An account of play therapy with an abused child from a different ethnic background to the therapist

This paper has a two‐fold purpose: first, to look at issues concerning ethnic difference in psychotherapeutic work with a traumatised child. In that respect it is offered as a contribution to the debate on cross‐ethnic therapy. Secondly, it examines the process of play therapy with a young child, in relation to current theories of play therapy. Coincidentally it comments on the impact upon the worker with children affected by trauma. It is written in tribute to a very brave little boy. My thanks go to him and his family for agreeing to this work being offered for publication. To protect confidentiality, the name used, Martin, is a pseudonym, and any identifying details have been either altered or omitted. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Becoming a Young Adult: An International Perspective on the Transitions to Adulthood

This special issue is devoted to the articles presented at a workshop held in Montreal in June 2006 as part of the activities of the Scientific Panel on the Transition to Adulthood of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP). The articles address three of the key goals of the Panel: (1) to develop new tools to study the transition to adulthood as a whole rather than as a series of discrete events; (2) to add to the comparative literature on the transition to adulthood, especially in terms of its micro–macro linkages; and (3) to provide researchers with a more inclusive conceptual framework to study the transition to adulthood.     

Job stress in two different care-giving contexts: A study of professional and semi-professional health personnel in Norway

The study examined the relationship between priorities in job tasks and stress-related experiences among health workers in long-term care (n = 322). Employees' priorities were measured in terms of role orientation, represented by two different 'profiles': expressive and instrumental role orientation. Job stress assessed included potential workload and emotional involvement. Stress-related experiences assessed were psychosomatic and interpersonal consequences. Sub-group analyses were used to test the nature of the relationship between stressors and the criterion variables in the study. The sub-group analyses indicated that role orientation only partially moderated the relationship between job stressors and employees' stress-related experiences. It was in relation to emotional involvement that role orientation was a relatively strong moderator.     

Zum Einfluss stimmlicher Merkmale und Überzeugungsstrategien der Interviewer auf die Teilnahme in Telefonumfragen

The interviewers’ voice, manner, personal characteristics and persuasion strategies are related to participation in telephone interviews. A comparison of groups reveals that the interviewer’s manner and personal characteristics lead to higher influence to participate than the interviewers’ voice. Vocal attributes are intercorrelated with personality. In addition, considerable differences were found in multivariate correlations between interviewers’ voices on the one hand and personal characteristics on the other hand. Only three characteristics have significant effects: enthusiastic, personal speech and rate of speaking. Some other results of the persuasion strategies are: repeating of the recipient’s arguments, tailoring and the formulation of different arguments. The findings point to the importance of a training program for interviewers.     

‘Having a say’: children and young people talk about consultation

There has been a recent surge of interest in consulting children and young people about issues affecting them. Research in this area can in the main be said to have been motivated by adult agenda, with little attempt to seek the views of children and young people themselves. This paper is based on what children have said about consultation. They were critical of some of the more widely used methods, largely because they saw them as unrepresentative. The main message from the research is that children want to be consulted if it is done properly, if it is about issues directly affecting them and if they see it as likely to yield results that are likely to benefit them or other young people. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The quality of manhood: masculinity and embodiment in the sociological tradition

This paper argues for the need to revisit classical sociological texts with a view to excavating the masculinity that inheres in these texts and saturates the concept of the social. Primarily through an examination of Durkheim and Simmel, it explores the strategies whereby masculine individuals could be released from corporeality and granted the sort of embodiment that allowed them to transcend their particularity and become social agents. It is argued that male embodiment is deeply sedimented in the sociological imaginary as the very condition of social action and the constituent of social agency. Thinking through the conceptual lenses of corporeality, embodiment and agency exposes some of the ways in which the analytical scaffolding of ‘the social’ rests on a deeply gendered ontological foundation. While the sociological tradition may indeed have continued salience for contemporary sociologies of the body, a relatively unreflexive recuperation of these texts is problematic. This paper challenges those who seek to rehabilitate the classics in the service of an embodied sociology to produce a much fuller accounting of the truncated corporeal terrain upon which classical sociology developed, and one which explicitly recognizes its gender.     

Going Against the Historical Grain: Perspectives on Gendered Occupational Identity and Resistance to the Breakdown of Occupational Segregation in Two Manufacturing Firms

This article discusses a process of restructuring of working practices within two manufacturing firms with respect to its implications for gendered occupational segregation. A contextualized, historically situated analysis is presented, which is cast within debates on the nature of gendered occupational identity, equality initiatives and arenas of power and influence for women and men, within what were traditionally male‐dominated organizational contexts. Such an analysis serves to highlight the significance of the new restructuring in sweeping away 150 years of practice and embedded ‘ways of doing things’ and offers explanations for the actions of contemporary men and women in opposing what were seen by management and the trade union as emancipatory changes.     

中国妇女的口头文化与仪式文化——南汇的哭嫁

在中国的礼仪文化中,妇女只有在男人举行祭祖仪式时,才会作为最微不足道的角色参与.妇女一生中只有两个场合可以在公共场所进行仪式上的自我表现,即由妇女表演给她们的家庭成员及当地居民看的哭嫁与哭丧,因此非常重要.在整套仪式不同阶段中,分析了四个主要的歌唱部分.     

The new genetics: professionals' discursive boundaries

In this paper we examine new genetics professionals’ accounts of the social context of their work. We analyse accounts given in interview by an ‘elite’ group of scientists and clinicians. Drawing on the work of Gilbert and Mulkay (1984), we consider interviewees’ discourse about knowledge, exploring the way in which they separate science from society through the use of what we have called the ‘micro/macro split’. We then go on to consider the reasons for such a discursive boundary, exploring the interviewees’ wider discourse about expertise and responsibility for the social implications of the new genetics. We argue that interviewees’ discursive boundaries allow them to appeal variously to their objectivity, to dismiss bad science and to characterize the public as ignorant. However, these discursive boundaries are permeable and flexible, and are employed to support the new genetics professionals’ role in guiding education and government policy, whilst at the same time deflecting ultimate responsibility for the use of knowledge on to an abstract and amorphous society. Responsibility is flexibly embraced and abrogated. These flexible discursive boundaries thus promote rather than challenge the cognitive authority of new genetics professionals as they engage in debates about the social implications of their work. We end by challenging the replication of these discursive boundaries, noting some of the implications of such a critique for evaluation of the new genetics.