Three Journeys Toward The Reflecting Team

The experience of familiestrainee and supervisory therapists involved in reflecting team work are explored through the metaphor of ‘journey’ and by asking a small number of our colleagues and clients about their experiences. Ideas gained from this approach are tentatively used to raise some questions about the reflecting team specifically and the current direction of family therapy. More rigorous research into this area is invited.     

The Development of Intergroup Forgiveness in Northern Ireland

As societies like Northern Ireland, Israel, and South Africa strive to resolve social conflict, there is growing theoretical and empirical interest in the role of intergroup forgiveness. This study examined intergroup forgiveness among 340 young adults in Northern Ireland. A short form of the Enright Forgiveness Inventory explored possible influences on propensity to forgive. All participants were Catholic and female (mean age 17.36 years), and had experienced verbal or physical injury or bereavement due to the Northern Irish political violence. Overall forgiveness levels were low in comparison with previous studies of interpersonal forgiveness but similar to previous studies of intergroup forgiveness in Northern Ireland. The strongest (negative) predictor of forgiveness was the perceived degree of hurt caused by the injury .     

Criteria families use to select nursing homes

The study is conducted to determine families' rankings of characteristics they consider most important when selecting a nursing home. Friedman's two-way analysis of variance is used to test for differences in the rankings. In response to a mailed survey, 231 families rank the characteristics in the following order: quality of care, appearance, atmosphere, location, reputation, building safety, quality of food, cost, and activities. Relationships are also found between the rankings and the demographic characteristics: gender, marital status, education, income, number of homes available, patient/respondent relationship, and distance respondent lived from the chosen home.     

The cult of Champ Man: the culture and pleasures of Championship Manager/Football Manager gamers

This paper considers the popularity and social significance of the gaming series Championship Manager/Football Manager. Sport-related games continue to be one of the most popular forms of digital gaming, and the series has proved to be one of the most successful of all time. Drawing on 32 interviews with game players and developers of this series, this paper argues that this series has proved particularly popular due to its 'intertextual' links to the sport of football, which allows this game to be drawn on as a resource in conversations and social networks. In particular, this paper argues that aspects of gaming, such as performativity and control, extend and cross-cut with wider social formations. Hence, the author argues that it is crucial that considerations of digital games seek to locate these within wider social and cultural patterns.     

Interpolating demography with families and households

This paper argues that the field of household and family demography serves a critical role in the development of our understanding of the determinants and consequences of population trends. Like the community, families and households are situated between the two levels at which demographic research is ordinarily conducted — the individual and the nation-state. The results of the papers in this issue are used to illustrate the critical ways that intergenerational and gender relationships shape demographic processes.     

Characterizing Environmental Harm: Developments in an Approach to Strategic Risk Assessment and Risk Management

Environmental policymakers and regulators are often in the position of having to prioritize their actions across a diverse range of environmental pressures to secure environmental protection and improvements. Information on environmental issues to inform this type of strategic analysis can be disparate; it may be too voluminous or even absent. Data on a range of issues are rarely presented in a common format that allows easy analysis and comparison. Nevertheless, judgments are required on the significance of various environmental pressures and on the inherent uncertainties to inform strategic assessments such as “state of the environment” reports. How can decisionmakers go about this type of strategic and comparative risk analysis? In an attempt to provide practical tools for the analysis of environmental risks at a strategic level, the Environment Agency of England and Wales has conducted a program of developmental research on strategic risk assessment since 1996. The tools developed under this program use the concept of “environmental harm” as a common metric, viewed from technical, social, and economic perspectives, to analyze impacts from a range of environmental pressures. Critical to an informed debate on the relative importance of these perspectives is an understanding and analysis of the various characteristics of harm (spatial and temporal extent, reversibility, latency, etc.) and of the social response to actual or potential environmental harm from a range of hazards. Recent developments in our approach, described herein, allow a presentation of the analysis in a structured fashion so as to better inform risk‐management decisions.     

DO MEN “NEED” A SPOUSE MORE THAN WOMEN?: PERCEPTIONS OF THE IMPORTANCE OF MARRIAGE FOR MEN AND WOMEN

This study examines how important men and women feel marriage is for men and for women. Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, we find that both men and women feel that men need to be married more than women do. Women are more likely than men to think that both men and women can have satisfying lives without marriage, but they are also more likely to think that only women can have satisfying lives without marriage. Younger, more educated people are less likely to emphasize marriage. On the other hand, religious people and those who are married with children are particularly likely to think that neither men nor women can have satisfying lives without marriage.