Do Some Students Need Special Protection From Research on Sex and Trauma? New Evidence for Young Adult Resilience in “Sensitive Topics” Research

Institutional review boards (IRBs) have expressed concerns that certain individuals or groups, such as participants who are younger, ethnic minorities, or who have certain psychological or personality traits, may be particularly distressed when participating in “sensitive topics” research. This study examined the effects of several demographic and individual difference factors (i.e., age, sex, ethnicity, religiosity, Big Five personality traits, and baseline psychological distress levels) on reactions to participation in sensitive topics research. Participants were 504 undergraduates who completed an extensive battery of either trauma/sex questionnaires or cognitive tests and rated their positive and negative emotional reactions and the perceived benefits and mental costs of participating. They also compared research participation to normal life stressors. Our findings indicated that individual difference and demographic risk factors do not increase participant distress after participating in sex/trauma research over and above that experienced after participating in traditionally minimal-risk cognitive tasks. Participants generally found research participation less distressing than normal life stressors and even enjoyable.     

Demography of a ground nesting bird in an urban system: are populations self-sustaining?

Urbanization poses threats to earth’s biota, and retention of remnant native habitat in protected areas within expanding urban boundaries may help alleviate threats to wildlife. However, it is unclear for nearly all nonsynanthropic (i.e., not benefiting from an association with humans) species whether vital rates in urban habitats can sustain populations or if populations persist only through immigration from outside the urban boundary. We conducted a three-year study of spotted towhees (Aves: Pipilo maculatus) breeding in four undeveloped parks in Portland, OR, USA, to measure park-specific seasonal reproductive output (F) and annual adult survival (S_A). We developed a stochastic model that combined F and S_A with an estimate of first-year survival to measure population growth rate (λ) in all parks assumed to be closed to immigration. F differed among parks but S_A did not. Relatively high F was possible because many pairs raised >1 brood/season. When combined with empirical estimates of survival through the 30-day period of post-fledging parental care (S_D = 0.645), only 2 of 4 parks were self-sustaining (i.e., λ > 1.0). However, S_D reflected substantial loss of fledglings to domestic cats (Felis catus). Assuming no loss to cats and either partial compensatory or additive mortality of fledglings substantially improved prospects of population persistence for declining (sink) populations. Moreover, allowing low levels of immigration to sinks reversed population declines in most parks even when vital rates were insufficient to maintain populations. Our results suggest that nonsynanthropic bird species can persist in urban landscapes, but also that offspring mortality in the post-fledging period may be a critical determinant of population viability.     

We Did Not Realize about the Gender Issues. So,We Thought It Was a Good Idea

This article explores the link between nationalism, as expressed by the Burman state and ethnic and student opposition movements, and the emergence of a multiethnic women's movement engaged in resistance activities. In focusing on women's involvement in oppositional nation-making projects, this article aims to broaden our understanding of gender and conflict by highlighting women's agency in war. Drawing on interviews carried out with founding members of the women's movement, non-state armed groups and others active in civil society, the article investigates how a gendered political consciousness arose out of dissatisfaction with women's secondary position in armed opposition groups, leading to women forming a movement, not in opposition to conflict per se but in opposition to the rejection of their militarism, in the process redefining notions of political involvement and agency. By invoking solidarity based on a gendered positioning, rather than on an ethnic identity, the women's movement resisted the dominant nation-making projects, and created a nationalism inclusive of multiethnic differences. Burmese women's multiple wartime roles thus serve to upset supposed dichotomies between militancy and peace and victim and combatant, in the process redefining the relationship between gender, nationalism and militancy.     

Breadwinning and bread‐losing: Exploring opportunities to rework manhood

Manhood in the USA today is at a crossroads. There are more models of how to be a man than ever before. And yet, despite myriad changes to the structures of work and family, the breadwinner ideology, or the heterogendered ideal that husbands should be the sole or primary earners in their families, persists in US society. This ideology affects the structure of work and family, regardless of whether individual people agree with it. Here, we discuss the breadwinner ideology and the ways that this meaning system tethers employment to masculinity and vice versa. We examine strategies for decoupling manhood from work and family and suggest ways to facilitate the undoing of gender.     

Reconsidering the corporate narrative in U.S. PR history: A critique of Alfred Chandler's influence on PR historiography

This study explores the influence and dominance of Alfred Chandler Jr.’s theory of corporate development within public relations [PR] history. Chandler's work on late 19th Century corporate development is influential in PR historiography. PR oftentimes places its genesis in the late 19th Century corporate sphere to distance itself from press agentry. Examining critiques of Chandler's work on corporate development, this study argues that rooting PR in a corporate context does not provide legitimacy to PR practice and skews PR history to favor a corporate narrative. Implications for both history and normative PR theory development are discussed.     

I'm Not a Bad Mother — Stories of Mothering‐on‐the‐Edge

This article is located in the field of custody and day‐to‐day care, with a focus on experiences of mothering where mothers no longer have everyday care of their children. At the time of writing, tens of thousands of mothers live separately from their children in Aotearoa, New Zealand. However, there is a general perception of rarity associated with non‐resident mothers, partly due to their reluctance to speak of loss of custody. In this article, we develop a theoretical discussion around the inside/outside relationships between non‐resident mothers and their children that informs therapeutic practice. We argue that mothers who live apart from their children are situated at the edge or periphery of their children's day‐to‐day lives and experience this as outside the lives of their children. Nevertheless, mothers' stories speak of qualities of (m)othering that have been born of and nurtured by longstanding and long‐term commitment to their children.