Involving managers in system-improvement planning

The planning of an organization is conceptualized as two separate but complementary processes. One of these two, namely system-improvement planning—which is concerned with changing the nature of the ongoing activities of the organization with a view to improving them—is generally neglected or poorly performed. It is suggested here that the reason for this neglect is the prevailing organizational philosophy which inhibits system-improvement planning. An alternative philosophy would be required for its effective implementation. But initially structural changes to support the new philosophy would have to be introduced.     

The reliability of environmental measures of the college alcohol environment

Much of what we know about students' drinking patterns and problems related to alcohol use is based on survey research. Although local and national survey data are important to alcohol-prevention projects, they do not sufficiently capture the complexity of the alcohol environment. Environmental prevention approaches to alcohol-related problems have been shown to be effective in community settings and researchers have begun to study and adapt such approaches for use on college campuses. Many environmental approaches require systematic scanning of the campus alcohol environment. This study assessed the inter-rater reliability of two environmental scanning tools (a newspaper content analysis form and a bulletin analysis form) designed to identify alcohol-related advertisements targeting college students. Inter-rater reliability for these forms varied across different rating categories and ranged from poor to excellent. Suggestions for future research are addressed.     

What helps people with bipolar affective disorder succeed in employment: a grounded theory approach

The present study used a qualitative research design to unfold those contextual factors which influence vocational outcomes amongst people with bipolar disorder (BD). The data for this qualitative study was collated using a grounded theory approach because of its particular relevance to the study's aims i.e., to propose a theory grounded in the data that provided an account of the vocational integration process people with BD go through. The emerging theory consists of two over-arching principles that determine an individual's readiness to join the workforce: i) recovery from an acute phase of BD and ii) goodness of fit between the individual, support, job and wider contextual components. The emerging theory is in general agreement with those issues discussed in the literature. The present study also highlights the importance of maintaining a sense of hope and how self-determination may help individuals achieve their vocational goals. The credibility of these findings was strengthened by the method of triangulation of data interpretation and sources.     

Reconstituting racial histories and identities: the narratives of interracial couples

This study explores the process by which interracial spouses construct narratives about their racial histories, identities, and experiences in their relationship together. Ten black-white couples were interviewed individually and conjointly. The results reflected interracial spouses' experience of their life together, their perception of others' perceptions of them, and their unique processes of negotiating racial, gender, and class differences. Black spouses, compared with white spouses, demonstrated a greater awareness of and sensitivity to social resistance to interracial couples, and black spouses' familial and personal histories were sometimes relegated to silence in the couple relationship. I discuss recommendations for marriage and family therapists working with interracial spouses.     

Discourses of Diversity,Equality and Inclusion: Trenchant Formulations or Transient Fashions?

Using bibliometric analysis of published work, we examine the discursive trends, patterns and implications of three different anti‐discrimination solutions (equality, diversity and inclusion) over a 40‐year period from 1970 to 2010. The findings reveal that the anti‐discrimination discourses are consistent with management fashions, in terms of both their trends and the rhetorical strategies used by proponents to establish the dominance of their favoured approach, particularly by denigrating previous approaches. Practitioner‐facing academics play a key role in the process by giving shape, exposure and credibility to the anti‐discrimination solutions, but not in creating them. Only by breaking free of the oppositional discursive patterns can the debate move on to anti‐discrimination solutions that attempt to blend together equality, diversity and inclusion.     

Telling a modest story: accounts of men's upward mobility from the National Child Development Study

While the pattern of social mobility in postwar Britain has been extensively studied, revealing considerable upward mobility, much less is known about the subjective dimension to mobility. In this article, we employ a new sample of in-depth interviews with 50-year old men from the National Child Development Study to examine in detail the link between objective mobility patterns and the way the upwardly mobile narrate their life trajectories. In contrast to the mobility ideology suggested by the Oxford mobility survey of the early 1970s, in which the upwardly mobile recognized and internalized their success as a project of the self, we report how members of this later generation of men with highly successful careers prefer instead to articulate 'modest' life stories. By treating the career as a narrative device, we are able to show how the disavowal of the dominant, linear hierarchical career model by these men allows them to tell particular and distinctive stories which establish their individuality and personhood, while, paradoxically, recognizing the cultural power of the dominant model. In particular, we highlight the use of 'linear contingent' narratives by these men, in which specific events, especially those connected with occupational and geographical transitions, are deployed as contingent thresholds to mark out key shifts and passages in their lives. We then compare their accounts with those of immobile and downwardly men, who instead deploy 'ghostly' stories, preoccupied by the past, or defensive accounts, displaying unease with their failure to live up to the expectations of the linear career model. Having shown that men's accounts of mobility are suffused with an awareness of their need to establish their own individuality through repudiating the social trope of the instrumental careerist, we conclude that the links between career identities and objective mobility patterns are not straightforward and need careful unravelling.     

The mental health of young people aging out of care and entering adulthood: Exploring the evidence from England and France

This paper explores the research evidence from England and France on the mental health of young people aging out of care and into adulthood. It represents the first comparative review based on the evidence from these two countries. Set in the legal, policy and service framework for both countries, it reviews evidence on the mental health of young people in the general population, young people living in care, young people aging out of care, and young adults. It shows: the high levels of psychological adversity of young people entering care; the high rates of mental health problems of young people in care compared with the general population of young people; the increased risk of mental and physical problems at the time of aging out of care, and the general improvement in longer-term outcomes for young adults, although some continue to have serious mental health problems. In conclusion, it suggests that interventions across the life course of young people are needed.