Governmentality within Children's Technological Play: Findings from a Critical Discourse Analysis

In many countries today, digital technology and instant communication are embedded in children's everyday lives to the extent that their play frequently incorporates smartphones, the Internet and other technologies. In this paper, we explore the recent historical conditions within the New Zealand context that have increased the accessibility of these technologies and imbued them with particular meanings. We suggest that from a Foucauldian perspective, these technologies can be seen as a form of subtle disciplinary power using techniques of governmentality through which children's ways of thinking are shaped to benefit societal requirements of the current historical era.     

Consumer Privacy: Balancing Economic and Justice Considerations

Consumer privacy is at the center of an ongoing debate among business leaders, privacy activists, and government officials. Although corporations face competitive pressures to collect and use personal information about their customers, many consumers find some methods of collection and use of their personal information unfair. We present a justice theory framework that illustrates how consumer privacy concerns are shaped by the perceived fairness of corporate information practices. We describe a set of global principles, fair information practices, which were developed to balance consumer privacy concerns with an organization's need to use personal information. We conclude by discussing three alternatives for implementing fair information practices with particular attention to the Internet: government regulation, industry self-regulation, and technological solutions .     

Development and evaluation of the abortion attributes questionnaire

This paper describes the development and evaluation of the Abortion Attributes Questionnaire (AAQ), an instrument designed to assess the perceived importance of specific characteristics of abortion methods. Women receiving medical abortions ( n = 186) and women who chose surgical procedures ( n = 118) completed the AAQ. Participants were asked to rate how important each of 21 characteristics would be "when choosing between surgical and medical abortion." Factor analyses revealed that the AAQ consists of four factors and, as subscales, the factors have good internal reliability. The validity of the AAQ was established through discriminant function analysis and results indicated that three of the four factors predicted choice. Taken together, these findings provide empirical support for the constructs measured by the AAQ .     

Life values,family support and psychosocial adaptation among older people in Taiwan: an institutional and community comparison

The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychosocial adaptation among elderly persons in institutional and community settings, and to explore factors influencing their adaptation. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a convenience sample of 165 residents of four institutions (two assisted-living facilities and two nursing homes) and 209 community-dwelling elders served by a primary care centre, all located in middle Taiwan. A structured interview questionnaire was used to collect data. Results: community-dwelling elderly had significantly higher adaptation scores than those in institutional settings. Factors related to adaptation differed between institutional and community settings, with more variables influencing adaptation in the community than in the institution. Physical functional status was the major influence on adaptation of the elderly in institutions. Dietary support from family was negatively associated with adaptation in this group. Influencing factors for community-dwelling elders were more complicated, including perceived family emotional and economic support, personal life values and physical functional status. Implications: greater support from government, including economic resources and assistance in community care are needed to achieve the policy goal of ‘aging in place’. Further investigation of the influence of family interaction on elders' adaptation is needed.     

An exploratory study of family‐centred help‐giving practices in early intervention: families of young children with autism spectrum disorder

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to investigate the early intervention (EI) experiences of mothers who have a young child at risk for autism spectrum disorder. Data were collected through observations, interviews and document analyses. Results of the study suggest (i) interpersonal skills of practitioners and provisions for family choice and collaboration lead to positive experiences for mothers; (ii) asset‐based attitudes lead to family progress and competence; (iii) effective partnerships are developed through supportive provider communication techniques; and (iv) satisfaction with EI services results from practitioner responsiveness to help families access resources and facilitate child development.     

Energy Conservation—A Case Study in Campaign Evaluation

This study demonstrates the considerations involved in evaluation research into the effectiveness of campaigns designed to influence social change. It is an examination of the results of applying aspects of the attitude change studies to the subject of environmental issues. A case study was made of the Smallternatives energy conservation campaign which originated in 1976 in Brisbane, at a time of little recognition of an energy 'crisis' for Australia or the need for energy conservation. Results indicated that levels of concern for environmental issues were present throughout the sample; that one group (who requested Smallternatives information) were more concerned about energy and environmental issues than groups who had not requested it; and that the booklet, when issued without request, had little or no effect on desired attitudes towards energy conservation. These results are discussed with respect to the dilemma of attitude-behaviour consistency, and the impact of information input when it is sent to, rather than requested by, the individual.     

The Role of Evaluator-Victim Relationships in Children's Evaluations of Peer Provocation

Second-, third-, fifth-, and sixth- grade children evaluated two hypothetical target peers in three provocation scenarios which differed as to the intent of a provocative act (Ambiguous, Accidental, Hostile). In addition to age and gender, evaluator-victim relationship was manipulated with children portrayed as being in a best friend, an acquaintance, or an enemy relationship with the victim, while the agent of the provocation was an unfamiliar peer. Evaluations were assessed in terms of attributions of aggressor's intentions, behavior response of the victim, evaluator's liking for victim, and evaluator's affect. Results indicated that older children evaluated aggressor's intentions and victim's behavior response more negatively than did younger children. Further, attributions of aggressor's intent significantly predicted the victim's subsequent behavioral response. Evaluator's affect was reported to be more negative when evaluating hostile provocation compared to accidental or ambiguous provocation and evaluators in acquaintance and enemy relationships with the victim reported liking the victim more after the provocation than before it occurred. Results are discussed in terms of the social relational and social situational influences on children's evaluations of peer interactions and the need to integrate these contextual factors in children's person perception research.     

Recognizing Structural Nonidentifiability: When Experiments Do Not Provide Information About Important Parameters and Misleading Models Can Still Have Great Fit

In the quest to model various phenomena, the foundational importance of parameter identifiability to sound statistical modeling may be less well appreciated than goodness of fit. Identifiability concerns the quality of objective information in data to facilitate estimation of a parameter, while nonidentifiability means there are parameters in a model about which the data provide little or no information. In purely empirical models where parsimonious good fit is the chief concern, nonidentifiability (or parameter redundancy) implies overparameterization of the model. In contrast, nonidentifiability implies underinformativeness of available data in mechanistically derived models where parameters are interpreted as having strong practical meaning. This study explores illustrative examples of structural nonidentifiability and its implications using mechanistically derived models (for repeated presence/absence analyses and dose–response of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and norovirus) drawn from quantitative microbial risk assessment. Following algebraic proof of nonidentifiability in these examples, profile likelihood analysis and Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo with uniform priors are illustrated as tools to help detect model parameters that are not strongly identifiable. It is shown that identifiability should be considered during experimental design and ethics approval to ensure generated data can yield strong objective information about all mechanistic parameters of interest. When Bayesian methods are applied to a nonidentifiable model, the subjective prior effectively fabricates information about any parameters about which the data carry no objective information. Finally, structural nonidentifiability can lead to spurious models that fit data well but can yield severely flawed inferences and predictions when they are interpreted or used inappropriately.     

Unequally Adrift: How Social Class and College Context Shape Students’ Mentorship Experiences

Faculty mentorship is a highly advantageous yet under-explored form of social capital which can grant access to co-curriculars (e.g., research assistantships), ensure strong letters of recommendation, and more. It is also typically informal and dependent on student initiative, requiring that students be skilled at engaging educational authority figures. Privileged students are most likely to have such skills as part of their dominant cultural capital, making faculty mentorship a site of social reproduction. To explore variations in this process, I compare two institution types: a small, teaching/undergraduate-focused regional university and a large, research-intensive flagship. In interviews with 68 working- and upper-middle-class students, I find that college context mediates the relationship of class background and faculty mentorship. Upper-middle-class students fostered advantageous faculty relationships at both universities, but working-class students diverged: at the flagship, they rarely approached professors in search of mentorship, while those at the regional university described close, beneficial connections with professors. I discuss working-class students’ dissimilar experiences in terms of each university’s structural and cultural characteristics (organizational habitus), particularly their institutional focus and size. I argue that through their particular organizational features, colleges can both reproduce and reduce inequalities, challenging the determinacy of precollege socialization in education.