The Long Road: Rural Youth,Farming and Agroecological Formación in Central America

Across the globe, the countryside faces the “generation problem”: Who will grow food when the current generation of aging small farmers and peasants disappears? A combination of objective and subjective factors effectively discourages young people from assuming the continuity of peasant and family farming, especially in countries that have experienced significant neoliberal dismantling of rural infrastructure and education. Rural social movements are increasingly building educational processes linked with small-scale, ecological farming in the hopes of reinforcing the development of identities and skills for peasant futures and cadre in the struggle for popular land reform, agroecology, and food sovereignty.     

Adapting the Friends of the Children programme for child welfare system‐involved families

Research has shown the importance of long‐term, caring adults for children in foster care. This paper reviews the Friends of the Children (FOTC) long‐term mentoring programme and how it was adapted to serve children and families with child welfare system involvement. This study's two research questions are (1) How do Friends (FOTC's paid professional mentors) currently work with, and in turn, have an impact on, child welfare‐involved families? and (2) How can Friends better support child welfare system‐involved caregivers and families to promote family stability, permanence, and child well‐being? Data were collected from 21 caregivers (foster and biological), 24 FOTC Friends, five child welfare workers, and five teachers. Qualitative analyses of focus group, interview, and open‐ended survey data revealed a wide variety of ways Friends currently support children and families. In addition, several recommendations were made for strengthening programming. These findings provide valuable insights into providing long‐term mentoring to child welfare system‐involved children and families.     

Living in mobility: trajectories of Brazilians in Belgium and the UK

Within the social sciences, migration has traditionally been conceived of as a unidirectional, purposeful and intentional process from one state of fixity (in the place of origin) to another (in the destination). By mapping the trajectories of Brazilians who currently reside in Belgium or the UK, this article draws attention to a group of people whose mobile practices do not fit this definition. On the contrary, their experiences are marked by an ongoing mobility that consists of a multiplicity of potential routes, which are often unstable and which may be accompanied by changes in status. These Brazilians tend to ‘live in mobility’ in order to improve the quality of life at home. As such, leaving home becomes a strategy of staying home, which challenges what is usually evoked by the concept of ‘migration’, whereby ‘building up a new life elsewhere’ and ‘integration’ are seen as key. Whereas our respondents themselves have a more circular or mobile perspective, the receiving society discursively frames migration as one-way, and thus as a ‘threat’ that calls for social integration, control and the maintenance of national identity.     

Training Mental Health Professionals on Ethical Issues and HIV/AIDS

This report describes the importance of ethics training for mental health professionals working with persons infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. We first describe three major ethical dilemmas (confidentiality, duty to warn, and suicide) faced by mental health providers serving persons with HIV/AIDS, and the legal and clinical aspects of these dilemmas. We present data from the South Texas AIDS Training Project describing the types of mental health professionals who have attended workshops on ethical issues and HIV/AIDS. Finally, we report observations about the impact of the ethics training sessions on the participants' knowledge and attitudes.     

Are time and money equally substitutable for all commodity groups in the household’s domestic production?

Review of Economics of the Household - This article uses time-use and household expenditure data to measure the substitutability between time and money within the Beckerian household production...     

Are There Differences in Anti-Gay Beliefs Among U.S. Veterans and Non-Veterans? Results from the General Social Survey

ABSTRACT

Only since 2011 have sexual minorities been able to serve openly in the U.S. military. The previous anti-gay policies and culture of the military may have increased anti-gay beliefs among veterans. Using data from the 2010–2016 General Social Survey, we tested whether veterans more frequently endorsed anti-gay beliefs than their non-veteran peers. Adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics with multiple logistic regression, we tested the associations of veteran status with five anti-gay beliefs (i.e., disallowing a gay person (1) from publicly speaking or (2) teaching at a university, (3) removing a gay-supportive book from a library, (4) whether same-sex sexual relations are wrong, and (5) support of same-sex marriage. Veteran status was associated with greater disagreement with same-sex marriage (B = 0.16, p = 0.033) but not with other anti-gay beliefs. Most anti-gay beliefs among veterans were explained by other sociodemographic factors and may not be inherent to veteran status.     

Implementation and evaluation of an HIV/STD intervention in Peru

This paper presents the lessons learned through a process evaluation (PE) after 1 year of implementation of a 2-year community intervention in Lima, Peru. The intervention consisted of training and motivating community popular opinion leaders (CPOLs) for three marginal population segments to disseminate prevention messages among their peers. PE data included: observations, qualitative interviews with CPOLS, conversations and messages delivered by CPOLs, training facilitators' perceptions about implementation, and a survey of CPOLs. The PE helped to document and enhance the intervention. CPOLs were motivated to talk to their peers. CPOLs perceived that their participation had an effect on their own risk behaviors and saw their role as beneficial to their community. The PE was helpful in examining training delivery and the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention in order to assess the elements related to program success necessary to replicate the CPOL model.     

Perceptions of power and the management of environmental conflict: Forest politics in British Columbia

Political actors' perceptions of the contexts in which they act influence their strategies and behavior. A key element of political contexts is the configuration of power with respect to a conflict. We interviewed 28 individuals involved in British Columbia forest politics to determine their perceptions of the configuration of power, the nature of their political behavior, their dispositions with respect to institutionalized conflict resolution processes, and their policy goals. Our analysis generated two sets of conclusions. First, the B.C. government's efforts to address forest conflict will be hindered by the inconsistency between the conflict management strategy they have chosen and the mental models of politics held by key political actors. Second, the subjective realities of political actors can be used to explain variation in political behavior.     

Arts and Crafts and Reconstruction

Abstract

This paper examines the role of arts and crafts in reconstructing communities after times of upheaval, their use in creating employment opportunities, and their impact on the nature of South African art history. It looks at craft initiatives during and after the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, and draws parallels with early twentieth-century initiatives, particularly those of Florence Phillips, who founded the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 1910, Emily Hobhouse, who established Boer home industries, and the South African National Union, which promoted the manufacture and use of local products.