“My Kids,They Safe.”: Lived Experiences of Parents Receiving Child Neglect Allegations

Abstract

This study aims to explore parents’ lived experiences of receiving child neglect allegations and how they make sense of these experiences. The sample consists of parents who participated in a family preservation program following allegations of child neglect. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The findings suggest that parents resist neglect allegations, both by denial and minimization, partly due to their lack of clear understanding of what constitutes child neglect. Further, parents in this study tended to be reactive to meanings ascribed to the label of child neglect rather than the allegations per se. They seemed to experience internal conflict between their positive evaluations of their own parenting and what their neglect allegations might imply about their parenting. Parents also experienced emotional distress, such as concern about social stigma and fear of losing their parental rights, as they tried to make sense of their current situations. Suggested implications for practice include exploring parents’ subjective understanding of their allegations and considering their unique familial and sociocultural contexts from the outset of their involvement with child protective services (CPS) in order to build a collaborative working alliance.     

Retirement Age Considerations for Central Europe

The paper analyzes the arguments for and possible consequences of an increase in the statutory retirement age in central Europe, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The analysis reflects the current and projected demographic and economic developments, and discerns the long-term trends from the specific aspects of transition. As for the long-term trends, the paper offers a simple framework for calculation of the intergenerational transfers through pensions under different reform scenarios. The calculations confirm that, in the aging central European societies, down-sizing of the existing pay-as-you-go schemes, including an increase in the statutory retirement age, is necessary to sustain solvency and intergenerational fairness in the public provision for retirement. The paper argues, however, that proposals to increase the retirement age in central European countries need to enhance their assessment of the possible counter-productive effects, which may arise due to the low working ability, poor health status and high occupational and environmental risks faced by the population.     

Are LNG Exports in the Public Interest?

The United States has seen an enormous increase in the natural gas supply in the last three years. Several proposals to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) have been submitted and are currently under review at the Department of Energy/Office of Fossil Energy (DOE/FE). The Natural Gas Act requires the DOE/FE to consider whether the LNG exports are in the public interest before licensing export terminals. Although exporting to Free Trade Agreement member countries is de facto in the public interest, LNG exports to nonmember countries remains a hotly disputed and politically relevant question.     

Sex Classification Using the Three‐Dimensional Tibia Form or Shape Including Population Specificity Approach

The aims of this study were to enable geometric morphometric sex classification using tibial proximal and distal sexual dimorphism and to evaluate the secular trend of tibial shape/form from the early 20th century to the present day. The study samples consisted of 61 adult tibias from an early 20th‐century Czech population and 57 three‐dimensional tibias from a 21st‐century population. Discriminant function analysis with cross‐validation was carried out to assess the accuracy of sex classification. Shape analysis revealed significant sex differences in both tibial extremities of the 21st‐century sample and in the proximal tibia of the 20th‐century population. Sex‐based divergence varied between the analyzed samples, raising the issues of population specificity and diachronic change. Classification using tibial form was more successful than using tibial shape. The highest values of correct assignment (91.80% and 88.52%) were found using the form from the early 20th Czech population.     

Outside the brackets: Why school administrators fail to see gendered harassment within an antibullying law

Much of school bullying involves students policing the gender roles and sexuality of other students. The proliferation of antibullying laws presents an opportunity to formally punish and mark gendered harassment as unacceptable. However, when this form of peer policing involves girls, administrators often consider it to fall outside the purview of the law. We use bracketing theory to understand how middle school administrators in New Jersey assess whether student behavior violates a statewide harassment, intimidation, and bullying law. We find that, according to administrators, violations require relational asymmetry between an aggressor and victim: an imbalance of power and disproportionate participation. Administrators rarely see gendered harassment as bullying because of the relational stereotypes they attach to girl students, which often preclude interpretations of relational asymmetry. We discuss how gender beliefs among administrators and “bracketing failures” explain the ways antibullying laws allow hegemonic beliefs about gender and sexuality to remain untroubled.     

Are groups a good thing? Evaluating group associations among vegetable farmers in Freetown,Sierra Leone

Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) is a widespread feature in sub-Saharan African cities, and has become particularly important in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Recent surveys have revealed the importance of UPA in Freetown as a method for generating food, income, and employment. Government and NGOs have encouraged urban farmers to group together into farming associations so that advice and inputs can be provided. Little information currently exists about the functioning of these associations, and whether their effectiveness might be improved. This paper draws upon recent field-based research in which the experiences of members in six different farming associations were investigated.     

The Phantom of the Good Soldier Švejk in the Czech Army Accession to NATO (2001–2002)

The article is based on the author’s ethnographic fieldwork in the Czech Armed Forces (2001–2002) in which she focused on the process of military professionalization—a set of extensive institutional reforms initiated upon the Czech Republic’s accession to NATO. She shows that these reforms were not limited to the military sector and involved efforts on the part of the state officials and the media to change the position of the military in the public sphere and culture. The goal of these changes was to bring the image of seriousness to the discredited Czech military, a process that demanded the obliteration of the cultural idiom of Švejk—a literary hero of the 1920s novel by Jaroslav Hašek and the representation of a peaceful resistance to war and military violence. In the course of the twentieth century, Švejk has become one of the most pervasive cultural references of the popular laughter at oppressive military power and has been a leading cultural idiom for the Czechs during the 30 years of German and Soviet military occupations. The article shows how the current official efforts at changing the image of the Czech military focus on the obliteration of Švejk’s cultural idiom, bringing him so frequently to the public discourse that they produce a phantom-like effect in which Švejk has come to haunt the process directed at his expurgation. The established cultural idiom of skepticism toward the army and military bureaucracy thus challenges the transition from communism to democracy and questions the reliance on military force, the imagery of violent conflicts, and just wars as necessary tools of politics.     

Two dimensions of the Europeanization of election programs: The case of the Czech Republic

This article represents a contribution to the debate over the Europeanization of political parties, one of the hot topics in contemporary political science. It explores the extent of Europeanization in political parties represented in the lower chamber of the Parliament of the Czech Republic by means of an analysis of party election manifestoes. The extent of Europeanization in these documents is analyzed using a bi-dimensional conceptualization. The first we call the quantitative dimension, assesses the space taken by the topic of European integration in each manifesto. The second one we call the qualitative dimension. This, using the analysis of content, measures the degree to which the European integration issue is elaborated in the programs. Using this conceptualization, we analyze the election manifestoes of five Czech political parties in the period 1996–2006.     

Adolescents’ Empathy and Prosocial Behavior in the Family Context: A Longitudinal Study

Children’s empathy and prosocial behavior play an important role in their social competence. Of the influential factors, research has demonstrated that parental behaviors and the quality of the parent–child relationship are important correlates of children’s development of empathy and prosocial behavior. The current study examined the associations between different types of parental behaviors (i.e., parental knowledge, parental solicitation, and parental psychological control), “balanced connectedness” in the parent–child relationship, which allows for both closeness and autonomy, and empathy and prosocial behavior in adolescents. The participants were 335 married couples (more than 80 % European American) and their adolescent child (49.0 % female; 10–13 years). Data were collected at three time points for parental behaviors, balanced parent–child connectedness, and adolescents’ empathy and prosocial behavior, respectively. The results of structural equation modeling suggested that adolescents’ perceptions of parental solicitation and parental psychological control may be associated with their empathy and prosocial behavior through their perceived balanced connectedness with parents. These findings suggest that enhancing balanced connectedness in the parent–child relationship may contribute to promoting empathy and prosocial behavior in adolescents over time. Further, this study suggests that parental solicitation may play a role in adolescents’ empathic and prosocial development, possibly depending on the quality of the parent–child relationship.     

Who Is Exposed to Harmful Online Content? The Role of Risk and Protective Factors Among Czech,Finnish, and Spanish Adolescents

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Although adolescents’ exposure to harmful online content has been linked to decreased subjective well-being and offline risky behaviors, there is limited...