The LGBQ Social Climate Matters: Policies,Protests, and Placards and Psychological Well-Being Among LGBQ Emerging Adults

Sexual minority youth, including emerging adults, are at risk for negative health outcomes. Minority stress theory posits that heterosexism can contribute to these outcomes among sexual minorities. Researchers have tested this theory with respect to interpersonal heterosexism; however, little attention has been given to macro-level and environmental forms of heterosexism, especially among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) youth. In this study, we examine the role of objective social climate (LGB state-level policies) and experiential distal and proximal environmental microaggressions on the psychological well-being of LGBQ emerging adults. Furthermore, we examine the role of LGBQ identity salience as a moderating factor on the macro/environmental-heterosexism and well-being relationship. Multivariable linear regression results suggest that living in a state without same-sex marriage laws is associated with greater self-esteem, whereas both distal and proximal environmental microaggressions are risk factors for anxiety and perceived stress. Furthermore, identity salience can ameliorate the effects of distal microaggressions and intensify the effects of proximal microaggressions and same-sex marriage legislation. Implications for practice with sexual minority youth are discussed.     

Getting back in the DeLorean: modernization vs. anti-modernization in contemporary British politics

ABSTRACT

This article highlights a growing clash between mainstream modernizing and populist anti-modernizing forces in the UK. Whilst scholarship on UK party politics has, for the past three decades, focussed on processes of party modernization, little attention has been paid to the countervailing processes of resistance towards modernization. This contrasts with comparative studies, which show that throughout much of Europe modernization processes have worked to produce populist backlashes from anti-modernizing forces seeking to reassert various types of traditional values and practices. Drawing on the comparative literature on modernization, our argument here is that a similar populist backlash against modernization is occurring across the political spectrum in the UK and has been a factor in: the rise of nationalism associated with UKIP and the SNP; the 2016 BREXIT vote and the efforts of both Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Conservative PM Theresa May to distance their parties from the legacies of their modernizing predecessors. Empirically, we show how this increasingly prevalent line of conflict is playing out in the UK, whilst theoretically we argue that a discourse theoretical approach can provide significant advantages over existing approaches for understanding the dynamic interplay between modernizing and anti-modernizing discourses.     

A joint model of cancer incidence,metastasis, and mortality

Many diseases, especially cancer, are not static, but rather can be summarized by a series of events or stages (e.g. diagnosis, remission, recurrence, metastasis, death). Most available methods to analyze multi-stage data ignore intermediate events and focus on the terminal event or consider (time to) multiple events as independent. Competing-risk or semi-competing-risk models are often deficient in describing the complex relationship between disease progression events which are driven by a shared progression stochastic process. A multi-stage model can only examine two stages at a time and thus fails to capture the effect of one stage on the time spent between other stages. Moreover, most models do not account for latent stages. We propose a semi-parametric joint model of diagnosis, latent metastasis, and cancer death and use nonparametric maximum likelihood to estimate covariate effects on the risks of intermediate events and death and the dependence between them. We illustrate the model with Monte Carlo simulations and analysis of real data on prostate cancer from the SEER database.     

Polygyny and reproductive behavior in sub-saharan Africa: A contextual analysis

In this paper I examine the effect of polygyny on aggregate reproductive behavior. I argue that within countries there exist different polygyny regimes, each exhibiting a unique reproductive pattern. Using the 1988/1989 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS1) data, I identify three distinct regimes: low-polygyny, mid polygyny, and high-polygyny regimes. The results of the bivariate and multivariate analyses reveal strong differences in reproductive preferences and behaviors across polygyny regimes. High-polygyny regimes, for instance, maintain a value orientation that favors and encourages high reproductive performance. The force of this pronatalism operates equally for men and women; but whereas men in this regime attain their reproductive goals by marrying multiple wives, women attain theirs by maximizing their reproductive capabilities. This maximization occurs through early initiation of sexual/reproductive activity, universal marriage and minimal interruption of marriage, nonuse of contraception within a union, and a positive attitude toward high fertility.     

Disaster and deritualization: A re-interpretation of findings from early disaster research

This study investigates how ritual practices are disrupted in disasters and the ways people deal with those situations. We employ structural ritualization theory to conduct this investigation focusing on deritualization, which refers to the breakdown or loss of ritualized activities that occur in daily life. The thesis of this paper is that ritual practices are disrupted in a disaster leading to the breakdown of action and meaning. Data were collected from 19 seminal sociological studies from the National Academy of Sciences published first under the name of the Committee on Disaster Studies (1951–1957) and then under the rubric of the Disaster Research Group (1957–1962). A content analysis of these studies revealed many instances of deritualization. Deritualization is manifested or most evident through its effects on action and meaning in rituals. Examples were categorized according to the loss of action, meaning, or a combination of both.     

Older Carers of Adults with a Learning Disability Confront the Future: Issues and Preferences in Planning

The Valuing People White Paper (Department of Health, 2001)requires services to secure a plan for all service-users withlearning disabilities living with older carers and promisesthem and their families more choice and control over how andwhere they live. This paper examines the views of the oldercarers (aged over seventy) of sixty-two adults with a learningdisability about planning for the future. Fifty-six took partin interviews in their own homes and six completed a questionnaire.All carers were white and recruited from one local authorityin response to the requirements of the White Paper. Findingsindicate that a significant proportion (thirty-four—55per cent) is either not ready or is unwilling to make futureplans. Barriers to planning include a perceived lack of needdue to the existence of two carers, a lack of awareness of timescalesinvolved in securing housing, difficulties in letting go, alack of confidence in available housing options, and the existenceof mutually supportive relationships. The findings show a needfor a proactive approach to information and support provisionto enable these families to work through a process of makingplans for the future. This is essential to prevent the needfor emergency placements in response to crisis and in turn toensure that adults with learning disabilities have genuine choiceand involvement in how and where they live.