Relational Family Therapy as an Aid Toward Resolving the Trauma of Sexual Abuse in Childhood in the Process of Separation in the Couple Relationship

Relational family therapy (RFT) is a psycho‐organic therapeutic approach that combines intrapsychic dynamics with interpersonal mechanisms and a systemic perspective. This integrative model is based on the assumption that the repetitive patterns of relationships in early childhood repeat in adulthood. It often happens that a sexually abused individual will later unconsciously be attracted to someone with whom they will relive the abusive atmosphere and dynamics from childhood. The purpose of this contribution is to present the RFT approach for dealing with sexual abuse. We will present a case study with individual segments from therapy with a woman, who previously had been sexually abused and was separated from her partner.     

The EU youth guarantee – a critical analysis of its implementation in Spain

The significant increase in youth unemployment in different parts of Europe caused by the economic crisis has led to the European Council Recommendation on Establishing a Youth Guarantee (2013). This Guarantee addresses the so-called ‘NEET’ (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) younger than 25 years of age and stipulates that employment, education or training shall be provided within a period of 4 months. As the initiative is relatively recent, in-depth analyses of its contents and implantation in the Member States are still missing. This paper analyses the European Recommendation and its implementation in Spain, evaluating its potential to improve the situation of the young people and society as a whole and its risks in provoking undesired side-effects. Our results question if the whole target group will be reached and highlight the measures’ low potential to promote a real and durable change. Increasing precariousness and insecurity and the tendency to only redistribute existing labour make it conceivable that the Guarantee may contribute to converting precariousness into a new labour paradigm for the whole population. The insufficient and retroactive funding of the Youth Guarantee can provoke negative side-effects for other social policies and the country's development. We conclude with several recommendations on how to improve the Youth Guarantee and its implementation.     

Die Wahrnehmung von Teamfähigkeit in Abhängigkeit von Wärme und Beitrag zur Gruppenleistung

The study focuses on the concept of team skills. Based on previous research that broke the concept down into sub-skills and documented no positive relationship between team skills and the performance of a group we measured the social perception of team skills. For this purpose four videos were produced that varied the factors contribution to group atmosphere and contribution to task performance of a single person. The team skills and all related sub-skills of this person were rated by external raters (n?=?136). The results clearly showed that the perception of team skills was based exclusively on the factor contribution to group atmosphere. Contribution to task performance, clearly recognized by raters, was not related to the perceived team skills and had a negative effect on the perceived ability to cooperate, the key element in the team skills concept. If the concept is highly appreciated in organisations as evident from various facts, diverting minority opinion will be avoided and group performance would depend largely on the majority decision. Other means to improve team effectiveness, such as group moderation techniques, need to be found.     

Transnational lived citizenship turns local: Covid-19 and Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora in Nairobi

This paper analyses how migrant community practices of transnational lived citizenship were altered by both, COVID-19 and the policy response from the Kenyan government. It is based on interviews with members of the Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora residing in Nairobi. The paper demonstrates how policies introduced because of the pandemic caused migrant communities to lose local and remittance income. More than the loss of material resources, however, they were impacted by the elimination of social spaces that enable diaspora lives. These two dynamics have intensified a trend that may have been present before the pandemic, a local turn of transnational lived citizenship. By focusing on lived experiences and how they have been re-assessed during the pandemic, the paper argues that transnational lived citizenship is always in flux and can easily become reconfigured as more localized practices. The concept of transnational lived citizenship is demonstrated to be a useful lens for analysing shifting migrant livelihoods and belonging.     

Facilitating and hindering factors in the realization of disabled children’s agency in institutional contexts: literature review

Disabled children’s opportunity to act as agents may be compromised because adults have the power to choose who are entitled to express agency. Disabled children spend much time in institutions and with professionals of different fields. The aim of this literature review was to find out which factors facilitate or hinder the realization of disabled children’s agency in institutional contexts. As data we used 19 research articles and analysed them with inductive content analysis. Key factors relate to professionals’ attitudes towards diversity, children and themselves as well as professionals’ communication skills and institutional factors that enable the child to have an influence or prevent it and which give or do not give room for children’s peer relationships. Rethinking the child and adult view and learning dialogical communication are recommended in the education of all fields that work with disabled children.     

Settlers: New Zealand Immigrants from England,Ireland and Scotland 1800–1945

Shamit Saggar, Race and Politics in Britain (London: Harvester Wheat‐sheaf, 1992). Pp.xxi + 236. ISBN 0 7450 1206 X

Virginia Yans‐McLaughlin (ed.), Immigration Reconsidered: History, Sociology and Politics (New York, Oxford University Press [USA], 1990). Pp.viii + 342. £11.95. ISBN 0 19 505511 X

Gary P. Freeman and James Jupp (eds.), Nations of Immigrants: Australia, the United States and Migration (Melbourne, Oxford University Press [Australia], 1992). Pp.xi + 250. £15.95. ISBN 0 19 553483 2     

Lebenspraxis Wissenschaft? Von der praktischen Sperrigkeit des Work-Life-Balance-Konzepts im wissenschaftlichen Feld

The concept of work-life-balance (WLB) aims to improve reconciling the areas of work and life, which are considered as structurally divided in society by sociology. This separation is actually discussed as blurring of boundaries between work and other areas of life. Building on this, the article addresses WLB in academia by following the approach of practice theories and discusses findings of an empirical study at an Austrian university. Referring to existing literature the analysis of qualitative interviews indicates that the idea of balancing academic work and life is contradicted by the constitutive logic in the academic field. The guiding image of a “life for academia” dominates the discourse on professional academic practice and private life, and centres work on research and on being present in the academic field as the actual life.