Origins and rationale of centres for parents and young children together

The range of centres where parents and children come together has mushroomed in different parts of the world, as new social work practices address the emerging non‐material needs of parents in changing demographic contexts. In this paper, we explore the origins and modi operandi of these centres in Belgium, France, Italy and Japan. Analysis of previous studies and policy documents reveal diverse political rationales, including addressing declining birth rates, preventing psychosocial problems and social isolation of mothers and promoting social cohesion and equality of educational opportunities. Remarkably, despite the diverse cultural and socio‐political contexts and rationales, these centres also share very similar ways of functioning and provide an informal type of social support to parents with young children. As these recently emerged centres are seldom studied, further research is welcomed to explore parents' and professionals' perspectives.     

Does parental work affect the psychological well-being and educational success of adolescents?

The primary goal of this exploratory study was to observe the presence or absence of empirical associations between various parental working conditions, family and, ultimately, the psychological well-being and educational success of young adolescents in Canada. A structural equation model analysis was undertaken from a large Canadian database. This research project used a sub-sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, regrouping 3447 young adolescents, aged 12–15, who generally attend high school. The analysis confirmed the suitability of the model for explaining the trajectory of the hypothesized associations. More specifically, the results confirmed that parental working conditions have an indirect effect on the psychological well-being and educational success of adolescents, through family environment, parenting and the quality of the parent–adolescent relationship. The practical implications of this study are discussed.     

Relations between postdivorce custody arrangements,family contexts,and children’s adjustment

The goal of the present study was to shed light on the relation between postseparation custody arrangements and family contexts in which school-age children (8–12 years old) live so as to better understand the processes underlying their adjustment. The sample was composed of 112 dyads (parents and children) from families in joint custody (n?=?37) or maternal custody (n?=?75). The dyads were met with twice at a 1-year interval. Compared with those in joint custody, the respondents with sole custody had a negative opinion of the transitions between homes and had the impression that the children were more involved in interparental conflicts. This analysis showed that the difficult nature of transitions between homes was a crucial mediating variable in the relation between conflicts and the children’s adjustment, but that other variables, such as the relational problems with the mother, played a role, particularly in joint custody situations.     

Ergonomic analysis of work activity for the purpose of developing training programs: the contribution of ergonomics to vocational didactics

Questions related to job skills and the teaching situations that best promote skill development are investigated by specialists in various fields, notably among them, ergonomists. This paper presents the findings of an ergonomic intervention study whose aim was to develop a meat-deboning training program by taking into account both the training content to be constructed and the working conditions that might facilitate or hinder skill development. One-on-one interviews and group discussions, on-the-job and videotape playback observations, as well as self-confrontation interviews were carried out. Activity analysis revealed major variability in work methods. The reasoning behind the experienced workers' actions and the experiential job knowledge they had developed were brought to light and served to develop the training content. The determining factors in the choice of work methods were identified, allowing adjustments to be made to the working conditions that might hinder skill development. The ergonomic process that implied taking working conditions into account in our study may make a significant contribution to vocational didactics, which is based on the cognitive analysis of work for the purpose of improving the effectiveness of job-skills training.     

Infants’ Ability to Detect Emotional Incongruency: Deep or Shallow?

Infants can detect individuals who demonstrate emotions that are incongruent with an event and are less likely to trust them. However, the nature of the mechanisms underlying this selectivity is currently subject to controversy. The objective of this study was to examine whether infants’ socio‐cognitive and associative learning skills are linked to their selective trust. A total of 102 14‐month‐olds were exposed to a person who demonstrated congruent or incongruent emotional referencing (e.g., happy when looking inside an empty box), and were tested on their willingness to follow the emoter's gaze. Knowledge inference and associative learning tasks were also administered. It was hypothesized that infants would be less likely to trust the incongruent emoter and that this selectivity would be related to their associative learning skills, and not their socio‐cognitive skills. The results revealed that infants were not only able to detect the incongruent emoter, but were subsequently less likely to follow her gaze toward an object invisible to them. More importantly, infants who demonstrated superior performance on the knowledge inference task, but not the associative learning task, were better able to detect the person's emotional incongruency. These findings provide additional support for the rich interpretation of infants’ selective trust.     

Social processes among mothers in centres for children and parents in three countries

Professionally run centres have been created in a number of countries over the past few decades to provide a place for parents and their young children to meet. They provide children with play opportunities and social contacts with peers, but they are also intended to tackle the potential negative consequences of mother–child isolation in modern societies by providing mothers with some social support. Many mothers find their participation in the centres to be supportive. This study uses ethnographic observations of mothers′ social experience in centres in France, Italy and Japan with the aim of better understanding the potential beneficial effects of attending the centres. Beyond organizational and cultural differences in the centres across countries, this joint analysis of observations highlighted important similarities in the social processes occurring among mothers in the centres and supported the hypothesis that positive social experiences are the basic potential source of psychological benefits that the centres provide to mothers.     

Being Han in a multi-ethnic region of the People’s Republic of China

This article draws on ethnographic material collected in Yangzong county of Yunnan, a province well known for its ethnic diversity. It deals with how the members of this peripheral Han population are categorised by others and by themselves in relation to minority groups and notions of Chinese identity. The specificity of the Han of Yangzong is framed by an ongoing tension between two contrasting points of view: they appear both as a local ethnic minority among others, and, notably by means of ritualised theatrical representations, as the legitimate representatives of the national majority. The Han people of Yunnan, who represent two-thirds of the province’s population, have been largely ignored by contemporary research. However, this study sheds light on the necessary interplay of different levels of identity and asserts the understanding of the category of ‘Han’ as perceived by the Chinese State as well as by the local people.     

“Are You Really Sad?” Infants Show Selectivity in Their Behaviors Toward an Unconventional Emoter

We examined whether 18‐month‐olds understand how the emotional valence of people's experiences predicts their subsequent emotional reactions, as well as how their behaviors are influenced by the reliability of the emoter. Infants watched a person express sadness after receiving an object that was either inappropriate (conventional emoter) or appropriate (unconventional emoter) to perform an action. Then, infants’ imitation, social referencing, and prosocial behaviors (helping) were examined when interacting with the person. Results showed that during the exposure phase, the unconventional group showed visual search patterns suggesting hypothesis testing and expressed less concern toward the person than the conventional group. In the social referencing task, the conventional group preferred to search for the target of a positive expression as opposed to the disgust object. In contrast, the unconventional group was more likely to trust the person's negative expression. As expected, no differences were found between the groups on the instrumental helping tasks. However, during the empathic helping tasks, the conventional group needed fewer prompts to help than the unconventional group. These findings provide the first evidence that the congruence between a person's emotional responses and her experiences impacts 18‐month‐olds’ subsequent behaviors toward that person.