Victims,soldiers, peacemakers and caretakers: the neoliberal constitution of women in the EU’s security policy

Feminist scholars praise and criticize the UNSC Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security for its considerations of women and gender in conflicts. Poststructuralist feminists show how gender is constructed in the UN’s security policies and how these constructions reproduce gendered dichotomies between women and men and representations of women as victims, part of civil society and neoliberal subjects. Although the UNSC Resolutions 1325 and 1820 are implemented by the EU, there is no literature on how the EU is taking up the UN’s discourse. Scholars studying gender policies in and of the EU mainly analyze the (in)effectiveness of EU gender mainstreaming but rarely interrogate its discursive foundations. Using a governmentality perspective, I argue that on the one hand the EU produces a binary and stereotypical understanding of gender, and on the other hand constitutes women as neoliberal subjects responsible for their own well-being, ignoring broader structures of (gender) inequality and war and making gender equality solely an instrument to achieve more security and development.     

The Effect of Social Responsiveness on Infants' Object‐Directed Imitation

Previous research has demonstrated that social interactions underlie the development of object‐directed imitation. For example, infants differentially learn object action sequences from a live social partner compared to a social partner over a video monitor; however, what is not well understood is what aspects of social interactions influence social learning. Previous studies have found variable influences of different types of caregiver responsiveness on attention, language, and cognitive development. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how the responsive style of a social partner influenced the learning of object‐directed action sequences. Infants interacted with either a sensitive or redirective experimenter before the learning trial. Results revealed infants changed their patterns of engagement; infants interacting with a sensitive experimenter had longer periods of attentional engagement than infants interacting with a redirective experimenter. Furthermore, during the learning trial, the amount of sensitivity during interaction with the social partner predicted learning scores. These findings suggest that infants' attention is influenced by social partners' interactive style during ongoing interaction, which subsequently affects how infants learn from these social partners.     

Maternal Lifetime Trauma Exposure,Prenatal Cortisol,and Infant Negative Affectivity

Little research has examined the impact of maternal lifetime trauma exposure on infant temperament. We examined associations between maternal trauma history and infant negative affectivity and modification by prenatal cortisol exposure in a sociodemographically diverse sample of mother–infant dyads. During pregnancy, mothers completed measures of lifetime trauma exposure and current stressors. Third‐trimester cortisol output was assessed from maternal hair. When infants were 6 months old, mothers completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire‐Revised. In analyses that controlled for infant sex and maternal age, education, race/ethnicity, and stress during pregnancy, greater maternal trauma exposure was associated with increased infant distress to limitations and sadness. Higher and lower prenatal cortisol exposure modified the magnitude and direction of association between maternal trauma history and infant rate of recovery from arousal. The association between maternal trauma history and infant distress to limitations was somewhat stronger among infants exposed to higher levels of prenatal cortisol. The analyses suggested that maternal lifetime trauma exposure is associated with several domains of infant negative affectivity independently of maternal stress exposures during pregnancy and that some of these associations may be modified by prenatal cortisol exposure. The findings have implications for understanding the intergenerational impact of trauma exposure on child developmental outcomes.     

How Visual is Visual Prediction?

Infants are readily able to use their recent experience to shape their future behavior. Recent work has confirmed that infants generate neural predictions based on their recent experience (Emberson, Richards, & Aslin, 2015) and that neural predictions trigger visual system activity similar to that elicited by visual stimulation. This study uses behavioral methods to ask, how visual is visual prediction? In Experiment 1, we confirmed that when additional trials provide additional visual experience with the experimental shape, infants exhibit a robust novelty preference. In Experiment 2, we removed the visual stimulus from some trials and presented the predictive auditory cue alone, allowing the effects of neural prediction to be assessed. We found no evidence of looking preferences at test, suggesting that visual prediction does not contribute to the computation of visual familiarity. In Experiment 3, we provided infants with a degraded visual stimulus to test whether visual prediction could bias visual perception under ambiguous conditions. Again, we found no evidence of looking preferences at test, suggesting that visual prediction is not biasing perception of an uncertain stimulus. Overall, our results suggest that visual prediction is not visual, in the strictest sense, despite the presence of visual system activation.     

“Family? … Not Just Blood”: Discursive Constructions of “Family” in Adult,Former Foster Children’s Narratives

Framed by Relational Dialectics Theory, this study explores the ways adult, former foster children discursively construct meanings of “family.” Contrapuntal analysis of 24 interviews revealed two discourses as competing to constitute family: the Discourse of Family as Irreplaceable and Inescapable (Permanence) and the Discourse of Family as Performative Kinning (Performance). Permanence was constituted by themes of biology and historical connection, reifying normative understandings. Performance, comprised of role enactment, need for tolerance, and unconditional love, challenged the Permanence discourse. Throughout the narratives, Performance competed with Permanence for dominance, illustrating the cultural pervasiveness and power of Permanence yet, in some moments, privileging the marginalized Performance discourse. This discursive competition constructed meanings of family in narratives of life before, during, and after foster care. Overall, participant’s talk constructed complex webs of family relationships, allowing access to an important social institution—family—regardless of the presence/absence of culturally valued markers of family (e.g., biology, legality).     

Effects of Africentric Socialization on Psychosocial Outcomes in Black Girls: The Critical Role of Gender

African American social work scholars recommend rigorous research and evaluation of Africentric interventions as one approach to building culturally appropriate, evidence-based treatments for the Black community. Following this approach, this pilot study evaluates the Imani Rites of Passage program, a 15-week Africentric curriculum with 10 Black adolescent females (mean age = 12.40), comparing their pre- and post-intervention data to that of a no-intervention group of 13 Black males (mean age = 12.08). The program evaluation is based on the degree of correspondence between theory and the measurement model spelled out by the cognitive-cultural view of African-American identity. The findings for Black females were consistent with the cognitive-cultural model in some ways but not in others, and they were more complex than the predictions. Future Africentric interventions guided by the cognitive-cultural model must consider gender differences in the outcomes. Implications for social work research and practice are discussed.     

Follow My Gaze: Face Race and Sex Influence Gaze‐Cued Attention in Infancy

Using the eye gaze of others to direct one's own attention develops during the first year of life and is thought to be an important skill for learning and social communication. However, it is currently unclear whether infants differentially attend to and encode objects cued by the eye gaze of individuals within familiar groups (e.g., own race, more familiar sex) relative to unfamiliar groups (e.g., other race, less familiar sex). During gaze cueing, but prior to the presentation of objects, 10‐month‐olds looked longer to the eyes of own‐race faces relative to 5‐month‐olds and relative to the eyes of other‐race faces. After gaze cueing, two objects were presented alongside the face and at both ages, infants looked longer to the uncued objects for faces from the more familiar‐sex and longer to cued objects for the less familiar‐sex faces. Finally, during the test phase, both 5‐ and 10‐month‐old infants looked longer to uncued objects relative to cued objects but only when the objects were cued by an own‐race and familiar‐sex individual. Results demonstrate that infants use face eye gaze differently when the cue comes from someone within a highly experienced group.     

Parenting perceptions among college students: A qualitative examination

This study assessed the knowledge and attitudes of young adults without children in regard to discipline and parenting practices. A qualitative design was utilized (n?=?26) with semistructured focus groups. Results indicated participants believed discipline is important, with spanking and loss of privileges being the most effective strategy for behavior change. The majority of participants reported plans to discipline future children the way in which they were disciplined, suggesting a high percentage intend to utilize spanking. Findings suggest that personal experiences shape parenting beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge. Results inform efforts at educating future parents on appropriate parenting practices and indicate the need for protocols for young adults to educate about practices that may diverge from their personal experiences.     

Kinship care and issues in permanency planning

Kinship caregivers are a child-care resource for families experiencing stress or temporary parenting due to illness, incarceration, or death of a parent. This article examines whether and how felt caregiver burden influences the reported propensity of caregivers to want to adopt the children in their care. Kinship caregivers who were enrolled in KinNET completed the survey (N = 102) and the data were entered anonymously into SPSS for analysis. Their mean age was 57.51 years (SD = 10.13), 95% were female (SD = .19), and two-thirds were non-white (SD = .73). Using “likelihood of adopting the child in my care,” as the outcome variable in the linear regression analysis, caregiver’s age, monthly income, and total hours employed were significant predictors. Total pressures, family service needs, and physical problems scales were not statistically significant predictors. The adjusted R square was .439 and significant (.006). Understanding the factors that are predictive of adopting children in kinship care will help programs target services more effectively. Helping kinship caregivers and the children in their care is also important in promoting their health and social well-being.