What is child protection? Historical and methodological issues in comparative research on lastensuojelu/child protection

This article addresses comparative research on what has come to be called, in (British) English, 'child protection' or, rather differently, in Finnish ' lastensuojelu '. In developing a cross-national research project on lastensuojelu /child protection practices in England and Finland, we found it necessary to go back a few steps, to address what might usually be considered as 'background issues'. This article discusses the welfare state traditions in both countries, especially with respect to families and children, in order to contextualise the focus of ongoing qualitative research on micro comparisons. When comparing the mundane practices of child protection and the ways problems and clienthoods are constructed, as in this study, historical, social, cultural and linguistic issues matter. Indeed, very basic concepts such as 'child protection' and 'child protection case' become problematic in the comparison.     

Inferring Labor Income Risk and Partial Insurance From Economic Choices

This paper uses the information contained in the joint dynamics of individuals' labor earnings and consumption‐choice decisions to quantify both the amount of income risk that individuals face and the extent to which they have access to informal insurance against this risk. We accomplish this task by using indirect inference to estimate a structural consumption–savings model, in which individuals both learn about the nature of their income process and partly insure shocks via informal mechanisms. In this framework, we estimate (i) the degree of partial insurance, (ii) the extent of systematic differences in income growth rates, (iii) the precision with which individuals know their own income growth rates when they begin their working lives, (iv) the persistence of typical labor income shocks, (v) the tightness of borrowing constraints, and (vi) the amount of measurement error in the data. In implementing indirect inference, we find that an auxiliary model that approximates the true structural equations of the model (which are not estimable) works very well, with negligible small sample bias. The main substantive findings are that income shocks are moderately persistent, systematic differences in income growth rates are large, individuals have substantial amounts of information about their income growth rates, and about one‐half of income shocks are smoothed via partial insurance. Putting these findings together, the amount of uninsurable lifetime income risk that individuals perceive is substantially smaller than what is typically assumed in calibrated macroeconomic models with incomplete markets.     

The Big Freak Out: Educator Fear in Response to the Presence of Transgender Elementary School Students

Increased visibility of transgender children requires elementary school professionals to take on issues of gender diversity, sex and sexuality, which are considered taboo in elementary school spaces. School professionals who have worked with transgender children were interviewed about their experience with these students, perceptions of their school's success in supporting them, and recommendations for information and resources needed by schools to provide support. Findings indicate that fear and anxiety are common educator responses to the presence of a transgender child and the disruption of the gender binary, and these emotions are limiting the possibilities for schools to affirm transgender identity.     

Conflicting or Compatible: Beliefs About Religion and Science Among Emerging Adults in the United States1

A wide‐held assumption is that increased religiousness is associated with stronger perceptions of a conflict between religion and science. This article examines this assumption using four distinct questions asked on the third wave of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). Results indicate a variety of viewpoints for constructing the relationship between science and religion, rather than a simple conflict‐compatibility continuum. Further, findings suggest that increased religiousness among emerging adults is associated with a stronger agreement in science and religion’s compatibility, rather than conflict. Incorporating New Age or non‐Western spiritual tradition and a strict adherence to fundamentalist Christian doctrine are associated with complex configurations of beliefs on the relationship between religion and science. Collectively, the findings among emerging adults contradict traditional assumptions about how religious experiences influence beliefs, suggesting that such social factors may influence beliefs and attitudes uniquely at different points in the lifecourse or across generations. More broadly, the findings speak to the ongoing debate about the extent to which differing social experiences may produce consistent or discordant sets of beliefs and values, and in turn how particular configurations may impact strategies of action across a range of life domains.     

Promoting “Zest for Life”: A Systematic Literature Review of Resiliency Factors to Prevent Youth Suicide

Suicide is a leading cause of death among youth globally. In this critical interpretive synthesis, we examined literature on resiliency factors and suicidality. Systematic searches identified 474 articles, 37 of which were included. Results revealed internal (positive self‐appraisal, zest for life, personal traits, and coping skills) and external factors (social support system and inclusive environments) contribute to resilience among youth, with age, sex and gender, and Indigenous identity as important intersecting considerations. Findings validated fostering resilience as primary suicide prevention among youth, with little explanation for how these factors may work to protect youth from suicidality. Continued research in this area requires a focus on how to promote resilience at the community and systems levels.     

A Standard of Care for the Prevention of Sexual Misconduct by School Employees

ABSTRACT

This article describes the development of a standard of care for the prevention of adult to student sexual abuse in pre K-12 schools. Standard of care is not a phrase often used in educational practice, and yet, it is a legal concept that may be useful for school administrators. A sample of administrators, child sexual abuse specialists, and attorneys with experience in school employee sexual misconduct responded to 101 items that the literature indicates should be included in a standard of care. There was agreement on 94 of these items by sample participants. Categories of the standard of care were policies, hiring process, hiring screening, hiring interview, training, and reporting. Where there was disagreement by role of respondent, attorneys, child sexual abuse specialists, or both rated the item as more important for inclusion than did administrators.     

The relations of ruling: a feminist inquiry ∗

This paper explores the complex of objectified social relations that organize and regulate our lives in contemporary society. Its inquiry is driven by experiences in the women's movement of a dual consciousness, with the particularities of being mother and housewife on the one hand, and, on the other, the abstracted discourses and forms of organization creating the matrix of a consciousness outside the local and particular. A strategy for sociological inquiry is formulated which does not begin from a discursively structured position within the objectified relations, but from a standpoint traditionally women's, located in the actualities of the everyday of people's embodied living. The historical trajectory of these relations emerges as increasingly independent and increasingly pervasive organizers of people's everyday/everynight activities. The materiality of printed and electronic texts mediates the intersections of the relations of ruling and the everyday world. Texts are complemented by technologies or disciplined practices that standardize local states of affairs or events, bringing them into correspondance with standardized texts. Baudrillard's conception of ‘hyperreality’ is used to explicate characteristic forms of the text-mediated systems of corporate management. Finally the topic returns to the issue of gender, showing how the dual consciousness which brings the objectified extra-local character of these relations into view has itself been defined in the historical trajectory of their emergence. It is in this context, that a sociology from the standpoint of women can be seen as proposing an alternative organization of knowledge which does not reproduce the relations of ruling, but an explication of just those relations in which our lives are embedded.     

Experiences of student veterans with social anxiety and avoidance: A qualitative study

Eight-to-ten percent of returning combat veterans report symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), of which 7–13% also report symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder. Both disorders are characterized by maladaptive patterns of social functioning, which can have significant effects on the lives of returning combat veterans and increase suicidal risk. The objective of the present study was to identify elements of the lived experience of college student veterans experiencing social anxiety and avoidance. Twelve student veterans with post-9/11 active duty service were interviewed about their lived experiences with social anxiety/avoidance within the framework of phenomenological theory. Data was analyzed using multilevel coding and theme analysis. Analysis of interview themes (n = 12) clarified university campus environments that induce social anxiety/avoidance and the impact on personal and professional relationships, learning, and navigation of physical space. Implications of this study include addressing student veterans’ needs through clinical intervention and further representative research on prevalence rates of these risk factors in various university and community college settings.     

Maximum likelihood analysis of the mixed model: the balanced case

The primary purpose of this paper is to develop, analytically, the inverse of the covariance matrix for the mixed analysis-of-variance model with balanced data. The use of this matrix in the identification of minimal sufficient statistics and in developing the likelihood equations is illustrated.