Navigating transnational childcare relationships: migrant parents and their children's caregivers in the origin country

In this article, we investigate the daily work entailed in maintaining informal transnational childcare relationships between migrant parents and the children's kin or non‐kin caregivers in the country of origin. By applying the concept of ‘kin work’, we seek to understand how work is performed within transnational care relationships. Using a simultaneous matched sample methodology that gives equal weight to data on both sides of the transnational relationship, a team of researchers collected ethnographic data from Ghanaian migrant parents in the Netherlands and from their children's caregivers in Ghana. This approach allowed us to investigate the day‐to‐day care work from two perspectives – namely the visible and the invisible actions of the people involved in creating the kinship relationships of care work. Discrepancies in perceptions were uncovered because we compared data obtained on both sides of the relationship. These findings contribute to our understanding of the ways in which long‐distance practices facilitate the maintenance of kin relationships and how the inability to perform these can lead to tensions.     

Social Work Practices for Young People with Complex Needs: An Integrative Review

The aim of this integrative review is to investigate research of social work practices for adolescents and young adults with complex needs. The research questions are: What are the major themes in studies of practices for young people with complex needs? How do studies suggest that complex needs can be met in ways that are beneficial for young people? A young person with complex needs is in this review defined as an adolescent or young adult who, due to mental ill-health in combination with different types of social vulnerabilities, is receiving assistance from multiple welfare services. Searches were conducted in seven databases. These searches resulted in a sample of 1677 records, published 2007–2016, which in the screening process were reduced to 24 publications, all peer-reviewed articles. The participants in the studies in the articles consisted of young people, parents and professionals from mainly Anglo-Saxon countries. The articles were analyzed with qualitative summative content analysis. Three empirically generated themes were found in studies of work practices targeting young people with complex needs: collaboration-, relationship- and empowerment-oriented practices. In conclusion, the practices contain a wide variety of features, but with the joint aim of acknowledging young people’s needs. The results can be used by practitioners and policymakers to further the development of services for youth with mental ill-health and social vulnerabilities, who use multiple welfare services.     

Making use of work–family balance entitlements: how to support fathers with combining employment and caregiving

ABSTRACT

Much workplace support to parents offered by employers is gender neutral in design, but fathers’ usage rates are generally very low and far below that of mothers. This paper reflects on men’s dual roles as fathers and employees in relation to formal and informal work policies and practices, with the aim of answering the question: How could fathers feel supported by their work environment to take a more active caregiving role in the lives of their children? We take a capabilities approach to explore models of change, which supports the assumption that many fathers are somehow not fully enabled by their organisations to use policies. Focus groups were conducted within a large public sector organisation in the UK to capture the individual and interactional experiences of fathers. Findings suggest that workplace culture, line manager relationships, the ‘modelling’ behaviour of peers and gendered leave practices all impact on how fathers feel about using work-family balance policies, and whether they are likely to use them. The limits of workplace support for fathers can be challenged via the consideration of some key institutional conversion factors which if addressed may better enable fathers to exercise greater agency with regard to work-family balance entitlements.     

Young people with complex needs meet complex organizations: an interview study with Swedish professionals about sustainable work practices

ABSTRACT

This paper concerns preconditions for the well-being of young people with mental ill-health combined with social vulnerabilities, also referred to as youth with complex needs. Research questions are: What barriers to sustainable work practices for young people labelled as having complex needs do professionals encounter? What do professionals identify as possible ways to overcome these barriers? Sustainable work practices are reflected in three themes: empowerment, relationships and collaboration. The findings are based on semi-structured interviews with 24 professionals, 3 men and 21 women, working in psychiatric care and the social services in two Swedish municipalities in 2016 and 2017. Major barriers are lack of continuity and co-ordination in staff and support, and fragmentation of work practices. As a consequence of the increased specialization of human service organizations, young people have to interact with many different professionals which could cause disparate interventions. Possible ways mentioned to overcome these barriers are supported through good interactional skills, using keyworkers as well therapeutic alliances, wrap-around services and case management. Complexity is linked to organizations and work practices rather than to young people. An often dysfunctional service delivery system in organizations with rigid boundaries may also affect professionals’ aim for sustainable support.     

Strengthening child and youth programs: A look at inter-organizational mentoring strategies

Community-based non-profit organizations rarely have access to research or evaluation evidence to inform their programs and often lack the capacity to gather or use this information independently. In 2016, Wisdom2Action—a network of knowledge mobilization (KMb) experts, policy makers and service providers across Canada—launched an inter-organizational mentorship program to facilitate the implementation and sharing of best and promising practices within community-based programs for young people. This article outlines the findings from a developmental evaluation of eight mentoring relationships. Drawing on the Promoting Action on Research in Health Sciences (PARiHS) model of KMb, we look at mentoring as a type of facilitation that supports the increased use of evidence and evaluation information by non-profit organizations and identify key themes that support effective organizational mentorship in this sector. Findings reinforce the importance of establishing connected relationships and understanding context in mentoring relationships, creating adaptive and responsive work plans, ensuring consistent communication, and maintaining a focus on capacity-building if knowledge mobilization is to occur.     

Commodities,merchants, and refugees: inter‐Asian circulations and Afghan mobility

This article consists of an analysis of ethnographic material on Afghan trading networks involved in both the export of commodities from China to a variety of settings across Eurasia and the movement of ‘refugees’ from Afghanistan to Europe. Much recent work on trading networks has deployed the concept of trust to understand the functioning of such social formations. By contrast, in this article I assess the durability of Afghan networks in three ways. First, recognition of how they are polycentric and multi‐nodal. Second, how they are successful in transforming their collective aims and projects in changing shifting political and economic circumstances. Third, how they are made up of individuals able to switch their statuses and activities within trading networks over time. Furthermore, I argue that a focus on the precise ways in which traders entrust capital, people and commodities to one another, reveals the extent to which social and commercial relationships inside trading networks are frequently impermanent and pregnant with concerns about mistrust and contingency. Recognition of this suggests that scholars should focus on practices of entrustment rather than abstract notions of trust in their analyses of trading networks per se, as well as seek to understand the ways in which these practices enable actors to handle and address questions of contingency.     

青年压力来源与社会支持系统优化策略

现代社会给青年提供了前所未有的发展机遇,也使青年承受着超出以往任何时代的生存压力．2011年,对山东城市在业青年进行的社会心态调查显示：当前青年的压力主要来自经济压力、工作压力、子女教育压力三个方面。研究表明：传统的家庭支持系统是青年应对经济压力和人生重大选择的主要支持力量,非正式社会支持系统和家庭共同构成青年情感支持的主要力量,正式的社会支持系统对青年的支持作用尚未得到充分发挥。建立相对完备的社会支持系统,需要从社会保障、组织覆盖、舆论影响、心理疏导等方面提升优化。     

Visions of Public Space: Reproducing and Resisting Social Hierarchies in a Community Garden

Urban public spaces are sites of struggles over gentrification. In increasingly diverse cities, these public spaces also host interactions among people of different class, race, ethnicity, and immigration status. How do people share public spaces in contexts of diversity and gentrification? I analyze the conflicting ways of imagining shared spaces by drawing on an ethnographic study of a community garden in a diverse and gentrifying neighborhood in New York City, conducted between 2011 and 2013. I examine how conflicts among gardeners about the aesthetics of the garden and norms of conduct reproduce larger gentrification struggles over culture and resources. Those who wanted the garden to be a lush and orderly space drew on their privilege and resources to leverage support from institutional actors and push through a vision that resonated with aesthetic preferences of affluent residents and developers. At the same time, I found that the diversity, combined with several other characteristics, created openings for cultural disruption. Utilizing relationships built across dramatic lines of class, race, and immigration difference, less privileged gardeners were able to destabilize hierarchies and defend their visions of this public space. Conflict and messy deliberation—rather than harmonious community—facilitated engagement with difference.     

Economic Transnationalism and its Ambiguities: The Case of Romanian Migration to Italy

Taking the case of migratory flows between Romania and Italy as a case study, this article investigates the ways in which spaces of economic transnationalism emerge and are reproduced over time. While the article finds that the role of the state in regulating the flow of money, people and goods across borders remains significant, it nevertheless provides evidence that state authority is systematically challenged by private actors even in the case of migration phenomena with a remarkably short history such as that of Romanians in Italy. Particularly interesting in this respect are labor recruiting networks in which informal headhunter operations, public officials and mobile manufacturing firms interact in surprising ways. While economic forms of transnationalism are the main focus of this investigation, the ways in which transnational capital and labor flows facilitated the symbolic reaffirmation of social institutions in the sending locality are also investigated.     

Role of informal sector recycling in waste management in developing countries

Many thousands of people in developing country cities depend on recycling materials from waste for their livelihoods. With the focus of the Millennium Development Goals on poverty reduction, and of waste strategies on improving recycling rates, one of the major challenges in solid waste management in developing countries is how best to work with this informal sector to improve their livelihoods, working conditions and efficiency in recycling.The general characteristics of informal recycling are reviewed, highlighting both positive and negative aspects. Despite the health and social problems associated with informal recycling, it provides significant economic benefits that need to be retained. Experience shows that it can be highly counterproductive to establish new formal waste recycling systems without taking into account informal systems that already exist. The preferred option is to integrate the informal sector into waste management planning, building on their practices and experience, while working to improve efficiency and the living and working conditions of those involved. Issues associated with integrating informal recycling into the formal waste management sector are discussed.     

Does (mixed‐)race matter? The role of race in interracial sex,dating, and marriage

Though sociologists have long focused on the role of race as a dynamic in romantic and sexual relationships, there is currently limited research on the experiences of mixed‐race people and the ways their racial identities may be influencing how people navigate race and/or ethnicity as part of these intimate relationships. Due to the increase in the number of Americans—in both opposite‐sex and same‐sex relationships—reporting partners of a different race or ethnic background between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, race, and intimacy remain at the forefront of mainstream social concerns. However, research exploring how multiracial people—a rapidly growing population—fit in these trends is underrepresented. In this review, I discuss the existing research on race, dating, and marriage, particularly the meanings attached to interracial relationships in an online era. I also assess how recent research has begun to discuss the impact of mixed‐race identity on intimate relationships both online and offline.     

Utilisation of Medical Services—Difficulties and Solutions

ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to look at how social workers and bilingual community workers work with the Chinese community in Sydney to address the inequalities in health amongst the Chinese and other eon-English speaking communities. These workers must use their knowledge and skills in radical practices to police health inequalities and accomplish change through the development of effective initiatives in promoting active participation amongst Chinese Australians and obtaining more public funding for transcultural health. Active participation can be promoted in four areas: the development of a charter of health rights for people of non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB), an increase in representation of people of NESB on health boards, an increase in the number of bilingual and bicultural professionals and the establishment of mechanisms for regular monitoring of medical care provision for people of NESB. More public funding for transcultural health can be secured through a number of political fund raising activities. These include: to develop both formal and informal relationship with and to be able to influence ministers, ministerial advisers and senior public servants; to gain representation on statutory boards and committees; and, to express the need for access and equity through the ballot boxes.     

Patterns of Informal Job Matching across the Life Course: Entry‐Level,Reentry‐Level,and Elite Non‐Searching*

The character and outcomes of informal job matching vary at different stages during people's lives. This is illustrated through an examination of non‐searchers—people who get their jobs without searching thanks to receiving unsolicited information about job openings. Examining data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I identify three distinct patterns of non‐searching. Early in the work career, “entry‐level” non‐searchers acquire their first few jobs often while still in school. During the mid‐career, “reentry‐level” non‐searchers tend to be women with little work experience who have been out of the labor market taking care of family responsibilities. Finally, “elite” non‐searchers tend to be male, highly experienced in their field, with very short gaps between employment. All three lack an economic urgency to get a job, but only the elite non‐searchers match prevailing assumptions of non‐searchers as the best connected and most advantaged workers. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating a life course perspective into the study of informal job matching.     

Experiential careers: the routinization and de-routinization of religious life

This article develops the concept of experiential careers, drawing theoretical attention to the routinization and de-routinization of specific experiences as they unfold over social career trajectories. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in two religious communities, we compare the social-temporal patterning of religious experience among newly religious Orthodox Jews and converted Muslims in two cities in the United States. In both cases, we find that as newly religious people work to transform their previous bodily habits and take on newly prescribed religious acts, the beginning of their religious careers becomes marked by what practitioners describe as potent religious experiences in situations of religious practice. However, over time, these once novel practices become routinized and religious experiences in these situations diminish, thus provoking actors and institutions in both fields to work to re-enchant religious life. Through this ethnographic comparison, we demonstrate the utility of focusing on experiential careers as a sociological unit of analysis. Doing so allows sociologists to use a non-reductive phenomenological approach to chart the shifting manifestations of experiences people deeply care about, along with the patterned enchantments, disenchantments, and possible re-enchantments these social careers entail. As such, this approach contributes to the analysis of social careers and experiences of ??becoming?? across both religious and non-religious domains.     

How organizational characteristics shape gender difference and inequality at work

Why should students and scholars who are interested in gender difference and inequality study organizations? In recent years, as research on organizations has migrated to business schools and become less connected to other subfields of the discipline, the value of organizational sociology has become less evident to many. Yet characteristics of organizations contribute in important ways to producing different experiences and outcomes for women and men, by constraining certain individual actions and enabling or bringing about others. In this essay, we trace the consequences of four categories of organizational characteristics—the formal structure of work, employment practices, informal structure and culture, and organizational networks and fields—for gender inequality in three areas: workplace experiences, work–family conflict, and career outcomes. We close with some brief reflections on future directions for research linking organizations and gender.     

The consequences of love: young people and family practices in difficult circumstances

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of sociological work exploring the importance and meaning of kinship. Much of this work has criticized the ‘individualization’ thesis according to which changes in family structures over time have been interpreted as reflecting a fundamental decline in family values. Highlighting continuities as well as change in family life, this work has also suggested ways to move beyond the individualization debate and to develop alternative frameworks for the study of contemporary families and personal life, notably through the analysis of related practices. For various reasons, this recent work has focused primarily on the experience and practices of adults in ‘ordinary’ rather than more difficult family circumstances. This article aims to complement this work by focusing on the difficult family experiences of young people affected by parental substance use. It is argued that it is important not to lose sight of such experiences in order that sociological thinking reflect the diversity of family practices and the resources available to support them, including at younger ages. In addition, the importance of developing concepts or a language facilitating the exploration and communication of the emotional and symbolic significance of these practices is emphasized.     

Getting Serious About Inequality

Sociologists have spent a great deal of energy studying social inequality, but in this presentation I suggest that we need to refocus our efforts a bit. I examine four popular myths among the general public, and among some in sociology, regarding the drivers of extreme inequality: (1) that most inequality is generated by race and gender, (2) that most inequality is driven by educational inequality, (3) that most inequality is driven by differences in family structure, and (4) that most inequality results from face‐to‐face interactions. I provide preliminary evidence that our explanations need some work. That work involves recognizing that most inequality is generated within demographic groups and that this inequality is growing rapidly. It also involves recognizing that there are few ways to incorporate underrepresented groups into the mainstream of a social and economic system where extreme inequality is getting worse and substantial percentages of the population face economic stagnation and downward mobility. The conclusion represents a call to focus on the most important group gap—the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor—and the mechanisms through which most people gain access to economic goods, services, and social respect—jobs and money.     

Informal Learning for Citizenship Building in Shared Struggles for Rights: Cases of Political Solidarity Between Colombian and Spanish Organisations

Dominant discourses and practices in international cooperation have been characterised by depoliticisation and unequal power relationships. However, a number of more transformative experiences of cooperation also exist, where joint work between Northern and Southern social organisations is linked with a more political perspective. These kinds of experiences can be considered processes of informal learning in social action: through shared actions, strategies and frameworks and through interaction between organisations, institutions and the grassroots, informal and multidimensional learning processes occur in the people and organisations engaged. The study approaches four cases of networks that have linked Spanish and Colombian organisations which promote advocacy and social mobilisation for the defence of human rights in Colombia. The results show that people engaged in the cases experience intense learning processes that are relevant for the construction of solidarities and a radical global citizenship, but that these processes are also replete with limitations, tensions and challenges.     

What are Homes Made of? Building Materials,DIY and the Homeyness of Homes

This article considers the meanings that are attached to, and outcomes produced by, the things that houses are built from. It reflects on the meanings attached to the “robustness” of building materials for people who carry out DIY (Do-It-Yourself) projects. DIY is important to some people as a way to build relationships and perform a culturally valued identity. For interviewees in New Zealand, working on their own homes was an important aspect of their lives, and more malleable building materials allowed such work and had positive connotations and produced feelings of homeyness in contrast to more robust “permanent” materials. The article thus raises questions about how the built material of home relates to our feelings about it as well as highlighting the diverse practices and relationships that—literally—construct homes.