Communication of Military Couples During Deployment and Reunion: Changes,Challenges, Benefits,and Advice

The emotional cycle of deployment model proposes that military couples face both obstacles and opportunities across the trajectory of deployment. Guided by the model, we seek to address gaps in the literature by investigating how 236 recently reunited service members and at-home partners (N = 118 couples) describe their experiences during deployment and reunion. Results of content analyses revealed a variety of changes to communication during deployment (RQ1), challenges of reunion (RQ2), benefits of deployment (RQ3), and advice for reintegration (RQ4). These findings bolster and extend the emotional cycle of deployment model; they also have practical utility for helping military couples navigate deployment and reunion.     

In search of a level playing field – the constraints and benefits of sport participation for people with intellectual disability

This paper presents the results of a study seeking to examine the experiences of people with intellectual disability in a sporting context. The research design employed an online, interviewer-completed questionnaire in both a standard and an easy English version designed for administration by a third party for those requiring assistance to respond. Questions sought both quantitative responses about levels of participation and qualitative responses about constraints experienced and benefits received from participation. The results of the study show high levels of participation reported by people who are independent or have lower to moderate support needs, whereas people with high to very high support needs had substantially lower levels of participation. Constraints are examined for both those who participate in sport and those who do not. For those who do participate, the benefits were identified as overwhelmingly social in nature, including belonging, companionship and achievement.     

Expectant Mothers and Absent Fathers: Paid Maternity Leave in Australia

In this article we explore how the reluctance to introduce a national paid maternity leave scheme in Australia reflects gendered norms and constructions of parenthood and work. We report on the findings of a study of selected media texts that show how the public discourse that surrounded proposals to introduce such a scheme exhibited deep‐seated resistance to women who combine motherhood with continued attachment to the paid workforce. Using a multi‐modal approach to discourse analysis, we show how gender and maternity are constructed using cultural and historical discursive resources that reinforce a conservative national identity. By focusing on what is both absent and present in the media texts we show how ‘actual fathers’ are rendered invisible and the space filled by the government as ‘symbolic fathers’ impregnating a production line of maternal citizens.     

L'emploi informel: deux questions de politique controversées

Cet article traite de deux questions controversées, importantes en termes de politiques: les effets de la réglementation du travail sur l'emploi informel, et ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler l'emploi informel «volontaire». Les auteurs exposent brièvement les théories sur le sujet et présentent les résultats d'analyses empiriques des effets de la réglementation du travail sur l'emploi informel. Ils concluent par des commentaires sur la pertinence des quatre objectifs du travail décent de l'OIT pour l'emploi informel et le développement économique, en mettant l'accent sur l'organisation des travailleurs de l'économie informelle.     

Knowing what we know about knowledge in social work: The search for a comprehensive model of knowledge production

Influenced by its historical beginnings, the production and modelling of knowledge in social work has become a small but diverse field. Ten key models exploring the nature of knowledge and its production in social work are reviewed against significant ideas from the interdisciplinary knowledge production literature beyond social work. In so doing, the place of holistic approaches to modelling the knowledge production process within social work and the human services is highlighted. It is argued that despite the number of models that attempt to describe the knowledge production process, there is scope for a more comprehensive, holistic, complex approach to modelling knowledge production in social work and the human services.     

Institutional and Resource‐based Explanations for Subsidiary Performance

Addressing calls to integrate insights from institutional theory and the resource‐based view, we bring together dual theoretical explanations from institutional theory and the resource‐based view to examine the effectiveness of transfer of practice and human capital development as two routes to subsidiary performance. Our study of Hong Kong firms with subsidiaries in Mainland China shows that both routes positively affect subsidiary performance. However, our data show that our sampled firms struggled to successfully transfer practices from their parents. We attribute an explanation for this to the characteristics of practices as organizational capabilities in which transfer is made harder by the difficulty in replicating such capabilities. Consequently, developing subsidiary human capital is an important ally to practice transfer as a means to achieve superior subsidiary performance. Our results raise interesting questions about practice transfer and the resource‐based view relevant to future scholarly research.     

Contesting Practices, Challenging Codes: self advocacy, disability politics and the social model

This paper examines the relationship between Self Advocacy and the disability movement in Britain in the light of social movement theory. Using the concept of 'collective identity' as it is explored in social movement theory, the analysis examines why the disability movement's promotion of a strong disabled identity may be difficult to achieve for all its constituents, particularly people with learning difficulties. Additionally the concept of symbolic production within social movement theory is used to explore how the movement uses the social model of disability as its 'collective action frame'. It is argued realignment of this frame is taking place within the movement and is reflected in debates within Disability Studies about the role of impairment. The voices of people with learning difficulties remain silent in this debate. The paper concludes by arguing for the recognition of social, psychological and cognitive difference as pre-requisite to an inclusive theory and politics of disability.