Welfare Queens,Thrifty Housewives,and Do-It-All Mums

In this paper, we consider how the cultural politics of austerity within Britain plays out on the celebrity maternal body. We locate austerity as a discursive and disciplinary field and contribute to emerging feminist scholarship exploring how broader political and socio-economic shifts interact with cultural constructions of femininity and motherhood. To analyse the symbolic function of mediated celebrity maternity within austerity, the paper draws on a textual analysis of three celebrity mothers: Kate Middleton, Kim Kardashian, and Beyoncé. This analysis was undertaken as part of a larger qualitative study into celebrity culture and young people's classed and gendered aspirations. We show how these celebrity mothers represent the folk devils and fantasy figures of the maternal under austerity—the thrifty, happy housewife, the benefits mum, and the do-it-all working mum—and attempt to unpick what cultural work they do in the context of austerity within Britain. Through the lens of celebrity motherhood, we offer a feminist critique of austerity as a programme that both consolidates unequal class relations and makes punishing demands on women in general, and mothers in particular.     

Psychometric Confirmation of the Sexual Health Survey as a Useful Tool for College Health Professionals

Abstract

Objective: To conduct a confirmatory factor analysis on the 17-item Sexual Health Survey (SHS), a comprehensive instrument designed to be used with college students. Participants: College students (N = 515) aged 18 to 26 years enrolled at a Midwest public university October 2009. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation was performed to test the stability of the constructs. Results: All factor loadings were significant (p < .001), ranging from .55 to .99 (standardized). The range of squared multiple correlations of items was .31 to .98, and the intercorrelations among the 5 factors were from ?.03 to .52. These small to moderate levels of intercorrelation support discriminant validity of 5 constructs. Conclusions: This study supports the 5-factor version of the 17-item SHS as a viable scale that can measure sexual health overall and 5 distinct areas. College health professionals should consider use of this scale for assessment purposes and evaluation of programmatic efforts.     

‘Fantasies of Consensus:’ Planning Reform in Sydney, 2005–2013

This paper examines the battle to reform and streamline the planning system in Sydney, Australia, between 2005 and 2013. It analyses the strategies the State of NSW has pursued to manage ongoing conflicts over development, and reflects on the challenges the State has encountered in its attempt to redefine democratic engagement, justify decisions, claim legitimacy and forge a consensus around a more pro-development planning system. While New South Wales’ planning reform strategies have pursued an apparently ‘post-political’ agenda (Swyngedouw, Apocalypse forever? Post-political populism and the spectre of climate change, Theory Culture and Society, 27(2–3):213–232, 2010), using policy solutions to depoliticize difficult decisions, the reform process has exacerbated rather than defused conflicts. The story raises questions about the extent to which the new governing strategies of a post-political era can offer effective forums to forge consensus, or to stage-manage agreement over metropolitan development conflicts.     

Hand over fist: a chronicle of Cold War photography

Group Material’s Timeline: The Chronicle of US Invention in Latin and Central America (1984) at P.S.1’s Center for Contemporary Art explored the framing devices of installation art and photography in tandem, as a means of reconfiguring the distribution of the sensible at the height of the Cold War. In response to escalating crisis (including continuous Central Intelligence Agency operations being carried out in Nicaragua and El Salvador), this activist project employed postmodern strategies such as appropriation, pastiche and a resistance to conclusiveness in order to suggest provocative and unexpected dialogues between disparate artworks and artefacts across time and geopolitical difference. Artists ranging from Richard Prince and Barbara Kruger to John Heartfield, Tina Modotti and Arellano Bolivar, among others, come together as signs of political and aesthetic conflict, as networks of visual culture that complicate dominant narratives of spatial and temporal reality during the Cold War era. Closer analysis of such works reveals historical ruptures alongside continuities, relayed by official government policy, mass media and the art world more broadly. By excavating a long-standing history of conflict, Timeline addresses the stakes of the ownership of meaning itself in the mid-1980s, with implications regarding art production and politics for generations to come.     

“The One-Box Challenge: Providing a Federated Search That Benefits the Research Process” Revisited

A doctoral student approached the column editor and suggested that an update on a “The Balance Point” column entitled “The One-Box Challenge: Providing a Federated Search That Benefits the Research Process” (2006) would be of interest and useful to readers, and the editor agreed. Contributors to the original column were asked to reflect upon their experiences with federated searching, including successes and failures over the past 10 years, and to provide insights into future challenges and issues. This edition of “The Balance Point” focuses on the ongoing challenges, lessons learned, possible future directions, and issues involved in providing one-box searching to library patrons.     

Community Resources in a Diverse City: Supermarket Location and Emerging Racial Hierarchies

Disparities are pronounced along racial/ethnic lines in the USA. Convention draws our attention to blacks and whites, but increased racial/ethnic diversity in the USA requires shifts in that focus. We contribute to studies of racial/ethnic stratification by interrogating the association between racial/ethnic composition and supermarket location in Houston, Texas. First, we assess the benefits of a new approach to defining the racial/ethnic composition of local areas, an approach that acknowledges an increasingly complex racial/ethnic demography. Second, we contribute to our understanding of emerging racial/ethnic stratification hierarchies by examining the position of the racial/ethnic composition categories relative to one another. Our results suggest a persistent link between racial/ethnic composition and supermarket location, which highlights entrenched black disadvantage coupled with malleable middle positions for Hispanic areas. The associated stratification hierarchy is gradual in nature, yet there is evidence supporting arguments that the USA is moving toward a tri-racial system.     

Putting the pieces together for queer youth: a model of integrated assessment of need and program planning

Needs assessments require staff with the necessary expertise to design the study, collect the data, analyze the data, and present results. They require money, time, and persistence, because the people one wishes to assess often are difficult to access. This article argues for the centrality of a well-done needs assessment when developing services for LGBTQ youth. Needs assessment methodology and adjunctive uses of the needs assessment data also are discussed. The authors present a needs assessment of LGBTQ youth living in out-of-home care in San Diego, California, as an example of the purpose, practicality, and power of a comprehensive needs assessment. The needs assessment identified several issues, as well as additional data supporting the project's necessity. The data also identified the most significant obstacles youth face in accessing housing and supportive services. Through the data collection process, non-LGBT housing providers better understood their need for additional training, and housing and city leadership communities obtained and spread knowledge of the project.