Homelessness in Europe and the United States: A Comparison of Prevalence and Public Opinion

Random samples of 250–435 adults were interviewed by telephone in five different nations ( N = 1,546): Belgium, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the United States. The interview included questions on respondent attitudes, knowledge, and opinions regarding homelessness; respondents' own personal experiences with homelessness and homeless people; and demographic characteristics of the respondents. The highest rates for lifetime literal homelessness were found in the UK (7.7%) and United States (6.2%), with the lowest rate in Germany (2.4%), and intermediate rates in Italy (4.0%) and Belgium (3.4%). Less compassionate attitudes toward the homeless were also found on many dimensions in the United States and the UK. Possible explanations of these findings, drawn from various theoretical perspectives, and policy implications are provided .     

The Use of Research in the Seattle and Jefferson County Desegregation Cases: Connecting Social Science and the Law

On June 28, 2007, a plurality of the United States Supreme Court held that two public school desegregation plans, which relied in part on racial classifications, violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This article provides an overview of the cases and discusses the ways in which examples of social science research were used and interpreted by Justices on both sides of the issue. We also describe some differences in perspective between social scientific and legal traditions and offer insights about connections between these perspectives in this and future work.     

Field Notes

This article provides a framework for using the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to help social work field instructors work effectively with students of a variety of personality types. The article describes the MBTI and includes strategies for using it to assess students' needs, determine issues in supervisory style, and enhance supervisor–student relationships. Within the framework are strategies for respecting and responding to type differences and for learning to act against preference to work effectively with students of different types. The authors emphasize the ethical use of the MBTI in field instruction and limitations of its use.     

Family Conflict in Childhood and Adolescence and Depressive Symptoms in Emerging Adulthood: Mediation by Disengagement Coping

Exposure to family conflict in childhood increases risk for later life psychological maladjustment. The family environment shapes the development of coping strategies used to manage interpersonal stressors, representing a pathway through which adverse family experiences impact later emotional functioning. In 2 studies, we evaluated engagement and disengagement coping as mediators of the relation between family conflict in childhood and depressive symptoms in young adulthood. Study 1 included participants from continuously married families exposed to higher and lower quality childhood family environments and found that disengagement partially mediated the relation between family conflict and depressive symptoms. Study 2 examined these relations among emerging adults who experienced parental divorce. Results indicated that disengagement coping fully mediated the relation between family conflict and depression. Engagement did not emerge as a mediator in either study. Elevated family conflict across varying family structures might be associated with poor adjustment via disengaged responses to stress.     

Trade union support for fathers' use of work–family benefits – lessons from Sweden

Trade unions have traditionally been male-dominated organizations serving men's interests as family breadwinners, primarily through wage-setting. This study explores whether unions will contest the gendered division of parenting to develop values and practices that support men as caregivers. It takes place in Sweden, where unions are strong and fathers have legislated rights to paid parental leave. A mail survey of local unions revealed that the vast majority of unions did not believe it was important to focus attention on men as family caregivers. Only about one-fourth reported activities to improve men's benefit knowledge; only about one-third reported that they helped to implement parental leave at the workplace and only about one-fourth had negotiated contracts that extended leave benefits for fathers. Unions were more active in supporting men as fathers when they prioritized women's equal employment opportunity and when fathers requested union help. Stronger unions were more likely than others to have won enhanced benefits; contracts tended to increase compensation rather than offer more leave time. Swedish unions are in a strong position to promote, help implement and extend work–family benefits for fathers, dissolving the boundary between work and family spheres, but this potential has not yet been realized.     

Proxy reporting in education surveys: factors influencing accurate reporting in the 2012 Qatar Education Study

Abstract

Proxy reporting is a common practice during survey data collection to increase response rates while reducing fieldwork costs, and agreement between proxies and self-reports is critical to make reliable and valid inferences. This study is the first to unpack what influences proxy accuracy in a non-Western setting using data from the 2012 Qatar Education Study. We find that agreement is a function of a student’s grade in school, grades, a parent’s level of education, and the interaction between immigration status and parent education. These findings suggest in multicultural contexts, agreement may vary based on factors beyond what is typically accounted when examining the components of reporting error as a result of using proxies over self-reports.     

An integrated and recreated nation: socio-semiotic approaches to Finnish vacation propagandist short films in the late 1940s

This article is a social historical analysis of a specific vacation propaganda campaign run in Finland in the late 1940s. The analyses of four propagandist short film narratives are opened up with a specific three-step socio-semiotic close reading. This article identifies which ways of spending one's holidays were regarded as ‘proper’ and worthy and how the imagined audience was defined, as well as towards whom vacation propaganda was aimed and in what ways. The ‘proper’ holiday ideology for Finnish people – to receive annual leave for rest and recreation – was pursued in the short films by various methods of verbal and visual argumentation. The interpretations are presented together with a case-connected social historical contextualisation. In post-war Finland the economic and political situation was very unstable. For this reason, the vacation propaganda can be defined as integration propaganda, where the people's work and patience were to be rewarded in the future with the promise of upward social mobility and a better standard of living.

The more you have to work staying still/the more vividly you have to exercise during leisure time. Our summer is short, so, use the fleeting moments for your health. (Summer Pleasures, takes 15–17)     

Ulstermen and Loyalist Ladies on Parade: Gendering Unionism in Northern Ireland

This article explores parades as central institutions in the construction and maintenance of unionist ethno-gender identities and a crucial part of politics in Northern Ireland. It presents a brief historical review of the origins of Protestant marches and the organizations which are key to sustaining this tradition. It then analyses the contemporary marches, including the highly contested Portadown parade and the tranquil all-Ireland demonstration,held in Rossnowlagh in the Republic. These overwhelmingly male events are important to the maintenance of the gender order of unionism. The parades reveal the subordinated feminity within unionism: women participate in small numbers by invitation only. At the same time, they reveal competing masculinities: traditional, 'respectable' unionist masculinity is challenged by the more virile loyalism of 'Billy boy' and 'kick the pope' bands and marchers. This analysis explains why these competing masculinities are central, not only to the maintenance of male hegemony, but also to the ethno-national politics of parading, helping to set the boundaries of accommodation with nationalists and the state.