Raising the legal gambling age in Finland: problem gambling prevalence rates in different age groups among past-year gamblers pre- and post-implementation

This article reports on the frequency of problem gambling, measured with the Lie/Bet instrument, in different age groups among Finnish past-year gamblers in 2011 (n = 2984) and 2014 (n = 2326). The data highlights the situation before, and three years after, the implementation of a raised minimum age limit for gambling from 15 to 18 years. The difference in problem gambling frequency when comparing all age groups was statistically significant in 2011, but not in 2014. A significantly lower frequency of problem gambling was found among 18–19-year-olds in 2014 (3.4%), compared to 2011 (16.3%). The results regarding problem gambling prevalence among 15–17-year-olds (8.0% in 2011, 0.0% in 2014) are somewhat inconclusive as the number of respondents fulfilling the criteria for problem gambling was zero in 2014, thus affecting the analysis. No statistically significant difference in problem gambling frequency was found among 20–21-year-olds (a group less affected by the policy implementation) – or other older age groups – between the survey years. While the findings should be viewed with caution, they do support recommendations regarding a minimum gambling age of 18 years or higher as an effective harm-minimization measure.     

Complex trauma and mental health in children and adolescents placed in foster care: findings from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network

Many children in the child welfare system (CWS) have histories of recurrent interpersonal trauma perpetrated by caregivers early in life often referred to as complex trauma. Children in the CWS also experience a diverse range of reactions across multiple areas of functioning that are associated with such exposure. Nevertheless, few CWSs routinely screen for trauma exposure and associated symptoms beyond an initial assessment of the precipitating event. This study examines trauma histories, including complex trauma exposure (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, domestic violence), posttraumatic stress, and behavioral and emotional problems of 2,251 youth (age 0 to 21; M = 9.5, SD = 4.3) in foster care who were referred to a National Child Traumatic Stress Network site for treatment. High prevalence rates of complex trauma exposure were observed: 70.4% of the sample reported at least two of the traumas that constitute complex trauma; 11.7% of the sample reported all 5 types. Compared to youth with other types of trauma, those with complex trauma histories had significantly higher rates of internalizing problems, posttraumatic stress, and clinical diagnoses, and differed on some demographic variables. Implications for child welfare practice and future research are discussed.     

Editorial: Soziologie und Geschlechterforschung

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Does the European Union (EU) need a propaganda watchdog like the US Institute of Propaganda Analysis to strengthen its democratic civil society and free markets?

This article¹ addresses a paradox in the public communications of liberal democracies and suggests an easement of the social tensions created by it. Communication by public relations (PR) is an unavoidable consequence of such democracies, yet PR produces communicative inequalities, which offend the egalitarian and libertarian ethos of their civil societies and freely accessed markets. PR in this way renders itself into weak propaganda: historically and currently more available to principals rather than to subalterns. This is a conclusion most PR academics and practitioners reject. The former also distance themselves from persuasion and in their attachment to communicative symmetry they have ironically weakened the role of ethics in PR production. We seek to restore propaganda, persuasion and ethics to the centre of PR thinking. Our restoration begins with the establishment of propaganda detectors and regulators in the EU. We call them institutes for propaganda analysis after the example of the American Institute for Propaganda Analysis 1937–1942. These whistleblowers will measure the flows of PR propaganda amongst organisations and groups in the political economy and civil society; and counter-intuitively, will provide PR resource subsidies for those wanting to be heard in public via a PR ‘voice’ but who lack the capacity to produce it. In this way, a minimal communicative equality of PR production capacity will be created and European citizens and consumers given a more level playing field of information sources. PR propaganda is constitutive of liberal democracy, their civil societies and of capitalist markets but it needs reformation in the interests of equality of communication resources. This is a worthy and legitimate public policy goal to work towards.     

Translating transgender: Using Western discourses to understand Samoan fa'afāfine

The analysis of gender as a socially constructed category is one of the foundations of the sociological project. The concept of transgender is of particular interest, in that it reveals that sex is not necessarily constitutive of gender. Gender nonconformity in non‐Western contexts particularly demonstrates that the ways in which sex, gender, and sexuality are conceptualised in Western discourses are open to challenge. However, academic research about non‐Western transgender identities and populations often ultimately replicates specific heteronormative and/or Western ways of seeing the world. In this article, I discuss how Samoan fa'afāfine have been represented by various academic disciplines, using a sociological perspective to deconstruct discourses commonly used in this process, which include Orientalism, essentialism, and functionalism. I then outline research that allows for a more nuanced understanding of the lived experience of fa'afāfine, situating them within the broader Samoan cultural context and paying attention to how fa'afāfine themselves construct and maintain their identities. I conclude that this more holistic approach should be taken with all representations of non‐Western and Western nonheteronormative identities and populations.     

Blame the Messenger? Bucharest and Its Bungling Diplomats in 1956

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 remains one of the most thoroughly researched areas of Hungarian history. However, the Romanian involvement in, and responses to, the events in Budapest have received far less scholarly attention. Secondary sources have tended to focus either on the Romanian communist party leadership and its role in incarcerating the Imre Nagy group, or on the revolution’s impact on the Hungarian minority in Romania. However, this article investigates the perceptions and performance of the Romanian diplomats and intelligence officers stationed in Budapest during the uprising. Foreign ministry telegrams reveal the extensive misperceptions of, and logistical difficulties faced by, the diplomats, especially Ambassador Ion Popescu. The diplomats inflated the Hungarian dictator Mátyás Rákosi’s alleged popularity, blamed the situation on imperialist plotters outside Hungary, underrated the dissent of Hungarian workers and intellectuals, and exaggerated the threat of Transylvanian irredentism. The exiguous, biased reports from the Budapest embassy, among other factors, arguably propelled the Bucharest leaders to take an active stance in containing the “counterrevolution” on their western border.     

Facilitating and hindering factors in the realization of disabled children’s agency in institutional contexts: literature review

Disabled children’s opportunity to act as agents may be compromised because adults have the power to choose who are entitled to express agency. Disabled children spend much time in institutions and with professionals of different fields. The aim of this literature review was to find out which factors facilitate or hinder the realization of disabled children’s agency in institutional contexts. As data we used 19 research articles and analysed them with inductive content analysis. Key factors relate to professionals’ attitudes towards diversity, children and themselves as well as professionals’ communication skills and institutional factors that enable the child to have an influence or prevent it and which give or do not give room for children’s peer relationships. Rethinking the child and adult view and learning dialogical communication are recommended in the education of all fields that work with disabled children.