Children and the Fly-in/Fly-out lifestyle : employment-related paternal absence and the implications for children

There has been growing interest in the implications of paternal fly-in/fly-out employment (FIFO) for families and children. The current research had a dual aim, first to investigate children’s well-being in relation to family functioning and paternal FIFO employment characteristics and, second, to access children’s own experience, perceptions and attitudes about the FIFO lifestyle and employment-related paternal absence. The research was multi-method in design, with a quantitative study measuring child, parent and family functioning and a two-stepped qualitative component consisting of a content analysis of written responses and a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with children.Forty-eight children, aged between 8 and 16 years, and their parents (i.e., 48 mothers, 47 fathers) from 49 families completed the quantitative questionnaires. Overall, the children’s emotional-behavioural functioning was healthy and not significantly related to paternal FIFO employment characteristics. The boys reported more emotionalbehavioural difficulties than girls, in particular hyperactivity. The children’s well-being was associated with several maternal-reported variables but none of the paternalreported variables. However, the children’s level of emotional-behavioural functioning was predicted by their self-report of paternal care and nurturance. Addressing parental well-being, the participating women reported more emotional difficulties than the men, with over one third of the women reporting stress symptoms in the moderate to severe clinical range. While the majority of children and their parents reported healthy family functioning and the parents reported healthy relationship quality, over 50% of the mothers and fathers in the study reported parenting conflict in the clinical range.Participating children endorsed the extended, quality time with their fathers and the financial remuneration of paternal FIFO employment as the key benefits of the FIFO lifestyle. The adolescents in the study viewed employment-related paternal absences as a respite from fathering as well as a loss of paternal support. The main costs of the FIFO lifestyle for the children were the negative emotions related to paternal absence, the loss of physical and emotional paternal support, and the restriction to their lifestyle and activities. A subset of 15 children from the original study and 12 of their siblings (n = 27) were interviewed. The majority of the children demonstrated successful adaptation to paternal FIFO employment. The key themes to emerge from these interviews were the children’s emotional and personal changes (e.g., increased responsibility, greater independence) and family changes (e.g., alternating household systems, family selfreliance). The children demonstrated knowledge of their father’s work and were also aware of the potential impact of FIFO employment on family and personal relationships.The overall findings suggest that paternal FIFO employment does not act as a discreet homogeneous risk factor for children. However, there was some evidence that boys negotiate employment-related paternal absences differently from girls, with boys expressing more ambivalence toward paternal absences. The significant finding of high maternal stress in the study indicates that mothers may “buffer” the strains of regular family disruption from the other family members. The participating children’s ability to balance the benefits of the FIFO lifestyle with the costs of paternal absences, to understand parental employment decisions, and to demonstrate resilience to family changes was positive news for FIFO families and those families considering the FIFO option

Franchises lost and gained: post-coloniality and the development of women’s rights in Canada

The Canadian constitution is to some extent characterised by its focus on equality, and in particular gender equality. This development of women’s rights in Canada and the greater engagement of women as political actors is often presented as a steady linear process, moving forwards from post-enlightenment modernity. This article seeks to disturb this ‘discourse of the continuous,’ by using an analysis of the pre-confederation history of suffrage in Canada to both refute a simplistic linear view of women’s rights development and to argue for recognition of the Indigenous contribution to the history of women’s rights in Canada. The gain of franchise and suffrage movements in Canada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are, rightly, the focus of considerable study (Pauker 2015), This article takes an alternative perspective. Instead, it examines the exercise of earlier franchises in pre-confederation Canada. In particular it analyses why franchise was exercised more widely in Lower Canada and relates this to the context of the removal of franchises from women prior to confederation

Multimodal Communication in a Noisy Environment: A Case Study of the Bornean Rock Frog Staurois parvus

High background noise is an impediment to signal detection and perception. We report the use of multiple solutions to improve signal perception in the acoustic and visual modality by the Bornean rock frog, Staurois parvus. We discovered that vocal communication was not impaired by continuous abiotic background noise characterised by fast-flowing water. Males modified amplitude, pitch, repetition rate and duration of notes within their advertisement call. The difference in sound pressure between advertisement calls and background noise at the call dominant frequency of 5578 Hz was 8 dB, a difference sufficient for receiver detection. In addition, males used several visual signals to communicate with conspecifics with foot flagging and foot flashing being the most common and conspicuous visual displays, followed by arm waving, upright posture, crouching, and an open-mouth display. We used acoustic playback experiments to test the efficacy-based alerting signal hypothesis of multimodal communication. In support of the alerting hypothesis, we found that acoustic signals and foot flagging are functionally linked with advertisement calling preceding foot flagging. We conclude that S. parvus has solved the problem of continuous broadband low-frequency noise by both modifying its advertisement call in multiple ways and by using numerous visual signals. This is the first example of a frog using multiple acoustic and visual solutions to communicate in an environment characterised by continuous noise

Rationale, design and methods for a randomised and controlled trial to evaluate "Animal Fun" - a program designed to enhance physical and mental health in young children

Background: Children with poor motor ability have been found to engage less in physical activities than other children, and a lack of physical activity has been linked to problems such as obesity, lowered bone mineral density and cardiovascular risk factors. Furthermore, if children are confident with their fine and gross motor skills, they are more likely to engage in physical activities such as sports, crafts, dancing and other physical activity programs outside of the school curriculum which are important activities for psychosocial development. The primary objective of this project is to comprehensively evaluate a whole of class physical activity program called Animal Fun designed for Pre-Primary children. This program was designed to improve the child's movement skills, both fine and gross, and their perceptions of their movement ability, promote appropriate social skills and improve social-emotional development. Methods: The proposed randomized and controlled trial uses a multivariate nested cohort design to examine the physical (motor coordination) and psychosocial (self perceptions, anxiety, social competence) outcomes of the program. The Animal Fun program is a teacher delivered universal program incorporating animal actions to facilitate motor skill and social skill acquisition and practice. Pre-intervention scores on motor and psychosocial variables for six control schools and six intervention schools will be compared with post-intervention scores (end of Pre-Primary year) and scores taken 12 months later after the children's transition to primary school Year 1. 520 children aged 4.5 to 6 years will be recruited and it is anticipated that 360 children will be retained to the 1 year follow-up. There will be equal numbers of boys and girls.Discussion: If this program is found to improve the child's motor and psychosocial skills, this will assist in the child's transition into the first year of school. As a result of these changes, it is anticipated that children will have greater enjoyment participating in physical activities which will further promote long term physical and mental health

Between Antagonism and Eros: The Feud as Couple Form and Netflix’s GLOW

A feud is an antagonism that is continuous and extended; “a state of prolonged mutual hostility” (OED). Historically, feuds take place between families or communities, or result from failed couples. Considered as a couple form in its own right, however, the feud is associated with aesthetic forms often coded as camp, queer, or feminized. In such popular, serialized forms, the feud must be open ended and of unforeseen futurity, for resolution brings an end to the feud as such and dissolves the couple. Thus, feuds reject normative modes of coupling (such as the nuclear family) that center harmonious or happy feelings. The article begins with the political economy of the feud through an examination of the pre-modern form of the blood feud and continues with its late-modern presence in popular culture. We rehearse the idea of the feud as it emerges from anthropology and philosophy, especially as it impacts notions of debt and alternative economies, before thinking through the contemporary “coupling” of the feud in popular culture, fandom, and, via the performance form of professional wrestling and Netflix’s GLOW

The seeds of divergence: the economy of French North America, 1688 to 1760

Generally, Canada has been ignored in the literature on the colonial origins of divergence with most of the attention going to the United States. Late nineteenth century estimates of income per capita show that Canada was relatively poorer than the United States and that within Canada, the French and Catholic population of Quebec was considerably poorer. Was this gap long standing? Some evidence has been advanced for earlier periods, but it is quite limited and not well-suited for comparison with other societies. This thesis aims to contribute both to Canadian economic history and to comparative work on inequality across nations during the early modern period. With the use of novel prices and wages from Quebec—which was then the largest settlement in Canada and under French rule—a price index, a series of real wages and a measurement of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are constructed. They are used to shed light both on the course of economic development until the French were defeated by the British in 1760 and on standards of living in that colony relative to the mother country, France, as well as the American colonies. The work is divided into three components. The first component relates to the construction of a price index. The absence of such an index has been a thorn in the side of Canadian historians as it has limited the ability of historians to obtain real values of wages, output and living standards. This index shows that prices did not follow any trend and remained at a stable level. However, there were episodes of wide swings—mostly due to wars and the monetary experiment of playing card money. The creation of this index lays the foundation of the next component. The second component constructs a standardized real wage series in the form of welfare ratios (a consumption basket divided by nominal wage rate multiplied by length of work year) to compare Canada with France, England and Colonial America. Two measures are derived. The first relies on a “bare bones” definition of consumption with a large share of land-intensive goods. This measure indicates that Canada was poorer than England and Colonial America and not appreciably richer than France. However, this measure overestimates the relative position of Canada to the Old World because of the strong presence of land-intensive goods. A second measure is created using a “respectable” definition of consumption in which the basket includes a larger share of manufactured goods and capital-intensive goods. This second basket better reflects differences in living standards since the abundance of land in Canada (and Colonial America) made it easy to achieve bare subsistence, but the scarcity of capital and skilled labor made the consumption of luxuries and manufactured goods (clothing, lighting, imported goods) highly expensive. With this measure, the advantage of New France over France evaporates and turns slightly negative. In comparison with Britain and Colonial America, the gap widens appreciably. This element is the most important for future research. By showing a reversal because of a shift to a different type of basket, it shows that Old World and New World comparisons are very sensitive to how we measure the cost of living. Furthermore, there are no sustained improvements in living standards over the period regardless of the measure used. Gaps in living standards observed later in the nineteenth century existed as far back as the seventeenth century. In a wider American perspective that includes the Spanish colonies, Canada fares better. The third component computes a new series for Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is to avoid problems associated with using real wages in the form of welfare ratios which assume a constant labor supply. This assumption is hard to defend in the case of Colonial Canada as there were many signs of increasing industriousness during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The GDP series suggest no long-run trend in living standards (from 1688 to circa 1765). The long peace era of 1713 to 1740 was marked by modest economic growth which offset a steady decline that had started in 1688, but by 1760 (as a result of constant warfare) living standards had sunk below their 1688 levels. These developments are accompanied by observations that suggest that other indicators of living standard declined. The flat-lining of incomes is accompanied by substantial increases in the amount of time worked, rising mortality and rising infant mortality. In addition, comparisons of incomes with the American colonies confirm the results obtained with wages— Canada was considerably poorer. At the end, a long conclusion is provides an exploratory discussion of why Canada would have diverged early on. In structural terms, it is argued that the French colony was plagued by the problem of a small population which prohibited the existence of scale effects. In combination with the fact that it was dispersed throughout the territory, the small population of New France limited the scope for specialization and economies of scale. However, this problem was in part created, and in part aggravated, by institutional factors like seigneurial tenure. The colonial origins of French America’s divergence from the rest of North America are thus partly institutional

Motor coordination and social-emotional behaviour in preschool aged children.

School-age children with movement problems such as Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) are known to have social and emotional difficulties. However, little research has investigated younger children to determine whether these problems emerge at school age or are present earlier. The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between motor coordination, emotional recognition and internalising behaviours in young preschool children. Forty‐one kindergarten children (M = 4 years, 4 months), 22 boys and 19 girls, were assessed on the McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development, the Emotional Recognition Scales, the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, and the Child Behavior Checklist. Motor ability was positively related to a child's emotion comprehension. However, once age, sex, Performance IQ and Verbal IQ were controlled for, it was no longer a significant predictor, which contrasts with previous findings in school‐age children. However, the expected correlation between motor ability and anxiety/depression was significant with a moderate effect size. The results indicate that further investigation is required on the relationship between motor ability and social–emotional development in preschool-age children

Analysing constitutional reform in Britain: Insights from economic approaches

Over the last decade, the British state has been profoundly restructured. These changes challenge scholars to develop accounts capable of providing a unified analysis of the various reforms and of enabling their effects to be identified. While there is now a large literature on constitutional change in Britain, most of these studies focus on individual institutions and neglect the reforms’ collective nature and effects. To develop a more unified analysis of the reforms and their consequences, we need an account of what institutions are and of how they work. Economic analyses of institutions provide such an account, helping us to identify the common operating logics that underpin different institutions along with their effects. Insights from the economic approach to institutions are drawn on to explore how the constitutional reforms in Britain affect the distribution of decision-making authority and the nature of political accountability