Queer punx: young women in the Newcastle hardcore space

This article investigates the ‘becoming’ of queer female punx in the contemporary hardcore scene in a regional Australian city. Twelve young women aged 20–30 years were interviewed about their experiences of queer identity. They emphasized their involvement in the music scene as a key catalyst for the development of a queer punk identity even though the local hardcore scene is male-dominated and homosocial. We find that these young female queer punx assert their identity through collectively summoning and synthesizing the counternormative resources of both queer and punk Do It Yourself (DIY) to configure the space of hardcore differently. Our findings confirm the durability of a playful, subversive punk ethos in constituting challenges to the normative.     

Food fights: irritating for social change among Auckland's alternative food initiatives

ABSTRACT

This article explores alternative food initiatives (AFI) and their performances of benign transgression. Through collaborative activist-and-academic-storytelling we tease apart the divergent practices of AFIs to question what mediates these performances in the grey area between conventional and alternative practice. Grounded examples of AFIs performing alternative economy and related acts of ‘irritant’ civil disobedience show how subverting normative practices of power and authority can catalyse social reproduction of difference, and tangibly alter the conventional food system.     

Critical reflection workshops and knowledge exchange: findings from a Scottish project

In 2013, academics from a Scottish university came together with social work managers and practitioners from two local authorities (LAs) in Scotland to run a knowledge exchange (KE) project co‐sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council and the LAs. The project's aim was an ambitious one: to contribute to culture change in the children and families' departments in the two partner agencies. The project grew out of an earlier KE venture that had explored ways of engaging better with involuntary service users in social work; it thus both anticipated and reflected wider concerns about services for children that were also demonstrated in Munro's Review of Child Protection. The KE project had three components: training for managers, practitioner research projects and critical reflection workshops. Whether, and to what degree, the KE project changed culture is not the focus of this paper, which is written jointly by academic researchers and practitioners. Instead, one element of the KE project, namely the critical reflection workshops, is discussed. Findings provide strong evidence of the pressures currently experienced by children and families' services in the UK public sector. They also indicate how important good relationships are in building meaningful KE.     

Fixed-parameter tractability of anonymizing data by suppressing entries

A popular model for protecting privacy when person-specific data is released is k -anonymity. A dataset is k-anonymous if each record is identical to at least (k−1) other records in the dataset. The basic k-anonymization problem, which minimizes the number of dataset entries that must be suppressed to achieve k-anonymity, is NP-hard and hence not solvable both quickly and optimally in general. We apply parameterized complexity analysis to explore algorithmic options for restricted versions of this problem that occur in practice. We present the first fixed-parameter algorithms for this problem and identify key techniques that can be applied to this and other k-anonymization problems.     

The impact of therapist pregnancy on the treatment process

Therapist pregnancy is a powerful emotional stimulus and a real-life event that affects clients and the treatment process. In the present paper, previous literature is reviewed and clinical experiences of the author in a university counseling center are reported to address how therapist pregnancy influences clinical treatment. Although therapists often hesitate in emphasizing their pregnancy, evidence suggests that it is easy to underestimate the importance of the pregnancy for clients. Case examples are presented which demonstrate client responses and the significance of the pregnancy for four female clients. Gender differences in client reactions are not fully understood, and it may be particularly difficult to facilitate male clients in dealing with issues stimulated by the pregnancy. These clinical findings suggest that in a variety of settings, understanding and working with clients' reactions to the therapist's pregnancy can enhance treatment.     

Qualitative research in family therapy: publication trends from 1980 to 1999

In the early 1990s, scholars from a variety of disciplines encouraged greater inclusion of qualitative research methodology in the mental health field. Moon, Dillon, and Sprenkle (1990) hoped their paper “Family therapy and qualitative research” would serve as a stimulus for further development of qualitative research in the field of family therapy. Ten years later, entering the new millennium, has the field been influenced by recommendations for an increase in use of qualitative methodology in family therapy? A content analysis was conducted on articles published in the marriage and family therapy literature from 1980 to 1999. Of the numerous articles examined in four journals, 131 articles were published using qualitative research methodology. Findings support the contention that qualitative research is increasing, but still accounts for a small number of research articles published in marriage and family therapy journals.     

A close look at why one social norms campaign did not reduce student drinking

The authors examined 3 possible explanations for the failure of a social norms campaign at a large public university. They administered an anonymous survey to 2 random samples of undergraduate classes: a baseline assessment of 616 students before the campaign's implementation and a follow-up survey of 723 students 4 academic years later. At follow-up, 66.5% of the students were aware of the campaign, yet the survey revealed no reduction in perceived drinking norms or alcohol use in this group. An analysis of the postcampaign sample revealed that (1) a majority of the students did not find the statistics used in the campaign messages credible, (2) higher levels of alcohol use predicted lower levels of perceived campaign credibility, and (3) only 38.5% of the students understood the campaign's intended purpose. If they are to influence personally relevant drinking norms, these campaigns must undergo further development to enhance message credibility and participants' understanding.     

Motives for sharing illness experiences on Twitter: conversations of parents with children diagnosed with cancer

A patient- and family-centred approach in paediatric health care is important because parents are involved in making key decisions about their child’s health care and advocating for the best interest of the child. Parents and family members are increasingly turning to the internet to find and actively share information about their child’s health care. Twitter is one of many online platforms used by parents of children diagnosed with cancer to share information related to their child’s cancer experience. Existing research suggests that there is a need to better understand the motives for using Twitter for sharing content about a child’s cancer experience. Furthermore, there is a lack of theoretical frameworks for characterizing those motives. In this paper, we identify key themes of tweets posted by parents of children diagnosed with cancer and align those themes with motives inspired by the well-studied Everyday Life Information Seeking framework. We propose a new motive in addition to those associated with the framework and suggest that information can be shared for endogenous reasons as well as to meet the needs of others. This paper contributes an increased understanding of motives for sharing information about a child’s cancer journey and extends a theoretical framework for building further knowledge in this area.