The Incarcerated Parent: Examining Mother-Child Conflict at the Margins through a Bio-Ecological Lens

ABSTRACT

This study examined conflict, parenting communication style, and attitudes regarding the parent-child relationship for a marginalized special population: incarcerated mothers and their children. Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological perspective served as a guiding framework, based on its ability to consider family interactions across ecological contexts, both proximal and distal to the developing child’s home setting. Fifty incarcerated mothers in the central U.S. provided in-depth interviews and individual self-report surveys. Findings indicate that incarcerated mothers most frequently used an authoritative parenting communication style in conflict situations that ended positively, and authoritarian style in conflict that ended negatively. Authoritative parenting was associated with incarcerated mothers’ reports of greater satisfaction with parenting. Study findings suggest that parenting communication style can help support efforts to reduce recidivism. Contextualizing these findings within Bronfenbrenner’s model, the present study affirms the role of proximal as well as distal factors governing relational communication between incarcerated mothers and their children.     

(Re)Valuing Relationships in Child Protection Practice

Relationship-based social work practice with Australian Indigenous families, within an anti-oppressive framework, is considered effective in child protection work. However, procedural and legalistic approaches to child protection, as well as limited cultural competence, can limit the capacity of workers to develop relationships and take action that empowers vulnerable Indigenous families and communities to care safely for their children. This qualitative study, conducted in Australia, examines the inter-relationships between practitioners, agencies, families and community members expressed in day-to-day child protection practice with Indigenous families. There were tensions and constraints on relationship-building between practitioners and clients, between Indigenous and non-indigenous practitioners, and between government and non-government agencies. The findings support arguments to re-value and strengthen the concept of relationship-building as a foundation for practice. All practitioners must have greater support to build the culturally respectful relationships required for positive change, and more scope to work in partnership with families.     

The Impact of High-Profile Sexual Abuse Cases in the Media on a Pediatric Emergency Department

High-profile media cases of sexual abuse may encourage disclosures of abuse from victims of unrelated assaults and also influence parental concerns, leading to increased emergency department visits. In the region of the study authors’ institution, there are two recent high-profile sexual abuse cases with media coverage: Earl Bradley, a Delaware pediatrician, and Jerry Sandusky, a Pennsylvania college football coach. This is a retrospective cohort study of children evaluated for sexual abuse at a pediatric emergency department. Patients were classified as either presenting during a media period or non-media period. The media periods were one-month periods immediately following breaking news reports, when the cases were highly publicized in the media. The non-media periods were the 12-month periods directly preceding the first reports. The median number of emergency department visits per month during a non-media period was 9 visits (interquartile range 6–10). There were 11 visits in the month following the Sandusky case and 13 visits following the Bradley case. There was no statistical difference in number of emergency department visits for sexual abuse between the periods (p = .09). These finding have implications regarding use of resources in pediatric EDs after high-profile sexual abuse cases.     

Family Practices,Holiday and the Everyday

Holidays are central to the rhythm of everyday family practices and consumption, and are often depicted, within both academic literature and consumer marketing, as a defining moment in contemporary family life. To date, academic accounts of the experiences of travel and tourism have been mostly developed outside of the realm of everyday family practices and intimate relations. In this paper, therefore, we advance an interpretation of family holidays as a constituent of everyday family practices. To do this, we bring together three distinct yet interrelated conceptual frameworks: those of family practices, holiday and the everyday. Presenting and analysing data collected from ethnographic research with six families and exploring the themes of anticipation and utopian family practices, we identify how the notion of family holidays can be used a conduit for realising not only relationality between family members but also as a means of easing out the tensions and aspirations of everyday family life, a way to perfect the everyday and also to make it more palatable.     

Growing up with a sibling with dwarfism: perceptions of adult non‐dwarf siblings

Despite the fact that society seems to have become more tolerant towards human diversity, skeletal dysplasia still carries some extent of stigmatization and negative stereotyping. There seems to be a lack of knowledge regarding psychosocial factors associated with skeletal dysplasia, specifically as it relates to interpersonal relationships. Since the negative attention directed at individuals with dwarfism may also have an impact on family members and family relationships, the aim of this qualitative study was to explore adult non‐dwarf siblings' experiences of growing up with siblings with a skeletal dysplasia. Thematic analyses of semi‐structured interviews with four adult non‐dwarf siblings confirmed both negative and positive effects. These effects were evident in childhood and continued into adulthood. For the adults who took part in this study, the positive effects seemed to be more profound.     

“As You Grow up the Divide Still Tends to Happen”: A Qualitative Investigation of Gender Segregation in Adulthood

Gender Issues - Gender segregation, the tendency to form social relationships with those of the same gender, is believed to contribute to gender-typing (Mehta and Strough in Sex Roles...     

Evaluating the Mental Models Approach to Developing a Risk Communication: A Scoping Review of the Evidence

Risk communication is fundamental in ensuring people are equipped with the knowledge needed to navigate varied risks. One generally well‐regarded framework for the development of such communications is the mental models approach to risk communication (MMARC). Developed during the 1990s, the MMARC has been applied to a range of health, technological, and environmental risks. However, as yet, we know of no attempt to collate and review articles that evaluated communications developed using the MMARC. This article took a first step at addressing this gap by conducting a scoping review that aimed to begin to explore the fidelity with which the approach has been applied, explore whether there appeared to be sufficient studies to warrant a future systematic review, and identify future research questions. Although the initial search found over 100 articles explicitly applying the MMARC, only 12 of these developed a risk‐related communication that was tested against a control (and thus included in the current review). All studies reported a positive effect of the MMARC versus control communication for at least some of the outcome measures (knowledge being the most prevalent). However, there was wide variation between studies including type of control, outcomes assessed, and only five studies reported adopting a randomized design. The review highlights both the need for greater fidelity in the way future studies operationalize the MMARC approach, and suggests that a full‐scale systematic review of the MMARC literature appears justified, especially given the possibility of a large gray literature in this area.     

Ungrateful slaves? An examination of job quality and job satisfaction for male part-time workers in the UK

Research on part-time work has concentrated over many decades on the experiences of women but male part-time employment is growing in the UK. This article addresses two sizable gaps in knowledge concerning male part-timers: are men's part-time jobs of lower quality than men's full-time jobs? Are male part-timers more or less job-satisfied compared to their full-time peers? A fundamental part of both interrogations is whether men's part-time employment varies by occupational class. The article is motivated by the large body of work on female part-timers. Its theoretical framework is rooted in one of the most controversial discussions in the sociology of women workers: the “grateful slave” debate that emerged in the 1990s when researchers sought to explain why so many women expressed job satisfaction with low-quality part-time jobs. Innovatively, this article draws upon those contentious ideas to provide new insights into male, rather than female, part-time employment. Based upon analysis of a large quantitative data set, the results provide clear evidence of low-quality male part-time employment in the UK, when compared with men's full-time jobs. Men working part-time also express deteriorating satisfaction with jobs overall and in several specific dimensions of their jobs. Male part-timers in lower occupational class positions retain a clear “lead” both in bad job quality and low satisfaction. The article asks whether decreasingly satisfied male part-time workers should be termed “ungrateful slaves?” It unpacks the “grateful slave” metaphor and, after doing so, rejects its value for the ongoing analysis of part-time jobs in the formal labor market.     

Normalizing post adoption support for all

Within a context of substantial adoption policy reform in England, this paper explores post adoption support. Findings from a small‐scale survey of 22 local authorities in England and interviews with 11 adoption practitioners (from 11 of the authorities that completed the survey) are presented and related national policy discussed. The paper argues that support should continue postmatching a child with their adoptive parent(s) and that this should be the norm rather than the exception. It also emphasizes the need to improve the availability of and access to post adoption support in a timely manner.