The extent of community and public support available to families caring for orphans in Malawi.

There are an estimated 15 million AIDS orphans worldwide. Families play an important role in safeguarding orphans, but they may be increasingly compromised by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The international aid community has recognized the need to help families continue caring for orphaned children by strengthening their safety nets. Before we build new structures, however, we need to know the extent to which community and public safety nets already provide support to families with orphans. To address this gap, we analyzed nationally representative data from 27,495 children in the 2004-2005 Malawi Integrated Household Survey. We found that communities commonly assisted orphan households through private transfers; organized responses to the orphan crisis were far less frequent. Friends and relatives provided assistance to over 75% of orphan households through private gifts, but the value of such support was relatively low. Over 40% of orphans lived in a community with support groups for the chronically ill and approximately a third of these communities provided services specifically for orphans and other vulnerable children. Public programs, which form a final safety net for vulnerable households, were more widespread. Free/subsidized agricultural inputs and food were the most commonly used public safety nets by children's households in the past year (44 and 13%, respectively), and households with orphans were more likely to be beneficiaries. Malawi is poised to drastically expand safety nets to orphans and their families, and these findings provide an important foundation for this process

The Presence and Possibility of Moral Sensibility in Beginning Pre-Service Teachers

This paper presents research on the moral sensibility of six pre-service teachers in an undergraduate teacher education program. Using their reflective writing across their first two semesters of coursework as well as focus group interviews in their third semester as sources of data, the paper identifies and describes three distinctive types of moral sensibility and examines ways in which moral sensibility interacts with experiences in teacher education. Suggestions for explicitly incorporating the moral in pre-service teacher education are presented

Efforts to Diminish Social Inequity in South Africa: Evaluating Life Skills and Income Generation Programs on Maternal Socioeconomic Position in Cape Town

The purpose of this case study was to explore perceptions of the impact of program participation on diminishing social inequity using in-depth semi-structured interviews with marginalized Black and Coloured mothers at a civil society organization (CSO) in the Western Cape Province of South Africa (SA). Narratives from a total of thirty-seven interviews form the basis of this paper. Interviews provide examples of extreme poverty and the importance of within-in program social support networks. This case study highlights the successful efforts of one CSO to alleviate social inequity – through life skills and income generation programming – among impoverished women. Findings indicated that women benefited from participation by gaining a social support network, improving their knowledge and skills, increasing mother-child bonds, and inspiring female entrepreneurship. The goal of this study was to provide much-needed insight into this marginalized community by presenting a variety of voices that are underreported in the literature

Structural Justice: A critical feminist framework exploring the intersection between justice, equity and structural reconciliation.

Violence against women is a human rights violation (UN, 2006). It affects the health of women globally (UN, 2009) and its elimination is at the heart of many international and national goals. Intimate partner violence (IPV), one of the most common forms of gender-based violence, affects one in three women worldwide (WHO, 2013). The consequences of IPV create negative health outcomes for women that diminish their quality of life and their overall well-being. Abused women access community supports such as shelters to seek safe refuge from the abuse and restore their lives. While shelters play an extensive role in helping women to rebuild their lives they often struggle to navigate inflexible and unjust systemic structures that can be re-victimizing to women and undermine their ability to live violence free. This study describes an emergent narrative of structural justice (SJ) that arose while examining the structural challenges of 6 shelters for abused women in urban and rural Virginia. It details the critical exploration of the intersection between structure and justice by integrating existing literature with qualitative participant narratives (N=36); and constructing an operational definition of structural justice (SJ) through an iterative process. Findings reveal SJ oriented patterns that shape five core tenets at the heart of this narrative. This SJ offers a framework out of which we can create a narrative of hope and a call-to-action. to rectify systemic violence. This framework contributes to the discourse concerning the elimination of VAW as it focuses on creating justice, equity and structural reconciliation

Gendered aspects of perceived and internalized HIV-related stigma in China.

Although studies have demonstrated that females experience more HIV-related stigma than males do, questions remain regarding the different dimensions of the stigma (i.e., perceived versus internalized) in China. The present study investigated gender differences in perceived and internalized HIV-related stigma, taking into account the potential influence of education. The study was conducted between October 2011 and March 2013. A total of 522 people living with HIV (PLH) were recruited from Anhui Province, China. The PLH participated in a survey using the Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) method. The gender differences in perceived and internalized HIV-related stigma were calculated with and without stratifying by education level. Female participants had significantly less education than the male participants. No significant difference was observed between females and males with respect to perceived stigma. However, females reported significantly higher internalized stigma than males did (p < .001). When socio-demographic characteristics were controlled, the gender difference in internalized stigma remained significant among educated participants (p = .038). The findings suggested that gender differences in HIV-related stigma were primarily found for internalized stigma. Heightened intervention efforts are encouraged to reduce internalized HIV-related stigma, particularly among female PLH in China and other regions with similar gender dynamics

Equity theory based strategies for students on overcoming problems in Ph.D. dissertation committees

There exists a critical relationship between the professor chairing the Ph.D. dissertation committees and his or her Ph.D. students. When problems arise in a Ph.D. program, issues of fairness based on fundamental principles in equity theory can guide both the professor chairing dissertation committees and the student to a just resolution. This paper proposes equity theory as a guiding aid in Ph.D. program problem resolution. To further illustrate equity theory considerations, a series of actual case applications are presented as suggestions for potential strategies in dealing with problems in Ph.D. dissertation committees. We conclude with recommendations both for Ph.D. students and new or veteran dissertation committee members