Prevalence estimates and correlates of elder abuse in the United States: The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey

This study examines the prevalence and correlates of psychological abuse and physical abuse against women and men aged 70 or older. Self-report data from 2,185 respondents in the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) were used to create weighted estimates for past-year experiences of abuse. Correlates were then examined using survey logistic regression models. More than 1 in 10 adults who are 70 years of age or older (14.0%) have experienced some form of abuse in the past year, with 12.1% experiencing psychological abuse and 1.7% experiencing physical abuse. One in five victims (20.8%) were abused by both intimate and nonintimate partners. Health care insecurity was the strongest correlate of past-year abuse. The odds of experiencing abuse were 4.53 times greater for those who experienced health care insecurity than for those who did not. This presents a significant challenge for identifying and helping victims of abuse.     

Understanding Persistent Food Insecurity: A Paradox of Place and Circumstance

Survey data from a U.S. Department of Agriculture funded multi-state longitudinal project revealed a paradox where rural low-income families from states considered prosperous were persistently more food insecure than similar families from less prosperous states. An examination of quantitative and qualitative data found that families in the food insecure states were more likely to experience greater material hardship and incur greater housing costs than families in the food secure states. Families in the food insecure states, however, did not have lower per capita median incomes or lower life satisfaction than those in the food secure states. A wide range of strategies to cope with food insecurity reported by families in both food insecure and food secure states was examined using the Family Ecological Systems Theory. Families in the food insecure states used several risky consumption reduction strategies such as curbing their appetite and using triage. Families in the food secure states, on the other hand, employed positive techniques involving their human capital.

Sociolinguistics and everyday (in)securitization

This Journal of Sociolinguistics dialogue starts from the perception that existential threats to national security have become an increasingly pervasive concern in daily life, spreading fear and suspicion through civil society. Communicative practices play a central role in these processes of (in)securitization, but sociolinguists appear to have paid them less attention than they deserve. So in what follows, six researchers discuss the significance of (in)securitization for our everyday experience and the implications for sociolinguistic theory and research. The dialogue opens with Ben Rampton and Constadina Charalambous, who introduce the concept of (in)securitization from International Relations (IR) research and sketch potential connections and challenges to standard sociolinguistic theories and concepts. Then the four papers that follow pick this up from different angles in different geographic locations. Ariana Mangual Figueroa discusses (in)securitization’s radical impact on research relationships in ethnography, focusing on the US. Zeena Zakharia addresses the effects of large‐scale conflict on language education, both in the US and in Lebanon. Erez Levon considers the connections between nationalism and sexuality, bringing in the strategies with which gay and lesbian Israelis navigate the insecuritizing discourses they encounter. Then Rodney Jones discusses the interactional dynamics of surveillance, moving between police encounters and the internet to show the thin line between protection and precarity. At the end of the dialogue, we address three questions, collaboratively reaffirming the urgency of these issues, the significance of (in)securitization in everyday communicative practice, and the ramifications for sociolinguistics.     

Critical Global Competence and the C3 in Social Studies Education

Research in global education has turned toward global citizenship education and the fostering of a more critical reading of the tenets of “soft” global education laid out over four decades ago in Hanvey's (1976) “An Attainable Global Perspective.” Interested in skill building and informed application of concepts forwarded within critical approaches to global education, this article brings the NCSS C3 inquiry arc together with standards for Global Competence Education within social studies education. Using food insecurity as an example, the conceptualization provided demonstrates how coupling the C3 with the Global Competence standards creates a framework that social studies educators can use to prepare students to participate as informed, responsible, and critically minded change agents within complex and unequal global systems.     

Examining the Underlying Values of Food Security Programming: Implications for the Social Work Profession

Incongruities between social work’s professional values and dominant public and private responses to food insecurity are discussed. Empowerment theory is positioned as an evaluative lens to examine food assistance. Summaries of dominant forms of food assistance are provided and scrutinized using basic tenets of empowerment theory. Contrasting examples of innovative programs are also discussed in terms of their potential for empowering outcomes. Highlighted programs, including community gardens, community kitchens, and the food rescue and redistribution program D.C. Central Kitchen, demonstrate the evaluative potential of empowerment theory. Implications for social work research and practice are explored.     

The impact of cumulative family risks on various levels of food insecurity

The study uses the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study (N = 2025) to examine the relationship between four cumulative family risk indices and refined measures of food hardship: marginal food security, low food security, and very low food security. Regression analyses indicate that cumulative family risk indices are useful in differentiating various levels of food insecurity. Specifically, the maternal poor health and risky health behaviors index is pertinent for distinguishing (1) food insecure from marginal food secure households and (2) very low food secure from low food secure households. In addition, the financial strain index is pertinent for differentiating between marginal food secure families from food secure families among non-poor households. Connecting food assistance programs with established social services may decrease the negative impact that cumulative family-level risk factors have on families’ varying levels of food insecurity.     

Social work and sustainable rural development: The practice of social economy in China

The impact of globalisation on local agriculture and food systems has brought issues such as food security and rural sustainability to the forefront of policy‐making in developing countries. In China, the restructuring of domestic agriculture and liberalisation of trade following accession to the World Trade Organization have led to the growing reliance on imported food and raised concerns for food self‐sufficiency and safety. Inspired by the concept of social economy, social workers in China have explored alternative pathways towards sustainable food production and consumption through local initiatives. Based on participatory action research in a Chinese village, this study examines the potential contribution of social work intervention in responding to China’s agrarian challenges. It is shown that by linking rural cooperatives with the local food system and allowing farmers to sell directly to urban consumers at fairer prices, social economy initiatives provide a viable pathway for sustainable transformation by empowering rural producers while giving urban consumers access to sustainably produced food.     

Employment relations and dismissal regulations: Does employment legislation protect the health of workers?

Sociologists have long acknowledged that being in a precarious labour market position, whether employed or unemployed, can harm peoples' health. However, scholars have yet to fully investigate the possible contextual, institutional determinants of this relationship. Two institutions that were overlooked in previous empirical studies are the regulations that set minimum compensation for dismissal, severance payments, and entitlements to a period of notice before dismissal, notice periods. These institutions may be important for workers' health as they influence the degree of insecurity that workers are exposed to. Here, we test this hypothesis by examining whether longer notice periods and greater severance payments protect the health of labour market participants, both employed and unemployed. We constructed two cohorts of panel data before and during the European recession using data from 22 countries in the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (person years = 338,000). We find more generous severance payments significantly reduce the probability that labour market participants, especially the unemployed, will experience declines in self‐reported health, with a slightly weaker relationship for longer notice periods.     

Will the EU Disintegrate? What Does the Likely Possibility of Disintegration Tell About the Future of the World?

Is it true that either the EU will be democratised or it will disintegrate? I concur that the current policies, principles, and institutions of the EU both generate counterproductive politico-economic effects and suffer from problems of legitimation. These effects and problems, which are not confined to Europe, give rise to tendencies towards disintegration. My second point concerns the timing of the required learning and reforms. Modest policy proposals and tentative steps within the existing EU Treaty framework may be too little too late. The question is whether there is enough time for deeper transformations in Europe—and also globally.