'It is a horrible term for someone': service user and provider perspectives on 'personality disorder'

This paper presents findings from a study exploring the views of people with personality disorder diagnoses and various professionals working with them. After outlining the policy context and the study's conceptual framework, the aims and methods are described. Interviews were conducted with 12 service providers and 10 users. The main findings are then discussed, including user and provider perspectives on the meaning of 'personality disorder' and the strategies and support people use to address their difficulties. Finally, the theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Was ist interkulturelles Coaching? 20 Jahre und (k)ein bisschen Klarheit

Looking at the articles and books published in German and English it becomes obvious that intercultural coaching has become a field of expertise just as leadership or conflict coaching. However, the developments in the scholarly debate about intercultural and cross-cultural communication have not expanded into coaching. To avoid constrictions coaching needs to be combined systematically with a dynamic and cohesive notion of culture. Inspired by the theories of transformative learning and the sociology of knowledge three methodological meta-perspectives are introduced to reflect and use cultures in coaching. A practical coaching example illustrates how these culture reflexive perspectives can be handled. Lastly, coaching itself needs to be considered as a culture bound format.     

Educational inequality across three generations in Australia

The transfer of advantage and disadvantage across multiple generations is receiving increasing attention in the international literature; however, transfers of resources across multiple generations in Australian families are less well understood. Using a longitudinal dataset of Australian children, we have the opportunity to not only investigate the transfer of educational resources across three generations in Australia, but also investigate the gendered nature of these transfers, which has been a limitation of other studies. We find no evidence of individual grandparent education effects on numeracy and reading scores for grandchildren in Year 3, independent of parent educational attainment and other covariates. However, significant effects on numeracy and reading scores were observed for children in families where both the grandmother and grandfather in maternal and paternal grandparent sets had high educational attainment (a diploma or university qualification), and where either or both the mother and father had a university qualification. These results suggest that the contribution of grandparents to the academic achievement of grandchildren cannot be fully explained by the parent generation and that the concentration of human capital in families contributes to educational inequalities across multiple generations that can be observed by eight years of age.     

Enduring not enjoying? Emotional responses to studying abroad among Danish and Chinese students

ABSTRACT

Students’ emotions during stays abroad have mainly been treated as ”culture shock”, where difficulties are interpreted as universal ”stages” towards ”adaptation”. This paper explores how students from different cultural and educational traditions experience studying abroad differently. The study presents a qualitative study of 18 Danish and Chinese students in Chinese and Danish universities and situates itself within the literature on culture shock, student emotions and study-abroad experiences. The study exposes the students’ complex emotions throughout their studies abroad and explains how these emotions relate to processes of self-formation, professional and academic development, increase or decrease in freedom, and student agency.     

A Preliminary, Qualitative Exploration of the Influences Associated with Drop-Out from Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for Problem Gambling: An Australian Perspective

It has been estimated that 80% of Australians engage in some form of gambling, with approximately 115,000 Australians experiencing severe problems (Productivity Commission 2010). Very few people with problem gambling seek help and, of those who do, large numbers drop-out of therapy before completing their program. To gain insights into these problems, participants who had either completed or withdrawn prematurely from an individual CBT-based problem gambling treatment program were interviewed to examine factors predictive of premature withdrawal from therapy as well as people??s ??readiness?? for change. The results indicated that there might be some early indicators of risk for early withdrawal. These included: gambling for pleasure or social interaction; non-compliance with homework tasks; gambling as a strategy to avoid personal issues or dysphoric mood; high levels of guilt and shame; and a lack of readiness for change. The study further showed that application of the term ??drop-out?? to some clients may be an unnecessarily negative label in that a number appear to have been able to reduce their gambling urges even after a short exposure to therapy.     

t-Type corrected-loss estimation for error-in-variable model

In this article, we consider a linear model in which the covariates are measured with errors. We propose a t-type corrected-loss estimation of the covariate effect, when the measurement error follows the Laplace distribution. The proposed estimator is asymptotically normal. In practical studies, some outliers that diminish the robustness of the estimation occur. Simulation studies show that the estimators are resistant to vertical outliers and an application of 6-minute walk test is presented to show that the proposed method performs well.     

Comparing the U.S. Decennial Census Coverage Estimates for Children from Demographic Analysis and Coverage Measurement Surveys

Following every U.S. decennial census since 1960, the U.S. Census Bureau has evaluated the completeness of coverage using two different methods. Demographic analysis (DA) compares the census counts to a set of independent population estimates to infer coverage differences by age, sex, and race. The survey-based approach (also called dual system estimation or DSE) provides coverage estimates based on matching data from a post-enumeration survey to census records. This paper reviews the fundamentals of the two methodological approaches and then initially examines the results of these two methods for the 2010 decennial census in terms of consistency and inconsistency for age groups. The authors find that the two methods produce relatively consistent results for all age groups, except for young children. Consequently, the paper focuses on the results for children. Results of the 1990, 2000, and 2010 decennial censuses are shown for the overall population in this age group and by demographic detail (age, race, and Hispanic origin). Among children, the DA and DSE results are most inconsistent for the population aged 0–4 and most consistent for ages 10–17. Results also show that DA and DSE are more consistent for Black than non-Black populations. The authors discuss possible explanations for the differences in the two methods for young children and conclude that the DSE approach may underestimate the net undercount of young children due to correlation bias.     

Quality of employment in Latin America: Theory and evidence

Historically, the development literature concerned with Latin American labour markets has focused on job numbers and productivity. But given the persistence of large shares of informal and now otherwise precarious employment, the authors argue that meaningful analysis also requires consideration of the implications of occupational status for the quality of employment. Based on empirical evidence from recent decades, they conclude that most dimensions of this concept – including social protection – depend on the conclusion of a written contract of employment. This finding leads them to outline policy options for stabilizing formal employment and securing adequate funding for social protection.     

Using "Bud World Party" attendance to predict adolescent alcohol use and beliefs about drinking

This study explored the association between attendance at the "Bud World Party," a family entertainment venue created by Anheuser-Busch for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and alcohol-related beliefs and current drinking behaviors for a group of 7th and 8th graders who attend a middle school in close proximity to the downtown Salt Lake City plaza where the exhibit and related events were located. Data were collected via a questionnaire administered to 283 students 30 days after the closing ceremonies.. Logistic regression was used to predict recent alcohol consumption. Significant predictors were race (non-white) (OR = 3.9), religiosity (OR = .72), having a parent who drinks (OR = 4.8), the number of best friends who drink (OR = 2.5), and the interaction for "Bud World Party" attendance and gender (OR = 33.2). Post-hoc analysis of the interaction effect indicated that the relationship between "Bud World Party" attendance and recent alcohol consumption is moderated by gender. Girls who visited "Bud World Party" were more likely than the boys to have consumed alcohol in the past 30 days. In addition, the girls who visited "Bud World Party" were more likely to believe that drinking would increase their chances of popularity at school than the students who did not.     

Civil Society Opposition to Nonferrous Metals Mining in Montana

This paper discusses the opposition of civil society to nonferrous metals mining in Montana. The mineral resources and mining history of Montana are discussed, as is the vibrant civil society of that state. Montana’s civil society has opposed mining due to its environmental effects, particularly upon areas of high conservation value. This opposition has involved litigation and the implementation of a ban on the use of cyanide by the mining industry. The paper concludes with a discussion of whether this opposition to mining has damaged the economy of the state and Montana’s future as an example of the “New West,” wherein amenities based growth act as the principal agent of economic activity.