The effect of number of siblings on adult mortality: Evidence from Swedish registers for cohorts born between 1938 and 1972

Demographic research has paid much attention to the impact of childhood conditions on adult mortality. We focus on one of the key aspects of early life conditions, sibling group size, and examine the causal effect of growing up in a large family on mortality. While previous studies have focused on low- or middle-income countries, we examine whether growing up in a large family is a disadvantage in Sweden, a context where most parents have adequate resources, which are complemented by a generous welfare state. We used Swedish register data and frailty models, examining all-cause and cause-specific mortality between the ages of 40 and 74 for the 1938–72 cohorts, and also a quasi-experimental approach that exploited multiple births as a source of exogenous variation in the number of siblings. Overall our results do not indicate that growing up in a large family has a detrimental effect on longevity in Sweden.     

Sense of School Membership and Associated Academic and Psychological Outcomes in Post-Institutionalized Adopted High School Students

Research highlights lasting cognitive and academic challenges in youth internationally adopted from institutional care. However, there is a lack of research examining internationally adopted students' sense of membership at school and associated academic and psychological outcomes. The current study measured sense of school membership and academic and psychological outcomes in post-institutionalized internationally adopted high school students (n = 29) compared to adolescents internationally adopted from foster care (n = 28) and non-adopted adolescents (n = 32). Post-institutionalized males had a lower sense of school membership than males adopted from foster care or non-adopted males. Group differences in school membership were mediated by academic achievement and psychological well-being.     

Lena Finkle’s magic arc: hybrid influences in the Russian American graphic novel

ABSTRACT

The article examines Anya Ulinich’s graphic narrative Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel and the novel’s use of visual culture from both the author’s Russian and US American backgrounds. The article interrogates the use of history and timelines, Russian art history and Russian art education in Ulinich’s text. It also analyzes other literary constructs that influenced Ulinich’s novel: US American comics/graphic novels and their use of stereotype, and novels by Russian-speaking Jewish American writers, with their thematized Jewishness.     

The classing gaze and its gendering effects: (dis)‐respectability,emotional (in)‐competency,and the counselling experiences of domestically violent Taiwanese men

Research on domestically violent men typically takes an oppositional logic of gender. While the significance of class in researching domestically violent men is identified, class and gender are often treated as separate entities that do not complicate each other. Drawing upon group observations and in‐depth interviews, this paper identifies how intersections of class and gender manifest in the counselling experiences of domestically violent Taiwanese men. From a Bourdieusian feminist analysis, the authors analyse (1) how class distinctions serve to (re)produce gendered hierarchy; (2) how contradictory experiences of gender reveal a relational understanding of class; and (3) how the gendered nature of domestically violent men is inscribed with a meaning of (working) class specificity for maintaining middle‐class ‘purity’. In analysing men's multiple and conflicting experiences, this paper contributes to research on domestically violent men by showing how class and gender are actively constructed and not produced in a monolithic/invariant way.     

Macht und Gender

What prevents women, who wish to pursue a career, from gaining power???If organizational micro-politics, which means using and developing power, is conceptualized as an acting competence, the acquisition of cognitive competences and also the willingness to act micro-politically will turn into focus, which can be regarded as an indicator for the integration of micro-political acting into a self-concept. According to common models of competences this illustrates self-competence. The interviews conducted with female young executives revealed that the willingness??more than the ??pure motivation to advance a career????represents a key factor to be successful in advancing a career. The willingness seems to be even more marked, the less the self-concept is linked to female gender-stereotype. With regards to this result it is discussed what this means to the development of micro-political competences for women.     

Reliability of accelerometric measurement of physical activity in older adults-the benefit of using the trimmed sum

There is general consensus that physical activity is important for preserving functional capacities of older adults and positively influencing quality of life. While accelerometry is widely accepted and applied to assess physical activity in studies, several problems with this method remain (e.g., low retest reliability, measurement errors). The aim of this study was to test the intra-instrumental retest reliability of a wrist-worn accelerometer in a 3-day measurement of physical activity in older adults and to compare different estimators. A sample of 123 older adults (76.5?±?5.1?years, 59?% female) wore a uniaxial accelerometer continuously for 1?week. The data were split into two repeated measurement values (week set) of 3?days each. The sum, the 80?C99th quantiles and the 80?C99th trimmed sums were built for each week set. Retest reliability was assessed for each estimator and graphically demonstrated by Bland?CAltman plots. The intraclass correlation of the retest reliability ranged from 0.22 to 0.91. Retest reliability increases when a more robust estimator than the overall sum is used. Therefore, the trimmed sum can be recommended as a conservative estimate of the physical activity level of older adults.     

Counting Child Domestic Servants in Latin America

This paper summarizes trends in the use of child domestic servants in six Latin American countries using IPUMS-International census samples for 1960 to 2000. Child domestics are among the most vulnerable of child workers, and the most invisible. They may be treated kindly and allowed to attend school, or they may be secluded in their employers' home, overworked, verbally abused, beaten, and unable to leave or report their difficulties to kin. Estimates and imputations are based on labor force and relationship-to-head variables. We find that domestic service makes up a substantial fraction of girls' employment in some countries. We also analyze trends in live-in versus live-out status and school enrollment of child domestic servants. While all child workers are disadvantaged in enrollment relative to non-workers, domestics are sometimes better off than non-domestic workers. In some samples, live-ins are more likely to go to school than live-out child domestics. In others, they are substantially worse off.     

Limits to “Jewish power”: how Slovak Jewish leaders negotiated restitution of property after the Second World War

This article examines how Jewish leaders in post-war Slovakia negotiated the restitution of property with the legislative and executive powers in Bratislava and Prague. The Jewish leaders were affiliated with two Slovak Jewish organisations founded in 1945: the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Slovakia (Ústredný sväz ?idovských nábo?enských obci na Slovensku, ÚS?NO) and the Organisation of Victims of Racial Persecution at the Hands of the Fascist Regime in Bratislava (Sdru?enie fa?istickým re?imom rasovo prenasledovaných v Bratislave, SRP). The Secretary General of the SRP, Dr Vojtech Winterstein, was the main voice negotiating and promoting the interests of the post-war Jewish community. His invaluable collection of documents – the Winterstein collection – provides the source base for this article.     

From the Mouths of Mothers: Can Drama Facilitate Reflective Learning for Social Workers?

This article explores and evaluates a cross-disciplinary small-scale project using applied theatre in social work education. The aim was to provide an ‘Affective Encounter’ where students could practice empathic engagement, understanding of the needs of children who have been sexually abused and their protective parents/carers and engage in the complexities of working with family members who may be resistant. The workshop took place five times over a period of three years and was attended by children and families social workers on a one year post-qualifying graduate diploma course. While the use of verbatim theatre does not offer a guarantee of factual truth, it provided the students with some performed moments of personal testimony which was taken word-for-word from mothers whose children had been sexually abused. This allowed the social workers to hear the marginalised narratives of the protective mothers and to practice without a negative impact on the service user. The evaluation identified from self-report the development of emotional and practical skills and knowledge of available resources. This paper focuses on the emotional skills reported and two emerging themes are discussed: learning for humane practice, and the use of this pedagogical approach to encourage affective reflection.