Staff experiences of working in a Sexual Assault Referral Centre: the impacts and emotional tolls of working with traumatised people

This study considers the impacts on staff of supporting people who have reported sexual violence and attend a Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC). This paper focuses on the staff’s perspectives of the stresses and emotional tolls they experience including the coping mechanisms they utilise. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 staff, and a focus group was held with a further four staff of a SARC. The data were examined using thematic analysis. Findings indicated that staff experienced positive emotions connected to the meaningfulness of the work and team spirit as well as a range of unpleasant emotions. Staff also reported emotional numbing, in connection to the specificity, volume and sometimes unpredictable nature of the work. Coping mechanisms used by staff focused on the supportive connection to family, nature, and other team members; the value of clinical supervision; and the avoidance of topics related to work.     

Co-constituting narrative: the role of researcher identity bids in qualitative interviews with women ex-offenders

Narrative criminology draws upon the stories of the research participants to better understand crime. These narratives are shaped not only by a range of structural, institutional and individual factors, but by dynamics within the interview itself. As both participant and interviewer deploy narrative techniques, they co-constitute identity meanings during the interview process. This study examines interviews with 30 women recently released from incarceration to identify ways that the researcher constructed and “bid” for identity meanings through narrative during the interview process. Specifically analyzed are the researcher’s “small stories” put forth in response to participants during the interview exchange. Ultimately, the co-constitutive nature of interview dynamics suggest that the researcher’s identity bids via small stories have implications for how participants assert their own identity meanings, account for their experiences, and ultimately orient or conceptualize their futures.     

“Because you’ve got faith it doesn’t mean that you’ve got wings on your back”: a qualitative analysis of the accounts of Christian prisoners serving time for a sexual offence

Religious beliefs have been variously promulgated as both protective and risk factors for sexual reoffending. Moreover, therapists working with religious prisoners struggle with unravelling cognitive distortions embedded within religious views, with concerns about accusations of prejudice salient in their mindset. This paper presents a novel contribution to research by combining the qualitative analysis of the accounts offered by individuals (n?=?12) convicted of sexual offences who describe themselves as Christians. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. This paper focuses on two superordinate themes: (i) The God Effect and (ii) The Shadow Side of Religion. Implications of this research are discussed with reference to the assessment of dynamic risk and protective factors with religious individuals who have been convicted of a sexual offence.     

Munchausen by Proxy: A Qualitative Investigation into Online Perceptions of Medical Child Abuse

In Munchausen by proxy (MBP) maltreatment, increasingly termed “medical child abuse” (MCA), a caregiver fabricates or induces illness in another. The perpetrator's goal for the behavior is to meet personal emotional needs by forcing unnecessary or misguided medical or psychological treatment. Generally, a mother is the perpetrator and her child is the victim. There is a serious lack of research into most aspects of MCA, and this study is the first to utilize the anonymity of an Internet forum to investigate victims' first‐hand experiences of, and the public's opinions about, suspected and confirmed MCA. Three‐hundred and fifty‐six posts by 348 members were explored and coded using formal qualitative content analysis. By accessing an open‐thought online forum, this paper acquired information regarding social perceptions about the nonperpetrating partners who are unaware of the maltreatment; the disturbing and counterintuitive phenomenon of MCA itself; and the resistance often faced by those who attempt to report it.     

裂解气相色谱法检验静电复印墨粉

静电复印墨粉是复印文件检验的重要组成部分。本文通过电熨斗加热提取纸张上的墨粉,排除了纸张的平扰,用裂解气相色谱法对9个厂家共23个型号的墨粉进行检验。研究表明。该方法灵敏度高,分辨能力强,区分率可达到90.3％,是一种有效的检验方法。     

Community mobilisation and HIV activism in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

Community mobilisation and activism is thought to encourage HIV testing and treatment and assist patient recovery. This article draws on interviews conducted with 60 people living with, and affected by HIV, in four marginalised areas of Harare, Zimbabwe. The lenses of civil society and social movements are used to analyse how people living with HIV draw on, and construct, systems of support based on the ways in which their communities know and understand the epidemic. I consider how neighbourhoods negotiate and assert community and individual needs in relation to HIV and how such systems can develop into community networks and wider coalitions. The article concludes by positing that, by interrogating official responses to the epidemic, HIV-related activism and social movements can help to domesticate formal commitments to international health protocols and compliance, particularly in terms of the intent, as well as the participatory rhetoric, of health based rights.     

Relating rationality to context: interinstitutional complexity and embedded individual agency within industrial training in the UK tableware sector

ABSTRACT

The central contribution of this paper lies in showing a need to consider the complexity of interinstitutional systems, thereby more effectively relate rationality to context. Drawing on an institutional logics perspective, it presents a study of workplace training in a particular industrial sector in the UK: ceramic production. While identifying a vicious circle in the form of, what can be termed, a ‘high-quality/low-(formal-)skill’ system state, rather than simply privileging structure over action, findings show embedded individual agency. Besides being directed by goals, interests and self-seeking behaviour, a dominant logic for senior management personnel towards technology and home-based production was guided by issues of social identity and identification. ‘Nested’ in different opportunities and constraints presented at the levels of organizations and institutions, this individual-level logic was translated into not one, but two alternative corporate logics towards existing state-led intermediate-level workforce training arrangements. Both perpetuated a low-(formal-)skill situation in the sector.     

Political research and practitioner approaches: a review of the research methods used in voting behaviour research

Quantitative research has been the dominant methodological approach used to study voting behaviour. There is an emerging recognition, however, that there are alternative ways of attempting to understand how voters decide. The academic preoccupation with measurement, reliability, validity and generalisability may obscure some of the findings that are uncovered by practitioners using qualitative research. Practitioners of politics, both in the USA and the UK, tend to utilise both methods when formulating policy and exploring voter attitudes towards these policies. This paper will review the arguments for each tradition and examine the apparent divergence of practitioner and academic political research. Finally, it will look at how both positivist and interpretivist methods can be utilised to complement each other when attempting to build a picture of voting behaviour. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Are there really two cultures? A pilot study on the application of qualitative and quantitative methods in political science

In their 2012 publication A Tale of Two Cultures, Gary Goertz and James Mahoney argue that empirical research in the social sciences aiming at causal inference can be differentiated into a qualitative and a quantitative methodological culture. The two cultures differ fundamentally in how researchers approach and implement empirical studies. The argument is well laid out and comprehensively illustrated, but the empirical validity of the two cultures hypothesis has not yet been evaluated systematically. This note introduces a research project that aims to test the two cultures hypothesis via an empirical analysis of how qualitative and quantitative methods are applied. To determine whether there is a qualitative and quantitative method culture, the researchers initially sampled 30 articles from three journals (Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, World Politics) in the 2008–2012 period. Based on this dataset, no evidence was found for the existence of coherent systems of methods practices in political science.     

The politics of external approval: Explaining the IMF's evaluation of austerity programmes

During the European debt crisis, numerous states launched austerity programmes. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) evaluates and forecasts the likelihood of member states’ success in implementing these programmes. Although IMF evaluations influence country risk perceptions on capital markets, little is known about their reasoning. This article uses fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore on what grounds the IMF evaluated the success prospects of austerity programmes during the European debt crisis. Results reveal that IMF evaluations are heavily influenced by the programme's implementation credibility. They require a tractable policy problem, a country's institutional capacity to structure implementation, and favour expenditure reduction over revenue measures. By acting as a strict guide on the road to fiscal adjustment, the IMF indirectly influences member states’ scope of policy making through its surveillance activities. Extensive austerity programmes that need to be implemented swiftly are evaluated negatively if the country is not involved in an IMF programme.