Adolescents Conceived through Donor Insemination in Mother‐Headed Families: A Qualitative Study of Motivations and Experiences of Contacting and Meeting Same‐donor Offspring

This study interviewed adolescents conceived using sperm donation to examine their experiences of contacting and meeting ‘same‐donor offspring’ (i.e. donor‐conceived offspring raised in different families who share the same donor), their motivations for this contact, and how they make meaning of these relationships. This in‐depth qualitative study involved semi‐structured interviews with 23 young people aged 12–19 years (mean = 14 years). Interviewees were motivated by curiosity about their biological relations and by wanting to extend their family. Contact with same‐donor offspring was described as being either normal/neutral or as a unique experience that was integrated into their identity. This study highlights the importance of contact between same donor offspring, particularly during adolescence, a developmental stage associated with identity formation. The findings have important policy implications as they suggest that donor‐conceived individuals may benefit from contact with others conceived using the same donor prior to the age of 18 years.     

Back to Brit: retired British migrants returning from Spain

Since the seminal research of O'Reilly, Karen [2000. The British on the Costa del Sol. London: Routledge] and King, Russell, Anthony Warnes, Allan Williams [2000. Sunset Lives: British Retirement Migration to the Mediterranean. New York: Berg Publishers] about British citizens on the Costa del Sol there has been a surge in the publication of lifestyle migration papers, books and research. Nonetheless, there is a part of the lifestyle migration process that has been rarely explored: a return move to the country of origin following retirement migration. Research has indicated a broad increase in the number of older British returnees, yet there has been no substantive research on the topic. This paper therefore attempts to fill this gap by using Spanish registry data to examine the number of British retirees since 2009 who have returned to the UK. In addition, the results of an electronic survey to older British people in Spain are presented which suggest that considerable numbers of British citizens aged over 55 living in the Northern Costa Blanca are likely to return in the next few years. These data therefore indicate the relevance of return migration from Spain to the UK as a significant issue to the academic community as well as to British and Spanish policy-makers.     

Parametric Modeling for Survival with Competing Risks and Masked Failure Causes

We consider a life testing situation in which systems are subject to failure from independent competing risks. Following a failure, immediate (stage-1) procedures are used in an attempt to reach a definitive diagnosis. If these procedures fail to result in a diagnosis, this phenomenon is called masking. Stage-2 procedures, such as failure analysis or autopsy, provide definitive diagnosis for a sample of the masked cases. We show how stage-1 and stage-2 information can be combined to provide statistical inference about (a) survival functions of the individual risks, (b) the proportions of failures associated with individual risks and (c) probability, for a specified masked case, that each of the masked competing risks is responsible for the failure. Our development is based on parametric distributional assumptions and the special case for which the failure times for the competing risks have a Weibull distribution is discussed in detail.     

Teaching and Learning Guide to Accompany Graffiti as a Form of Contentious Political Participation

The authors develop four exercises to further explore themes that are discussed in the Waldner and Dobratz article “Graffiti as a Form of Contentious Political Participation (Sociology Compass 7: 377–389),” including Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Madres de Plaza de Mayo), From Famous Political Speech (“Ich Bin Ein Berliner”) to Graffiti: “Ich bin Berliner”, “Protest, Violence, and Graffiti in Greek Politics,” and “Political Speech or Just Tagging: Billboards and Culture Jamming.” The authors encourage students to explore them such as motivations for graffiti, the difficulty in discerning writer intent, the use of graffiti as a form of political protest, and the historical and geographical context of graffiti. The authors provide links to YouTube videos and supplementary readings.     

Adoption,personality disorder and parental guilt: Implications of genetic research for social work

Few adoptive parents are aware that serious behavioral and personality problems can occur in adopted children. When such problems are manifested, parents are often guilt-ridden, believing that they are to blame. Recent research suggests that the risks associated with adoption may be genetically linked. Social workers who counsel adoptive parents need to be aware of potential problems, explain possible risks to them, and use these research findings to positive effect.     

PARENTAL INFLUENCE ON GENDER AND MARITAL ROLE ATTITUDES: IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERVENTION

This study examined parental influence on specific attitudes toward marital and parental roles and nonspecific gender-role attitudes. Respondents included 173 young adults (127 women and 46 men) and their parents. Young adults' scores on the Role Orientation scale of the Marital Statisfaction Inventory and on masculinity and femininity scales from two self-report inventories (the MMPI-2 and the Personal Attributes Questionnarie) were correlated with their parents' scores on a subset of these same measures. Results indicated that (a) marital and parental role attitudes among young adults are strongly related to specific marital role attitudes of their parents but only modestly related (for women) or unrelated (for men) to nonspecific gender-role attitudes of their parents; (b) broader gender-role attitudes of young men are moderately correlated with their father's attitudes but generally uncorrelated with their mother's attitudes regarding gender roles; and (c) the relationship of young women's gender-role attitudes to both maternal and paternal attitudes is generally weaker and more complex than for young men. Clinical implications of these findings for assessment and intervention with distressed couples are discussed.