Conflict, Inequality and Dialogue for Conflict Resolution in Latin America: The Cases of Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela

human development, aid, trade, security

Renegotiating Identity and Relationships: Men and women’s adjustments to retirement

Retirement is frequently a period of change, when the roles and relationships associated with individuals’ previous labour market positionings are transformed. It is also a time when personal relationships, including the marital relationship and relationships with friends and family, come under increased scrutiny and may be realigned. Many studies of adjustment to retirement focus primarily on individual motivation; by contrast, this paper seeks to examine the structure of resources within which such decisions are framed. The paper examines the contribution that gender roles and identities make to the overall configuration of resources available to particular individuals. It draws upon qualitative research conducted with older people in four contrasting parts of the UK, looking at the combination of labour market and non-labour market activities they are involved in prior to reaching state retirement age, as they withdraw from paid work. It explores how older people invoke a range of gendered identities to negotiate change and continuity during this time. The paper argues that gender roles and identities are central to this process and that the reflexive deployment of gender may rank alongside financial resources and social capital in its importance to the achievement of satisfying retirement transitions. Amongst those interviewed, traditional gendered roles predominated, and these sat less comfortably with retirement for men than for women.

Maori family culture: a context of youth development in Counties/Manukau

This paper reports on a study designed to bring the voices of young people directly into the social science literature on environmental influences on wellbeing. We analyse accounts from young Maori about their families and the roles they play in their lives in order to focus on strengths and positive resources for the promotion of youth wellbeing. Interview data were gathered from 12 females and 15 males, aged between 12 and 25 years, resident in the Counties/Manukau region. Participants who were managing satisfactorily in their lives were purposively selected for diversity of background and circumstances. Our “lifestory” approach sought narrative accounts of both everyday experience and the highs and lows of life; data were transcribed verbatim and analysed using discursive methods. Clusters of themes relating to family environments including relationships with parents, siblings and extended kin groups emerged. Participants provided detailed and nuanced accounts of family cultures, reporting on conflict, caring, gender issues, sensitivity, discipline, levels of guidance and forms of support

Towards promoting youth mental health in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Holistic "houses" of health

A study of the literature on mental health promotion suggests that to a far greater extent than ‘physical’ health concerns, mental health seems to be dominated by the illness focus of established clinical perspectives and practices. In Aotearoa/New Zealand this leaves little in the way of conceptual space or fiscal resources for the development of new preventative possibilities of population-oriented measures focussed on enhancing social and physical environments. Outflanking this unfortunate impasse, indigenous Maori and Samoan (Pacific) conceptual frameworks for health offer holistic theoretical foundations upon which we can work for health through positive development. This paper examines these frameworks and the youth development paradigm to draw out parameters of what might count as healthy youth development in this country

Youth identity formation and contemporary alcohol marketing

This paper considers linkages between contemporary marketing theory and practice, and emerging conceptualizations of identity, to discuss implications for public health concerns over alcohol use among young people. Particular attention is paid to the theorizing of consumption as a component of youth identities and the ways in which developments of marketing praxis orients to such schemata. The authors’ analyses of exemplars of marketing materials in use in Aotearoa New Zealand, drawn from their research archive, emphasize the sophistication and power of such forms of marketing.They argue that public health policy and practice must respond to the interweaving of marketing and the self-making practices of young people to counter this complex threat to the health and well-being of young people

Consuming identities: alcohol marketing and the commodification of youth experience

Marketing has successfully used the postmodern turn in conceptualisations of the human subject and incorporated contemporary theorising of identities and self into its understanding of the key drivers of consumption. Such developments clearly converge in alcohol marketing practices that target young people where commercialized youth identities available for consumption and engagement are a significant element. This paper reports data from young people that reflect the uptake of such identities and considers the challenges that these developments represent for public health and the wellbeing of young people

Creating intoxigenic environments: Marketing alcohol to young people in Aotearoa New Zealand

Alcohol consumption among young people in New Zealand is on the rise. Given the broad array of acute and chronic harms that arise from this trend, it is a major cause for alarm and it is imperative that we improve our knowledge of key drivers of youth drinking. Changes wrought by the neoliberal political climate of deregulation that characterised the last two decades in many countries including Aotearoa New Zealand have transformed the availability of alcohol to young people. Commercial development of youth alcohol markets has seen the emergence of new environments, cultures and practices around drinking and intoxication but the ways in which these changes are interpreted and taken up is not well understood. This paper reports findings from a qualitative research project investigating the meaning-making practices of young people in New Zealand in response to alcohol marketing. Research data included group interviews with a range of Maori and Pakeha young people at three time periods. Thematic analyses of the youth data on usages of marketing materials indicate naturalisation of tropes of alcohol intoxication. We show how marketing is used and enjoyed in youth discourses creating and maintaining what we refer to as intoxigenic social environments. The implications are considered in light of the growing exposure of young people to alcohol marketing in a discussion of strategies to manage and mitigate its impacts on behaviour and consumption

Writers\u27 Club: The Effect of Extra Writing on Fourth-Grade, Hispanic Students\u27 Writing, and Their Attitude Towards Writing

Nationally, as well as at state and local level, 75% of students in Grades 4, 8 and 12 have been determined to be writing at the basic or below basic level. In 2012, the standards were made more stringent for the incorporation of details and adherence to customary English conventions. After that, students’ writing scores plummeted. Hispanic students scored more poorly than their White counterparts. Earlier studies indicated that students’ attitude towards writing becomes less positive as they progress through the grades. The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of extra writing on 60 fourth-grade, Hispanic students’ writing, and their attitude towards writing through participation in a Writers’ Club versus an At Home Writing Group or a group with no extra writing. The study followed a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-equivalent group design. The groups were the Writers’ Club (n = 22), the At Home Writing Group (n = 18 and no extra writing (n = 20). All students received regular writing instruction and homework. The Writers’ Club met 24 times for 30 minutes each meeting, over an 8-week period. Pretest and posttest writing samples were evaluated using Spandel’s Teacher Six-Point Writing Guide and attitude towards writing was evaluated using Kear, Coffman, McKenna, and Ambrosio’s Writing Attitude Survey. A univariate analysis of covariate was conducted on the pretest and posttest writing samples and responses to the Writing Attitude Survey protocol. The independent variable was group membership, the dependent variable was the posttest scores and the covariate was the pretest scores. The writing samples were examined for three conditions: incorporation of details (ideas), adherence to the conventions of customary English and overall writing skill. The results of the current study showed no significant difference in fourth-grade, Hispanic students’ writing or their attitude towards writing based on group membership. The conclusions of the study are that the results were potentially compromised by a variety of limitations and that it may have been conducted over too short a period for positive effects to be seen. The conclusion is that further research is warranted with adjustments to the setting and the timeframe

Effect of chisel edge in ultrasonic assisted drilling of carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP)

Ultrasonic assisted drilling (UAD) has been reported effective for thrust force reduction during drilling of CFRP resulting in lower exit delamination. However, this process is not fully understood in relation to machining theory. This work focused on understanding the separate effects of chisel and cutting edges during UAD in comparison with conventional drilling (CD). Experiments were performed at 100 m/min cutting speed and 0.05 mm/rev feed rate. UAD produced 36% lower thrust force with a chisel edge, similar torque and 35% lower wear chisel edge compared to CD, suggesting forces from chisel edge specifically, being reduced in UAD