The contribution of a history of heavy smoking to Scotland's mortality disadvantage

Scotland has a lower life expectancy than any country in Western Europe or North America, and this disadvantage is concentrated above age 50. According to the Human Mortality Database, life expectancy at age 50 has been lower in Scotland than in any other developed country since 1980. Relative to 15 developed countries that we have chosen for comparison, Scotland's life expectancy in 2009 at age 50 was lower by an average of 2.5?years for women and 1.6?years for men. We estimate that Scottish women lost 3.6?years of life expectancy at age 50 as a result of smoking, compared to 1.4?years for the comparison countries. The equivalent figures among men are 3.1 and 2.1?years. These differences are large enough for the history of heavy smoking in Scotland to account both for most of the shortfall in life expectancy for both sexes and for the country's unusually narrow sex differences in life expectancy.     

Confucian philosophy and influence on perceived values and behavioural orientations by Taiwan’s millennials

This study examines the millennials’ perceptions of Confucianism and their influence on their personal values and behavioural orientations with a sample from Taiwan to address the research gap in intergenerational and intercultural human resource development (HRD) research. It complements results from western research and offers important insights to worldwide managers and HRD practitioners for talent development and learning-related initiatives when working with employees and organizations with East Asia backgrounds. The concept of Confucius’ process of developing into a virtuous person seems to be rooted in the Taiwanese millennials’ mind, who as guided by Confucius tend to have a primary focus on accumulating knowledge, practicing moral behaviour, and correcting one’s mind and behaviour. Along with the globalization and technology advancement, the sampled millennials hold a strong traditional values of Confucian philosophy; yet, such strong cultural values may be attenuated a great deal after exposing to western culture over times. The Confucian virtue (moral) behaviour practice, harmonious relations, and self-cultivation are found as top three factors of Confucian values. Implications for HRD practices and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Midwives being ‘with woman’: An integrative review

Background

Midwives being ‘with woman’ is embedded in professional philosophy, standards of practice and partnerships with women. In light of the centrality of being ‘with woman’ to the profession of midwifery, it is timely to review the literature to gain a contemporary understanding of this phenomenon.

The Relationship Between Sexual Concordance and Orgasm Consistency in Women

Sexual concordance (the relationship between genital and self-reported sexual responses) may be associated with orgasm consistency (OC; the proportion of sexual acts leading to orgasm) during penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI) in women. We investigated the relationship between women’s sexual concordance (assessed using different stimulus modalities and self-reported sexual arousal methods) and OC during various sexual activities (assessed using different types of questions). For Study 1 (n = 51), when sexual concordance was assessed using audiovisual sexual stimuli, we did not find a statistically significant relationship between OC and poststimulus self-reports of sexual arousal or genital sensations, raw values of OC, or ranges of OC. For Study 2 (n = 44), where sexual concordance was assessed using audionarrative sexual stimuli, we did find a statistically significant relationship between PVI OC and sexual concordance using change in self-reported sexual arousal, and ranges of orgasm consistency. Two findings were inconsistent with previous research. First, OC varied significantly by activity type in both studies; masturbation yielded the highest OC. Second, PVI OC was significantly related to oral sex and masturbation OC (Study 2). We discuss the need for further research and various factors that may affect women’s orgasm consistency and sexual concordance.     

‘To favor the side of freedom’: judicial opinions and the law of slavery

This essay uses the appellate judicial opinions in more than 800 suits for freedom from across the United States to analyze the additional commentary antebellum judges included when issuing their decisions. Judges used arguments that mirrored broader debates between abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates, while also upholding the central importance of the rule of law. In doing so, they sought to defend the judicial system from the many challenges brought by African Americans and other anti-slavery activists. Regardless of their own individual beliefs about slavery, judges often chose to frame their written opinions around appeals to morality. The use of moral arguments allowed judges to anticipate the positions of African Americans and their supporters and then render these ideas irrelevant in the face of positive laws supporting slavery. The decisions they made had real consequences for future legal pathways to freedom, and the ways judges chose to structure their decisions reveal both awareness and anxiety over the power of judicial challenges to the institution of slavery.     

Joining forces: the benefits of integrating schools and community providers

Reforms aimed at expanding learning for low-income children must do more than add hours and days to the school year; they must push beyond the traditional boundaries of school-based learning and find ways to maximize and integrate the assets that cities, districts, and communities can offer. This article reviews research on how schools are using extended learning time to promote student engagement and achievement. A key finding is that successful efforts use partnerships with outside organizations to provide academic support and enrichment activities that build students' skills and connections with an expanded network of supportive adults. The challenge is to ensure that these partnerships are not mere add-ons, designed only to plug extracurricular holes and seen as peripheral to the core academic work of schools. They must be part of a larger system that integrates in-school and out-of-school learning and improves outcomes for youth.     

Cleaning up their act: The effects of marriage and cohabitation on licit and illicit drug use

We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to estimate changes in binge drinking, marijuana use, and cigarette smoking surrounding young adults' first experiences of cohabitation and marriage. Both marriage and cohabitation are accompanied by decreases in some risk behaviors, but reductions surrounding marriage are larger and most consistent, particularly for men. Binge drinking and marijuana use respond to these events, especially marriage, but smoking does not.     

‘Disability is not a word we use’: Social workers' professional judgements about support for disabled young people leaving care

Disabled young people leaving care often experience a more complex transition to adulthood than other youths. Still, policy and services can fail to recognize the intersection between a young person's care experiences and disability. Drawing on data from a qualitative interview study with 14 social workers who work with aftercare in the Norwegian child welfare services, we investigate social workers' professional judgements about support for this subgroup of the leaving care population. Our analysis uses the theoretical construct of institutional logics and shows that social workers did not include concepts of disability in their judgements about support for these young people. Instead, the social workers' considerations were guided by three other organizing principles: a ‘medical logic’, an ‘activation logic’ and an ‘aftercare logic’. We discuss these findings in light of critical disability studies and argue for a more nuanced understanding of disability in social work practice with care leavers. Highlighting disability rights and going beyond diagnosis and categorisations of disabled people can challenge a medical model approach to service provision.     

Chains and networks,territories and scales: towards a relational framework for analysing the global economy

A vast and continually expanding literature on economic globalization continues to generate a miasma of conflicting viewpoints and alternative discourses. This article argues that any understanding of the global economy must be sensitive to four considerations: (a) conceptual categories and labels carry with them the discursive power to shape material processes; (b) multiple scales of analysis must be incorporated in recognition of the contemporary ‘relativization of scale’; (c) no single institutional or organizational locus of analysis should be privileged; and (d) extrapolations from specific case studies and instances must be treated with caution, but this should not preclude the option of discussing the global economy, and power relations within it, as a structural whole. This paper advocates a network methodology as a potential framework to incorporate these concerns. Such a methodology requires us to identify actors in networks, their ongoing relations and the structural outcomes of these relations. Networks thus become the foundational unit of analysis for our understanding of the global economy, rather than individuals, firms or nation states. In presenting this argument we critically examine two examples of network methodology that have been used to provide frameworks for analysing the global economy: global commodity chains and actor‐network theory. We suggest that while they fall short of fulfilling the promise of a network methodology in some respects, they do provide indications of the utility of such a methodology as a basis for understanding the global economy.