Predictors of Stability and Change in Private Safety Nets of Unmarried Mothers

ABSTRACT

Although the importance of social supports for single mothers in times of crisis is widely recognized, little is known about the stability of such “private safety nets” over time, as children age and maternal and household characteristics change. This study uses multilevel models and four waves of data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study to describe trajectories of social support perceptions for 3,065 unmarried mothers. Results suggest that following a birth, most unmarried mothers perceived the availability of support, but these support perceptions disintegrated somewhat in subsequent years. Mothers who appeared to have the greatest need for support—those without stable employment or a stable partner—experienced more rapid deterioration of their perceived safety nets than did more advantaged mothers. Future research should examine network composition and conditions for support provision among the most vulnerable single mothers and should consider how safety-net stability influences maternal and child health and well-being.     

Mobility as a stratifying factor in housing: dwelling-in-place contra dwelling-on-the-move in Sweden

Housing is almost entirely overlooked in mobility studies. Yet mobility is intrinsically linked to housing, not only for the cybernetic elite or global nomads, but also for the middle class. Through a comparative case study of two extreme cases of housing, the Markeliushus from 1935 and Victoria Park from 2009, this study found that mobility has been continuously linked to discourses and practices of housing the modern Swede. Furthermore the findings suggest that two contrasting housing forms have evolved: dwelling-in-place and dwelling-on-the-move. I argue that these two housing forms are part of an evolving stratification of housing based on mobility. The article concludes that mobility has become an entry point for disaffiliation by privileged groups, accessible through housing.     

Mindful Leadership: Sind achtsame F��hrungskr?fte leistungsf?higere F��hrungskr?fte?

In the last years, mindfulness became the focus of increasing research interest in the health sciences. More than hundred studies highlight the positive impact of mindfulness based interventions on a variety of health relevant parameters. Mindfulness became a well-established intervention in clinical and non-clinical contexts such as stress prevention, substance abuse treatment or relationship counselling in couples. The concept has until now not received much attention in business contexts; implications and applications in this field are highlighted in this article. In particular, it is described how mindfulness may help leaders and managers to perform their tasks more successfully and in a much more relaxed way.     

Kritische Ereignisse und private Überschuldung

This article investigates in how far critical life events (e.g. unemployment) as well as financial shocks triggered by such events affect the probability of private households to enter over-indebtedness (shock hypothesis). Second, we examine if the effect of such events is mitigated by coping measures set by the household after the critical event and/or financial shock has occurred (coping hypothesis). Third, we test if the effect of critical events/financial shocks also depends on the household structure and its financial circumstances (vulnerability hypothesis). To test these hypotheses, we use panel data from the ECHP (1995–2001) and EU-SILC (2004–2008) for Austria. We estimated multivariate panel regression models which allow controlling for unobserved, time-invariant factors. Results suggest that financial shocks have a positive and significant effect on the likelihood of becoming over-indebted, while we did not find evidence for a direct effect of critical life events on over-indebtedness after controlling for unobserved time-constant factors in the fixed effects regression specifications. Regarding the coping hypothesis, evidence for a diminishing moderation effect of cost-saving strategies by households is weak but robust. Similarly, there is some evidence to support the vulnerability hypothesis—but only for some of the indicators chosen to reflect household vulnerability. Overall, our results indicate that causes to enter over-indebtedness cannot be exclusively reduced to either exogenous shocks or behavioral factors.     

Information and advice on community RTD activities. Swedish‐Estonian IRC FEMIRC Co‐operation

The paper tries to shed light on the co‐operation between the Nordic countries and the Baltic accession states from a practitioner's perspective.     

Vulnerable children's health as described in investigations of reported children

This study explores whether the social services weigh in health aspects, and what these may be, when investigating reported children's life situation. Information about physical and psychological health aspects for 259 children in 272 investigations was included. Overall, information about children's health was limited. Problematic emotions were the most commonly reported health aspect in the investigations, whereas suicidal thoughts, self‐harm behaviour and gastrointestinal and renal diseases were mentioned least of all. A cluster analysis revealed that the low level of health information group included the largest sample of data and consisted of investigations with minimal information about children's health. The three other cluster groups, Neurological diseases and psychosomatic symptoms, Emotional health and Physical and psychological health and destructive behaviour, consisted of investigations conducted mostly according to the model called Children's Needs In Focus (BBIC, in Swedish, Barns Behov i Centrum). Although these investigations also produced limited information, they provided more than those assessed as having a low level of information about health aspects. The conclusion is that it is necessary to increase information about health aspects in investigations if social welfare systems are to be able to fulfil their ambition of supporting vulnerable children's need of health care.     

Thinking critically about cross-cultural implementation—Swedish social workers’ experiences of testing the Kids’ Club method for helping child and mother victims of intimate partner violence

There are calls for evidence-based methods for helping children to deal with experiences of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in many countries. Therefore, it has been commonplace to implement such methods from outside of their home country. The aim of this study is to examine Swedish social workers’ experiences of testing the American Kids’ Club method for child and mother victims of IPV. After having tested leading Kids’ Club groups, seventeen social workers at four different locations were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The results indicate that the social workers generally accepted the method. This was related both to some general features of the method and to their perceiving it as somewhat flexible. According to the social workers, the method needs some cultural adaptation to better suit the Swedish social services setting, otherwise it cannot be fully accepted. Finally, they thought that successful implementation depended on an organizational structure that enabled enough children to be referred to the programme as well as either high personal commitment or an organization that prioritized the method. Based on these results, we conclude that importing an American evidence-based group method to help children exposed to IPV to Sweden demands attention to issues of cultural adaption.     

Emigration,Dauerreflexion und Identität

Zusammenfassung Albert Salomon, ein 1891 in Berlin geborener deutsch-jüdischer Soziologe, der 1935 in die USA emigrieren musste, wo er bis zu seinem Tode 1966 in New York an der New School for Social Research forschte und lehrte, hat ein Werk hinterlassen, das heute nahezu vergessen ist und dessen Einheit selbst die Wenigen, die sich mit ihm befassten, nicht erkannt haben. Dieses Werk stellt einen systematischen, an ideengeschichtlicher Komplexit?t kaum wieder erreichten Beitrag zur Geschichte der Soziologie dar, der von gro?er Bedeutung für die aktuelle Identit?tsbildung des Faches im Rahmen der sich etablierenden Kulturwissenschaften ist. Für Anregungen und Kritik sei Peter L. Berger, M. Rainer Lepsius, Thomas Luckmann, Peter-Ulrich Merz-Benz, Guy Oakes, Hannah Salomon-Janovsky, Ilja Srubar, Dirk T?nzler, Arthur J. Vidich und Gilbert Weiss gedankt.