‘Do you want to do some arm wrestling?’: children's strategies when experiencing domestic violence and the meaning of age

The aim of this study is, by analysing children's and young people's discourses, to investigate their strategies in response to domestic violence episodes, in relation to their age. The empirical data come from individual interviews with children and young people (ages 8–20 years) who had experienced domestic violence and lived at refuges for abused women. The thematic analysis shows that the children describe a wide range of strategies before, during and after a violent episode, that all children act regardless of age and that strategies vary according not only to age but also to situation and context. The theoretical framework used is the sociology of childhood, and the analysis engages with theoretical concepts of age, agency and positioning.     

Psychosocial Well-Being of Young People Who Participated in a Support Group Following the Loss of a Parent to Cancer

Despite the evidence of unmet support needs among young people who have lost a parent to cancer, only a few support group initiatives have been reported. This observational prospective study explored the psychosocial well-being of young people who participated in support groups at a Swedish specialist palliative care setting. On three occasions, 29 participants, aged 16–28 years, answered questionnaires covering characteristics of the participants, circumstances of the losses, psychosocial well-being of the young people, and their own assessment of the support groups. The support groups attracted mostly young women who were often unprepared for the loss. The living arrangements differed between younger and older participants; however, the loss-related variables did not differ. Significant positive changes were found regarding a sense of meaning in their future life and life satisfaction. The helpfulness of the group was assessed as high/very high and the group brought a valuable fellowship with others in a similar situation. Universality and beneficial interactions were reported and strengthened psychosocial well-being developed over time. This change, according to the young people themselves, may be attributed to the group support. The findings are useful for planning interventions to support young people in bereavement in order to enhance their psychosocial well-being.     

Markov regime switching in mean and in fractional integration parameter

We propose a specific general Markov-regime switching estimation both in the long memory parameter d and the mean of a time series. We employ Viterbi algorithm that combines the Viterbi procedures in two state Markov-switching parameter estimation. It is well-known that existence of mean break and long memory in time series can be easily confused with each other in most cases. Thus, we aim at observing the deviation and interaction of mean and d estimates for different cases. A Monte Carlo experiment reveals that the finite sample performance of the proposed algorithm for a simple mixture model of Markov-switching mean and d changes with respect to the fractional integrating parameters and the mean values for the two regimes.     

Women who sacrifice themselves for everybody: qualitative research with mothers of disabled children

This study, from a feminist perspective, aimed at examining the experiences of women whose children with cerebral palsy received a treatment at a physiotherapy and rehabilitation center located in Ankara, Turkey. The study intended to reveal the perceptions of in-family roles of women with disabled children, their participation in public life, and their self-concept within the scope of feminist social work. Thus, the objective of the present study was to contribute to the understanding of the fact that non gender-blind services should be developed in this field on the basis of social justice and human rights, which constitutes the fundamental philosophy of social work. Qualitative research method was employed in the study where data were analyzed through content analysis. The findings of the study were interpreted under four main themes: the lives of the women with disabled children after their disabled children were born; being a woman within the scope of family life, participation in decision-making processes, and domestic division of labor; participation in public life and relations with women's associations; the self-sacrifice; and the suggestions of women concerning self-realization within the scope of self-concept.     

Gezi Park and EuroMaidan: social movements at the borders

Both Turkey and Ukraine are located at the external borders of the European Union (EU), and are seen as important partners of the EU, especially in terms of economic relations and strategic partnership. Both countries experienced en masse protest events in 2013: the Gezi Park protests and EuroMaidan, starting, respectively, in May 2013 and November 2013. Although these protests started initially for different reasons – the brutal eviction of a sit-in organized for protecting the trees in Taksim Gezi Park and the Ukrainian government's abandonment of EU trade agreement talks – and seem spatially, temporally and ideologically separate, they both include claims related to a “more just and transparent system”. Such claims are not purely political and are closely linked to a social dimension, especially in terms of local and European space-making. This article aims to understand the importance of Gezi Park and EuroMaidan within the framework of new social movements in terms of space-making and the perception of human rights, democracy, justice, identitarian politics and consensual social relations as Euro-concepts or European ideals.     

Turkish Capitalist Modernity and the Gezi Revolt

In this paper an attempt is made to reassess how and why the laic/Islamic dual opposition has come to be a decisive factor in the politics of Turkish capitalist modernity. The question as to whether this opposition may survive into the twenty‐first century is briefly discussed. It is noted that in the aftermath of the prolonged confrontation between the emergent imagined community of the Gezi Revolt and the Islamist AKP government, a religiously neutral political identity came into sight in public life, which can be considered as the harbinger of a new kind of social individuality, one which is incommensurate with the laic/Islamic dual opposition.     

International Transfer of Policies and Practices of Gender Equality in Employment to and among Muslim Majority Countries

This article investigates the premise that it is possible to transpose organizational approaches to equal employment opportunity (EEO) from western countries to Muslim majority countries (MMCs). Drawing on policy interviews and documentary evidence from public sector organizations and international development agencies engaged in the promotion of gender equality in Turkey and Pakistan, we question the effectiveness of diffusion of gender equality policies and practices to and among these two MMCs. Our investigation reveals the primacy of context over essence in developing effective ways to construct EEO policies and practices which can be adopted in MMCs.     

Comparative Journalism Research – An Overview

This overview focuses on the most common type of comparative journalism research, which is cross‐national comparative research. The overview presents a typology for different types of comparative journalism research, based on whether the research interest is in journalism as an activity or as a product; and, in the case of journalism as an activity, whether the interest is in the system level, the organizational level, or the individual level of journalism. The overview finds that the analysis of journalism on the individual level and of journalism as a product are the most common types of comparative research, whereas comparative analysis of journalism on the organizational level is much under‐studied.     

Welfare service privatization and opinions about service quality: The role of political ideology among local politicians and the public

In this article, we join the discussion about the potential consequences of welfare service privatization by examining the relationship between the privatization of welfare service delivery and public opinion about service quality in Sweden. Due to the politically polarized debate about welfare service privatization in Sweden, we also examine the extent to which individualsapos; ideological orientations influence this relationship in both local politicians and ordinary citizens. For local politicians, the results show that a higher municipal degree of privatization is generally associated with slightly lower levels of satisfaction overall with welfare services, although no such relationship exists for the public. Most importantly, however, the results indicate that political ideology constitutes an important moderator in the relationship between privatization and opinions about service quality. Local politicians and, to some extent, ordinary citizens who place themselves to the left on the ideological left–right scale tend to be less satisfied with services as the municipal degree of welfare service privatization increases. For local politicians who position themselves far to the right on the scale, the relationship between welfare service privatization and satisfaction is positive. These findings suggest that there is no clear-cut relationship between privatization and individualsapos; opinions about services; rather, this relationship depends on the ideological predispositions of local politicians and ordinary citizens.