Everyday politics,social practices and movement networks: daily life in Barcelona's social centres

The relations between everyday life and political participation are of interest for much contemporary social science. Yet studies of social movement protest still pay disproportionate attention to moments of mobilization, and to movements with clear organizational boundaries, tactics and goals. Exceptions have explored collective identity, ‘free spaces’ and prefigurative politics, but such processes are framed as important only in accounting for movements in abeyance, or in explaining movement persistence. This article focuses on the social practices taking place in and around social movement spaces, showing that political meanings, knowledge and alternative forms of social organization are continually being developed and cultivated. Social centres in Barcelona, Spain, autonomous political spaces hosting cultural and educational events, protest campaigns and alternative living arrangements, are used as empirical case studies. Daily practices of food provisioning, distributing space and dividing labour are politicized and politicizing as they unfold and develop over time and through diverse networks around social centres. Following Melucci, such latent processes set the conditions for social movements and mobilization to occur. However, they not only underpin mobilization, but are themselves politically expressive and prefigurative, with multiple layers of latency and visibility identifiable in performances of practices. The variety of political forms – adversarial, expressive, theoretical, and routinized everyday practices, allow diverse identities, materialities and meanings to overlap in movement spaces, and help explain networks of mutual support between loosely knit networks of activists and non‐activists. An approach which focuses on practices and networks rather than mobilization and collective actors, it is argued, helps show how everyday life and political protest are mutually constitutive.     

Age-related differences in reasoning about the acceptability of eating animals

Children in the western world often are socialized as meat-eaters, while caring much about animals. Yet we know little about how children think about eating animals and animal products, which will have important consequences for global meat consumption. Participants (n = 479, 80% White British, 57% female; children n = 119, Mage = 10.03, SD = 0.72; young adults n = 181, Mage = 19.09, SD = 0.85; adults n = 179, Mage = 40.97, SD = 8.18) reasoned about the acceptability of eating animals and animal products. Using the framework of social domain theory, we found that that children focused on moral concerns (p < .001, ηp2 = .01), whereas adults referenced conventions about the natural and necessary components of eating meat. Participants across age groups reported eating animal products (e.g., milk) to be acceptable because animals were not harmed. Together these results indicate that attempts to reduce meat consumption ought to be tailored in a domain-specific manner to age groups.     

A Reflection on Critical Methodology: Accountability and Beneficiary Participative Evaluation in Third Sector Research

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Enabled by the underpinnings of critical theory, this article discusses research methodology developed with the aim of...     

Behavioural profiling of problem gamblers: a summary and review

In many countries, there is increasing interest in early intervention strategies to assist people who are experiencing gambling-related problems. Central to these discussions is whether it is possible to identify problem gambling and/or risky behaviour in situ before gamblers formally seek assistance. This paper provides a review and critique of the small amount of published literature relating specifically to behavioural indicators and their practical application. It concludes that, while there is general agreement concerning the range of indicators that could be used, the process of identification remains difficult in practice. Multiple indicators are usually required to make reliable identifications; the nature of indicators will vary depending on the mode of gambling (land-based vs online), and venue staff employees usually have insufficient opportunity to obtain enough information to make judgments. The potential value of combining behavioural information with electronically monitored gambling data is discussed as a possible future strategy for enhancing the effectiveness of identification processes.     

Mitigating the ill effects of maternal incarceration on women in prison and their children

Maternal incarceration has deleterious effects on children, families, and society, but child welfare professionals historically have paid limited attention to maternal incarceration. Two recent changes have required the reevaluation of that stance: the dramatic increase in the number of women in prison, and the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. This article discusses the reality of maternal incarceration, analyzes one prison's attempt to provide programs to support inmate mothers and their children, and makes policy and program recommendations.     

Managing chronic conditions in college: Findings from prompted health incidents diaries

Objective: This pilot study assessed an electronic health diary method designed to collect data about critical health incidents experienced by college students who have chronic health conditions. Participants: Nine university students with chronic medical conditions were recruited to complete a series of e-mail–based surveys, sent once every 3 days across the fall 2014 semester. Methods: In each survey, participants described a health-related incident that occurred within the past day and cited resources that helped or could have helped in that situation. They completed follow-up interviews and ranked the importance of cited resources. Results: The diary completion rate was 78.3% (141/180). Most frequently affected management areas were activities (61.3%), monitoring (34.9%), and problem-solving (34.3%). Resources considered helpful included situational knowledge, campus health professionals, peer support, and relaxation opportunities. Conclusions: Prompted health incidents diary method achieved a high completion rate and provided data that could be useful for college health researchers and practitioners.     

Home Environment,But Not Socioeconomic Status,is Linked to Differences in Early Phonetic Perception Ability

Infants perceptually tune to the phonemes of their native languages in the first year of life, thereby losing the ability to discriminate non‐native phonemes. Infants who perceptually tune earlier have been shown to develop stronger language skills later in childhood. We hypothesized that socioeconomic disparities, which have been associated with differences in the quality and quantity of language in the home, would contribute to individual differences in phonetic discrimination. Seventy‐five infants were assessed on measures of phonetic discrimination at 9 months, on the quality of the home environment at 15 months, and on language abilities at both ages. Phonetic discrimination did not vary according to socioeconomic status (SES), but was significantly associated with the quality of the home environment. This association persisted when controlling for 9‐month expressive language abilities, rendering it less likely that infants with better expressive language skills were simply engendering higher quality home interactions. This suggests that infants from linguistically richer home environments may be more tuned to their native language and therefore less able to discriminate non‐native contrasts at 9 months relative to infants whose home environments are less responsive. These findings indicate that home language environments may be more critical than SES in contributing to early language perception, with possible implications for language development more broadly.     

The use of a single pseudo-sample in approximate Bayesian computation

We analyze the computational efficiency of approximate Bayesian computation (ABC), which approximates a likelihood function by drawing pseudo-samples from the associated model. For the rejection sampling version of ABC, it is known that multiple pseudo-samples cannot substantially increase (and can substantially decrease) the efficiency of the algorithm as compared to employing a high-variance estimate based on a single pseudo-sample. We show that this conclusion also holds for a Markov chain Monte Carlo version of ABC, implying that it is unnecessary to tune the number of pseudo-samples used in ABC-MCMC. This conclusion is in contrast to particle MCMC methods, for which increasing the number of particles can provide large gains in computational efficiency.     

Finding the right connections: Peer support within a community‐based mental health service

Gray M., Davies K., Butcher L. Finding the right connections: Peer support within a community‐based mental health service This article reports on a qualitative study that examined the organisational enablers and barriers to implementing peer support work in an Australian, rural, community‐based mental health service. Interviews with 19 peer and non‐peer staff were conducted to identify attitudes towards peer support and whether there were organisational values, practices and strategies that might support the implementation of peer support. The findings revealed that peer support workers were valued for their ability to build trusting connections with clients and to accept client choice in a non‐judgemental way. However, peer support workers tended to ‘fill service gaps’ within intensive, administrative case‐management environments. These findings highlight the importance of an organisational‐wide approach to integrating peer support, where the responsibilities for adopting new ways of working fall to all staff, not just the peer support workers themselves. Key Practitioner Message: ? Practitioners placed high value on the peer support workers on their teams due to their unique personalised engagement with clients; ? The roles of peer support workers were poorly understood by team members; ? Organisational integration of peer support principles could improve the way all staff engage with clients to reflect a recovery orientation.