Sexual Health Services for Homeless Youth: A Qualitative Analysis of their Experiences

The sexual health problems experienced by homeless youth bring into question their use of available sexual health services. Using a qualitative typological analysis, this study aims to identify sexual health services utilization profiles for homeless youth, and to understand the role of the homeless experience on the utilization of sexual health services. Individual interviews were conducted with 33 homeless youth (17 men, 16 women) between 18 and 25?years of age. Typological analysis identified four profiles: (1) a targeted use of sexual health services to determine one’s serological status following a relational change during the homeless experience; (2) a limited use of sexual health services to manage sexual emergencies that arise during the homeless experience; (3) a regular use of sexual health services to avoid the risks associated with the homeless experience; (4) a frequent use of sexual health services to obtain support when engaging in prostitution during the homeless experience. This study shows that the precarious and unstable conditions within the homeless experience incite youth to utilize sexual health services in different ways. These findings point to the importance of rethinking sexual health services to better adapt them to the different utilization profiles of homeless youth.     

Building inclusion,maintaining marginality: how social and health services act as capital for young substance users

This paper draws on Bourdieusian concepts to examine the social mechanisms driving service ‘choices’ for marginalised young substance users. In doing so, it problematises the individualised understandings of ‘choice-making’ common in the existing literature. The paper uses interview data collected from 26 young substance users to describe the resources they bring to their service encounters, the capitals that they acquire through these interactions, and the ways in which these are mobilised within the fields in which they operate. The analysis finds that services acted as capital-building settings – participants acquired material resources and opportunities for skill-building, and they built relationships that contributed to a positive sense of identity and belonging. But the exchange potentials attached to these capitals were restricted by the logics of service fields that cast them as deficit and limited their opportunities to build productive forms of social capital. By revealing the social mechanisms behind service ‘choices’, the analysis suggests that the most effective services are those that maximise the opportunities for their young clients to build ‘weak ties’, such as with a diverse range of adults who themselves possess resources, and those that acknowledge the identities that young people already possess as rational and self-managing.     

Does the Role of Student Factors with Adolescent Substance Use Vary by Geography?

This study assesses the association of 12th-grade student factors (e.g., grades, classroom misbehaviors) with substance use (i.e., binge drinking, cigarette smoking, marijuana) across large, medium-sized, and nonmetropolitan areas. Based on a sample of 2,189 students from the 2013 Monitoring the Future data set, logistic regression analyses showed that poor student academic and behavioral factors were associated with higher substance use after controlling for gender, race, and socioeconomic status. Interaction analyses further showed no significant differences in the influence of student factors on substance use across locales. Results suggest that prevention efforts against substance use should target student factors regardless of area of residency.     

Relearning to Live Life Without Substances: A Grounded Theory of the Impact of Group Physical Exercise on Sobriety

Research has found significant benefits in using exercise as an adjunct treatment for substance use. This study used a qualitative grounded theory approach to explore the role of group exercise on maintaining sobriety. Sixteen persons (13 White men and 3 White women, age M = 31.81, SD = 8.23), recruited from a substance use recovery group that meets at a gym in an urban area in the Southeast part of the United States, were individually interviewed. Data were analyzed using Charmaz’s (2006) constructivist grounded theory strategies. Central themes revealed a parallel process between the steps taken to seek sobriety and those taken to maintain sobriety. The driving forces of sobriety success in both was 12 steps and group exercise programming that included elements of mentorship, structure, accountability, and fellowship or community. This study supported the use of physical group exercise as an adjunct treatment option for substance use treatment.     

Parents' Family Time and Work Schedules: The Split‐Shift Schedule in Spain

This study used data on couples from the 2003 Spanish Time Use Survey (N = 1,416) to analyze how work schedules are associated with family, couple, parent–child, and non‐family leisure activities. Spain is clearly an interesting case for the institutionalized split‐shift schedule, a long lunch break rooted in the traditional siesta that splits the workday between morning and evening. Results showed strong negative associations between the split shift and both family and parent–child activities. The evening shift was negatively associated with couple and family time, but not with parent–child time. Women spent much more time than men in parent–child activities for all work categories, and they were more responsive to the spouse's work hours. Men were substantially more active than women in non‐family leisure, considering both individuals' and their spouses' work schedules. Altogether, this study has important implications for scientific and public policy debates.     

From Source to Evidence? Teachers' Use of Historical Sources in Their Classrooms

To explore questions in history and to construct historical narratives, historians work with evidence from the past. This approach to teaching history (inquiry involving the use of evidence) is an accepted part of the research on history teaching and is promoted widely in standards frameworks and practitioner publications as “good history instruction.” What happens in a standards-based setting where teachers are covering large bodies of content? Do teachers use sources as part of their daily instruction? If so, how? We were afforded the unique opportunity to spend time observing what 35 teachers do by analyzing 352 videos submitted over a 4-year time span. We observed a spectrum of source use within and across teacher practice. In this article we share what we noticed.     

Processes Employed by Social Work Practitioners in Child Welfare for Exchanging and Using Knowledge

Organisations in the health and social services sector expend a considerable amount of energy promoting the implementation of better practices and research data use in their establishments. In the field of social work, several studies suggest that social work practitioners do not make great use of scientific knowledge and tend to favour knowledge acquired from their colleagues or through their own occupational experience. However, interactions between types of knowledge are rarely analyzed in explanations proposed by the scientific literature. Based on research conducted with social work practitioners in child welfare, this article discusses the different ways that they acquire knowledge.     

‘Back to our Roots?’ Re-visiting psychoanalytically-informed baby and young child observation in the education of student social workers

While there is a well-established literature on psychoanalytically-informed baby and young child observation in social work education, little has been published recently. This paper reviews the rationale for its use, evaluating its impact on students’ learning in the light of contemporary policy and practice contexts facing social work education. Analysis of feedback gained from a recent cohort, identifies three ways in which learning through baby and young child observation contributes: firstly, students encounter and learn about the complexity of child development from the direct experience of observing and secondly, observing facilitates the development of important skills for practice; students’ ‘use of self’. Thirdly, through observing, students describe how they develop the capacity to take-up and sustain a professional role. Well-structured teaching and learning through observation is therefore shown to provide a rigorous, theoretically-grounded contribution to the training of university-based social work students entering this complex and challenging professional field.     

Asking about the future: methodological insights from energy biographies

Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal (QLL) research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a QLL and multimodal approach to investigating how everyday energy use can be understood in relation to biographical pasts and imagined futures. In particular, we detail innovative techniques developed within the project (e.g. SMS photograph activities) to elicit data on anticipated futures, in ways that engender thinking about participants’ own biographical futures and wider societal changes. We conclude by considering some of the significant benefits and challenges such techniques present. These methodological insights have a wider relevance beyond the substantive topic for those interested in eliciting data about futures in qualitative research.