Wanting to Be Seen: Young People’s Experiences of Performative Making Out

People engage in sexual behavior for many reasons, some of which require an audience (e.g., arousing onlookers, making someone jealous). In this study, we investigated the prevalence, motivations, and outcomes of young people’s experiences with performative making out—making out with someone and wanting others to see. Of the 155 female and 194 male college students who completed the online questionnaire, 32% of the women and 37% of the men reported having done this, often before entering college. Significantly more women than men reported same-sex performative experiences. We used thematic analysis to identify themes in the qualitative data. Participants’ motivations included enhancing their image, causing jealousy or envy, demonstrating a relationship, sexually arousing men, and participating in fun and games. Men reported that their reputations were enhanced more often than damaged; women reported the opposite pattern. These results provide insights into the functions of sexual behavior as a means of communication and highlight gender differences consistent with problematic cultural belief systems such as “slut shaming,” victim blaming, and sexual double standards.     

Indigenous Sistergirls’ Experiences of Family and Community

ABSTRACT

While increasing attention has been paid to the experiences of Indigenous sistergirls over the past decade there still remains a dearth of empirical research on the experiences of this diverse population of Indigenous people. This paper seeks to add to the small body of existing literature by reporting on a thematic analysis of existing media in which 18 sistergirls shared their experiences of family and community. The thematic analysis identified two themes within each of these topics. Specifically, when talking about family, both familial acceptance and rejection were salient themes. When talking about community, both the traditional role of sistergirls in their communities and negative responses from communities were salient themes. The paper concludes by suggesting that increased knowledge about the lives of sistergirls may assist social workers in supporting sistergirls both in their own outreach endeavours, and in providing more culturally competent services.     

Adaptation and Validation of the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule for Use With High School Dropouts

The Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (LEDS) is considered the standard for measuring psychosocial stressor exposure, but it has not been used with academically at‐risk adolescents, including high school dropouts. The goal of this study was to (1) adapt the LEDS for use with this population, and (2) examine the reliability (interrater) and validity (concurrent and predictive) of this adaptation among a sample of vulnerable adolescents (N = 545). Good reliability coefficients (.79–.90) were obtained, and stressor exposure was associated with concurrent criteria indexing mental health outcomes (depression) and major risk factors for dropout (administratively recorded and self‐reported). Also, LEDS scores predicted dropout beyond these risk factors. The adapted LEDS appears useful for describing academically struggling adolescents’ stressor exposure.     

A Randomized Clinical Trial of Online Stress Inoculation for Adult Children of Divorce

Interventions for helping young adults cope with the stress produced by their parents’ divorce are rarely described or evaluated. Transitions, derived from a stress inoculation framework, was designed to foster stress-coping and parent–young adult relationship skills via the Internet. Participants (95 young adult college students who had experienced parental separation or divorce within the past year) were randomly assigned to experimental and delayed-treatment control conditions. Intervention modules included psychoeducation, relaxation, mindfulness meditation, cognitive restructuring, and communication skills. A multivariate analysis of variance yielded a significant treatment-by-repeated-measures interaction; univariate follow-up analyses of variance showed improvement on stress but not on relationship variables measuring quality of relationship with mother or father. Neither moderator nor intent-to-treat analyses altered this outcome pattern.     

Diagnostics for the bootstrap and fast double bootstrap

ABSTRACT

The bootstrap is typically less reliable in the context of time-series models with serial correlation of unknown form than when regularity conditions for the conventional IID bootstrap apply. It is, therefore, useful to have diagnostic techniques capable of evaluating bootstrap performance in specific cases. Those suggested in this paper are closely related to the fast double bootstrap (FDB) and are not computationally intensive. They can also be used to gauge the performance of the FDB itself. Examples of bootstrapping time series are presented, which illustrate the diagnostic procedures, and show how the results can cast light on bootstrap performance.     

Co-production: towards a utopian approach

This article outlines how co-production might be understood as a utopian method, which both attends to and works against dominant inequalities. It suggests that it might be positioned ‘within, against, and beyond’ current configurations of power in academia and society more broadly. It develops this argument by drawing on recent research funded through the UK’s Connected Communities programme, led by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; and by attending to arguments from the field of Utopian Studies. It explores particular issues of power and control within the field of co-production, acknowledging that neoliberalism both constrains and co-opts such practice; and explores methodological and infrastructural issues such that its utopian potential might be realised.     

Motives for sharing illness experiences on Twitter: conversations of parents with children diagnosed with cancer

A patient- and family-centred approach in paediatric health care is important because parents are involved in making key decisions about their child’s health care and advocating for the best interest of the child. Parents and family members are increasingly turning to the internet to find and actively share information about their child’s health care. Twitter is one of many online platforms used by parents of children diagnosed with cancer to share information related to their child’s cancer experience. Existing research suggests that there is a need to better understand the motives for using Twitter for sharing content about a child’s cancer experience. Furthermore, there is a lack of theoretical frameworks for characterizing those motives. In this paper, we identify key themes of tweets posted by parents of children diagnosed with cancer and align those themes with motives inspired by the well-studied Everyday Life Information Seeking framework. We propose a new motive in addition to those associated with the framework and suggest that information can be shared for endogenous reasons as well as to meet the needs of others. This paper contributes an increased understanding of motives for sharing information about a child’s cancer journey and extends a theoretical framework for building further knowledge in this area.     

Veteran Status,Income, and Intergenerational Mobility Across Three Cohorts of American Men

Existing research linking prior military employment with labor market outcomes has focused on comparing the relative income of veterans and nonveterans. However, people who join the armed forces are uniquely selected from the broader population, and the form and direction of selectivity has shifted over time, with differential enlistment rates by race, region, and socioeconomic status. Understanding changes in the demographic composition of enlistees and veterans has significant import for the study of social mobility, particularly given changes in the occupational structure since the mid-twentieth century and wage stagnation well into the new millennium. Furthermore, labor market polarization and increases in educational attainment since WWII raise additional concerns about the social origins of military personnel and their occupational trajectories after discharge. Using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys, we investigate how social background is linked to both income and occupational mobility among veterans from three cohorts of American men: World War II, Vietnam, and the All-Volunteer Force. We find few benefits for veterans, for either income or intergenerational occupational mobility, once social background is controlled, suggesting that selection into the armed forces largely governs outcomes in the civilian labor market. Our findings have significant importance for understanding civilian labor market outcomes and trajectories of social mobility during distinct phases of military staffing.     

Exploring the impact of mindfulnesss on mental wellbeing,stress and resilience of undergraduate social work students

Mindfulness is becoming more popular as emerging research demonstrates its benefits for self-care, by cultivating calmness and decreasing stress or anxiety. This pilot study aimed to measure the impact of a six-week Mindfulness course, modelled on the manualised treatment programme developed by Kabat-Zinn on the mental well-being, stress and resilience of undergraduate social work students in Northern Ireland. This was a mixed methods study involving two groups: (1) intervention group participants who attended a six-week Mindfulness course (April–May 2016) and (2) control group participants. Basic socio-demographic data were collected from all participants and all were invited to complete the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale and the Resilience Scale during weeks 1 and 6. Statistical tests were used to compare mean scores from the scales, and qualitative data were manually analysed using thematic content analysis. Findings indicated significant changes in the scores for well-being, stress and resilience for the intervention group, but not for the control group. Mindfulness may not appeal to all students so it should not be a mandatory component of training, but may be offered as one of the wider approaches to self-care for undergraduate social work degree students.     

Role of Relational Case Management in Transitioning from Poverty

One-off financial assistance through emergency relief provides a short-term intervention to immediate material crisis. However, recurrent instances of clients accessing this type of assistance points to the ineffectiveness of managing financial hardship without addressing the causes of long-term poverty. This article presents findings from an external process evaluation of the Salvation Army relational case management model known as Doorways. A mixed-method design was implemented, consisting of semistructured interviews, observations, and document analysis, as well as Client Satisfaction and Wellbeing Survey. Across the seven research sites semistructured interviews were conducted with 45 clients and nine case managers, and 30 client surveys were completed. Three themes will be discussed: the Doorways philosophy; the flexible service delivery approach; and client capacity building and continuity of care. Findings illustrated the effectiveness of a relational case management approach and reaffirm the central role of relationships in transforming the lives of people experiencing poverty.

IMPLICATIONS

• The quality of relationship between case managers and their clients plays an integral role in transforming the lives of people experiencing long-term or situational financial disadvantage.

• Service delivery requires a relational and flexible approach to adequately tailor support to the individual and contextual needs of clients.