Differentiating countryside: Social representations and governance patterns in rural areas with high social density: The case of Chianti,Italy

One of the key factors for the success of development strategies in rural areas is the setting up of appropriate governance patterns, whose main outcome is a fluid communication between public and private organisations and an effective integration of objectives and policies.     

Adaptive Behavior in Childhood as an Antecedent of Psychological Functioning in Early Middle Age: Linkage Via Career Orientation

The main aim of the study was to investigate the link between child and adolescent adaptive behavior and adult psychological functioning, and the role of career orientation in this linkage. This was based on a Finnish longitudinal study, where data at ages 8, 14, and 42 were available for 118 females and 115 males. Adaptive behavior, indicated by three aspects of high self-control of emotions: constructiveness, compliance, and trustworthiness, was assessed at ages 8 and 14. Psychological functioning at age 42 was indicated by psychological well-being, self-esteem, social coherence, and trust in life. Connections between adaptive behavior and psychological functioning were studied using structural equation modeling. For males, a path from a latent variable for adaptive behavior to a latent variable for adult psychological functioning was obtained via two components of career development: (1) stable career and employment situation; and (2) the length of education and occupational status. For females, only constructiveness was linked to a latent variable for the length of education and occupational status which accounted for a latent variable for psychological functioning.     

Voter Preferences and State Regulation of Smoking

Voters' preferences for smoking restrictions in restaurants, bars, malls, indoor sporting events, and hospitals are consistent with state-level restrictions on smoking in each of these public areas. This analysis is based on constructed measures of political pressure that take into account both individual preferences and voting behavior. Although smokers are less likely to vote than nonsmokers, their lower voting rate does not substantially influence the probability that a state has a restriction. Other factors, such as tobacco's role in the state economy and state income, are rarely influential.     

Understanding Professional Projects in Welfare Service Work: Revival of Old Professionalism?

The professional terms for occupations that provide welfare services are changing, and here the introduction of new public management in the Nordic countries since the 1990s is indicative of wider developments. The article explores professional projects in welfare service work from both conceptual and empirical perspectives. The aim is to produce a gender‐sensitive analysis of the professional projects at the lower levels of the occupational hierarchies in health care. The first part reviews the literature conceptualizing the societal and institutional embeddedness of professional projects. The institutional matrix of welfare states emerges as a key context in shaping the welfare service work performed by women‐dominated professional groups. The second part examines the case of Finland and suggests that recent reforms have created new inequalities in the system of professions, in which occupational groups in welfare service work are becoming marginalized. This signals a move away from ‘democratic professionalism’ towards a revival of ‘old professionalism’.     

How Do Social Workers Respond to Potential Child Neglect?

Although neglect is a common form of child maltreatment, it can be difficult to detect within a clinical interview between a social work clinician and client for the purpose of assessment and intervention, leading to a failure to act and secure a child's safety. This Canadian study utilized the objective structured clinical exam (OSCE) to assess social work clinicians' ability to recognize and respond to a case of suspected child neglect. Twenty-three participants (social work students, recent graduates of a Masters in Social Work programme, and experienced social workers) conducted a 15-minute interview with a standardized client followed by a structured reflective dialogue focusing on case conceptualization and emotional awareness. Qualitative analysis of the reflective dialogues revealed participants' difficulty in detecting child neglect as opposed to focusing on a client's negative self-beliefs or mental health issues. Implications for social work education and practice are suggested.     

Pictorial Approaches for Measuring Time Use in Rural Ethiopia

Time use researchers working in least developed countries (LDCs) face difficulties collecting data from illiterate populations who may conceptualize time differently than those in industrialized countries. We identify existing gaps in time use data collection methods and discuss two novel, pictorial methods to collect time use data from these populations. The first method is a modified recall interview modeled on participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods that asks respondents to place macaroni on pictures of activity categories in proportion to the amount of time spent on that activity during the previous day. The second is a simplified pictorial time diary that uses a timer and sequentially-numbered stickers to re-create the temporal order of activities in 30-min increments. The latter method also avoids recall bias problems. We present time use data collected in 2009 using these methods in a study examining the impacts of water infrastructure on women and children’s time use in rural Ethiopia. In total, we collected information using the first method from 263 household members over age 10, including 167 water collectors, and pilot-tested the pictorial diary approach with 10 adult respondents.     

Mandatory Reporting and Child Exposure to Domestic Violence: Issues Regarding the Therapeutic Alliance with Couples

Some child welfare legislation have recently expanded the definition of ‘a child in need of protection’ to include child exposure to intimate partner violence. Such legislation places clinicians in the challenging position of determining whether a situation falls under their duty to report. The current paper examines a case example in which there was child exposed to intimate partner violence, the clinician made a report to child welfare authorities and attempted to maintain the therapeutic alliance with the couple in treatment. The couple viewed contacting child welfare authorities as a crisis situation both in their marriage and in their family. Practice principles for clinicians are suggested.