The “what” and “who” of co-optation: gendered racialized migrations,settler nation-states and postcolonial difference

In this article, I focus on the management of postcolonial difference and the production of belonging in a white settler nation-state in order to rethink the notion of co-optation. I first develop a theoretical framework for understanding co-optation by separating the “who” and the “what” of co-optation: actors who embody diversity in public, political debate become the “who” of co-optation, as their agency is shaped by gendered and racialized processes of subject making. The “what” of co-optation revolves around particular conceptualizations of practices, rights and freedoms, associated in this case with “gender equality,” which is rendered an empty signifier in the process. I then illustrate this framework by drawing from research on the Sharia-based arbitration debate that took place in Ontario, Canada, between late 2003 and early 2006. I focus on the claims of two Canadian Muslim women activists to show that co-optation occurs as attempts to further liberation instead advance illiberal practices.     

The political is the personal: women’s participation in Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement

This article examines women’s lived experiences as new activists in social movements. Taiwanese women – many of them housewives – joined the Sunflower Movement, a large-scale protest against a trade pact with China, and a related anti-nuclear movement in 2014. This study demonstrates how new women activists’ everyday political practices mutually construct the public and private spheres in the Taiwanese context. By ‘making private public’, these new activists use discourses of citizenship and maternalism to connect politics to social issues and daily life. Public participation makes these women feel empowered, and their daily actions transform politics from a set of formal, institutionalized practices to a practical fact of everyday life. This research also challenges the reproduction of a rigid private/public division in previous feminist scholarship that regards family and childcare as a separate realm that hinders women’s public participation. In a marked break from past accounts, these women don’t separate their caring responsibilities from their political actions. By focusing on new activists’ political action in and through their family and childcare, this research calls into question scholarly discussions that view maternalism primarily as a public discourse for mobilizing women or a visual strategy for collective protest. By considering the disruptive potential of all acts of mothering, this study paints a more complex and nuanced picture of women and mothers as protesters and reveals how activist women’s actions in the family and private social networks can be a central part of maternalist strategies’ radical potential.     

Indigenous Knowledge,Beliefs, and Cultural Practices for Children and Families in Nigeria

This study examined the indigenous cultural practices that impact the well-being of children and families at five sites in Nigeria. Fifteen community leaders participated in semi-structured interviews, and 78 community members participated in focus group discussions in their communities. Responses were analyzed using a grounded theory and thematic analysis approach. Three cultural practices are discussed: the naming ceremony of the child, the use of Oríkì, and the care of children and family by relatives. Overall, the cultural practices largely reflected the indigenous knowledge and beliefs of the local context. Implications for social work are discussed.     

Prospects for Examining Perceived Choice and Control Among Older Adults Living With Family

This review aims to advance the field of aging research by examining coresidence with family, race, and other characteristics as potential determinants of choice and control in older adults. Living with family likely impacts perceived choice and control, as household members often work together to make decisions about care. Race may also influence choice and control, as an accumulation of challenges and opportunities create unique life experiences. This review considers human agency in its examination of choice and control. Suggestions for future research will be discussed.     

Forensic Evaluation of Deaf Individuals: Challenges and Strategies

ABSTRACT

Forensic evaluation of deaf individuals presents unique challenges due to many examinees’ fund of information deficits, potential for language deprivation, and examiners’ frequent lack of creativity regarding communication methods. This article describes challenges most frequently encountered in competency to stand trial and criminal responsibility evaluations and offers strategies for overcoming them. The value of employing multiple communication methods, especially the use of illustrations, is emphasized. Suggestions also are offered regarding preparing evaluation reports and effectively communicating “key deaf fundamentals” to legal personnel. Encouragement is offered for qualified, sign-fluent professionals to engage in forensic work.     

Predicting Attitudes Toward Lesbian and Gay Parent Families Among Portuguese Students from Helping Professions

The authors' goal was to characterize predictors of attitudes toward lesbian and gay parent families (LGPF), held by students enrolled in psychology, social work, medicine, nursing, elementary, and preschool education programs in Portugal. The authors examined the predictive value of students' (n = 600) sociodemographic characteristics when assessing their attitudes toward LGPF. Participant's gender, interpersonal contact with lesbians and gay men, gender role attitudes had indirect effects on attitudes toward LGPF, through attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Understanding characteristics associated with attitudes toward LGPF may inform decisions in terms of the education and training of helping professionals.     

Continuity of f-projections and applications to the iterative proportional fitting procedure*

This paper proves continuity of f-projections and the continuous dependence of the limit matrix of the iterative proportional fitting procedure (IPF procedure) on the given matrix as well as the given marginals under certain regularity constraints. For finite spaces, the concept of f-projections of finite measures on a compact and convex set is introduced and continuity of f-projections is proven. This result is applied to the IPF procedure. Given a nonnegative matrix as well as row and column marginals the IPF procedure generates a sequence of matrices, called the IPF sequence, by alternately fitting rows and columns to match their respective marginals. The procedure is equivalent to cyclic f-projections. If the IPF sequence converges, the application of the continuity of f-projections yields the continuous dependence of the limit matrix on the given matrix. By generalized convex programming and under some constraints, it is shown that the limit matrix of the IPF sequence continuously depends not only on the given matrix but also on the marginals.     

Variable selection for semiparametric proportional hazards model under progressive Type-II censoring

Variable selection is an effective methodology for dealing with models with numerous covariates. We consider the methods of variable selection for semiparametric Cox proportional hazards model under the progressive Type-II censoring scheme. The Cox proportional hazards model is used to model the influence coefficients of the environmental covariates. By applying Breslow’s “least information” idea, we obtain a profile likelihood function to estimate the coefficients. Lasso-type penalized profile likelihood estimation as well as stepwise variable selection method are explored as means to find the important covariates. Numerical simulations are conducted and Veteran’s Administration Lung Cancer data are exploited to evaluate the performance of the proposed method.     

Monitoring the coefficient of variation using a variable sample size and sampling interval control chart

This article proposes a CV chart by using the variable sample size and sampling interval (VSSI) feature to improve the performance of the basic CV chart, for detecting small and moderate shifts in the CV. The proposed VSSI CV chart is designed by allowing the sample size and the sampling interval to vary. The VSSI CV chart's statistical performance is measured by using the average time to signal (ATS) and expected average time to signal (EATS) criteria and is compared with that of existing CV charts. The Markov chain approach is employed in the design of the chart.     

Bootstrap methods for multivariate hypothesis testing

The nonparametric and parametric bootstrap methods for multivariate hypothesis testing are developed. They are used to approximate the null distribution of the test statistics proposed by Duchesne and Francq (2015 Duchesne, P., Francq, C. (2015). Multivariate hypothesis testing using generalized and {2}-inverses—with applications. Statistics 49:475–496.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), resulting in bootstrap testing procedures. In the problem of testing for the mean vector of a multivariate distribution, the asymptotic validity of the bootstrap methods is proved. The finite sample performance of the new solutions is demonstrated by means of Monte Carlo simulation studies. They indicate that for small-sample size, the bootstrap tests provide a better finite sample properties than the asymptotic tests considered by Duchesne and Francq (2015 Duchesne, P., Francq, C. (2015). Multivariate hypothesis testing using generalized and {2}-inverses—with applications. Statistics 49:475–496.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).