Child language brokers’ representations of parent-child relationships

This paper reports the analysis of qualitative data from a broader study of young people’s representations of conflicting roles in child development. Just over a quarter of the group, bilingual students who spoke a variety of first languages, had had personal experience of child language brokering (CLB). Employing vignette methodology, they were invited to reflect on the implications of an adolescent boy’s language brokering activities for, among other things, his relationships within his family. In this paper we will present brief case studies to illustrate different positions that members of the group adopted in relation to developmental scripts emphasizing independence and interdependence between young people and their parents (Dorner et al. 2008). Through an analysis of individual CLB case studies, we illustrate various ways in which individual young people reported the balancing of the demands of autonomy and connectedness in their analysis of relationships between young people and their parents

Recent research on child language brokering in the United Kingdom

Recent patterns of migration and population change in the UK have led in some places to a need for child language brokering (CLB). Although there is only limited evidence on CLB in the UK, the research that has been published indicates the diversity of the phenomenon and suggests its frequency and significance in the lives of some families. In this paper we review a range of small scale studies from different research centres to illustrate that diversity. The research has highlighted ways in which language brokering often elides into cultural brokering with young children playing a brokering role within as well as outside their families. An important line of enquiry has been research on the CLB process itself, but detailed studies of how children and young people respond to the challenges of translation in different settings remain elusive, as do studies of the impact that the activity has on their interactions with others. A key issue for the children and parents involved is others’ perceptions of and reaction to CLB, including not only the professionals and officials with whom they deal but also their peers at school and elsewhere who are not involved in language brokering. Ultimately CLB is of theoretical interest not only for the light it throws on children’s language learning and acculturation but also for the challenge it presents to traditional notions of child development and family role

Using the vignette methodology as a tool for exploring cultural identity positions : European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) Special Interest Group 21: Learning and Teaching in Culturally Diverse Settings: Moving through cultures of learning

In this paper we will examine how the vignette methodology can aid understanding of cultural identity. Vignettes are typically short stories about a fictional character or fictional scenario appropriate to a particular study. The story places the behaviour of the character in a concrete context and allows the researcher to explore participants? positions and perspectives on the issues arising from the situation. We argue that within a framework of cultural development theory and the dialogical self theory (Hermans, 2001) identity positions can be explained in relation to the sociocultural context. To do so we report on part of wider study about representations of children who work. In particular this paper will focus on language brokering which involves translating or interpreting on behalf of family members who do not speak the host language. Language brokering requires the child to engage in both the cultural contexts of the host culture and the home culture and as such, the child must negotiate new cultural identities. Those interviewed were young people aged between 15-18 years, some of whom were brokers and others who were not. When looking at the language broker vignette scenario these young people often positioned the parents, teachers and friends of the language broker in the scenario in particular ways. Through notions of adequacy and inadequacy, visibility and invisibility, theoretical ideas around cultural identity theory and the dialogical self theory can provide an understanding of how the young people moved through different (often conflicting) identity positions

A New Fracture Function Approach to QCD Initial State Radiation

Ordinary fracture functions, describing hadrons production in the deep inelastic scattering target fragmentation region, are generalized to account for the production of hadrons in arbitrary number, thus offering a renewed framework for dealing with QCD initial state radiation. We also propose a new jet-like observable which measures beam remnants and low-$p_{\perp}$ scattering fragments and derive its QCD evolution equations by using Jet Calculus. Possible implications for semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering and hadron-hadron reactions are shortly discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, revtex

On nonparametric maximum likelihood for a class of stochastic inverse problems

We establish the consistency of a nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator for a class of stochastic inverse problems. We proceed by embedding the framework into the general settings of early results of Pfanzagl related to mixtures

Narratives of Young Women Athletes’ Experiences of Emotional Pain and Self-compassion

Self-compassion is an adaptive way of relating to the self kindly when experiencing personal failure and difficult life experiences. However, there is little research in the area of self-compassion and sport even though recent investigation shows it might act as a potential buffer to painful emotions for athletes. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore and present narratives of six young women athletes (15-24 years) from a variety of sports, about their experiences of emotional pain associated with failure and the role of self-compassion. Each woman took part in two individual interviews, one of which involved reflexive photography. They were asked to reflect on a difficult experience with a personal percieved failure in sport, followed by discussions around the potential role of self-compassion in their experiences. The interviews, combined with reflexive photography, helped build a rich narrative organized around the following themes: (1) Broken bodies, wilted spirits, (2) Why couldn’t it have been someone else?, (3) I should have, I could have, I would have, (4) You are going to make me ugly over this and, (5) Fall down seven, stand up eight. Their narratives also suggested that self-compassion can potentially be beneficial for athletes if developed and learned properly. In addition, some women saw self-compassion as another tool athletes could use to help improve their mental game; something that might not be needed all the time, but could be very useful during specific situations. While self-compassion might buffer painful emotions experienced in sport, concerns were expressed that being too self-compassion may lead to mediocrity. Further research is needed on young women athletes' difficult emotional experiences in sport, and more specifically on the role that self-compassion plays as both a potential facilitator and barrier to emotional health and performance success in sport

The public administration case against participation income

Anthony Atkinson’s proposal for a participation income (PI) has been acclaimed as a workable compromise between the aspirations of unconditional basic income proposals and the political acceptability of the workfare model. This article argues that PI functions poorly in terms of a number of essential administrative tasks that any welfare scheme must perform. This leads to a trilemma of participation income, which suggests that PI can only retain its apparent ability to satisfy the requirements of universalist and selectivist approaches to welfare at the cost of imposing a substantial burden on administrators and welfare clients alike. Consequently, the main apparent strength of PI, its capacity to garner support across different factions within welfare reform debates, is shown to be illusory. Many scholars of the modern welfare state agree with Robert Goodin (2000) that the crumbling of its traditional pillars limits the ability of welfare policies to achieve a range of often contradictory objectives. However, they disagree about which policies might be introduced as alternatives. In particular, a fault line separates those favoring increased emphasis on universal mechanisms such as unconditional basic incom

Supermodes of Hexagonal Lattice Waveguide Arrays

We present a semi-analytical formulation for calculating the supermodes and corresponding Bloch factors of light in hexagonal lattice photonic crystal waveguide arrays. We then use this formulation to easily calculate dispersion curves and predict propagation in systems too large to calculate using standard numerical methods.Comment: Accepted by J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, DocID:160522. http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?msid=16052

Dealing with “Dilemmas of Difference” in the Workplace

Over the course of six months, the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School’s class “Women, Law, and Leadership” interviewed 55 women between the ages of 25 and 85, all leaders in their respective fields. Nearly half of the women interviewed were women of color, and 10 of the women lived and worked in countries other than the U.S., spanning across Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Threading together the common themes touched upon in these conversations, we gleaned a number of novel insights, distinguishing the leadership trajectories pursued by women who have risen to the heights of their professions. Through thousands of hours of conversation with some of the world’s most influential and powerful women, this study identifies the primary barriers and biases faced by women of diverse backgrounds in the workplace, as well as the strategies and philosophies they adopted in order to overcome these impediments. While there is much commonality among the women’s experiences, women of color often face more pervasive and subtle barriers than their white counterparts. Their leadership strategies on how to address these insidious challenges, however, are rarely recorded. In this article, we give voice to these experiences