“Ellen Is Our Man”

This article examines the nature of shifting gender roles in Liberia's postconflict reconstruction process. Specifically, it investigates the ways in which political authority is gendered and the agency that women in politics employ to justify their participation as they attempt to reduce gender inequalities at the institutional level. I argue that the intervention of the international community has been instrumental in providing space and resources for gender mainstreaming, however in the absence of more in-depth intersectional analyses of gender dynamics, the unintended consequences of peacebuilding policies could hinder the sustainability of long-term peace. This article is based on a qualitative research country study conducted by the author in rural and urban Liberia following the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. A discussion of key findings is exemplified with excerpts from key informant interviews and focus group discussions that seek to give voice to a cross-section of Liberians, so that they can contribute to the ongoing debate on gender mainstreaming in postconflict societies and bridge the gap between local and international discourses.     

Master status or intersectional identity? Undocumented students’ sense of belonging on a college campus

ABSTRACT

Research on undocumented students in the United States often focuses on the challenges they face navigating postsecondary education, rooted in their precarious legal status. The observed influence of legal status on undocumented students’ sense of belonging and academic progress provides compelling evidence that being undocumented functions as a master status – a salient identity that conditions students’ educational incorporation. Yet, this research tends to highlight legal status while deemphasizing or excluding other identities. Our study takes an intersectional approach. Using focus group data with undocumented students at a Hispanic-Serving Institution, we show that students rarely identify legal status in isolation or implicate it as the sole source of adversity. Instead, students’ reveal a sense of belonging rooted in multiple dimensions of identity including ethnicity and class. This study reconsiders the utility of the master status concept in favour of an intersectional one for a comprehensive picture of undocumented students’ educational incorporation.     

Consistency and Continuity in Material and Psychosocial Adversity Among Australian Families with Young Children

Prior studies on longitudinal continuity of adversity have mostly examined persistence of individual adversity, rather than of families and have focussed mainly on material disadvantage. However, adversity is multi-dimensional, and in the case of families with children, it includes psychosocial as well as material elements. While both material and psychosocial elements are recognized as critical to child development, these aspects of family adversity are often studied in isolation and there is a dearth of longitudinal evidence on the extent to which such factors are transient or persistent. Using the first three waves (2004–2005, 2006–2007, 2008–2009) of the longitudinal study of Australian children this paper investigated the consistency and continuity of multiple adversity in families with children using material and psychosocial indicators. First, longitudinal factor analysis determined that a consistent factor structure of multiple adversity adequately fit the data longitudinally. Second, cross-tabular analysis showed significant changes in the prevalence of specific adversities over waves. In particular adversity related to changes in family composition and social support followed an increasing trend. Adversity in two material elements—economic status and hardship—decreased over time. Third, variance-components models revealed that though aggregate scores of material and psychosocial adversity indicated a high degree of continuity over time, continuity in disaggregated measures showed that within families a great deal of variability in adversity occurs, with intra-class correlations ranging from 0.27 to 0.84. The more persistent forms of adversity—family, substance use, economic adversity—are areas where targeted interventions are feasible while employment conditions and time pressure are more transient and may require intervention at the population level to reduce overall prevalence of the adversities. Our study has reinforced the need to assess psychosocial adversity in studies of families with children as a balance to the more commonly utilized material adversity.     

Acculturation among Mexican-heritage preadolescents: A latent class analysis

This study applies advanced conceptualization and measurement to an analysis of acculturation among 1632 Mexican-heritage preadolescents. We assessed whether - and how - multiple measures combine to form a latent acculturation construct that groups individuals into classes; and determine how many and what classes (or types) of acculturation are experienced by this sample of 5th graders. Measures included attitudinal, behavioral, and linguistic acculturation, generation status, time in the US, ethnic identification, and contact with the culture of origin. The analysis identified five classes of acculturation, differing in size and characterized by specific measures of acculturation: less acculturated, moderately bicultural, strongly bicultural, highly acculturated, and marginalized. Although most youths fell into the first four classes, consonant with their exposure to American society, a small minority of youths fell into the last class. Despite substantial exposure to US culture and recent exposure to Mexican culture, these youth showed little affinity for either culture.     

Voting is Social Work: Voices From the National Social Work Voter Mobilization Campaign

ABSTRACT

The National Social Work Voter Mobilization Campaign, also known as Voting is Social Work, involved social work faculty, field educators, practitioners, and students in a nonpartisan voter engagement drive. Following the 2018 elections, researchers surveyed Campaign participants in social work schools and agencies to document their voter engagement activities.The study reported extent and amount of their involvement. The survey distinguished between the voter engagement participation of school- versus agency-based social workers, which has not been studied elsewhere. Participants also reported the benefits of political participation to individuals, communities, and the profession and perceived barriers such as organizational constraints, fears of appearing partisan, and distrust of politics. Presented in historical context, the findings highlight the need to mainstream voter engagement throughout social work education.     

Should International Migration Be Encouraged to Offset Population Aging? A Cross-Country Analysis of Public Attitudes in Europe

Concerns about population aging in Europe have occupied the attention of policy makers and demographers for over a decade. Some policy makers have proposed increased immigration to offset the aging of the population (i.e., replacement migration). However, demographers have estimated that a very high (and likely untenable) level of immigration would be required, and little is known about whether the national publics of Europe would support international migration as a potential solution to population aging. Using Eurobarometer data from 2006 and concurrent country-level measures from Eurostat, this study examines individual- and contextual-level factors related to public attitudes toward immigration as an effective solution to the problem of population aging in the current 27 member countries of the European Union. Results from multilevel logit analyses indicate that urban, university-educated, and childless individuals are consistently more likely than others to endorse replacement migration. Countries with more prosperous economies and proportionally fewer foreign-born residents also show more supportive attitudes. Such results echo research on anti-immigrant sentiment, suggesting considerable public resistance to population policies that might encourage large-scale immigration. At the same time, these findings show consistent patterns of endorsement despite demographers’ criticism of the concept of replacement migration and concerns about developing alternative long-term strategies.     

A Study Exploring Risk Management Issues Among Volunteers in an Oncology Support Program

ABSTRACT. Risk management and challenges of volunteer roles in an oncology support program in Montreal, Canada, were explored using a phenomenological approach involving 65 service volunteers. Fourteen focus groups were held representing oncology services in the hospital and the wellness center. Self-reported questions were administered to assess the risks perceived by the volunteers. Findings revealed 4 major themes: comfort level, daily frustrations, risk and environmental issues, and suggestions. Suggestions included: better communication with staff, a safer health-related environment, and improved role-specific training to mitigate the risks. Additionally, for each group, 1 specific change was implemented during a 6-month period. Health care professionals should focus on job-training issues to address safety, comfort level, and role capacity. Future research should investigate an enhanced training curriculum with strategies to address concerns about risk management. Volunteers who are better equipped to perform their roles will be able to offer a higher quality of service to patients and families.     

Managing ambiguous amphibians: feral cows,people, and place in Ukraine’s Danube Delta

This paper analyzes how a herd of feral cattle emerged in the core zone of Ukraine’s Danube Biosphere Reserve and why it still exists despite numerous challenges to the legality of its presence there. Answering these questions requires an analytical approach that begins from the premise that animals, plants, substances, documents, and technologies are active participants in making social and political worlds rather than passive objects of human intervention and manipulation. Drawing together insights from multispecies ethnography, animal geography, amphibious anthropology, and studies of nature protection in former Soviet republics, the author argues that the feral cattle exist because they are part of an amphibious multispecies assemblage in which relations among cattle, elements of the Danube Delta's wetland ecologies, legal norms, and the Reserve managers’ documentation practices have aligned to create an autonomous space for cattle to dwell with minimal human intervention.     

The Impact of Parental Attachment on Adolescent Perception of the School Environment and School Connectedness

The extent to which students feel accepted, valued, respected and included in the school has recently surfaced as one of the most important predictors of adolescent mental health (particularly depressive symptoms). The school environment is an established predictor of school connectedness, but we set out to examine whether parental attachment predicts both adolescents' perception of the school environment and school connectedness. A study of 171 high school students from years 8 to 12 showed that parent attachment strongly predicted both. We also confirmed that the relationship between parent attachment and school connectedness is not a direct one but that parent attachment influences individual differences in the way adolescents perceive the school environment, which in turn influences school connectedness. This finding shows how multiple systems might be interlinked in influencing wellbeing in adolescents, and confirms the importance of intervening at the double level of both the family and the school system.