Mothering after child removal: Living under the rule of Greek gods

Many women who experience mental illness are mothers. Evidence suggests that the role of mother is of great importance and value to these women, yet they are more likely than other women to have their children removed from their care. Little is known about the experiences of these mothers after their children are removed. This paper presents a phenomenological analysis of in‐depth interviews with 8 women to answer the following question: How do mothers living with severe mental illness experience mothering after removal of their children by child protection services? The analysis showed that mothering continued to be a major life role for these women, but the way they enacted this role was transformed. Their mothering was now constrained and prescribed by external agents, likened to Greek gods, which imposed both boundaries to what they could do and an obligation to prove themselves worthy. Like Greek gods, these external agents were seen as all powerful, unpredictable, and flawed. The study highlights the need for child protection services and support services to recognize and support noncustodial mothering activities.     

Categorical Perception of Facial Emotions in Infancy

Categorical perception, indicated by superior discrimination between stimuli that cross categorical boundaries than between stimuli within a category, is an efficient manner of classification. The current study examined the development of categorical perception of emotional stimuli in infancy. We used morphed facial images to investigate whether infants find contrasts between emotional facial images that cross categorical boundaries to be more salient than those that do not, while matching the degree of differences in the two contrasts. Five‐month‐olds exhibited sensitivity to the categorical boundary between sadness and disgust, between happiness and surprise, as well as between sadness and anger but not between anger and disgust. Even 9‐month‐olds failed to exhibit evidence of a definitive category boundary between anger and disgust. These findings indicate the presence of discrete boundaries between some, but not all, of the basic emotions early in life. Implications of these findings for the major theories of emotion representation are discussed.     

Integrated care workforce development: university-community collaboration

ABSTRACT

Behavioral health workforce shortages to provide quality care services for children, adolescents, and transitional age youth are well established. This paper highlights the workforce shortage and the need to infuse interprofessional education to engage in integrated care for children, adolescents and transitional age youth with behavioral health needs. A specialized training curriculum to build behavioral health workforce in Nevada was conceptualized and delivered through 10 workshops under the auspices of the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) funded Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training (BHWET) grant funded in 2014. To train existing workforce and in alignment with the spirit of the grant to build behavioral health workforce and existing workforce, workshops were extended to social service providers in the community. In an effort to enhance university-community collaboration, workshop presenters were invited from various units in the University and from social service agencies in the community. Implications of such training are addressed from a policy, practice, research, and university-community collaboration perspective.     

Bounded Explorers: Online Constructions of Solo Women Travelers

Women have navigated the world with much less freedom than men—with restrictions particularly great for their solo, or independent, travel. Although much research documents women’s experiences of these constraints, less is known about travel media’s framing of women as solo travelers—with online media an especially neglected research area. Drawing on a leisure constraints perspective, our study examines differences in online travel articles (n = 100) targeting solo women versus men. Resonating with this perspective, as well as the findings of studies examining women’s actual travel experiences, our findings reveal a framing of women as “bounded explorers,” constrained in their solo travel by the emotional, social, and behavioral burdens imposed upon them, hinging on their perceived vulnerability and men’s perceived dangerousness. We find two processes through which women are constructed in online travel articles as bounded explorers—creating negative expectations and encouraging vigilant risk avoidance. As one of the first studies to examine cultural representations of solo travelers in online media, our research provides further evidence of gendered constraints in leisure by revealing the framing in travel articles of women as more bounded than men—a framing that may, in turn, have implications for women’s experiences in the realm of leisure and perhaps beyond.     

Using creative methods to research across difference. An introduction to the special issue

ABSTRACT

This special issue explores some of the methodological challenges that are brought into play when scholars deploy creative methods to research across difference. This introductory article defines what we mean by ‘creative methods’ and discusses some of the strengths and weaknesses of using this approach within social science research. It then outlines how creative methods can be used to research across difference, specifically, and introduces the seven articles that make up the special issue.     

Countermove: how CEOs respond to post-acquisition compensation adjustments

Following poorly performing acquisitions, the board of directors often redesigns the CEO’s annual compensation package to include less risk-encouraging stock options and more risk-discouraging restricted stock. This study explores the emerging area of post-acquisition compensation management and proposes that CEOs can indirectly, but effectively, defend against compensation rebalancing. Specifically, we find that CEOs may counteract the effects of compensation rebalancing by delaying the exercise of existing stock option holdings. Fortunately, this insight also offers valuable implications including the ability of the board to limit the CEO’s defense by adjusting stock option exercise windows.