Through their eyes: seeing experiences of settlement in photographs taken by refugee background youth in Melbourne,Australia

Although ‘refugees’ are frequently represented in visual media, it is predominantly as the central subject matter and rarely are they positioned as the photographers of their own journeys. In this article, we present photographic images that have been taken by refugee background youth portraying their experiences of the first years of settlement in Australia. We consider how, in our longitudinal research conducted with 120 refugee background youth, visual materials can provide equally important yet different insights in comparison to written or spoken narratives on the experiences of refugee settlement. Through an examination of the photograph’s visual content, we explore the ways in which they portrayed their early experiences of external suburban settlement environments and their depictions of interior spaces and home-making practices. We discuss how these visual insights capture an alternative way of seeing the experiences of becoming at home as the youth become emplaced post-resettlement in Australia. We argue that the photographs taken by these refugee background youth illustrate how visual methods and materials can provide equally important but often overlooked insights into early settlement experiences. Importantly, the photographic images offer a way of portraying the people, places and sentiments that are central to the everyday lives of refugee background youths in ways that oral and written narratives cannot.     

Age-Specific Variation in Adult Mortality Rates in Developed Countries

This paper investigates historical changes in both single-year-of-age adult mortality rates and variation of the single-year mortality rates around expected values within age intervals over the past two centuries in 15 developed countries. We apply an integrated hierarchical age-period-cohort—variance function regression model to data from the human mortality database. We find increasing variation of the single-year rates within broader age intervals over the life course for all countries, but the increasing variation slows down at age 90 and then increases again after age 100 for some countries; the variation significantly declined across cohorts born after the early 20th century; and the variation continuously declined over much of the last two centuries but has substantially increased since 1980. Our further analysis finds the recent increases in mortality variation are not due to increasing proportions of older adults in the population, trends in mortality rates, or disproportionate delays in deaths from degenerative and man-made diseases, but rather due to increasing variations in young and middle-age adults.     

Representation of Romantic Love in Children's Drawings: Age and Gender Differences

This study was designed to fill our current knowledge gap in children's representation of romantic love. To this end, we used a drawing task: 127 children ages 6 to 10 were asked to draw a person and a person in love. Performing content analysis, we identified seven graphic indicators used by children to depict romantic love in their drawings. As expected, results exhibited age and gender differences. First, older children used a higher number of graphic indicators than younger children. The use of each type of indicator (except for one) varied with age. Second, girls used a higher number of graphic indicators than boys. These gender differences were specific to three graphic indicators. Results are discussed in terms of children's developing representation of romantic love and of the potential impact of their socio‐cultural environment on this representation.     

An examination of the impact of maladaptive coping on the association between stressor type and alcohol use in college

Objective: Examine the impact of maladaptive coping style on the association between source of stress (academic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, environmental) and alcohol use (consumption, heavy episodic drinking, driving under the influence) among college students. Participants: 1,027 college students completed an online survey in April 2014. Methods: To test the mediating effects of maladaptive coping on the association between academic stress and alcohol use variables, indirect effects were examined using the PROCESS analytical framework for SPSS. Results: Maladaptive coping and academic stress were associated with alcohol use outcomes. Moreover, maladaptive coping mediated the relationship between academic stress and two of three alcohol use outcomes (consumption, heavy episodic drinking). Conclusions: Among college students, the association between academic stress and alcohol use may be driven by maladaptive coping. College students may benefit from interventions that seek to improve coping skills, potentially alleviating the burden of academic stress and decreasing problematic alcohol use.     

Executive function and theory of mind as predictors of aggressive and prosocial behavior and peer acceptance in early childhood

Executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) are related to children's social interactions, such as aggression and prosocial behavior, as well as their peer acceptance. However, limited research has examined different forms of aggression and the moderating role of gender. This study investigated links between EF, ToM, physical and relational aggression, prosocial behavior and peer acceptance and explored whether these relations are gender specific. Children (N = 106) between 46‐ and 80‐months‐old completed tasks assessing cool and hot EF and ToM. Teaching staff rated children's aggression, prosocial behavior, and peer acceptance. EF and ToM predicted physical, but not relational, aggression. Poor inhibition and delay of gratification were uniquely associated with greater physical aggression. EF and ToM did not predict prosocial behavior or peer acceptance. Added to this, gender did not moderate the relation between either EF or ToM and social outcomes. The correlates of aggression may therefore differ across forms of aggression but not between genders in early childhood.     

Lifelines

Zora Neale Hurston said in her biography Dust Tracks On a Road. “The Master-Maker in His making had made Old Death. Made him with big, soft feet and square toes. Made him with a face that reflects the face of all things, but neither changes itself, nor is mirrored anywhere. Made the body of Death out of infinite hunger. Made a weapon for his hand to satisfy his needs” (1942, 1984, p. 87).