Gendered Leadership: The Effects of Female Development Agency Leaders on Foreign Aid Spending

This article examines the effects of gender on the leadership of bilateral development aid agencies, particularly their official development assistance (ODA) allocations toward gender‐related programming. Drawing on earlier research on gendered leadership, the article tests the hypothesis that female director generals (DGs) and ministers responsible for aid agencies will allocate more ODA than their male counterparts toward gender programming. This existing literature on gendered leadership is divided: some scholars argue that women and men have distinct leadership styles on account of their gender, while others argue that the only distinguishing factor is the institutional context in which they lead. Drawing on data collected on aid flows and agency leadership within the major Western aid donors of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) over the period from 1995 through 2009, we use pooled time series analysis to examine the effects of gendered leadership on aid allocation. Our analysis reveals a tendency for female DGs and ministers to focus ODA on gender‐mainstreaming programs, while male DGs focus ODA on gender‐focused programs. We argue that these divergent priorities reflect the women's desire to reform gendered power structures within their respective aid agencies, and the men's desire to maintain existing gender power structures from which they benefit.     

Ideologies & Narratives in Relation to ‘Fat’ Children as Bullies, ‘Easy Targets’ and Victims

In this study, we explore narratives in relation to ‘fatness’, drawing on focus group interviews with parents, early years practitioners, teachers and young people. The study is located in a larger study on bullying and resilience, with no specific focus on obesity or ‘fatness’. Analysis of the interview data highlighted a recurrent focus on ‘fatness’ within the participants’ narratives, by labelling and stigmatising the ‘fat kid’ and ‘bigger children’. We conclude that obesity and fatness, as abnormalities, are now included in commonsense talk in relation to ‘easy targets’, victims and bullies.     

Social network effects on academic achievement

How peer groups contribute to educational outcomes has long interested researchers. However, the possibility that peer groups dominated by either low- or high-achieving youth can have substantively different effects on achievement has been largely ignored. In this paper, we show that while being embedded in a high-achieving network of friends is not associated with increased own achievement, being embedded in a low-achieving network is associated with decreased own achievement. In additional analyses, we present evidence that these associations are at least in part due to influence, as opposed to only selection effects or shared environment. We also examine whether the structure of the network in which a student is embedded might affect their educational achievement. We show that achieving at higher levels positively predicts how centrally located a student is in their network, but being more centrally located does not predict concurrent achievement. This finding suggests that the behavior of individuals is affecting the formation of network structure and not the reverse.     

The Role of Sexual Communication in Couples’ Sexual Outcomes: A Dyadic Path Analysis

In a study of 142 couples, we gathered survey data to show how sexual communication influences sexual and relationship satisfaction as well as sexual and orgasm frequency. In two dyadic data path analyses, we observed the significant paths of influence that sexual communication has on sexual and relationship satisfaction, as well as sexual and orgasm frequency. Our findings revealed greater amounts of sexual communication were associated with increased orgasm frequency in women and greater relationship and sexual satisfaction in both sexes. We also observed important differences in the associations of sexual communication and general communication on satisfaction levels. With these analyses, we expand the current literature to broaden our understanding of the role that sexual communication plays in committed relationships.     

Developing and testing a satisfaction survey for nursing home residents: the Ohio Experience

Input from consumers has become an important part of quality improvement in long-term care and for consumer decision-making. This paper documents the development of the Ohio Nursing Home Resident Satisfaction Survey (ONHRSS) through a partnership of state government, research, and industry experts. The instrument was tested and refined through two waves of data--a pretest phase and later with statewide data. Exploratory and confirmatory analyses with statewide data identified eight primary factors along with an underlying, secondary Global Satisfaction factor. Reliability of the domains ranged from .69 to .95. Recommendations for further refinement and testing of the instrument are discussed along with policy and practice implications.     

Factors That Impact a Social Worker's Capacity to Supervise a Student

With sector constraints and higher education economic imperatives increasingly impacting the provision of social work field education, university programs lack an understanding of the factors that enable or prohibit field educators’ capacity to provide placements. Despite the significance of field education in the curriculum, it remains unclear what the experiences and motivations of field educators are to provide universities with student placements. This research addresses this gap through surveying 101 field educators that attended statewide Victorian field education training. Results indicated that although field educators recognised the benefits of supervising students, workload relief, additional training, and further student placement preparation by the university were emphasised as the primary factors that would enable them to respond positively to placement requests. Payments for placements did not necessarily ameliorate these issues nor guarantee the provision of more placements. The implications of these findings for universities and the field are discussed.     

Interlopers in class: A duoethnography of working‐class women academics

This article introduces the concept of the interloper for examining classed and gendered dislocation. Focusing on academia, which we view as a classed and gendered field, we draw on Bourdieu and feminist standpoint theory to account for how we, as women of working‐class origin, have experienced ‘breaches' through which we have come to understand ourselves in classed and gendered terms. Coming from different cultural backgrounds, we also reflect on how understandings of class are context‐specific. We employ a duoethnographic method which emphasizes the value of subjective experiences for organizational and social analyses. The article shows how the concept of the interloper may shed light on the dynamic, relational character of constructions of class and gender; the maintenance work that is performed; and how a sense of permanent inbetweenness characterizes our ongoing movement between the fields of the family and academia.     

English proficiency in Australia, 1981 to 2016

Using Australian census data, the paper examines the incidence of poor English competency in Australia from 1981 onwards. The paper examines English competency in relation to various characteristics such as sex, age, language spoken, visa type, citizenship, duration of residence and location. It finds that there was a sharp rise in the numbers of people not speaking English well between the 2011 and 2016 Censuses and special attention is given to this rise in the paper. Recently, the Australian Government unsuccessfully legislated for the introduction of a requirement of English competency at the level of IELTS 6 (the commonly used university entrance level) as a condition for the award of Australian citizenship. The paper argues that this test would have led to a very large number of disenfranchised Australian permanent residents and this would be a highly undesirable result. Nevertheless, employment and social participation are strongly influenced by English competency and residents with poor English are disadvantaged. The policy suggestion is made that participation in a course of English language training for those without functional English skills could be made a precondition of the award of permanent residence—without the application of a passing grade.