“I Was There for the Free Food”: Accidental Conversions in College

How and why do some college students have conversion experiences, while others do not? To answer this question, we inductively analyzed in‐depth interviews with 30 students at a residential college in the southeast who had varying conversion experiences: some never began a conversion (n = 16), some started toward conversion but ultimately did not convert (n = 4), and some completed a religious (n = 5) or nonreligious conversion (n = 5). We conceptualize conversion as socialization into new beliefs and practices, as evidenced by reorganizing daily behaviors. We extend conversion to experiences not generally understood as such. We find religious and nonreligious conversions follow the same process during college, facilitated by student organizations, demonstrating that religious conversions are not a unique transformation. Furthermore, we find that organizational context matters in conversion processes: the structural context of college allows some students, who share biographical ability, a desire to make new friends, and openness to new groups, to unintentionally join student organizations that seek to change their daily practices and worldviews. However, many students face constrained choices or structural barriers that prevent the conversion from being completed. Our research has important implications for conceptualizing conversion and for understanding the role of organizational context in conversions.     

“Strivers”, “doers”, and “seekers”: Social workers and their commitment to the job

Amid considerable interest in the experiences of early career professionals in social work in England and internationally, and the relationship between these and retention and progression, this article reports on the findings of one element of a larger evaluation. It reports the findings and analysis of interviews with 42 relative newcomers to social work, some 3 years following qualification, focusing on their current career orientations, and how these appear to affect their future intentions. We identified three distinct groups, designated as “strivers,” “doers,” and “seekers.” Each of these groups demonstrated a different kind and level of commitment to their social work role and identity: Strivers were oriented towards career progression and taking on senior roles; doers were committed practitioners who saw themselves as continuing in front line service delivery for the foreseeable future; and seekers, although still committed to social work in principle, tended to be more unsure about their future place in the profession. This typology appears to be reasonably robust on the basis of our investigation and has implications for career planning and supervision of social work professionals, especially at the early stages of their careers.     

‘Broad consensus across the divide’: rhetorical constructions of climate change in mainstream news media

The links between science and policy are navigated prominently in the media. The internet provides a forum for discussion of climate change, allowing lay people to enter the debate. In this paper, rhetorical analysis was used to analyse online news articles and comments from the public following two major climate-related decisions in New Zealand. This analysis demonstrates how arguments regarding climate change are built and defended. Identifying strategies invoked by those that occupy a majority or minority position within public discourse on climate change reveals how such arguments take on rhetorical force, providing the basis for establishing claims and counter-arguments. Understanding the rhetorical constructions of such positions can reveal why particular arguments might gain power, opening the way for a more knowledgeable and informed positioning of individuals, organisations, and scientific knowledge to emerge in public debates on climate change.     

Expanding Systems Thinking: Incorporating Tools from Medical Sociology into MFT Education and Research

The field of marriage and family therapy has historically focused on dynamics within family systems, and at times the role of social and cultural factors external to the family. To date, however, little scholarship has examined how therapists themselves are embedded within a mental healthcare system. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how structural components of the mental healthcare system shape the practice of therapy. We draw from the field of medical sociology to illustrate how three dominant structures—managed care, diagnosis, and evidence‐based models—are intertwining and mutually reinforcing systems that have significant and long‐term implications for systemic therapists and researchers. We recommend incorporating a sociological understanding of such structures into MFT education and research.     

Who returns home? Study on placement outcomes of Flemish foster children

Until recently, Flemish family foster care was a temporary measure with as its most important goal, the reunification of the foster child with the birth parents. To date, nothing is known on the number of reunifications, nor has any study been undertaken into the factors (child, parent, foster parent and foster care process) associated with reunification. Case files of 127 foster children who exited foster care in 2007 were analysed. Dependent variables were type of foster care placement outcome (reunification, successful placement without reunification or breakdown) and place of residence after placement ending (with birth parents, extended family, foster family, residential care or living independently). After placement ending, only 40% of foster children went living with their parents, including foster children who were reunified (26%) and foster children who moved to their parents after a placement breakdown (14%). Characteristics of the foster children, and in particular absence of problem behaviour, were associated mainly with a return home. This may indicate that too much attention is paid to the functioning of the foster child and too little to improving the competencies of the parents and the (future) home environment.     

Gender Nonconformity,Homophobic Peer Victimization,and Mental Health: How Same-Sex Attraction and Biological Sex Matter

We assessed whether homophobic name-calling accounts for the relationship between gender nonconformity and mental health (social anxiety and psychological distress) in a sample of 1,026 Dutch adolescents (boys: n = 517) ages 11 to 16 (M_age = 13.4). We also explored whether this hypothesized mediation differs by sexual attraction and biological sex. Data were collected by means of paper-and-pencil questionnaires at five secondary schools located in urban areas in the Netherlands. Mediation analysis indicated that gender nonconformity was related to both social anxiety and psychological distress partially via homophobic name-calling. Moderated mediation analysis further showed that the mediating role of homophobic name-calling varied according to levels of same-sex attraction (SSA) and biological sex. The mediation effects increased in magnitude when levels of SSA increased and were significant only for adolescents with mean and high levels of SSA. The mediation effects were significant for boys and girls in general, although the mediation effects were stronger for boys than for girls. Our findings emphasize the importance of research and school-level interventions to focus on factors that promote acceptance of cross-gender behavior among adolescents.     

Experiencing parenthood,care and spaces of hospitality

Drawing on research conducted in Australia and the United Kingdom, this paper explores how parenting and care provision is entangled with, and thus produced through, consumption in hospitality venues. We examine how the socio‐material practices of hospitality provision shape the enactment of parenting, alongside the way child‐parent/consumer‐provider interactions impact upon experiences of hospitality spaces. We argue that venues provide contexts for care provision, acting as spaces of sociality, informing children's socialization and offering temporary relief from the work of parenting. However, the data also highlight various practices of exclusion and multiple forms of emotional and physical labour required from care‐providers. The data illustrate children's ability to exercise power and the ways in which parents’/carers’ experiences of hospitality spaces are shaped by their enactment of discourses of ‘good parenting’. Finally, we consider parents’/carers’ coping behaviours as they manage social and psychological risks associated with consumption in such public spaces of leisure.     

Training for Connection: Students' Perceptions of the Effects of the Person‐of‐the‐Therapist Training on Their Therapeutic Relationships

The Person‐of‐the‐Therapist Training (POTT) is a program designed to facilitate clinicians' ability to consciously and purposefully use their selves to effectively connect, assess, and intervene with clients. This study explored CFT students' perceptions of the effects of POTT on their ability to create positive therapeutic relationships. Course papers and final reflections were collected from 70 CFT students. Directed content analysis looking for evidence‐supported elements of positive therapeutic relationships revealed 5 elements: empathy, management of countertransference, balancing multiple alliances, positive regard, and bond. Findings support the idea that a structured program focused on the training of the personal aspects of the therapists, like POTT, can promote the evidence‐supported elements that make a therapeutic relationship effective.     

International Aid,Local Ownership,and Survival: Development and Higher Education in Rural Haiti

This case study of Rural Haitian University highlights the complexities and consequences that may arise from a combination of unpredictable streams of international funding, financial vulnerability of communities, and the strategies that civic leaders employ to mobilize resources. We argue that the encounter sketched here of local vulnerability following protracted social conflict and a major natural disaster with the international aid machinery has fostered a cycle of dependence/survival strategies in the higher education institution we examine and undermined its ability to achieve its core mission. More generally, we contend that in situations of extreme poverty and heavy international donor influence, “local ownership” may become synonymous with “local survival” unless predicated on the availability of local capacities and site-specific distribution of international resources. We propose one modest initiative to reduce the university’s dependence on international funding through the development of a sustainable tourism enterprise as a way to nurture local ownership and social capital.     

Do Siblings Matter Independent of Both Parents and Friends? Sympathy as a Mediator Between Sibling Relationship Quality and Adolescent Outcomes

The study explored whether sibling affection and hostility were longitudinally associated with adolescents' prosocial, externalizing, and depressive behaviors, after controlling for parent–child and best friend relationship quality. Sympathy was examined as a possible mediator. Three hundred and eight randomly selected families completed Waves 3, 4, and 5 of the Flourishing Families Project. Multiple group comparison via structural equation modeling compared differences between girls and boys. Sibling affection (T3) was positively associated with adolescents' sympathy (T4) and prosocial behavior (T5). Sibling hostility (T3) was positively associated with adolescents' depression (T5) and externalizing behavior (T5) (for boys only), even after controlling for parent and friend relationships. Discussion focuses on the unique role of the sibling relationship on adolescent development.