Management of a Concealable Stigmatized Identity: A Qualitative Study of Concealment,Disclosure, and Role Flexing Among Young,Resilient Sexual and Gender Minority Individuals

Disclosure of a sexual or gender minority status has been associated with both positive and negative effects on wellbeing. Few studies have explored the disclosure and concealment process in young people. Interviews were conducted with 10 sexual and/or gender minority individuals, aged 18–22 years, of male birth sex. Data were analyzed qualitatively, yielding determinants and effects of disclosure and concealment. Determinants of disclosure included holding positive attitudes about one’s identity and an implicit devaluation of acceptance by society. Coming out was shown to have both positive and negative effects on communication and social support and was associated with both increases and decreases in experiences of stigma. Determinants of concealment included lack of comfort with one’s identity and various motivations to avoid discrimination. Concealment was also related to hypervigilance and unique strategies of accessing social support. Results are discussed in light of their clinical implications.     

The Influence of Policy Context on Transition Age Foster Youths' Views of Self-Sufficiency

In this exploratory study, focus group methodology was used to examine the potential influence of policy context on informing transition age youth (TAY) views of self-sufficiency upon aging out of foster care. The authors purposively selected two different policy contexts concerning extended foster care: New York City and Los Angeles County. Compared to New York City, Los Angeles has a relatively newer policy concerning extending the age of foster care benefits to 21. Four focus groups were conducted (2 in each location) with TAY recruited from community-based foster care agencies. The total number of participants (aged 18–22) was 21 (13 in Los Angeles and 8 in New York). In both policy contexts, participants defined self-sufficiency mainly as economic independence and planning for success. However, while Los Angeles TAY emphasized a need to “strive through it,” meaning persevere through self-reliance, New York TAY believed that self-sufficiency could be at least partially achieved by leaning on others, including social services. The findings help to illustrate how varying policy landscapes, including those that are in flux, can shape client understandings of core beliefs related to service utilization and client–provider interactions. Implications for child welfare policy and practice are proposed.     

Digital media responses to a feminist scholarly article: a critical discourse analysis

In this critical discourse analysis, I identified the linguistic tools and discourses used in the articles, blog posts, discussion forums, and tweets published in response to my article on STEM in Higher Education that identified gendered discourses in instructional language. Beginning from the standpoint of the author of the journal article, I examined digital media publications to understand how linguistic tools such as stance and deixis were used to convey meaning, emotion, and power and negotiated through language. Analysis suggested that linguistic tools and trolling strategies seen throughout the corpus were used to generate support for calls to denounce the research and silence me, as the author of the journal article. These findings provide insight into how opposition to academic feminist work builds, in many cases, in reaction to the recontextualization of the research instead of responding to the research itself.     

Social workers' attitudes towards female victims of domestic violence: A study in one English local authority

This paper aims to explore childcare social workers' attitudes towards female victims of domestic violence in England. The study discusses the concept of “mothering” and the processes through which mothers are potentially denigrated rather than empowered. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with social workers in a single child protection agency to investigate their perceptions of domestic violence, its gendered nature, and the implications for their practice. Participants' responses were coded using thematic analysis. The results demonstrated social workers' cognisance of the challenges domestic violence poses for abused mothers in terms of the ability to safely parent their children. Although the study is not without its limitations, it nevertheless indicates the need for a more holistic approach to safeguarding children within domestic violence settings. Moreover, it underscores the necessity for improving awareness about the prevalence and importance of domestic violence as a child safeguarding concern within social work training. Indeed, improved training would help to develop social workers' knowledge and understanding of service provisions and partner agencies, thus potentially improving practice in this critically important area.     

Forest ethnography: An approach to study the environmental history and political ecology of urban forests

Urban Ecosystems - A landscape succession paradigm has shaped much of our understanding about the processes of forest emergence and transformation in the United States. Drawing heavily from theory...     

Teaching Intraverbal Behavior to Children with Autism: A Comparison of Textual and Echoic Prompts

Although echoic prompts may be effective for teaching intraverbal behavior to children with autism, the performance of some children may become dependent on such prompts (i.e., the prompts cannot be eliminated). Recent research suggests that visual rather than echoic prompts may be used to teach children with autism a variety of skills and may facilitate independent performance. In the present study, an adapted alternating treatments design was used to compare the effects of using visual (textual) and echoic prompts on acquisition of intraverbal responses (answering questions) by 2 children with autism. The results indicated that the textual prompts were more effective than the echoic prompts. Implications for the use of visual prompts during instruction with children with autism are discussed.     

The Role of Gender in Varying Forms of Flexible Working

In this article we present empirical data from a research study investigating the implementation of the flexible working policies that emanate from the improving working lives standard in a National Health Service Trust in the UK. We argue that gender is accorded insufficient focus in the literature, considering the barriers that create a take‐up gap in formal flexible working practices. We further argue that gendered perceptions render unworkable attempts to portray flexible working as a gender‐neutral issue and demonstrate that such perceptions mean that formal mechanisms for flexible working continue to be considered to be a women's issue. We present data on informal flexible working mechanisms and suggest that a greater focus on combining these mechanisms with formal flexibility may help provide working time flexibility for a greater proportion of the workforce.     

Impact of Individual and Organizational Variables on Quality of Life

The general goal of this study consists of analyzing the influence of different types of human services in the quality of life of their nested users. Several multilevel models were proposed to test for significant differences not only in the overall quality of life score, but also in each of the eight core domains. Participants included 11,624 users of social and human services and the assessment quality of life instrument was the GENCAT Scale. Variables that were studied in the different models were gender, age, and diagnostic group (elderly, intellectual disability, physical disability, mental health problems, and chemical dependency) at the individual user level (level 1: individual), while type of services—in terms of the main population addressed by their supports (i.e. the aforementioned groups)—was studied at service level (level 2: organizational). In order to explain differences, individual characteristics were introduced first, types of services were introduced next, and finally joint individual and service variables were introduced in a single model. The main results of this study were that personal and organizational variables exhibited a different level of influence on users’ quality of life; and also that the type of services significantly influenced the quality of life of its users. The results of this study lead to practical implications for services providing support to these diagnostic groups, especially for those interested in managing, assessing, and improving quality of life related personal outcomes at the user level as well as quality enhancement at the organizational level.