Reshaping the Social: A Comparison of Fasu and Kubo-Febi Approaches to Incorporating Land Groups

In Papua New Guinea, local communities increasingly strive to render themselves ‘visible’ to the state as entities entitled to control and claim benefits from developments on their land. When people commit expressions of social form to paper they inevitably reshape previously operative social and political forms. This article compares ways in which two groups of Papua New Guineans have gone about the process of forming Incorporated Land Groups. Different histories of resource extraction, associated differences in engagement with state and companies and different pre-existing social forms are all reflected in the negotiations described. We discuss people's motivations for drawing up lists of members, the ways they went about this and implications for the communities themselves and for ILG registration more generally. Our analysis draws attention to how outcomes are shaped by scales of differentiation and emergent inequalities within the legal entities being imagined.     

Women Acting for Women

In the new country of Timor-Leste, women constituted in 2011 32 per cent of the parliament, a relatively high figure in the world and in the region. But to what extent has the presence of women in parliament contributed to progress towards gender equality? In this article we argue that the passage of a parliamentary resolution on gender-responsive budgeting in Timor-Leste was an act of substantive representation, and we draw on a range of data to examine what made it possible. We find that while ‘newness’, international norms, women's movement unity, women's machinery in government and parliament and networks linking them were important, it was the development of a cross-party parliamentary women's caucus that was crucial to success. The role of gender-focused parliamentary institutions in supporting critical actors has rarely been examined in the literature on substantive representation. This is in contrast to the rich literature on institutions such as women's policy agencies. Our study suggests that more focus on parliamentary institutions is needed to discover what enables women parliamentarians to become critical actors.     

Social Exclusion, Inequality and Social Work

This paper sets out the environment of inequality in which social work and the poor have recently operated. It explores pragmatic and idealist arguments concerning whether or not the poor need social work. Finally, policy solutions developed in consultation with social service users and carers are suggested in relation to poverty and social exclusion. Social exclusion can be linked to relative poverty as exclusion from economic and social norms. However, there is a wider brief in our own government’s publications and those of Europe, of examining how people are excluded from actions and policies of agencies who are there to support them. This paper will retain the concepts of poverty as lack of material income, and inequality as the gap between the rich and the poor, while being aware of the policy implications for social service users and carers of the more comprehensive process of being shut out partially or fully from social, economic, political and cultural systems. The debates around social work, social exclusion and inequality that follow establish: that some of the poor do need social work; that the poverty of social service users is related to policies that have restructured welfare in Britain; that the reason for individuals approaching or being referred to social services are complex but are likely to include financial deprivation as a key contributory factor; that if the poor do need social work, advocacy is essential rather than social work being seen as concerned only with social control—taking children into care, mentally ill people into hospitals, and advising the DSS on the suitability of claimants for benefits. Finally, the discussion turns to new policy agendas on social exclusion instigated by the Labour government. What positive difference can such policies make for social service users, their carers and social workers?.     

灾害中残疾人的媒介使用与信息沟通需求——以汶川地震为例

在灾害情况下,残疾人群所面临的沟通困境要远远高于正常人群,甚至连最基本的信息需求都无法得到保障。从2008年汶川地震中残疾人群媒介使用的特征和信息沟通需求来看,对这部分弱势群体的保护需要在法律和政策上给予更多的支持:改善信息发布和传递的渠道,使用新的技术手段,培养残疾人使用媒介的良好习惯。     

HIV and Unintended Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa: Multilevel Predictors of Mistimed and Unwanted Fertility Among HIV-Positive Women

Population Research and Policy Review - Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has a disproportionate burden of both unintended fertility and HIV infection, but the relationship between these two reproductive...     

Socioeconomic Status,Family Processes,and Individual Development

Research during the past decade shows that social class or socioeconomic status (SES) is related to satisfaction and stability in romantic unions, the quality of parent‐child relationships, and a range of developmental outcomes for adults and children. This review focuses on evidence regarding potential mechanisms proposed to account for these associations. Research findings reported during the past decade demonstrate support for an interactionist model of the relationship between SES and family life, which incorporates assumptions from both the social causation and social selection perspectives. This review concludes with recommendations for future research on SES, family processes, and individual development in terms of important theoretical and methodological issues yet to be addressed.     

Rural tourism and livelihood strategies in Romania

Substantial changes in the Romanian countryside accompanied by the need for more robust economic activities have caused some families to turn to tourism as an economic diversification strategy. A qualitative study of selected rural tourism entrepreneurs indicates positive experiences, both economically and in other aspects of their lives. However, the development of rural tourism is highly uneven spatially and the Romanian Government should act more incisively to support families establishing guesthouses.     

Affairs of the Heart: Qualities of Adolescent Romantic Relationships and Sexual Behavior

We know more about parent and peer influences than about the ways in which specific qualities of adolescent romantic relationships may influence sexual decision‐making. Using data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study, we focus on communication processes and emotional feelings, as well as more basic contours of adolescent romantic relationships, including power and influence dynamics. Controlling for traditional predictors and duration of the relationship, results suggest that subjectively experienced relationship qualities matter for understanding teens' sexual behavior choices. Further, findings indicate a similar effect of most relationship qualities on male and female reports of sexual behavior. However, influence and power dynamics within the relationship were not related to the likelihood that boys reported sexual intercourse in a focal relationship. In contrast, girls who perceived a more favorable power balance were less likely to report sexual intercourse than their female counterparts who perceived a less favorable power balance. Recognizing that the results capture reciprocal influence processes, longitudinal and qualitative data are used to further explore the complex nature of these associations.     

Age limits for participation in child protection court proceedings in Sweden

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and Swedish legislation, children have the right to participate in child protection proceedings. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the notion of age and maturity in child protection proceedings in order to elucidate how these aspects could influence children's rights to participate. We focus on the view of three groups of actors involved in child protection proceedings in Sweden—social workers, lawyers, and laypersons in social welfare boards and administrative courts—and on how children's age and maturity should be taken into consideration in decisions on their participation in court. The analysis is based on survey data. The study found that social workers, laypersons, and lawyers have different views on when children are old enough to have the right to litigate in court. Additionally, there is no consensus on how the maturity of the child can be assessed to inform the decision about participation. More discussion is needed about what competences a child needs to participate in court and to what extent this right should be limited by their age. Importantly, courts and decision‐making proceedings can be made more child friendly.     

Telling the other what one knows? Strategic lying in a modified acquiring-a-company experiment with two-sided private information

Theory and Decision - Lying for a strategic advantage is to be expected in commercial interactions. But would this be more or less obvious when lying could come from either party and question...