Maternal Sensitivity Moderates the Relation between Negative Discipline and Aggression in Early Childhood

Three models regarding the relation between maternal (in)sensitivity, negative discipline, and child aggression were examined in a sample of 117 mother–child pairs with high scores on child externalizing behavior: (1) Sensitivity and discipline are uniquely related to child aggression (the additive model); (2) the relation between discipline and aggression is moderated by maternal sensitivity (the moderating model); (3) the relation between sensitivity and aggression is mediated by maternal discipline (the mediating model). Parenting and child aggression were observed when the children were on average 26.71 months old (range of 13.58 to 41.91 months) and again one year later. Results supported the moderating model. More negative discipline was related to more child aggression one year later, but only when mothers were insensitive. This finding supports the idea that the affective context is important for the impact of negative discipline on child development.     

Passionate Gods and Desiring Women: Jeanette Winterson, Faith, and Sexuality

Throughout her literary works, Jeanette Winterson describes sexual passion in the language and with the understanding of a parallel and informing spiritual faith and compassion. Winterson's narratives of romantic love and sexual passion seek in a different form the experience of perfect union with another demonstrated in the ecstatic practices of charismatic Christianity. From her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985), to her most recent fictions, Winterson has consistently drawn on Biblical language and religious experience to produce her own exalted discourse of passion. In drawing on Biblical language to express erotic passion, Winterson resists the popular cultural image of perfect rapprochement, the merging of self and other typically ascribed to the lesbian couple. Rather, she emphasizes the challenge of union in love, using the language of faith to indicate the elusive qualities of passionate connection. The language she borrows from her Pentecostal childhood allows her to describe a kind of charismatic experience of meeting between self and lover while recognizing the essential difference between partners, the foreignness of the beloved.     

‘You've got to trust her and she's got to trust you’: children's views on participation in the child protection system

Participation by children in child protection remains a complex area of practice. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study exploring the views of 26 children, aged 6–17 years, about their participation in the child protection system in England. All of the children were subject to a child protection plan and were living at home at the time of interview. The children's understanding of the child protection process was categorized, and the majority of children, including the youngest, were found be at least partially aware of the child protection process, often struggling to make sense of the professional intervention in their families on the basis of partial information. It is argued that decisions about children's involvement should take into account not only children's age and understanding, but be seen in the context of wider family dynamics. Participation in formal processes such as child protection conferences was experienced as difficult and emotive. The child's relationship with their social worker was central to meaningful participation.     

Transplanting institutional innovation: comparing the success of NGOs and missionary Protestantism in sub-Saharan Africa

Viewing missionary Protestantism and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as carriers of transnational institutional innovation, this article compares their successes and failures at creating self-sustaining institutions in distant societies. Missionary Protestantism and NGOs are similar in that they attempt to establish formal organizations outside kinship, lineage, and ethnic forms of solidarity. Focusing on institutions as ways to create collective capacities that organize social life, we trace the route whereby Protestant missionaries established congregational religion in Africa and identify social practices that made this enterprise successful but are comparatively absent in current NGO attempts to transform organizational life. Largely ignored by sociologists interested in institutional transformation, the history of congregational religion offers valuable sociological lessons about the conditions for radical institutional innovation. Its success was rooted first, in colonial missionaries’ ability to enforce new ways of life on small exemplary communities; second, in local adaptations (African prophetic movements, Pentecostalism) that deepened and widened the social reach of congregational principles; and third in the incentives Protestantism created for propagating the congregational form.

     

Predictors of Readiness for Mobility Transition in Older Drivers

We administered the Assessment of Readiness for Mobility Transition (ARMT) to 301 older drivers and compared total scores with participant characteristics. Overall, 18% of participants were not attitudinally ready for mobility transition, while 19% were very ready. Notably, participants with hospitalizations in the past year were either very ready for mobility transition (20% vs 14% without hospitalizations) or not ready at all (30% vs 17%). Significant health events may polarize reactions towards mobility transition. Individualizing communication about driving cessation readiness could help address such differing views. To further consider its effectiveness, ARMT could be utilized in mobility transition counseling interventions.