Children and Young People Living Through a Serious Family Illness: Structural,Interpersonal and Personal Perspectives

This study explores the experiences of children and young people in Britain living through a serious family illness. The study considers the interplay between social structures, social relationships and individual agency. We draw on data from the Millennium Cohort Study to estimate the number of children and young people affected nationally and on seven in‐depth interviews to understand young people’s experiences and the effects on their daily lives. Living through a serious family illness impacts on young people’s educational achievements, mental health and social relationships over long periods. Policy and service responses are suggested.     

Predictors of Adolescent Participation in Organized Activities: A Five‐Year Longitudinal Study

This study examined (a) growth curves of youth participation in sports, performance and fine arts, and youth clubs throughout the high school years and (b) the associations between a series of predictors and the initial participation rates and growth over time. The predictors included individual, friend, and family factors. The moderating effect of youths' gender was also examined. Study participants were 272 youths (55% girls, M_age=12.4 years) and their parents. The predictors were assessed in Grade 6 and were based on reports by youths, parents, teachers, and classmates. Participation in organized activities was assessed annually from Grades 7 to 10. Altogether, the findings revealed that participation in sports, performance and fine arts, and youth clubs remains stable across the high school years. However, interindividual differences were found in the participation growth curves. This variation was predicted by individual, friend, and family factors, mostly with respect to sports activities.     

Replacing the Canadianization Generation: An Examination of Faculty Composition from 1977 through 2017

Amid growing numbers of doctoral graduates entering an increasingly competitive global academic job market, concerns about equity in the hiring process and the value of the Canadian Ph.D. are mounting. Grounded within the historical context of the Canadianization Movement, we examine the doctoral credentials of 4,934 U15 social science faculty between 1977 and 2017 to understand the ebb and flow of incoming and outgoing faculty across the country's academic field. Our trend analyses reveal an overall increase in the proportion of Canadian‐trained faculty hires with the noted exceptions of Canada's top three universities who display a strong presence of high‐status American‐trained faculty throughout. Results from the contemporary period, between 1997 and 2017, reveal a time of retirement during which outgoing Canadian‐trained faculty are replaced with increasing proportions of American‐trained academics.     

SFX Miscellaneous Free Ejournals Target: Usage Survey Among the SFX Community

The number of free or open access articles is increasing rapidly, and their retrieval with library indexes and OpenURL link resolvers has been a challenge. In June 2014, the SFX MISCELLANEOUS_FREE_EJOURNALS target contained more than 24,000 portfolios of all kinds. The SFX KnowledgeBase Advisory Board (KBAB) carried out an international survey to get an overview of the usage of this target by the SFX community and to precisely identify what could be done to improve it. The target is widely used among the community. However, many respondents complained about three major problems: (a) incorrect links, (b) full texts actually not free, and (c) incorrect or missing thresholds (years and volumes information).     

Methodological Issues in the Use of Peer Sociometric Nominations with Middle School Youth

Studies reporting sociometric assessments based on nominations have been characterized by important methodological inconsistencies when conducted in the middle school context. The purpose of this study was to examine (1) the possibility of a response bias when participants are provided with a long roster sorted alphabetically, (2) the impact of including or not other‐sex peers in the voting population, and (3) the impact of including or not all the grademates in the voting population. Participants were 664 sixth graders from three middle schools. Peer nominations for sociometric items (i.e., like most and like least), as well as teacher ratings of antisocial behavior and records of academic performance, were collected. A sequence effect in peer nominations was found, suggesting that students whose names were listed higher on the rosters received more nominations than did students whose names were listed lower on the list. Moreover, results indicated that the nominations received from the other‐sex grademates and from the grademates outside the classroom improved the predictive validity of the sociometric measure. The implications of these results for the use of sociometric assessment in middle schools are discussed.     

Equity, efficiency and inequality traps: A research agenda

This paper discusses a research agenda that arises from unanswered questions and unresolved issues considered in the World Bank’s World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development. After formalizing the key concepts of equity; equality of opportunity; and efficiency, and proposing a definition for an equitable development policy, the paper discusses the concept of inequality traps, around which the research agenda is structured. Four broad groups of research questions are highlighted: those revolving around the measurement of inequality of opportunity and the diagnostics for the existence of an inequality trap; those dealing with the causes of inequality traps; the quantification of their efficiency costs; and those related to how institutions (including governments) evolve to overcome inequality traps. Bourguignon and Ferreira are in the Development Economics Vice-Presidency, The World Bank. Michael Walton is at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Together, they led the team that produced the World Bank’s World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development.     

The undying ideologies of race and gender: the zombie apocalypse in Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Season One

Telltale Games’ narrative-based The Walking Dead: Season One portrays Lee Everett, an African American male, fighting through the zombie apocalypse. In addition to providing an intriguing character, the game pushes back against racial stereotypes frequently seen and further establishes a zone of oppositional politics. In addition to race, TWD: Season One’s gender ideologies also open up spaces of counterhegemonic politics, specifically through its presentation of abortion. Overall, the seemingly “undying” ideologies of race and gender are reconfigured and questioned in the space of the zombie apocalypse, providing alternative visions of identity politics.     

Life after work: older Australians' experiences of early exit from the workforce

Little is known about the experience of those in the baby boom cohort who are outside the labour market. Understanding their experience has the potential to inform policy strategies to support older people to remain longer in the workforce. Using in‐depth interview data from 26 participants, this paper examines the reasons people aged between 50 and 64 years give for being not‐employed, how they perceive it affects their health, how socioeconomic characteristics shape their experience and what would entice them back into paid work. Participants' main reasons for being not‐employed included: feeling financially able and ready to exit, feeling unhappy about workplace reorganisations, disability, or their partner's retirement or ill‐health. The reasons given and the degree to which they had planned to exit the workforce affected their willingness and capacity to consider returning. Key determinants of participants' health and wellbeing after stopping paid work were the extent to which they had planned their exit and the status of their health and wealth at the time of their exit. The paper concludes there is some scope for increasing the number of employed older people if policy makers attend to workforce health and wellbeing as crucial to workforce retention policy development.     

Alerts and catastrophes: The case of the 1999 storm in France,a treacherous risk

How is it that catastrophes always seem predictable ex post but never ex ante? The paradox is recurrent. Our study of the warnings issued prior to one of the last major natural disasters in France – the tempest of December 27, 1999 – focuses on the organizational factors accounting for the surprise effect of the catastrophe, to try and understand why, though the phenomenon had been predicted and announced by the French weather bureau, the protagonists of Civil Defense said the magnitude of the event took them by surprise. A multi-level, qualitative analysis of the inter-organizational meteorological alert system shows that a combination of factors pertaining to structure, context and individuals transformed the warnings into routine messages. The case of the 1999 storm allows us to introduce a particular, ideal-type of risk, the treacherous risk, which, though clearly announced, was disregarded because seemingly so familiar.