monstrous, with negative effects not just on the other, but also on the self. We look at the ambivalence of ‘reclaiming the monster’. This article opens up an alternative of expanding the possibilities of being by focusing not on difference as categorical otherness, but rather difference as movement, as differenciation, or becoming.     

Telling the Collective Story? Moroccan-Dutch Young Adults’ Negotiation of a Collective Identity through Storytelling

Researchers taking a social constructionist perspective on identity agree that identities are constructed and negotiated in interaction. However, empirical studies in this field are often based on interviewer–interviewee interaction or focus on interactions with members of a socially dominant out-group. How identities are negotiated in interaction with in-group members remains understudied. In this article we use a narrative approach to study identity negotiation among Moroccan-Dutch young adults, who constitute both an ethnic and a religious (Muslim) minority in the Netherlands. Our analysis focuses on the topics that appear in focus group participants’ stories and on participants’ responses to each other’s stories. We find that Moroccan-Dutch young adults collectively narrate their experiences in Dutch society in terms of discrimination and injustice. Firmly grounded in media discourse and popular wisdom, a collective narrative of a disadvantaged minority identity emerges. However, we also find that this identity is not uncontested. We use the concept of second stories to explain how participants negotiate their collective identity by alternating stories in which the collective experience of deprivation is reaffirmed with stories in which challenging or new evaluations of the collective experience are offered. In particular, participants narrate their personal experiences to challenge recurring evaluations of discrimination and injustice. A new collective narrative emerges from this work of joint storytelling.     

Effecting Change through Peace Research in a Methodological ‘No-Man’s Land’: A Case Study of West Papua

This article reflects upon the disciplinary and ethical challenges I have navigated as an ethnographer in the academic ‘no-man’s land’ of West Papua-related research. I contend that the peace and conflict studies concept of conflict transformation articulates productively with a critical ethnographic methodology, assisting me in charting a research path. Using examples from my own research relating to West Papua’s independence movement I argue that the ethnographer’s role is powerful and carries attendant responsibilities to research participants and to the world of knowledge for increasing peace with justice. This article provides a case study example of how researching the ways the vulnerable interpret the world can be an act of justice, arguing that emergent critical interpretations are essential to preparing the world for long-lasting, positive change.     

Diversity without difference: modelling ‘the real’ in the social aesthetic of a London multicultural school

This article analyses the social aesthetic of the visual displays of a multicultural London primary school. It shows that the social aesthetic of the school models the school as a site of the ‘real’ in Baudrillard's sense of a ‘real’ that is a simulacra of the real, one from which the violence that is produced within and is constitutive of capitalism is expelled. In this view ‘race’ is not a division of humanity caused by racism, it is simply a cultural sign marking diversity. Difference, in the sense of racialised inequalities or racism, can be expelled from the system without ‘race’ itself being expelled. By the same logic, nationalism, as an exclusionary ideology, is separated out from national identity, which becomes simply one of a range of cultural resources that children can draw on in assembling the self.