From leprosy to The Willow Tree: decoding disability and Islamic spirituality in Iranian film

The lack of attention in academic discourse to representations of disability in films from the Middle East has led to an incomplete picture of representations of disability in global cinema. For instance, the diverse meanings of disability in Iranian cinema and the influence of disability on the emergence of Iranian New Wave cinema have been almost completely ignored by scholars. A number of award-winning films from Iran have featured disability as central to their narratives – such as The House is Black (1963), Taste of Cherry (1997), The Color of Paradise (1999), The Willow Tree (2005), and The Painting Pool (2013). Disability in these films serves alternatively as a symbol of spiritual possibility, a mark of marginalization, and a covert social critique. These films examine the emotional, physical, and social implications of disability, while celebrating the cultural power of film to challenge social, religious, and artistic barriers.     

Self-care among school-aged children of immigrants

The present study uses data from the National Household Education Surveys Program to examine the unsupervised time (“self-care”) experienced by children in immigrant families. We argue that traditional models of self-care are insufficient for understanding self-care among immigrant families and should be expanded to capture the unique characteristics of this population. Considering the high rates of poverty, limited English proficiency, and unique cultural norms of immigrant parents, children of immigrants may be especially at-risk for self-care. Interestingly, results demonstrate that immigrant parents are not more likely to leave their children unsupervised than native-born parents, however the context surrounding self-care appears to differ, as immigrant children are more likely to be caring for a sibling during self-care. Additionally, we find that within immigrant families, boys and children of parents who speak a non-English language at home are more likely to be in self-care. These findings underscore the importance of examining parental nativity status in research on child care arrangements, as patterns and contextual factors associated with self-care may depend on the immigrant status of the parent.     

Commentary on: Why Do Pacific People with Multiple Ethnic Affiliations Have Poorer Subjective Wellbeing? Negative Ingroup Affect Mediates the Identity Tension Effect,Manuela & Sibley, 2012

This commentary is a response to the article described above. While applauding the attention given to the multi-ethnic population, it queries some aspects of the study design and findings. Specifically, I examine the assumptions underpinning the use of a Pacific measure of family wellbeing to evaluate families that are not only Pacific origin, ask some questions regarding the sampling methods and content, and question the inference that because people with Pacific/non-Pacific multi-ethnic affiliations have lower self-esteem, mediated by less warmth towards Pacific peoples, that this necessarily reflects the internalisation of negative beliefs espoused by the dominant Pakeha (white) ethnic group. Alternative possible explanations for this are explored.     

Hispanic Fertility,Religion and Religiousness in the U.S.

Is the higher fertility of Hispanics in the United States due to their religion and/or to their greater religiousness? Evidence from national survey data indicates no difference in fertility between Protestant and Catholic Hispanic women but Hispanics are more religious than non-Hispanics in terms of the perceived importance of religion in their personal lives. Religiousness is associated with higher fertility but Hispanic fertility is higher than non-Hispanic fertility regardless of religion or religiousness. Ethnic differences in education and income in turn are more important for fertility than the religious dimension.     

Maternal Reading Skills and Child Mortality in Nigeria: A Reassessment of Why Education Matters

Mother’s formal schooling—even at the primary level—is associated with lower risk of child mortality, although the reasons why remain unclear. This study examines whether mother’s reading skills help to explain the association in Nigeria. Using data from the Demographic and Health Survey, the analysis demonstrates that women’s reading skills increase linearly with years of primary school; however, many women with several years of formal school are unable to read at all. The results further show that mother’s reading skills help to explain the relationship between mother’s formal schooling and child mortality, and that mother’s reading skills are highly associated with child mortality. The study highlights the need for more data on literacy and for more research on whether and how mother’s reading skills lower child mortality in other contexts.     

Polygynous Contexts,Family Structure,and Infant Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa

Contextual characteristics influence infant mortality above and beyond family-level factors. The widespread practice of polygyny is one feature of many sub-Saharan African contexts that may be relevant to understanding patterns of infant mortality. Building on evidence that the prevalence of polygyny reflects broader economic, social, and cultural features and that it has implications for how families engage in the practice, we investigate whether and how the prevalence of polygyny (1) spills over to elevate infant mortality for all families, and (2) conditions the survival disadvantage for children living in polygynous families (i.e., compared with monogamous families). We use data from Demographic and Health Surveys to estimate multilevel hazard models that identify associations between infant mortality and region-level prevalence of polygyny for 236,336 children in 260 subnational regions across 29 sub-Saharan African countries. We find little evidence that the prevalence of polygyny influences mortality for infants in nonpolygynous households net of region-level socioeconomic factors and gender inequality. However, the prevalence of polygyny significantly amplifies the survival disadvantage for infants in polygynous families. Our findings demonstrate that considering the broader marital context reveals important insights into the relationship between family structure and child well-being.     

Building good knowledge or blaming bad parents? Examining the construction of parents and parenting in a corpus of parent focussed cochlear implant research articles

Parents of deaf children with a cochlear implant (CI) report feeling pressure to adhere to a very prescribed conceptualisation of ‘good parenting’, and in some cases report feeling judged or blamed, for example, if the child's progress post-CI is slower than expected. Previous investigations of the discourses of parenting science suggest that, while parent blame is rarely expressed explicitly, that normative, moral assumptions about how ‘good parents of a disabled child’ should feel, think and act are embedded within prevalent concepts and terminology. A disproportionate focus on evaluating individual parents' personal characteristics at the expense of more external, socially located issues has also been noted. Existing critiques, together with the author's lived experience provide the impetus for this study; in which corpus linguistics methods have been used to document the types of parents and parenting attributes constructed in a 420,982 corpus of research articles. The results indicate the prevalence of many highly evaluative parenting noun-collocates within the field; successful adaptation, a positive appraisal of the situation, realistic expectations, rational decisions, high involvement and full-time use of the CI are conflated with good parenting, whilst parents who present in alternate ways are construed as problematic. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Students in out-of-home care: Their experiences of Transforming Educational Achievement for Children at Risk,an Australian education programme

Children living in out-of-home care are at greater risk of poor educational outcomes compared to other children. To address their educational needs, several programs have been developed. Within a qualitative paradigm, this study explored the experiences of students about their involvement in TEACHaR (Transforming Educational Achievement for Children at Risk), a specialized education programme. Eight students (aged 13 to 18 years) from the programme participated in individual, semi-structured interviews. Responses were analysed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Participants indicated that the programme provided individualized and flexible academic support, reduced their shame and embarrassment and provided them with more than academic support. They highlighted the importance of the student–educator relationship, and the need for encouragement and motivation to pursue their educational goals. Finally, findings report on how COVID-19 impacts on student experiences of the programme. Recommendations for the development and improvement of education programs for students in out-of-home care conclude this paper.     

Fear,Defensive Strategies and Caring for Cognitively Impaired Family Members

One topic rarely addressed in the literature on older adults and interpersonal violence is the violence that can be experienced by family carers in relationship with a person living with cognitive impairment. This violence tends to remain hidden and is rarely framed as intimate partner violence. We examine how situations of intimidation and violence invoked fear in family carers and how they interpreted and reacted to these circum- stances. Interview and diary data were collected from family members who had previously or were currently experiencing some form of aggression in caring for someone with cognitive impairment or dementia. Drawing on discussions of fear and applying the analytic lens of defensive strategies, we explore how these carers responded to situations of intimidation and violence.