The experience of sole mothers balancing paid work with care for a child with a disability

There are increasing numbers of families in Australia headed by sole parents, but little is known about the experiences of those who also care for a child with a disability. Additional caring responsibilities have previously been shown to impact on the work participation of parents. This study involved qualitative analyses of interview data conducted with sole mothers with school‐aged children with disability (N = 11). Thematic analysis revealed four themes that enabled and supported participation in the workforce: social support; managing appointments; characteristics of the workplace; and the role of the school. Results suggest the importance of practical help from family and friends in facilitating participation in paid employment. Additionally, the importance of flexible appointment scheduling on the part of service providers was highlighted, as well as the importance of workplace flexibility and supportive workplace cultures. Such factors were important in supporting sole mothers to balance work with care, with important implications for personal and family wellbeing.     

Chinatown 2.0: the difficult flowering of an ethnically themed shopping area

Right in Amsterdam’s picturesque Canal Zone, on and around Zeedijk, Chinese entrepreneurs have carved out a presence in what seems like the local Chinatown. The businessmen have been targeting Asian and non-Asian customers by offering products that – to an extent – can be associated with Asia, China in particular. Since the early 1990s, individual entrepreneurs and their business organisations have campaigned for official acknowledgement of Zeedijk as an ethnic-only district and for governmental support of the enhancement of Chineseness. Following Hackworth and Rekers. [(2005). “Ethnic Packaging and Gentrification. The Case of Four Neighborhoods in Toronto.” Urban Affairs Review 41 (2): 211–236], we argue that this case challenges traditional understandings of ethnic commercial landscapes. In sharp contrast to the current orthodoxy, which would conceive the proliferation of such an ‘ethnic enclave’ as part of a larger process of assimilation, we have approached Amsterdam’s Chinatown first and foremost as a themed economic space: Chinese and other entrepreneurs compete for a share of the market and in doing also for the right to claim the identity of the area. What is the historical development of the Zeedijk area, how did Chinese entrepreneurs and their associations try to boost Chinatown and negotiate public Chineseness, and how did governmental and non-governmental institutional actors respond to those attempts?     

Understanding the demographic implications of climate change: estimates of localized population predictions under future scenarios of sea-level rise

Significant advances have been made to understand the interrelationship between humans and the environment in recent years, yet research has not produced useful localized estimates that link population forecasts to environmental change. Coarse, static population estimates that have little information on projected growth or spatial variability mask substantial impacts of environmental change on especially vulnerable populations. We estimate that 20 million people in the United States will be affected by sea-level rise by 2030 in selected regions that represent a range of sociodemographic characteristics and corresponding risks of vulnerability. Our results show that the impact of sea-level rise extends beyond the directly impacted counties due to migration networks that link inland and coastal areas and their populations. Substantial rates of population growth and migration are serious considerations for developing mitigation, adaptation, and planning strategies, and for future research on the social, demographic, and political dimensions of climate change.     

Exploring the Impact of Social Axioms on Firm Reputation: A Stakeholder Perspective

This study proposes a model of how deeply held beliefs, known as ‘social axioms, moderate the interaction between reputation, its causes and consequences with stakeholders. It contributes to the stakeholder relational field of reputation theory by explaining why the same organizational stimuli lead to different individual stakeholder responses. The study provides a shift in reputation research from organizational‐level stimuli as the root causes of stakeholder responses to exploring the interaction between individual beliefs and organizational stimuli in determining reputational consequences. Building on a conceptual model that incorporates product/service quality and social responsibility as key reputational dimensions, the authors test empirically for moderating influences, in the form of social axioms, between reputation‐related antecedents and consequences, using component‐based structural equation modelling (n = 204). In several model paths, significant differences are found between responses of individuals identified as either high or low on social cynicism, fate control and religiosity. The results suggest that stakeholder responses to reputation‐related stimuli can be systematically predicted as a function of the interactions between the deeply held beliefs of individuals and these stimuli. The authors offer recommendations on how strategic reputation management can be approached within and across stakeholder groups at a time when firms grapple with effective management of diverse stakeholder expectations.     

History, causality, and sexology

In 1896, Krafft-Ebing published Psychopathia Sexualis. Popularly defined as hereditary weakness or taintedness in the family pedigree, degeneracy was called upon as a causal explanation for perversions of the sexual instinct. Although Krafft-Ebing accepted Karl Ulrichs proposal that homosexuality could be innate and probably located in the brain, he paid little attention to neuropathological sexology. Alfred Binet challenged Krafft-Ebing's orthodoxy by explaining fetishism in terms of associative learning, to which Krafft-Ebing's response was that only those with a hereditary taint would be vulnerable. Thus did the venerable nature-nurture antithesis maintain its rhetoric, even to the present day. Krafft-Ebing died too soon to meet the Freudian challenge of endopsychic determinism, and too soon also to encounter the idea of a developmental multivariate outcome of what I have termed the lovemap. Like other brain maps, for example the languagemap, the lovemap requires an intact human brain in which to develop. The personalized content of the lovemap has access to the brain by way of the special senses.     

Prison sexology: Two personal accounts of masturbation,homosexuality, and rape

As revealed in two unrelated reports from prison inmates, the sexology of all‐male incarceration subdivides into masturbation, wet dreams, and partner contacts in association with heterosexual imagery; consenting homosexual pairing with one partner exclusively androphilic and the other bisexual; coercive partnerships with one partner dominating but not injuring the other and neither being permanently and exclusively androphilic; and violent homosexual rape. The long‐term outcomes of prison celibacy and homosexuality are not presently known. These outcomes need to be studied systematically and prospectively. It is suggested that it is illogical to punish sex offenders by incarcerating them in an environment that breeds sex offending. A system of conjugal visitation, and possibly of family living in prison, is a more logical, and probably the only alternative to institutionalized sexual brutality and homosexuality that is situationally evoked.     

The serene student: Evaluating a group-based mindfulness training program for MSW students

ABSTRACT

Social work educators are exploring the benefits of mindfulness training for social work pedagogy. The authors evaluate the outcomes of a mindfulness program for MSW students. The authors assessed changes in mindfulness, self-compassion, affect, mood, and impairment due to emotional distress before and after the program, and at 4-month follow-up. The authors examine how the group process may facilitate the development of mindfulness and consider how mindfulness practices can support group development and student learning. Results demonstrate that mindfulness training supports student self-regulation and well-being and suggest that the active ingredients of the group process may play a role in mindfulness training outcomes.     

Rate of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus Transmission by Carriers Quantified from Experimental Data

Upon infection with foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) a considerable number of animals become carriers of the virus. These carriers are considered to be a risk for new outbreaks, but the rate at which these animals can transmit the infection has not been quantified. An analysis was carried out using data from previously published experiments in order to quantify the transmission rate parameter β of FMDV infection from carriers to susceptible animals. The parameter β was estimated at 0.0256 (likelihood-based confidence interval: 0.008–0.059) infections per carrier per month. Moreover, analysis of published experimental data indicates that the proportion of FMDV carriers decreases at a rate of 0.115 per month. Both parameters obtained from this study are useful for quantitative risk analyses of the trade of animals from FMDV-infected areas or the lifting of vaccination programs.