Considerations for Culturally Sensitive Research With Transgender Adults: A Qualitative Analysis

Transgender (trans) individuals have historically been left out of research, and previous work has often conflated gender identity with sexual orientation. Furthermore, language used in psychology measures is often heteronormative and uses binary gendered language (e.g., “him”/“her”). The aim of the current study was to provide empirically derived guidance on conducting culturally sensitive research with transgender participants using qualitative data. We recruited trans individuals, ages 18 to 44, to participate in an anonymous, qualitative, national online survey as part of a quantitative study on the relationships among minority stress, sexual behavior, and mental health. The qualitative portion included four open-ended feedback questions. We identified four overarching themes regarding experiences with our survey: (a) emotional reaction; (b) insight gained; (c) being outside the box; and (d) value of the work. Research with trans adults should be more inclusive of diverse gender identities, sexual identities, and sexual behaviors. Steps in this direction may include soliciting feedback from community members regarding survey language and response options, allowing participants to contextualize their responses using open-ended questions, and clarifying language to distinguish between sexual behavior and sexual identity. A list of seven preliminary guidelines was proposed to aid scientists in conducting culturally sensitive research with trans individuals.     

The Relationship between Knowledge and Child and Caregiver Distress during the Medical Examination for Child Sexual Abuse

When child sexual abuse is suspected, a child sexual abuse–related medical examination is recommended to ensure the child's well-being. While the extant research has sought to identify factors influencing child distress during this examination, only recently have studies began examining variables that may be directly associated with the child or with the medical setting. Knowledge of the child sexual abuse–related medical examination is one medical-related variable that has been implicated in child and caregiver distress during the examination. The current study contributes to the existing literature by investigating associations among examination knowledge in relation to caregiver and child anxiety at the time of a child sexual abuse–related medical examination, taking into account ethnicity, past child abuse, injury to child as result of abuse, and caregiver response to disclosure. Sixty-eight children and their nonoffending caregiver were assessed. Results indicated that understanding of the examination and caregiver response to disclosure were significantly associated with caregiver and child anxiety.     

Arthur Ransome’s Rewriting of the Russian Folktale Historicised

ABSTRACT

The young Arthur Ransome’s Old Peter’s Russian Tales (1916) that has today attained the status of a classic is of chief interest here as part of the British–Russian cultural interaction and interconnections at the turn of the twentieth century. In an attempt to historicise the author-translator in his creative effort to rewrite the Russian folktale, this paper focuses on his quest for magic and the collection of fairy stories, resulting from interacting with both place and people. A microscopic analysis of the translator’s life and work in his early years in Russia, via a study of archival material (Brotherton Collections, University of Leeds Library) and other relevant documents, has helped to reconstruct them in a richness of detail that sheds light on the bigger picture of the British–Russian relationship. The translator's gift to his reader, a token of fruitful experiences in this new and exciting fairyland, was, in fact, the product of mediation agency between the two worlds, the role that Ransome had found crucial and realised successfully in practice. As a result, another cultural and emotional bridge was built to interconnect these two countries.     

A comparison of Bayesian model selection based on MCMC with an application to GARCH-type models

This paper presents a comprehensive review and comparison of five computational methods for Bayesian model selection, based on MCMC simulations from posterior model parameter distributions. We apply these methods to a well-known and important class of models in financial time series analysis, namely GARCH and GARCH-t models for conditional return distributions (assuming normal and t-distributions). We compare their performance with the more common maximum likelihood-based model selection for simulated and real market data. All five MCMC methods proved reliable in the simulation study, although differing in their computational demands. Results on simulated data also show that for large degrees of freedom (where the t-distribution becomes more similar to a normal one), Bayesian model selection results in better decisions in favor of the true model than maximum likelihood. Results on market data show the instability of the harmonic mean estimator and reliability of the advanced model selection methods.     

Entry rates and the risks of misalignment in the EU8

New member states will join the EMU in the coming years. Setting the central parity at which they will join has been and will be a challenging task, as there is a considerable amount of uncertainty, both from a theoretical and an empirical perspective, surrounding the determination of the optimal exchange rate. Given the probable difficulty in evaluating the equilibrium rate it is thus advisable to focus on the effects of a misalignment of the entry rate for the economy, as it has implications for countries’ real and nominal convergence. An overvalued exchange rate would have an adverse impact on a country's competitiveness and its growth, while an undervalued currency would contribute to an overheating of the economy and an excessive inflation. The objective of this paper is to better understand the role of the entry rates for short run inflation and GDP developments and their implications for the inflation criterion and the real convergence process. Having estimated equilibrium exchange rates for eight out of ten countries that entered the EU in May 2004: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia we conduct simulations showing what their adjustments to equilibrium would be if their entry rates deviated from the optimal ones.     

The micropolitics of choice in Italy: How the law affects lesbian and bisexual women’s daily life

Abstract

This article stems from three years of fieldwork (2015–2017) in the context of a five-year-long, European-Research-Council-funded research project called INTIMATE—Citizenship, Care and Choice: The Micropolitics of Intimacy in Southern Europe, a comparative qualitative study that involves three countries (Italy, Portugal, and Spain) and studies intimate citizenship and the micropolitics of daily life of LGBTQ people. The article focuses specifically on the Italian case and shows how non-heterosexual women deal with the scarce legislative protection Italy grants. Our aim is to reflect upon the reciprocal influence of different axes from public and private spaces and on how they impact the micropolitics and the daily choices of our lesbian, bisexual, and pansexual participants. More specifically, considering the lack of legal and social recognition of lesbian experiences in Italy, we will focus on the different strategies of reaction, assimilation, and resistance employed by participants in their private and public life. The three-year-long fieldwork covered the period between the proposal of the bill on same-sex civil unions and the first year after Act 76/2016 came into force. This allows us to sketch a brief diachronic analysis of its functioning, in particular from the perspective of the very subjects it impacts.     

Information Technology Clusters in India

The Indian information technology (IT) industry is deeply entrenched in the key metros of India, giving rise to seven large IT clusters. The country's tier I cities Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, and Kolkata have all emerged as significant IT hubs. The seven IT clusters are different in their history, economic weight, activity base, anchor companies, business models, government role, and other driving forces. However, even as these cities are attracting IT investments and creating employment for thousands of citizens, the drawbacks of overstressed infrastructure, escalating real estate costs, and shortage of skilled IT professionals represent challenges for IT organizations. The paper substantiates the inevitability of the hardware and software sectors linked development at this stage. It is the first attempt to study the IT industry in India through the prism of the countrywise cluster development and combination of IT sectors – hardware design and manufacturing, IT services, software and research and development, and IT-enabled services for business process offshoring.      

Structural funds the challenge for sustainable development and regional disparity in the Slovak Republic

The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have undergone unprecedented political and economic changes since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The EU responded by providing political and financial support for the difficult transformation of these countries and refocused its policies towards the strategy of preparing associate countries for membership. This strategy, commonly known as the ‘pre‐accession strategy’, has three main instruments: European Agreements, structured dialogue and the PHARE programme. After a short delay in the negotiation process caused by political instability, the Slovak Republic has been offered membership in the EU, together with nine other candidates, in May 2004.

The transition process from a command‐and‐control economy to a market economy and a democratic society addressed the issue of the numerous differences in the regions in the Slovak Republic. The high disparity in economic development and low competitiveness of the regions with a resultant dramatic rise in unemployment in a number of ‘low‐income regions’ are some of the major observations. Rather than a result of its rural character alone, the main reason for regional disparity in the Slovak Republic is the deformation of historical relationships in rural areas as a result of industrialization and the intensification of agriculture in the command‐and‐control economy of the past. This led to a distortion of traditional farming habits as well as environmental damage to agricultural land and forests. In addition, the environmental infrastructure (sewerage, water treatment, etc.) is underdeveloped in these regions. Environmental protection and its infrastructure thus play a significant role in the regional disparity of the Slovak Republic and the approximation of the Slovak Republic in the environmental sector can provide double dividends for these low‐income regions. This paper analyses the above‐mentioned regional disparities and tries to identify reasons and measures particularly regarding sustainable development. It also discusses the pre‐accession period failures and successes that can be taken as a learning experience in regard to the financial opportunities of Structural Funds that will emerge upon entering the European Community in May 2004. The paper contains information available prior to February 2003.     

Vanishing financial contagion?

While a number of crises in emerging markets generated widespread contagion in financial markets during the 1990s, more recent crises (notably, in Argentina) have been mostly contained within national borders. This has led some observers to wonder whether contagion might have become a feature of the past, with financial markets now better discriminating between emerging countries with good and bad fundamentals. Available data suggest that the main channels that contribute to transmitting financial crises across countries are – if anything – even stronger today than in the 1990s. Moreover, anticipation by international investors may help to explain the near-absence of contagion in the context of the Argentine crisis. This paper argues that a prudent working assumption is that financial contagion has not vanished.