Bypassing Publicity for Getting Things Done: Between Informal and Formal Planning Practices in Finland

This article contributes to the discussion concerning the ways in which network governance and classical-modernist government practices juxtapose and redefine the idea of publicity in planning practices. Through Finnish urban planning cases we ask what kind of publicity is being promoted. We argue that new modes of governing build and employ institutional ambiguity for ‘getting things done’. This provides possibilities to ‘skim the cream’ of the best possible ways of resolving present planning issues. The crucial question is whether the possible positive outcomes give a mandate to the process, even if the process operates in a democratic void.     

The social bordering of lifestyle sports: inclusive principles,exclusive reality

Lifestyle sports are created and maintained through global youth cultural representations disseminated by many current media channels. Lifestyle sports attract young people due to their images of sociality, joyful creativity, speed and excitement, urban exoticism and their subcultural distinction from mainstream sports. This distinction is maintained with claims of social and cultural openness. Through a case analysis conducted for a research project we asked: How open are lifestyle sports communities and to whom? Who can take part in the subcultural world of lifestyle sports? What kinds of structural or personal attributes connected with individuals restrict certain young people's participation in this world? The research material consists of qualitative and quantitative data collected among skateboarding, longboarding, parkour and roller derby practitioners in Finland. Seeking answers brings researchers to the classical sociological background variables and their intersections: gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and socioeconomic status. In lifestyle sports, these categorisations are linked with physical skills as subcultural symbolic capital, which is central in the exclusive and inclusive practices in lifestyle sports communities. Despite the inclusive principles that lifestyle sports practitioners emphasise, the ideal lifestyle sport practitioner seems to be represented by hegemonic masculinity, muscular strength and agility symbolising sporting abilities.     

“I Feel It In My Heart When My Parents Fight”: Experiences of 7–9-Year-Old Children of Alcoholics

Children are vulnerable when exposed to parental alcohol abuse. Although much is known about children of alcoholics (COA), research examining the experiences of younger COA is scarce. To gain knowledge of the consequences for these children, it is important to ask the children themselves. This study explored the consequences for a child of having an alcoholic parent, from the point of view of 7–9-year-old COA. Eighteen children were interviewed, whose alcoholic parent was undergoing treatment, using a vignette. In the analysis, using qualitative content analysis, the findings show that the children of this young age had much experiences and took a great responsibility for their alcoholic parent, and the family. The most significant feeling of the children was a feeling of sadness. They tried to control the situation in different ways. They wished for a change in the future, but despite problems in the family they described things they did together with a loving parent. Implications include the importance of listening to and supporting all COA, also children as young as 7–9 years old. Further studies should address the support that can and should be offered to COA.     

HIV disclosure and subsequent sexual behaviors among men who have sex with men who meet online

To assess HIV disclosure discussions and related sexual behaviors among men who have sex with men (MSM) who meet sex partners online, 28 qualitative interviews with Seattle-area MSM were analyzed using grounded theory methods and themes and behavior patterns were identified. MSM found a greater ease in communicating and could prescreen partners through the Internet. However, no consistent relationship was found between HIV disclosure and subsequent behaviors: some were safer based on disclosure while perceived HIV status led others to risky behaviors. Interventions need to promote accurate disclosure while acknowledging its limitations and the need for men to self-protect.     

Prenatal Health,Educational Attainment,and Intergenerational Inequality: The Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 Study

In this article, we study the effects of prenatal health on educational attainment and on the reproduction of family background inequalities in education. Using Finnish birth cohort data, we analyze several maternal and fetal health variables, many of which have not been featured in the literature on long-term socioeconomic effects of health despite the effects of these variables on birth and short-term health outcomes. We find strong negative effects of mother’s prenatal smoking on educational attainment, which are stronger if the mother smoked heavily but are not significant if she quit during the first trimester. Anemia during pregnancy is also associated with lower levels of attained education. Other indicators of prenatal health (pre-pregnancy obesity, mother’s antenatal depressed mood, hypertension and preeclampsia, early prenatal care visits, premature birth, and small size for gestational age) do not predict educational attainment. Our measures explain little of the educational inequalities by parents’ class or education. However, smoking explains 12%—and all health variables together, 19%—of the lower educational attainment of children born to unmarried mothers. Our findings point to the usefulness of proximate health measures in addition to general ones. They also point to the potentially important role played by early health in intergenerational processes.     

Shaped by place? Young people's aspirations in disadvantaged neighbourhoods

This paper aims to better understand the relationship between young people's aspirations towards education and jobs, and the context in which they are formed, especially to understand better the role of disadvantaged places in shaping young people's aspirations. Policy makers maintain that disadvantaged areas are associated with low aspirations and there is support for this position from academic work on neighbourhood effects and local labour markets, but evidence is slim. Using a two-stage survey of young people in disadvantaged settings in three British cities, the paper provides new data on the nature of young peoples’ aspirations, how they change during the teenage years, and how they relate to the places where they are growing up. The findings are that aspirations are very high and, overall, they do not appear to be depressed in relation to the jobs available in the labour market either by the neighbourhood context or by young people's perceptions of local labour markets. However, there are significant differences between the pattern of aspirations and how they change over time in the three locations. The paper then challenges assumptions in policy and in the literature that disadvantaged places equal low aspirations and suggests that understanding how aspirations are formed requires needs a nuanced approach to the nexus of class, ethnicity and institutional influences within local areas.     

Staying inside: social withdrawal of the young,Finnish ‘Hikikomori’

This article explores socially withdrawn young Finnish people on an Internet forum who identify with the Japanese hikikomori phenomenon. We aim to overcome the dualism between sociology and psychology found in earlier research by referring to Pierre Bourdieu, who provides insights into how individual choices are constructed in accordance with wider social settings. We focus on the individual level and everyday choices, but we suggest that psychological factors (anxiety, depression) can be seen as properties of social relations rather than as individual states of mind, as young adults have unequal access to valued resources. We scrutinise young people’s specific reasoning related to the social and psychological factors and contingent life events that influence their choice to withdraw. An experience of inadequacy, a feeling of failure and a lack of self-efficacy are common experiences in the data. This indicates that young adults who identify with the hikikomori phenomenon find external society demanding and consider themselves lacking resources such as education, social networks or the personality type that they see as valued in society and as essential to ‘survival’. They also feel that they cannot control their life events, which may mean that they receive little help in their everyday lives.     

Modeling the Role of Inventories and Heterogeneity in the Assessment of the Economic Costs of Natural Disasters

Estimates of the cost of potential disasters, including indirect economic consequences, are an important input in the design of risk management strategies. The adaptive regional input‐output (ARIO) inventory model is a tool to assess indirect disaster losses and to analyze their drivers. It is based on an input‐output structure, but it also (i) explicitly represents production bottlenecks and input scarcity and (ii) introduces inventories as an additional flexibility in the production system. This modeling strategy distinguishes between (i) essential supplies that cannot be stocked (e.g., electricity, water) and whose scarcity can paralyze all economic activity; (ii) essential supplies that can be stocked at least temporarily (e.g., steel, chemicals), whose scarcity creates problems only over the medium term; and (iii) supplies that are not essential in the production process, whose scarcity is problematic only over the long run and are therefore easy to replace with imports. The model is applied to the landfall of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and identifies two periods in the disaster aftermath: (1) the first year, during which production bottlenecks are responsible for large output losses; (2) the rest of the reconstruction period, during which bottlenecks are inexistent and output losses lower. This analysis also suggests important research questions and policy options to mitigate disaster‐related output losses.     

Social Impact Investing in Germany: Current Impediments from Investors’ and Social Entrepreneurs’ Perspectives

The paper provides empirical evidence on impediments of the emerging social impact investment field in Germany. The study is based on 19 in-depth interviews with social impact investing funds, investment advisors, and social entrepreneurs as investees. It takes an explorative approach because of the nascent stage of research on the subject. By systematically relating the perspectives of the actors involved, the study gives a broad empirical picture on the major challenges for social impact investing in Germany. Results reveal nine critical problem areas we have arranged along three dimensions: financial returns, social returns, and relationships and infrastructure. They comprise investors’ and social entrepreneurs’ practices, institutional settings which are still heavily influenced by peculiarities of the German welfare systems, as well as undeveloped framework conditions in the social investment market. By interpreting the results through a lens of conflicting institutional logics, we further contribute to this research stream by showcasing social impact investing as a core area of friction between the logics of the market and civil society.