Dealing with Migrants in the Central Mediterranean Route: A Legal Analysis of Recent Bilateral Agreements Between Italy and Libya

Dealing with the current flow of migrants flocking to the shores of southern European countries remains high on the international agenda. At the end of 2016, 276,957 migrants were waiting in Libya to cross the sea. Many of them were subject to human rights violations and abuses such as arbitrary detention, torture, unlawful killings, sexual exploitation and even slavery (IOM, 2017). The international response has been, so far, insufficient and new ideas and practices are urgently needed. After providing an overview of the legal framework and of the efforts carried out by the relevant international and regional organizations, this article focuses on recent treaties concluded between Italy and Libya, and argues that the new bilateral agreements represent an example of how States are responding to this challenge in an attempt to strike a balance between the need to strengthen the protection of migrants’ rights and the necessity to guarantee the security of national borders.     

Retrospective Paternal and Maternal Parenting Styles,Regulatory Self-Efficacy and Adolescent Risk Taking

This study aims to calculate a scaled risk-taking behavior index and to test a model in which maternal and paternal parenting styles affect risk-taking behavior with a mediation of adolescents’ regulatory self-efficacy. Participants were 816 adolescents (44% males) responding to a self-report questionnaire about their risk-taking behavior, regulatory self-efficacy, and retrospective memories of paternal and maternal parenting styles. Results suggested an item rating in the index showing that behaviors considered less risky referred to alcohol use and the unplanned first sexual intercourse, whereas behaviors considered more risky referred to the lack of use of contraceptives and the age of the first sexual intercourse. Results revealed a significant indirect effect of authoritative and authoritarian styles on risk-taking behavior. These styles shaped the adolescents’ regulatory self-efficacy, which in turn predicted adolescent risk-taking behavior. Results underline the complex interplay of relationships between parents and their children.     

Insider/Outsider: A Muslim Woman's Adventure Practicing ‘Alongside’ Narrative Therapy

The following paper centres on my unique experience as a white Australian therapist who is able to sympathise with a Western world view while being immersed in an Islamic world view. The goal is to share my journey as a Muslim Australian via an auto‐ethnography reflexive method. Using diaries, intentional reflexive positioning, and multiple modes of supervision, I contemplate an Islamic identity and value system while negotiating poststructural therapies such as solution‐focused collaborative, and in particular, narrative therapy as viable approaches to working with the Muslim community. There are two inquiries which are of interest. The first is to reflexively describe the experience of being a Muslim practitioner and wondering whether core differences in epistemological views between social constructionism and Islamic doctrine can be overcome. Secondly, this enquiry explores Quranic guidelines about how to perceive ‘problems’ in life, based on the premise that understanding how an Islamic world view addresses life's troubles may add to deeper conceptions of the role of difficulties. I propose that adherent Muslims have a natural metaphorical way of thinking that connects with some of the poststructural therapeutic skills and techniques and at the same time draw on past Quranic solutions for contemporary problems. Little has been written on narrative therapy as a suitable approach to working with Muslim clients. In the current paper I review my personal experience as a veiled Muslim therapist striving to implement narrative therapy alongside an Islamic epistemology.     

Unemployment and consumption near and far away from the Mediterranean

We study the insurance mechanisms employed by households to absorb unemployment shocks using comparable data for four countries: Italy, Spain, Great Britain, and the US. Results on family transfers when the male household head becomes unemployed suggest that family networks are the weakest in Britain, while unemployment benefits there are instead the most generous across the four countries. Despite these differences, food consumption losses induced by unemployment of the male household head are similar across countries. These findings are consistent with the view that family support and the Welfare State substitute each other in mitigating the consequences of unemployment shocks. The first author is also affiliated with CEPR and CESifo, the second author with EUI, CEPR, CESifo, and IZA.     

Totally tall sounds totally younger: Intensification at the socio‐semantics interface

In two social perception experiments, we explore the relationship between the social meaning and the semantic/pragmatic properties of the intensifier totally in American English. In Experiment 1, we show that totally is perceived as a more salient index of social identity categories – measured in terms of Age, Solidarity and Status attributes – when it targets a scalar dimension grounded in the speaker's attitude, as opposed to when it occurs in contexts where the scale is provided by the subsequent predicate. In Experiment 2, we show that the social indexicality of totally is even more salient in contexts in which the intensifier, by virtue of its pragmatic contribution, invites a stance of heightened proximity and convergence between the interlocutors. These results point to a principled connection between the semantic, pragmatic and personality‐based social meanings of totally, providing new insights into the dynamics whereby different layers of meaning conspire to determine what an expression ‘says’ when deployed in interaction.     

Sharing of emotional memories with a listener: differences between adolescents and emerging adults

Research demonstrated a strong influence of personal narratives on emotions linked to memories. However, few studies considered shared narratives and the role of listener’s behavior, especially in adolescence and emerging adulthood. This paper aims to explore the impact of listening attitude on emotions related to memories in adolescents and emerging adults. A total of 157 participants were asked to choose a memory: in the experimental conditions (Attentive Listening, AL vs. Detached Listening, DL), they narrated it to a listener, in the Control Group, they internally reflected about it. Emotions linked to memory at the first time, to narrative/reflection, and to memory after 15 days were measured, as well as the perception of listener’s behavior. Results showed that participants perceived the differences of the listening, although adolescents perceived less listener’s detached stance. Moreover, among adolescents, positive emotions increased after narrative for both experimental conditions, instead, among emerging adults, only AL condition participants increased their positive emotions. Moreover, adults maintained the positive effects of narrative also after 15 days. Authors discussed the role of an empathic context and the adolescent egocentrism in shared narratives about personal memories.     

Yet another minority issue or good news for all? Approaching LGBT issues in European social work education

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the questions of why to include and how to approach LGBT issues in the context of European social work education. Referring to social work’s commitment to LGBT people, the article points out its ongoing relevance as questions of marginalisation and discrimination point far beyond formal equality in legislation and normalisation of homosexuality within existing societal institutions. Furthermore, new questions and dynamics in rapidly changing and highly diverse societal contexts bring about new challenges in addressing LGBT issues. Against this background, the article discusses problems of representation and knowledge and underlines the potential of a queer approach. A queer perspective questions taken-for-granted assumptions about sexual orientation, gender identity and intimate relationships. It challenges normalising categories of sex, gender and desire and brings out possibilities existing beyond the heteronormative order. This way, it offers social work education a powerful theoretical lens to address issues on sexual orientation and gender identity not only as yet another minority issue, but as transversal matter and as good news for all. In this article, we use the acronym LGBT to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people. LGBT is meant to include and at the same time emphasise the differences between people who do not (exclusively) define themselves as heterosexual and who cannot or do not want to match or identify with binarities of sex, gender and desire. We do not use the acronym LGBTI because we find it problematic to include intersex people without taking explicitly into account their specific situations and needs. Making a plea for a queer approach, we share – of course – a critical view on categorisations and identity labels.     

“Let’s Talk About Children” resource: A parallel mixed method evaluation

Psycho-education interventions for families affected by parental mental illness have been found to be effective. This study aimed to assess the feasibility of a psycho-educational resource for parents, designed to initiate family discussions about parental mental illness and educate parents about the impact of their illness on children. In a mixed methods design, 19 parents read the “Let’s Talk About Children” psycho-educational resource and completed pre-and-post questionnaires measuring their perspectives of mental illness and awareness of the impact of mental illness on their children and family. 18 of these participated in a follow-up, one hour, individual interview to obtain further feedback on the resource. After viewing the resource, changes in parents’ attitudes and/or behavior in relation to mental illness and parenting were recorded. Interview findings indicate that the resource gave parents an awareness of the skills and knowledge needed for initiating family discussions about parental mental illness. The results of this study can be used to inform future interventions targeting parents who experience mental illness.