Continuity and Change in the Family System Across the Transition from Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood

As adolescents move into emerging adulthood, their social networks shift toward a focus on peers and romantic partners, yet parents and siblings remain important sources of support. The present review takes a family systems approach to integrate the growing body of literature examining longitudinal continuity and change in both positive (e.g., intimacy, support) and negative (e.g., conflict, rivalry) qualities of parent–child and sibling relationships as adolescents transition to emerging adulthood. In general, contact with family members decreases, yet the quality of family relationships appears to improve or, at the very least, stabilize across this transition. These pathways are interpreted within the lens of several prominent theories, and a discussion of the limitations of the current literature and ideas for future research are presented.     

Family or friends: what counts more for drinking behaviour of young adults? / Familia o amigos: ¿qué pesa más en los hábitos de consumo de alcohol de los jóvenes?

The scientific literature stresses the importance of culture and social environment in determining what people think about alcohol consumption and consequently do. Several pieces of research have proved the influence on young adults’ alcohol use of proximal social contexts of their family and peers. The present study aimed at investigating the influence of family behaviours and norms compared to the peers’ influence in a context where the culture of alcohol is changing between the different generations. Data were collected by means of a self-report questionnaire on a sample of 598 young adults (average age 22.20 years). The variables investigated were socio-demographic characteristics, the alcohol consumption of parents and friends and the parents’ and peers’ approval of alcohol consumption. The results confirmed the role of family and friends in influencing young adults’ consumption of alcohol, stressing a difference between perceived behaviours and norms. The perceived consumption of parents and friends influenced the participants’ consumption. On the contrary, the effects of the approval of drinking were limited. Globally friends had a stronger influence on alcohol consumption in comparison with family.     

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.     

Schedule flexibility in hourly jobs: unanticipated consequences and promising directions

This article considers the challenge of extending conventional models of flexibility to hourly jobs that are often structured quite differently than the salaried, professional positions for which flexibility options were originally designed. We argue that the assumptions of job rigidity and overwork motivating existing flexibility options may not be broadly applicable across jobs in the US labor market. We focus specifically on two types of flexibility: (1) working reduced hours and (2) varying work timing. We first review central aspects of the US business and policy contexts that inspire our concerns, and then draw on original analyses from US census data and several examples from our comparative case-study research to explain how conventional flexibility options do not always map well onto hourly jobs, and in certain instances may disadvantage workers by undermining their ability to earn an adequate living. We conclude with a discussion of alternative approaches to implementing flexibility in hourly jobs when hours are scarce and fluctuating rather than long and rigid.