Estimation of Joint Income-Wealth Poverty: A Sensitivity Analysis

Research on daily time and how it is allocated has generally considered the time spent in specific activities. However, social theory suggests that time use is socially patterned whether by social organization, heterogeneity, and/or stratification. Drawing on four broad types of time (contracted, committed, necessary, and free), we use Multinomial Logit Latent Class Analysis to discuss eight daily temporal pathways and associations with individual characteristics. Our analysis highlights the variations and similarities across pathways, the impact of paid work in structuring daily life, the social patterning of sleep and leisure, and socio-demographic profiles of the pathways of working-age Americans.     

Testing of the Function Focused Environment Assessment and the Function Focused Policy Assessment in Assisted Living

This study tested two new instruments, the Function Focused Environment Assessment (FF-EA) and the Function Focused Policy Assessment (FF-PA). The measures were developed for clinical evaluation of assisted living (AL) settings to help optimize function and physical activity among residents. In total, 106 AL settings and 242 residents were included. There was evidence of item reliability (0.92) and interrater reliability (kappa =0.40, p = .015; agreement 85%) of FF-EA and item reliability (0.89) and interrater reliability (kappa =0.48, p = .001, agreement 82%) of the FF-PA, and support for validity of both measures based on INFIT and OUTFIT statistics and hypothesis testing.     

Translating Bourdieu into youth studies

ABSTRACT

Against a backdrop of lively discussion about the best ways to do youth studies, or sociology of youth, this article asks: Can Pierre Bourdieu’s work be translated into youth studies in ways that benefit the field? We begin by considering Bourdieu’s thoughts on the category of ‘youth’ using a new translation of this text, and then turn to an important discussion by Furlong, Woodman, and Wyn about certain long standing tensions in youth studies. These tensions are between writers engaging in the ‘structure versus agency’ debate that is mapped onto the ‘culture versus transitions’ binary. We consider the case for adopting a ‘middle-ground’ represented by Bourdieu’s writings. We argue that many in youth studies work from an unacknowledged substantialist tradition, which is contra to Bourdieu's relational perspective. The result includes misunderstandings of Bourdieu's thinking and expectations of his work, for example, that it can pass certain empirical tests. We argue that if Bourdieu's relational perspective is to be translated into youth studies, we will need a more determined effort to understand that perspective first.     

Which Models of Supervision Help Retain Staff? Findings From Australia’s Domestic and Family Violence and Sexual Assault Workforces

ABSTRACT

The contribution professional supervision makes to quality services, staff satisfaction, and retention is well recognised across social work and human service settings. Yet frequent supervision is difficult to provide where organisational resources are limited and urgent client-related tasks must take priority. In these contexts, group-based supervision may offer an alternative to traditional individual approaches, yet its impacts have been infrequently researched. Using survey data (n?=?917), we examine the prevalence of individual and group-based supervision among practitioners delivering domestic and family violence and sexual assault services (DFVSA), and associations these forms of supervision have with staff retention. While individual supervision remains most common, one in eight practitioners report that they never receive it. Multivariate analysis indicates frequent individual supervision is most effective for retaining practitioners. This provides empirical support for prioritising individual supervision within strategies for promoting workforce sustainability and service quality in DFVSA and other social service settings.

IMPLICATIONS

• Individual supervision remains more common than group-based approaches in domestic and family violence and sexual assault services.

• Workplaces should consider prioritising individual supervision over group supervision when attempting to improve practitioner retention.

• Managers should adopt a critical stance and consider evidence when assessing the implications of adopting group-based approaches to supervision.

     

The Use of Neuroscience in Interventions for Intimate Partner Violence (IPV): A Scoping Review

Clinical Social Work Journal - This paper presents a scoping review of empirical studies on the incorporation of neuroscience into interventions for survivors of intimate partner violence. Using...     

The association between discrimination and violence among Somali Canadian youth

Analyses were conducted with a sample of 18–30-year-old Somali Canadians to test the association between discrimination and violence-related beliefs and behaviours, whether this association differs by the source of the discrimination, and whether there is a different pattern of effects for men and women. Results indicate that discrimination from within one’s own community is not associated with attitudes towards violence, anti-violence behaviours or criminal violence. By contrast, out-group discrimination is associated with more anti-violence behaviours by women, although these effects are not strong. Out-group discrimination is also related to criminal violence among men but not women.     

HOUSEHOLD FINANCES,INCOME SHOCKS,AND FAMILY SEPARATION IN BRITAIN

We examine the effect of household financial indebtedness on the incidence of partnership dissolution using a large survey of families with children in Britain. We use detailed data on household finances to provide a robust statistical analysis of the relationship between indebtedness and partnership dissolution and to avoid the potential simultaneity of financial and psychological health responses that arise when using self‐reported data on the extent of household “financial problems.” We examine whether the data provide any support for the “economic” models of divorce and separation developed by Gary Becker and his colleagues. (JEL J12, D12)     

Considerate approaches to constructing summary statistics for ABC model selection

For nearly any challenging scientific problem evaluation of the likelihood is problematic if not impossible. Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) allows us to employ the whole Bayesian formalism to problems where we can use simulations from a model, but cannot evaluate the likelihood directly. When summary statistics of real and simulated data are compared??rather than the data directly??information is lost, unless the summary statistics are sufficient. Sufficient statistics are, however, not common but without them statistical inference in ABC inferences are to be considered with caution. Previously other authors have attempted to combine different statistics in order to construct (approximately) sufficient statistics using search and information heuristics. Here we employ an information-theoretical framework that can be used to construct appropriate (approximately sufficient) statistics by combining different statistics until the loss of information is minimized. We start from a potentially large number of different statistics and choose the smallest set that captures (nearly) the same information as the complete set. We then demonstrate that such sets of statistics can be constructed for both parameter estimation and model selection problems, and we apply our approach to a range of illustrative and real-world model selection problems.     

Gender differences in the content of cognitive distraction during sex

This study compared 220 college men and 237 college women on two types of self-reported cognitive distraction during sex, performance- and appearance-based. Affect, psychological distress, sexual knowledge, attitudes, fantasies, experiences, body image, satisfaction, and sexual function were assessed with the Derogatis Sexual Functioning Inventory and the Sexual History Form to determine associations with distraction. Between-gender analyses revealed that women reported higher levels of overall and appearance-based distraction than did men, but similar levels of performance-based distraction. Within-gender analyses revealed that women reported as much of one type of distraction as the other, while men reported more performance- than appearance-based distraction. In women, appearance-based distraction was predicted by negative body image, psychological distress, and not being in a relationship, while performance-based distraction was predicted by negative body image, psychological distress, and sexual dissatisfaction. In men, appearance-based distraction was predicted by negative body image, sexual dissatisfaction and not being in a relationship, while performance-based distraction was predicted by negative body image and sexual dissatisfaction. Investigating the content of cognitive distraction may be useful in understanding gender differences in sexual experience and in refining cognitive components of sex therapy.     

Barriers to reporting sexual assault for women and men: perspectives of college students

The authors asked college students to rate the importance of a list of barriers to reporting rape and sexual assault among male and female victims. The authors' findings indicate that barriers prevalent 30 years ago, prior to efforts by the rape reform movement, continue to be considered important among college men and women. The barriers rated as the most important were (1) shame, guilt, embarrassment, not wanting friends and family to know; (2) concerns about confidentiality; and (3) fear of not being believed. Both genders perceived a fear of being judged as gay as an important barrier for male victims of sexual assault or rape and fear of retaliation by the perpetrator to be an important barrier for female victims.