Journey towards independent living: resilience processes of women leaving residential care in South Africa

Among the many youth transitioning to young adulthood, a group that has been found to be particularly vulnerable is young people transitioning out of care, particularly residential care. Research on this population of youth has burgeoned over the past few decades, but in South Africa it remains limited. This article focuses on the resilience processes that facilitate better transitions of young women out of care and towards independent living. It replicates the research design of a previous study with young men, with the aim of determining to what extent the resilience process of young women are similar to those of men. A sample of nine women was purposively selected, interviewed in-depth and data analysed using grounded theory methods. The findings indicate that the same resilience process found among male care-leavers are evident also in the narratives of female care-leavers, confirming the findings of the previous study. However, these processes had a slightly stronger relational focus among women than was seen among men. The authors conclude that similar resilience-building programmes can be implemented to prepare both males and females for leaving care.     

Auditory–Visual Context and Memory Retrieval in 3‐Month‐Old Infants

In 3 experiments, 3‐month‐old infants were trained to move an overhead mobile by kicking 1 of their feet in the presence of a distinctive visual (crib bumpers) and auditory (music) context. In Experiment 1A, 5‐day but not 1‐day retention was disrupted if either or both elements of the context present during the retention test were novel. In Experiment 1B, 5‐day retention was observed when only a single component of the training context, visual or auditory, was present. In Experiment 2, the retention test occurred at 14 days but it was preceded 24 hr earlier by a brief reactivation treatment. When the reactivation treatment consisted of reexposing the infant to the training crib bumpers and music, or just to the training music, it was not successful. Reactivation was successful when the reactivation treatment consisted of only the training crib bumpers. These results indicate that, in this paradigm, 3‐month‐old infants do not encode the elements of the context holistically and that, following forgetting, the visual contextual cues become dominant over the auditory contextual cues in facilitating retrieval.     

Comparison of ergonomic risk assessment outputs from Rapid Upper Limb Assessment and the Strain Index for tasks in automotive assembly plants

This paper compares the ergonomic risk assessment of a task for the upper extremities as determined by Rapid Upper Extremity Assessment (RULA) and the Strain Index (SI). The ergonomic risk to the upper extremities of 244 automotive assembly plant tasks were evaluated using RULA and SI. The outcomes of each tool were compared for each task. Results from this study provide practical insight into the methods used in each tool. This study compared only the ergonomic risk outputs from each tool; it does not pursue the question of which tool best predicts injury. The kappa score was 0.11, indicating little agreement between the outputs of the two tools. This is supported by the lack of monotonicity with a gamma score of 0.1. These results indicate that the risk assessment outcome of these two ergonomic assessment tools for the upper extremities do not agree.     

Evidence for and against the 'double penalty' thesis in the science and engineering fields

This study examines how race and gender affect the economic status of scientists and engineers. Using data from the 1989 Survey of Natural and Social Scientists and Engineers, the wage rates of minority females are compared with those of white males, white females, and minority males for the native-born population and immigrants. The results reveal Asian women's parity with white men in some contexts. Economic discrimination holds up for black and white women only. There is also evidence that institutional contexts affect men and women with similar characteristics in different ways. The findings challenge the claim for universalism but offer some support for the discipline-dependence hypothesis.     

对待美好 我们选择宽容

正我在澳大利亚北部旅行时,途经一个土著人居留地,在一家小餐馆歇脚吃饭。收银员是一个土著女孩,正与一个老年人聊天。他们聊得热火朝天,顾客越积越多,开始形成了一个队伍。女孩聊兴正浓,似乎忘掉了客人,于是,队伍排得更长了。     

A qualitative analysis of suicide risk factors,preferred means,and means restriction feasibility within a homeless shelter environment

Suicide completion rates among homeless individuals are approximately nine times higher than the general population. The purpose of this study was to capture the state of social support among homeless individuals, understand how homeless community members support peers in crisis, examine the awareness of suicidal ideation, identify common methods for suicide, and generate strategies for means restriction within a shelter. Twenty individuals residing at an emergency shelter were interviewed. Participants were of diverse cultural identities overrepresented in the sample relative to the general population. Interviews revealed that 40% of participants lacked social support. However, the majority indicated that if they encountered someone at risk for suicide, they would provide support and encouragement to the at-risk individual. Almost half of participants reported knowing of an individual in the shelter who had previously attempted suicide and/or was currently or previously feeling suicidal. Overdose was identified as a primary method for suicide; however, the majority of participants were unable to generate strategies for means restriction. The present study offers a glimpse into the experience of homeless individuals and provides valuable information regarding risk factors for suicide within this highly marginalized and underserved population.     

The state of things: state history and theory reconfigured

This article looks at the relationship between logistical power and the assemblages of sites that constitute modern states. Rather than treating states as centralizing institutions and singular sites of power, we treat them as multi-sited. They gain power by using logistical methods of problem solving, using infrastructures to enforce and depersonalize relations of domination and limit the autonomy of elites. But states necessarily solve diverse problems by different means in multiple locations. So, educating children is not continuous with governing colonies even though both are necessary to nineteenth-century states. For this reason, states use logistical means of coordination to link sites, and they make the power of the state seem unitary even though the exercise of state power is not.