The Politics of Ideals of Care: Danish and Flemish Child Care Policy Compared

Most European welfare states today have said farewell to themale breadwinner–female caretaker model. Still, childcare policy has a different pace and shape in each country.This article studies the (late) origins as well as the diversityin Danish and Flemish (Belgian) child care policy. In Denmark,a universal child care provision was made possible because ofthe advocacy coalition of women with social pedagogues. Theypromoted the ideal of professional care. To combat the idealof full-time motherhood, the Flemish Catholic women’smovement strived for subsidizing childminders—the idealof surrogate motherhood—supported by the Christian DemocraticParty. Both strategies led to comparatively high levels of childcare provisions, but also to very different contents and shapes.In short, one of the factors that shaped child care policy isthe promotion of different (moral) ideals of care by the women’smovement, together with other—often more powerful—allies,and backed up by parental preferences.     

Increase in non-native species richness leads to biotic homogenization in vacant lots of a highly urbanized landscape

Urban Ecosystems - Vacant lots, unused lands covered by spontaneous vegetation, are widespread in urban landscapes. Although they are of less conservation value than natural ecosystems, they can...     

Influence diagnostics for Student-t censored linear regression models

In this paper, we extend the censored linear regression model with normal errors to Student-t errors. A simple EM-type algorithm for iteratively computing maximum-likelihood estimates of the parameters is presented. To examine the performance of the proposed model, case-deletion and local influence techniques are developed to show its robust aspect against outlying and influential observations. This is done by the analysis of the sensitivity of the EM estimates under some usual perturbation schemes in the model or data and by inspecting some proposed diagnostic graphics. The efficacy of the method is verified through the analysis of simulated data sets and modelling a real data set first analysed under normal errors. The proposed algorithm and methods are implemented in the R package CensRegMod.     

We care about care: advice by children in care for children in care,foster parents and child welfare workers about the transition into foster care

Twenty children in foster care, ages 8 to 15 years, provided advice to children in care, foster parents and child welfare workers about ways to assist service delivery during the transition into foster care. The children discussed the importance of tending to experiences such as foster home expectations, the importance of time and information, the new foster/parent–child relationship, coping with stress, the ability to be engaged in decision‐making, the benefits of foster care and the need to build a trusting and personal relationship between children in care and their caregivers. The importance of listening to children's experiences of the transition into foster care and incorporating their advice into future research, policy and practice will be discussed.     

Body Satisfaction and Sexual Health in Dutch Female University Students

Studies in the field of body image have primarily addressed its negative aspects, such as body dissatisfaction. The present study focused instead on women who are satisfied with their bodies and on how body satisfaction relates to sexual health. A sample of 319 Dutch female university students completed an online survey that included items about body image evaluation, body image investment, overweight preoccupation, body image affect during sexual activity, sexual frequency, sexual functioning, and sexual self-esteem. We found that the level of body dissatisfaction was minimal in our sample. The majority reported neutral or mildly positive body evaluations, and in 30% of the sample these evaluations were clearly positive. Comparisons between women who reported positive versus neutral body evaluations showed that the body-satisfied women had lower body mass indexes (BMIs) and reported less body image investment, less overweight preoccupation, and less body self-consciousness during sexual activity. With regard to sexual health, they reported higher sexual self-esteem and better sexual functioning. Furthermore, we found that body image self-consciousness was negatively associated with sexual functioning, sexual self-esteem, and frequency of sexual activity with a partner. Body satisfaction did not account for a portion of the relationship of body self-consciousness during sexual activity with sexual health.