Paradoxical correlates of a facilitative parenting programme in prison—counter-productive intervention or first signs of responsible parenthood?

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention on 07/04/2014, available online: doi: 10.1080/14043858.2014.898981Purpose. Parenting programmes are rarely part of prisoners’ rehabilitation, and evaluations of such programmes are lacking. Methods. The present mixed-methods study investigates the International Child Development Programme (ICDP) with 25 incarcerated fathers and a comparison group of 36 community fathers through questionnaires administered before and after parenting courses. Interviews with 20 incarcerated fathers were analysed using thematic analysis. Results. Before the course, the prison group self-reported better parenting skills and poorer psychosocial health than the comparison group. Both groups improved on parenting strategies. On several measures the comparison group improved, while the prison group revealed the same or lower scores. The incarcerated fathers described becoming more aware of their paternal role but also saw the course as emotionally challenging. Conclusions. Some of the self-reported scores of the prison participants related to parental skills and psychosocial health decreased from ‘before’ to ‘after’ ICDP sensitization, pointing to the possibility that the ICDP courses may have contributed to overcoming a ‘prisonization process’, where the prisoner identity overshadows the parental identity, by making them more aware of their parental responsibilities. Due to the emerging possibility of counter-productive influences, a randomized controlled study is needed in the future to ascertain the parenting and recidivism-related effects of this programme

New masculinities in universities? Discourses, ambivalence and potential change

In this article, we explore forms and possible implications of new masculinities in universities, and elucidate how they relate to hegemonic masculinity. ‘New masculinities’ coins a particular tradition of naming in Nordic masculinity studies. In the Nordic context, gendered social relations are shaped by State policies and equality discourses, which are increasingly embracing father-friendly initiatives. New masculinities refers to the increased involvement of men in caring practices and especially in fathering. Our empirical study comprises in-depth interviews with young male academics in a Finnish business school. We elucidate, first, the ambivalence and struggles between masculinities in the discourses of these men and, second, how the construction of masculinities is specific to societal, sociocultural and local contexts. Relations of class, and middle-class notions of the ‘good life’ in particular, emerge as central for understanding the experiences of these men. Beyond the Nordic countries, we argue that while the change potential of caring masculinity stems from particular contexts, the concept of new masculinities is helpful in capturing the ambivalence and struggles between hegemonic and caring masculinities rather than dismissing the latter as subordinate to the former.peerReviewe

Measuring Housework Participation: the gap between "stylised" questionnaire estimates and diary-based estimates

longitudinal data. ISER incorporates the following centres: • ESRC Research Centre on Micro-social Change. Established in 1989 to identify, explain, model and forecast social change in Britain at the individual and household level, the Centre specialises in research using longitudinal data. • ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre. A national resource centre for promoting longitudinal research and for the design, management and support of longitudinal surveys. It was established by the ESRC as independent centre in 1999. It has responsibility for the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). • European Centre for Analysis in the Social Sciences. ECASS is an interdisciplinary research centre which hosts major research programmes and helps researchers from the EU gain access to longitudinal data and cross-national datasets from all over Europe. The British Household Panel Survey is one of the main instruments for measuring social change in Britain. The BHPS comprises a nationally representative sample of around 9,000 households and over 16,000 individuals who are reinterviewed each year. The questionnaire includes a constant core of items accompanied by a variable component in order to provide for the collection of initial condition