Materializing architecture for social care: Brick walls and compromises in design for later life

This article reports on an ethnography of architectural projects for later life social care in the UK. Informed by recent debates in material studies and “materialities of care” we offer an analysis of a care home project that is sensitive to architectural materials that are not normally associated with care and well-being. Although the care home design project we focus on in this article was never built, we found that design discussions relating to a curved brick wall and bricks more generally were significant to its architectural “making”. The curved wall and the bricks were used by the architects to encode quality and values of care into their design. This was explicit in the design narrative that was core to a successful tender submitted by a consortium comprising architects, developers, contractors, and a care provider to a local authority who commissioned the care home. However, as the project developed, initial consensus for the design features fractured. Using a materialized analysis, we document the tussles generated by the curved wall and the bricks and argue that mundane building materials can be important to, and yet marginalized within, the relations inherent to an “architectural care assemblage.” During the design process we saw how decisions about materials are contentious and they act as a catalyst of negotiations that compromise “materialities of care.”     

Experiences of Grandparenting Disabled Children in the UK: A Qualitative Study of Intergenerational Relationships

Contemporary patterns of family, work, and welfare make the experience of grandparenting complex and diverse. This UK-based qualitative study aimed to explore grandparenting in the context of childhood disability. Nine grandparents (aged 59–79 years) with disabled and non-disabled grandchildren took part in semi-structured interviews. Grandparents provided extensive instrumental and emotional care and support and sought a balance between involvement versus interfering. Grandparents actively drew on life experiences to engage with services to maximize support. Contemplating the future, grandparents had concerns for adult children as well as grandchildren. Developing policies to support grandparents of disabled grandchildren are urgently required.     

Adult women and ADHD: On the temporal dimensions of ADHD identities

This paper uses conceptual resources drawn from psychosocial process thinking (Brown & Reavey, 2015; Brown & Stenner, 2009; Stenner, 2017) and from G.H. Mead in particular, to contribute to an emerging body of work on the experiences of adult women with ADHD (Horton‐Salway & Davies, 2018; Quinn & Madhoo, 2014; Singh, 2002; Waite & Ivey, 2009). It has a particular focus on how ADHD features in the construction of women's identities and life‐stories and it draws upon findings from a qualitative investigation of adult women diagnosed or self‐diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). A theoretically informed ‘thematic decomposition’ of 16 depth interviews reveals how complex processes of identity transformation are mediated by the social category of ADHD. Through this process, troubled pasts are reconstructed from the perspective of an ‘emergent’ identity that offers participants the potential for a more enabling and positive future.     

Knowledge translation efforts in child and youth mental health: a systematic review

The availability of knowledge translation strategies that have been empirically studied and proven useful is a critical prerequisite to narrowing the research-to-practice gap in child and youth mental health. Through this review the authors sought to determine the current state of scientific knowledge of the effectiveness of knowledge translation approaches in child and youth mental health by conducting a systematic review of the research evidence. The findings and quality of the 12 included studies are discussed. Future work of high methodological quality that explores a broader range of knowledge translation strategies and practitioners to which they are applied and that also attends to implementation process is recommended.     

Difference in Condom Use Between Bear Concordant and Discordant Dyads During the Last Anal Sex Event

The purpose of this study was to understand how bear identity influenced condom use during the last anal sex event. Participants were recruited to complete an online, anonymous self-report survey through bear-related sexual and social networking websites. A total of 1,080 men who identified as gay or bisexual and as a member of the bear community and were 18 years or older completed the survey. Overall, fewer than a third of men reported condom use during the most recent receptive (28%) and insertive (30%) anal sex event. Men in bear concordant pairings were less likely to use a condom during receptive and insertive anal sex compared to those is discordant pairings (p < .05). Findings suggest that bear identity concordance influences condom use during anal sex after accounting for an individual’s relationship to their most recent partner as well as other confounding variables.     

Mother or Market? Effects of Maternal Employment on the Intellectual Ability of 4-Year-Old Children

This article uses the 1986 Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data set to investigate the impact of maternal employment on children's intellectual ability, as measured at the age of 4 by using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). Results from multivariate regression analysis show a statistically significant adverse effect of mother's employment on children's intellectual ability, but only for boys in higher income families. Furthermore, the negative impact was related to the timing of maternal employment: employment during the boys' infancy had a statistically significant negative effect on PPVT scores at the age of 4. This pattern was not found for girls, for children in low-income families, or for families in which mothers resumed their employment after the child's first year of life. The impact of other demographic trends in recent years--declining fertility and rising marital instability--are also investigated. The results show an adverse effect of the presence of other siblings on children's PPVT scores; but holding family income constant, the effect of the parents' marital status on children's intellectual ability is not statistically significant. In addition, several family background factors are highly correlated with children's test scores.     

MIND THE GAP: Religion and the Crucible of Marginality in the United States and Great Britain

Comparisons between the United States and Great Britain reveal many similarities in broad‐based religious concerns and values. Nonetheless, surveys over the last 40 years document a widening gap between the two countries in individual‐level religious commitment. This article suggests that the residual effect of prior marginalization of certain groups and the way they responded to the crucible of marginality is a critical variable to consider. The structure of the religious market in Great Britain kept peripheral groups from turning to religion for support or encouragement in their resistance to the establishment; this, however, was not the case in the religious economy of the United States. Using data collected in the most recent wave of the World Values Survey, I show that higher levels of religious commitment among particular groups with a history of marginalized status—namely African Americans and Southerners—in the United States and the lack of similar levels among similar groups in the British context—ethnic minorities and residents of Scotland and Wales—explain part of the gap in religious commitment between the two countries.