Golden Years? The Labor Market Effects of Caring for Grandchildren

The number of Americans raising grandchildren has been rising steadily. In this article, we expand what is known by focusing on the economic implications of this trend. We compile a unique data set from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics along with its Parent Identification File on 3,240 nonretired grandparent household heads and estimate the effect of taking in a grandchild on labor force participation and hours worked. We estimate models that distinguish between grandparents living alone from those only with grandchildren (skipped‐generation households) and those also with their own children (3‐generation households). We find that caring for grandchildren increases labor force attachment, with grandfathers more likely to work and grandmothers working longer, if another adult is available to supervise the grandchildren.     

Learning to labour unequally: understanding the relationship between cultural production,cultural consumption and inequality

Inequality has become essential to understanding contemporary society and is at the forefront of media, political and practice discussions of the future of the arts, particularly in the UK. Whilst there is a wealth of work on traditional areas of inequality, such as those associated with income or gender, the relationship between culture, specifically cultural value, and inequality is comparatively under-researched.

The article considers inequality and cultural value from two points of view: how cultural value is consumed and how it is produced. The paper argues that these two activities are absolutely essential to understanding the relationship between culture and social inequality, but that the two activities have traditionally been considered separately in both academic research and public policy, despite the importance of culture to British and thus international policy agendas. The article uses the example of higher education in the UK to think through the relationship between cultural consumption and production. In doing, so the article maps out a productive possibility for a new research agenda, by sketching where and how research might link cultural consumption and production to better understand inequality.     

The market place as space in early modern England

The reinsertion of space into critical theory (Soja, LeFebvre) has stimulated some historians to reconsider space in its historical contexts. Exactly how one elucidates spatial organization-as represented space or as space produced by social action and practice-continues to exercise our minds. What we can be more certain about is that significant spaces existed which were, and were regarded by contemporaries, as public and open and that these spaces were sites of social action (but also, it should not be forgotten, of concealed activity too). In early modern England, market places constituted spaces of social and 'political' action and interaction, among which penance and punishment were important aspects. From office causes in ecclesiastical act books and from directions by the justices at quarter sessions, the social and 'political' employment of market places can be illuminated, particularly here in the archdeaconries of Colchester, Leicester, Nottingham and Essex, and from the sessions for Wiltshire and Somerset. Moreover, penance and punishment directed to market places reveal much about spatial relationships more widely, not least between administrative jurisdictions and people in spaces and between the urban and rural situation. In this way, we can begin to assemble the jigsaw which will illuminate further how space was formed by people in the past.     

Motives for coprophilia: Working with individuals who had been institutionalized with developmental handicaps

A condom skills educational program emphasizing how to use a condom was presented to groups of patients waiting to be seen in a public health sexually transmitted disease clinic. Compared to controls, patients exposed to the intervention were approximately half as likely to return within the subsequent 12 months with a new sexually transmitted disease. Other predictors of reinfection included previous infection and age less than 25.     

Computerized Immediate Feedback Increases Product Recall Efficiency Due to Interlocking Contingencies in Food Manufacturing

Food manufacturing companies are challenged with tracking their products so that the company will be able to remove that product from circulation quickly and effectively in the event of a product recall. The accuracy of a recall is dependent upon the accuracy of a product selected for order fulfillment, with the correct product going to the correct store. An integrated solution using wireless handheld computers was programmed to provide immediate visual and audio feedback to the order selectors, in order to prevent errors in order selection. For each case selected, vital information was archived to databases in real-time, which in turn, allowed the company’s safety manager to perform quick and accurate product recall tracking in mock recall drills and state inspections. Results were discussed in terms of the expanding the role of the Organizational Behavior Management professional who addresses operational and ethical issues associated with technologies for better consumer safety.     

Grief,loss, and separation: Experiences of birth children of foster carers

Previous research identifies the increased exposure of birth children of foster carers to experiences of separation, grief, and loss due to the transient nature of foster care, but little is known about how birth children manage this loss. This paper reports findings from a qualitative study that examined the retrospective experiences of 15 adult birth children of foster carers (aged between 18 and 28 years) in Ireland. Findings suggest that birth children experience grief and loss when foster children leave their families. They report experiencing a range of emotional responses such as guilt, blame, and sadness. A reluctance to discuss their emotional responses with either their parents or foster care professionals was also reported. Instead, birth children developed strategies to manage the loss, such as distancing themselves from the foster care process. The study highlights the importance of social workers and foster carers explaining to birth children why foster children are leaving and, where possible, maintaining contact between birth children and foster children. Additionally, findings indicate the need for birth children to have safe nonjudgmental spaces to discuss their emotional reactions to loss.     

Working With Parents of Gender-Variant Children: Using Social Action as an Emancipatory Research Framework

This article examines and reflects on the methodology used in a research project that involved group work activities with parents of gender-variant children. Gender variance in children remains a topic people talk little about. Discussions about people who express themselves differently from the social norms attached to their birth sex, to a large extent, remain rarely discussed. They challenge a society organized largely on the basis of a binary understanding of identity, one that belongs to either male or female. This article discusses the concept of oppression as being central to the experiences of gender-variant children and young people and their parents, and it proposes social action research as a compatible and appropriate research framework for exploring their experiences. We describe the research process, identify its achievements, and explore issues that had to be confronted. We suggest that traditional research structures may benefit from being revisited in order to allow emancipatory research to more fully achieve its potential for both research and social action.     

Government communication about potential policies: Public relations,propaganda or both?

In this article, we discuss some of the arguments for and against government communication about potential public policies. This form of government communication is controversial, as it can be perceived as tax-financed propaganda for the politician or political party that is in power. Our basic argument here, however, is that an administration can communicate about potential policies in an ethical manner that also strengthens the democratic relationship between politicians and citizens by opening up the policy formulation process.