Local links, local knowledge : choosing care settings and schools

This paper draws on data from two recently completed ESRC-funded projects in order to examine class differences and similarities around choice of school and choice of childcare. We argue here that there is every reason to believe that in many circumstances, within its particular mechanisms and practices, choice produces specific and pervasive forms of inequity.The processes by which working class parents in one study chose care settings and schools could be seen as less skilled, less informed, less careful than the decision-making of many of the middle class respondents. However, this is not an argument we advance, noting instead that the practices and meanings of choice are subject to significant social, cultural and economic variations in terms who gets to choose, who gets their choices, and what, how and why people choose when they are able to. We argue here that there are alternative sets of priorities in play for our working class respondents, involving attachments to the communal and the local

'I'm so much more myself now, coming back to work' - working class mothers, paid work and childcare

This paper explores the ways in which working class mothers negotiate mothering and paid work. Drawing on interviews with 70 families with pre-school children, we examine how caring and working responsibilities are conceptualised and presented in mothers’ narratives. Mothers showed a high degree of commitment to paid work and, in contrast to findings from an earlier study with middle class and professional mothers, did not feel that keeping their children at home with them was always the best option for the children. We suggest that working class mothers in the labour market remain at risk of being defined as inadequate mothers because of a middle class emphasis on intense maternal engagement with the child as a key aspect of ‘good’ mothering

'I think a lot of it is common sense...' Early Years students, professionalism and the development of a vocational habitus

This paper reports on research from a small-scale project investigating the vocational training of students in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in England. We draw on data from interviews with 42 students and five tutors in order to explore the students’ understandings of professionalism in early years. In the paper, we discuss first, the then Labour Government’s drive to ‘professionalise’ the workforce and second, critically analyse the concept of professionalism, drawing on sociological literature. We then turn to the data, and argue that students’ understandings of professionalism are limited to generic understandings of ‘professional’ behaviour (reliability, politeness, punctuality and so on). The idea of their occupation being a repository of a particular knowledge and skills set is undercut by the students’ emphasis on work with young children being largely a matter of ‘common sense’. Our fourth point is to highlight the processes by which students are inducted into a respectable and responsible carer identity, as illustrated by an emphasis on clothes and appearance. We conclude that the version of professionalism offered to students training at this level is highly constrained, and discuss the implications of this

African American Male Initiative

The Kirwan Institute presents a call to action to close gaps in the literature on African-American males and to move forward with policy solutions based on what is already known. The paper summarizes findings from an extensive literature review, a national advisory board and a national conference, and a project on mapping opportunity

Violent Behavior During Psychiatric Inpatient Treatment in a German Prison Hospital

Violent behavior in correctional facilities is common and differs substantially in type, target, implication, and trigger. Research on frequency and characteristics of violent behavior in correctional facilities and psychiatric hospitals is limited. Results from recent research suggest that comorbidity of severe mental disorder, personality disorder, and diagnosis of substance abuse is related to a higher risk of violent behavior. In the Berlin prison hospital, a database was created to collect data from all violent incidences (n=210) between 1997 and 2006 and between 2010 and 2016. In a retrospective, case-control study, we analyzed specific socioeconomic data and psychiatric diagnosis and compared the group of prisoners with violent behavior with randomly selected prisoners of the same department without violent behavior (n = 210). Diagnosis of schizophrenia, non-German nationality, no use of an interpreter, no children, and no previous sentence remained significantly associated with the dependent variable violent behavior. There were no significant differences regarding age and legal statuses. Practical implications for clinical work are discussed

Dielectric Properties of Materials Showing Constant-Phase-Element (CPE) Impedance Response

Constant-Phase Elements (CPE) are often used to fit impedance data arising from a broad range of experimental systems. Four approaches were used to interpret CPE parameters associated with the impedance response of human skin and two metal oxides in terms of characteristic frequencies and film thickness. The values obtained with each approach were compared against independent measurements. The power-law model developed recently by Hirschorn et al.1,2 provided the most reliable interpretation for systems with a normal distribution of properties. Readers are cautioned that the CPE parameter Q does not provide an accurate value for capacitance, even when the CPE exponent α is greater than 0.9

Listening Ability and Manual Dexterity of Stenography Students.

Listening ability and manual dexterity as possible factors for success in shorthand were the subjects of this study. Investigated also were the possible increases in listening ability and manual dexterity due to a course in shorthand. The experimental-control groups, pretest-posttest desig