Dynamic Well-Being: Connecting Indicators of what People Anticipate with Indicators of what they Experience

There are many indicators of a person’s well-being that could be used for policy purposes. Few would argue that any single indicator of well-being is appropriate in all contexts and, increasingly, social scientists are attempting to integrate the various indicators. Further successful integration depends on understanding how the various indicators of well-being relate to one another in a dynamic way. This paper attempts to connect indicators of what people anticipate to indicators of what is actually experienced and, in so doing, inform the normative debate about the appropriateness of different indicators in policy contexts.     

On Farm and Packhouse: Employment at the Bottom of a Global Value Chain*

Abstract The fresh vegetables commodity chain linking Kenyan producers with United Kingdom (UK) consumers employs significant numbers of workers in production and processing. This chain is dominated by UK retailers that determine the production imperatives of Kenyan firms upstream in the chain and, indirectly the employment strategies they adopt. This paper explores how competitive pressures are transmitted through the supply chain, and how exporters absorb these risks by placing greater emphasis on organizational flexibility and the elasticity of labor in horticultural production. The paper argues that while the industry provides substantial employment opportunities in Kenya, the commodity chain is dependent upon the “gendered” and insecure forms of employment it creates.     

Greasy Roads: The Impact of Bad Financial News on Road Traffic Accidents

We use evidence from a natural experiment in Greece to study the effect of the announcement of austerity measures on road traffic accidents (RTAs). We use daily RTA data from 2010 and 2011, during which a number of austerity measures were announced, including salary and pension cuts and an increase in direct and indirect taxes. We find that controlling for other factors potentially influencing RTAs, the number of RTAs increased significantly on the first two days following the announcements of austerity measures. We put forward some tentative suggestions for why this happens.     

Steve de Shazer and the future of solution-focused therapy

Steve de Shazer who, along with Insoo Kim Berg, co-founded the Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) approach, recently passed away. In this article we will offer a brief biographical sketch and then discuss the current state of the art of SFBT as it applies to practice, training, and research. Future directions for SFBT, such as the emergence of professional associations, the increased research interest in SFBT as evidenced-based practice, the recent focus on process-research to determine the mechanisms of change within SFBT, and the application of SFBT to education are discussed.     

Home-based employment: Historical and current considerations

The purposes of this article are threefold. First, there is a brief review of current and historical research on home-based business with special emphasis on female home-based employment and the impact of such employment on family life. Second, a conceptual model for family work activities is advanced. Finally, concepts related to home-based employment that could be used to frame and describe the empirical study are specified.This article reports results from the Cooperative Regional Research Project, NE-167, entitled At-Home Income Generation: Impact on Management, Productivity and Stability in Rural/Urban Families, partially supported by the Cooperative States Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture and the Experiment Stations at the University of Hawaii, Iowa State University, Lincoln University (Missouri), Michigan State University, Cornell University (New York), The Ohio State University, The Pennsylvania State University, Utah State University, and the University of Vermont.Her research interests include measuring household production, at-home income generation, and rural families. She received her Ph.D. in Family and Consumer Economics from the University of Missouri-Columbia.Her research interests include home-based business and consumer behavior. She received her Ph.D from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.Her research interests include consumer behavior and family economic issues. She received her Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.     

The civilizing and sportization of Gaelic football in Ireland: 1884–2009

Over the course of the last 125 years the sport of Gaelic football in Ireland has undergone a sportization and civilizing process as the rules governing the sport became stricter and players developed greater levels of self-control. However, the civilizing of Gaelic football was a particularly fragile and uneven process. The growing social desire to diminish displays of violence was moderated by ambivalence towards violence. Gradually the external social controls on players increased and, greater and more stable levels of internalization occurred reflected by more advanced levels of player self-restraint in the control of violence. At the same time the threshold of shame toward displays of violence advanced. This transformation was shaped by lengthening chains of social interdependencies in Ireland.     

Families with Children with Disabilities - Inequalities and the Social Model

This article suggests that families with children with disabilities experience a range of inequalities that families with children without disabilities do not suffer. It draws on a recent qualitative study to illustrate the way in which it is not just disabled people, but in the case of disabled children, whole families that suffer from unequal opportunities and outcomes. We draw on the social model of disability to show that the lives of these families are often characterised by financial hardship, stress and anxiety as a result of social barriers, prejudices and poorly conceived service provision. The social model of disability is usually drawn upon to illustrate the way in which social organisation disables people with impairments. In this instance, we illustrate the way in which social organisation disables not just the family member who has an impairment but the whole family unit. By applying this model of disability, new ways of creating practices and policies for these families can be developed which incorporate their views into the heart of the policy-making process.     

‘He told me to calm down and all that’: a qualitative study of forms of social support in youth mentoring relationships

The worldwide growth in formal youth mentoring programmes over the past two decades is partly a response to the perception that young people facing adversity do not have access to supportive relationships with adults and positive role models in their communities to the degree they once had. Formal mentoring programmes facilitate the development of a friendship or ‘match’ between an older volunteer and a young person, with the objective of supporting the young persons’ personal and social development. Drawing on 66 semi‐structured interviews with young people, parents, mentors and caseworkers associated with nine youth mentoring matches in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Programme in Ireland, this paper analyses the forms of social support evident in the mentor–mentee relationships and highlights how the mentoring relationship was perceived to have impacted on the well‐being of the young people participating. The findings reflect the consensus in the mentoring literature that close, well‐established mentoring relationships have the potential to bring about meaningful change in the lives of young people.