Adaptation and Validation of the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule for Use With High School Dropouts

The Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (LEDS) is considered the standard for measuring psychosocial stressor exposure, but it has not been used with academically at‐risk adolescents, including high school dropouts. The goal of this study was to (1) adapt the LEDS for use with this population, and (2) examine the reliability (interrater) and validity (concurrent and predictive) of this adaptation among a sample of vulnerable adolescents (N = 545). Good reliability coefficients (.79–.90) were obtained, and stressor exposure was associated with concurrent criteria indexing mental health outcomes (depression) and major risk factors for dropout (administratively recorded and self‐reported). Also, LEDS scores predicted dropout beyond these risk factors. The adapted LEDS appears useful for describing academically struggling adolescents’ stressor exposure.     

Examining the Relationship Between Level of Participation in Community Gardens and their Multiple Functions

Participation in community gardens improves health and well-being; however, few studies examine how often individuals need to participate to achieve these outcomes. This study examined the relationship between levels of participation in community gardens and health behaviors, psychological well-being, and perceptions of the community by surveying regular, occasional, and noncommunity garden participants in a disadvantage neighborhood (N = 115). Regular and occasional participates reported better mental health; occasional participants reported more vegetable intake, and regular participants reported more sense of community. Therefore, community practitioners may need to consider level of participation in gardening activities for some outcomes and not others.     

Co-production: towards a utopian approach

This article outlines how co-production might be understood as a utopian method, which both attends to and works against dominant inequalities. It suggests that it might be positioned ‘within, against, and beyond’ current configurations of power in academia and society more broadly. It develops this argument by drawing on recent research funded through the UK’s Connected Communities programme, led by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; and by attending to arguments from the field of Utopian Studies. It explores particular issues of power and control within the field of co-production, acknowledging that neoliberalism both constrains and co-opts such practice; and explores methodological and infrastructural issues such that its utopian potential might be realised.     

Motives for sharing illness experiences on Twitter: conversations of parents with children diagnosed with cancer

A patient- and family-centred approach in paediatric health care is important because parents are involved in making key decisions about their child’s health care and advocating for the best interest of the child. Parents and family members are increasingly turning to the internet to find and actively share information about their child’s health care. Twitter is one of many online platforms used by parents of children diagnosed with cancer to share information related to their child’s cancer experience. Existing research suggests that there is a need to better understand the motives for using Twitter for sharing content about a child’s cancer experience. Furthermore, there is a lack of theoretical frameworks for characterizing those motives. In this paper, we identify key themes of tweets posted by parents of children diagnosed with cancer and align those themes with motives inspired by the well-studied Everyday Life Information Seeking framework. We propose a new motive in addition to those associated with the framework and suggest that information can be shared for endogenous reasons as well as to meet the needs of others. This paper contributes an increased understanding of motives for sharing information about a child’s cancer journey and extends a theoretical framework for building further knowledge in this area.     

Veteran Status,Income, and Intergenerational Mobility Across Three Cohorts of American Men

Existing research linking prior military employment with labor market outcomes has focused on comparing the relative income of veterans and nonveterans. However, people who join the armed forces are uniquely selected from the broader population, and the form and direction of selectivity has shifted over time, with differential enlistment rates by race, region, and socioeconomic status. Understanding changes in the demographic composition of enlistees and veterans has significant import for the study of social mobility, particularly given changes in the occupational structure since the mid-twentieth century and wage stagnation well into the new millennium. Furthermore, labor market polarization and increases in educational attainment since WWII raise additional concerns about the social origins of military personnel and their occupational trajectories after discharge. Using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys, we investigate how social background is linked to both income and occupational mobility among veterans from three cohorts of American men: World War II, Vietnam, and the All-Volunteer Force. We find few benefits for veterans, for either income or intergenerational occupational mobility, once social background is controlled, suggesting that selection into the armed forces largely governs outcomes in the civilian labor market. Our findings have significant importance for understanding civilian labor market outcomes and trajectories of social mobility during distinct phases of military staffing.     

Unmet demand for short-acting hormonal and long-acting reversible contraception among community college students in Texas

Objective: To identify preferences for and use of short-acting hormonal (e.g., oral contraceptives, injectable contraception) or long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) among community college students in Texas. Participants: Female community college students, ages 18 to 24, at risk of pregnancy, sampled in Fall 2014 or Spring 2015 (N = 966). Methods: We assessed characteristics associated with preference for and use of short-acting hormonal or LARC methods (i.e., more-effective contraception). Results: 47% preferred short-acting hormonal methods and 21% preferred LARC, compared to 21% and 9%, respectively, who used these methods. A total of 63% of condom and withdrawal users and 78% of nonusers preferred a more effective method. Many noted cost and insurance barriers as reasons for not using their preferred more-effective method. Conclusions: Many young women in this sample who relied on less-effective methods preferred to use more-effective contraception. Reducing barriers could lead to higher uptake in this population at high risk of unintended pregnancy.     

Examining residence status as a risk factor for health risk behaviors among college students

Objective: The current study is aimed to evaluate college student residence as a unique risk factor for a range of negative health behaviors. Participants: We examined data from 63,555 students (66% females) from 157 campuses who completed the National College Health Assessment Survey in Spring 2011. Methods: Participants answered questions about the frequency of recent use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and illicit drugs, as well as sexual risk behavior in the last 30 days. Sexual risk behaviors were operationalized as having unprotected vaginal sex (yes/no) and the number of sexual partners. Results: Logistic regression analyses revealed that living off-campus is a unique predictor of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and illicit drug use, as well as engaging in unprotected sex and a greater number of sexual partners (all ps <. 01). Conclusions: Students living off-campus exhibit more substance use and sexual risk behaviors than students living on-campus, independent of gender, age, or race.     

Operationalising caseload midwifery in the Australian public maternity system: Findings from a national cross-sectional survey of maternity managers

Background

Despite high-level evidence of the benefits of caseload midwifery for women and babies, little is known about specific practice arrangements, organisational barriers and facilitators, nor about workforce requirements of caseload. This paper explores how caseload models across Australia operate.

Non-Muslim Australians’ Knowledge of Islam: Identifying and Rectifying Knowledge Deficiencies

It is more than a decade since social geographer Kevin Dunn first described non-Muslim Australians’ ignorance about Islam and its adherents and outlined a series of recommendations about how Australian governments could address this as a pressing social policy issue. Recently researchers have re-assessed non-Muslim Australians’ perceptions of their knowledge of Islam and Muslims identifying while it has improved since 2003, 70% acknowledge they know little to nothing about either. Using data from Australia’s 2016 National Social Survey, this study examines the correlation between non-Muslim Australians’ perceptions of their knowledge of Islam and Muslims and their actual knowledge. We find that perception of knowledge is a reasonable indicator of actual knowledge. Further, we find that tertiary education is the single significant demographic factor impacting actual knowledge. By examining geographical patterns of knowledge, we also find that ignorance of Islam and Muslims is consistent across Australia.     

Restricted entitlements for skilled temporary migrants: the limits of migrant consent

Temporary labour migration programmes have often attracted significant controversy, particularly with regard to provisions that restrict the social entitlements available to temporary migrant workers, compared with other categories of residents. Advocates of such restrictions have argued that migrants freely choose to participate in temporary migration schemes on the prevailing terms, and are free to leave at any time if such participation no longer serves their interests. Our central goal in this paper is to critically evaluate such consent-based justifications for restricted social entitlements of temporary migrant workers, with reference to empirical evidence concerning the practical social and economic conditions of choice experienced by these temporary migrants. Drawing on evidence from one major receiving country – Australia – we show that consent-based justifications for restricted social entitlements fail to fully account for either the practical complexity of individual migration choices, or the de facto operation of Australia’s skilled temporary migration programme as a ‘test run’ for potential future permanent residents or citizens. By bringing sociological analysis of lived migrant experiences into critical engagement with normative debates about restricted social entitlements, we contribute to the bridging of empirical and normative migration debates, which too often evolve in parallel.