Green grey hairs: A life course perspective on environmental engagement

ABSTRACT

Older adults provide a long view of understanding environmental engagement from their early beginnings to their current community activities. This study draws on interviews with self-described environmentalists and follows a life course analysis that employs social work values and practice skills as they work towards environmental justice in their Midwestern communities. We conclude that the older adults of this second generation of environmentalists offer valuable lessons for social workers with regard to environmental justice, while at the same time contributing insights into older adult volunteering and addressing the challenge of a generational gap in participation in their community organizations.     

The role of organizational leaders in employee emotion management: A theoretical model

The actions of organizational leaders are important determinants of the emergence, management, and consequences of employee emotional experience. However, the nature and dimensionality of leader emotion management and the behaviors that constitute such management are largely unknown. The authors present a comprehensive, theoretically-derived model of leader emotion management which clarifies the nature of emotion management and its role in leadership. This model also delineates the knowledge and skill-based antecedents of emotion management and the consequences of such management. Specifically, we propose linkages between particular KSAOs and specific emotion management dimensions and between those dimensions and particular individual and organizational outcomes. The model is meant to serve as a framework to guide empirical efforts in investigating the nature and correlates of leader emotion management.     

Opposition‐Defiance in the Second Year of Life: A Population‐Based Cohort Study

Recent epidemiological evidence suggests that even in the midst of the “terrible twos,” frequent/severe oppositional‐defiant behaviors (ODBs) are not common among toddlers and hence may be indicative of a significant opposition‐defiance problem. The main objective of this study was to obtain a maximum likelihood estimate of the proportion of toddlers in the general population who are reported to exhibit ODBs on a frequent basis, and to test for gender differences therein. Data came from The Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, a survey of a representative birth cohort of children from the Canadian province of Québec. Multigroup latent class analysis was used to distinguish between toddlers who exhibit ODBs on a frequent basis and those who do so only occasionally or not at all. The results show that 12.4% of 17‐month‐old boys and girls exhibit ODBs on a frequent basis. Further, the results show a strong positive association between opposition‐defiance and physical aggression early in life, with a great majority of physically aggressive toddlers exhibiting ODBs on a frequent basis. In contrast, the results show that only a minority of toddlers who may be experiencing a significant opposition‐defiance problem exhibit physically aggressive behaviors on a frequent basis.     

A journey of embedding mental health lived experience in social work education

Abstract

The value of learning from mental health lived experience is widely acknowledged, however, the nature of lived experience involvement in Australian social work education seldom extends beyond guest lecturing. Further, few opportunities exist that build the capacity of people with lived experience to become educators within tertiary settings. In this paper we present the Valuing Lived Experience Project (VLEP), an initiative led by a Lived Experience Academic (LEA) that seeks to systematically and meaningfully embed lived experience into the social work curriculum at a Western Australian university by providing significant opportunities for the capacity building of both individuals with mental health lived experience and academics. Given the relative infancy of service user involvement in Australian social work education, the VLEP offers a number of opportunities for reflection and consideration. A long-standing partnership between a LEA and Social Work Academic is described, the activities and key learnings of the VLEP to date are outlined, and we offer our reflections on challenges encountered throughout the journey. We hope that our experiences and learnings can be drawn upon to progress lived experience participation in tertiary settings and further legitimise lived experience involvement in the education of social workers.     

Uneven Divestment of the State: Social Reproduction and Sex Work in Neo-developmentalist Argentina

Abstract

Sex work has been identified as an important dimension of the ‘survival circuits’ which have developed in the majority world in the context of neo-liberalisation, as a response to the deepening misery of the Global South. Yet while much research has explored the role of sex work in contexts of ‘neo-liberal’ regimes of capital accumulation, few have paid sustained attention to sex work in regimes which are not purely ‘neo-liberal’. Drawing on data with sex workers across 10 cities in Argentina gathered between 2007 and 2014, this article examines multiple spaces of sex workers' lives, including the workplace, the home, and the state in a context of what has been dubbed ‘neo-developmentalism’. It argues that sex work contributes multiple forms of value and subsidies for the state and capital. First, sex work provides a subsidy in the form of the provision of ‘employment’; second, female sex workers provide unwaged reproductive labour in the family; and third, in the labour movement. Yet despite these three contributions to the reproduction of the working class and therefore of capital, the state undermines sex workers' capacities through violence and sustained repression. The article concludes that the neo-developmentalism has led to ‘uneven divestment of the state’ in the reproduction of particular sections of the working class, namely those outside the formal and ‘productive’ sectors.     

Bingo Regulation and the Feminist Political Economy of Everyday Gambling: In Search of the Anti-Heroic

Abstract

This paper uses bingo—a lottery-style game particularly popular with older working-class women—to take forward feminist political economy debates about the everyday. It highlights consumption and regulation as key to research on everyday political economy, and aims to contribute to studies of gambling as a marker of the everyday within critical political economy. Rather than seeing gambling primarily in terms of vernacular risk-taking, however, it argues that gambling is also a pathway into exploring other, more self-effacing political economies—of entertainment, fundraising, sharing, and ‘having a laugh’. Focusing on three key areas of regulatory dispute (over how to win bingo; who can participate; and what defines the game), the research suggests that players and workers are (re)enabling the diverse, plural nature of bingo as a political economic formulation—involving winning; entertainment; fundraising; care; flirting; and playful speculation—in the face of technological and legal processes aiming to standardize the game’s meaning as commercial gambling.     

Knowledge translation strategies in a community–university partnership: examining local Quality of Life (QoL)

There is a growing interest in quality of life as an integrated approach to addressing key social, environmental and economic determinants of health. The University of Saskatchewan’s Community-University Institute for Social Research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (grant #410-2004-0669) has examined the process and results of a multi-stakeholder approach to the ongoing sustainability of Saskatoon, Canada as a healthy city with an improving and a more equitably distributed quality of life. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, together with GIS technology, this research has examined the quality of life across three locales in Saskatoon—representing Low, Middle and High socio-economic status in both 2001 and 2004. The participatory action research approach used in this work ensures the value of the outputs to the stakeholders. Given the strong recognition of the importance of interfacing policy, research and community, and the growing impatience with the limited application of research findings to social and health practices and policies, this project has undertaken four major knowledge translation/transfer strategies, above and beyond the traditional academic channels: (1) engagement of local media on a consistent basis, (2) implementing community policy forums to ensure continued community readiness and uptake, (3) facilitation of and successful functioning of a steering committee, and (4) employment of an action researcher to operate as a policy entrepreneur. This paper will review and discuss each of these strategies and outline the evaluative research being done to document the success of these strategies.

Who Is Hispanic? Hispanic Identity among African Americans,Asian Americans,Others, and Whites*

Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the United States and their presence is likely to continue to expand. Little is known, however, about the correlates of Hispanic identity or the processes that are involved in its maintenance. We investigate these issues by ascertaining and then seeking to understand the various associations between reported racial identities and Hispanic ethnicity using data from the Current Population Surveys. Restricting the sample to individuals who are known to have demographic origins in Latin America, our results indicate that persons with African or Asian racial identifications are substantially less likely than whites or Others to also identify as Hispanic. Relative to the first generation, Hispanic identification declines and the racial differences increase in the second generation. The exceptions in this regard are Others for whom racial and Hispanic identifications are the most highly associated for both the first and second generations. These findings are interpreted as reflecting various social processes that are involved in the development and maintenance of racial and ethnic identities. Our results provide insight into the complex, social nature of Hispanic identification in modern America.