Everybody’s Business? A Research Review of the Informal Safeguarding of Other People’s Children in the UK

The paper reviews public discourses and research on the safeguarding of other people’s children by adults at the neighbourhood level. There is much empirical evidence pointing to the existence of thriving informal communities of support and informal childcare for parents across the social classes. There appears to be less empirical evidence related to intervening with children and young people who may be at risk. Nonetheless, the limited evidence suggests that many neighbours, acquaintances and strangers do intervene, or say that they would. The paper concludes by considering the potential negative consequences of promoting the notion that safeguarding children is ‘everybody’s business’.     

Premarital sexual standards of rural youth

Abstract

This study measures and evaluates the premarital sexual standards of a sample of adolescents residing in a small Mississippi community. On the basis of their response patterns to a set of Guttman scale items, the students were classified into three standards: abstinence, double standard, and the single standard of permissiveness. A racial comparison of the Mississippi sample with Reiss' Virginia student sample revealed striking similarities with one exception—a significantly higher proportion of Mississippi whites endorsed permissiveness without affection. The Mississippi data, however, failed to give strong support to the presumed prevalence of the double standard. Moreover, several social factors examined appeared to influence the standards of whites and females to a greater extent than those of Negroes and males.     

Economic forecasting for a television company

I recently came across a sequence of forecasts for no less than 153 countries extending to the year 2020, for which the author claims credibility and validity. A glance at the forecast for the U.K. already shows substantial over-estimation of population, and the money figures are badly out-dated by inflation and the change in the dollar exchange rate.My view is that striving for precise estimates to two or three places of decimal point is doomed to failure and thoroughly misleading. More often than not the target is missed by a wide margin no matter what gloss is subsequently put on the failure. Many of the post hoc rationalizations remind me of the reply given by the Indian bearer to Lord Minto who had enquired how his guest had fared on a safari shoot: ‘The young sahib shot divinely but Allah was merciful to the birds’.     

On Specifying Specificity: Facial Expressions at 4 Months

Izard (2004/this issue) clarifies the position of differential emotions theory by proposing a distinction between hard and soft versions of event‐emotion expression relations. We concur that the best design to examine situational specificity in facial expressions is one that utilizes multiple stimulus situations assessed over multiple occasions and ages. However, the problem of how to identify, a priori, a family of stimulus situations remains. We offer an example from our own recent work demonstrating how facial expressions and physiological indexes may converge to indicate the presence of a meaningful family of stimulus situations. Specifically, we found evidence for a family of frustrating, goal‐blocking events that elicited expressions and cortisol responses indicative of anger at 4 months. Yet, individual differences exist in that these situations also elicited expressions and cortisol changes indicative of sadness. Identification of a more comprehensive set of such situations throughout infancy will allow researchers to more systematically examine the degree to which situational specificity of emotions is present.     

Would a Commodity‐based Trade Approach Improve Market Access for Africa? A Case Study of the Potential of Beef Exports from Communal Areas of Namibia

Market access for African livestock products has long been stymied by a variety of animal diseases endemic in the region. The concept of commodity‐based trade (CBT) has been advanced to make trade dependent on process‐related attributes of production that ensure freedom from disease rather than the geographical origin of the animals themselves. This article looks at the potential of CBT in improving market access for beef from communal areas of Namibia, which have historically been excluded from high‐value export markets. Model results suggest only modest gains from CBT, given the substantial costs of compliance with SPS and quality standards required for high‐value markets. Regional markets may still offer the best option for beef exports from these areas.     

Shared Parenting or Shared Care? Learning from Children's Experiences of a Post‐Divorce Shared Care Arrangement

This article examines three issues raised by three primary‐aged siblings experiencing a post‐divorce shared parenting arrangement. It argues that the conceptualisation of shared parenting in academic and policy discourse concentrates on parent–child relationships, overlooks children's relationships with siblings and fails to fully recognise the social and material resources necessary for shared parenting arrangements to work. It suggests that current policy discourse takes for granted that shared parenting promotes gender equality for fathers and mothers, despite the existing and ingrained gendered parenting practices produced and maintained in this UK context.