Pathways to economic well-being among teenage mothers in Great Britain

The present study examines pathways to independence from social welfare among 738 teenage mothers, participants of the 1970 British Cohort Study, who were followed up at age 30 years. Using a longitudinal design, a pathway model is tested, examining linkages between family social background, cognitive ability, school motivation, and individual investments in education, as well as work- and family-related roles. The most important factors associated with financial independence by age 30 are continued attachment to the labor market as well as a stable relationship with a partner (not necessarily the father of the child). Pathways to financial independence, in turn, are predicted through own cognitive resources, school motivation, and family cohesion. Implications of findings for policy making are discussed.© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing

Troubling meanings of "family" for young people who have been in care: from policy to lived experience

This article seeks to trouble the concept of “family” for young people who have been in out-of-home care, by reflecting on the continuing significance (and troubles) of family relationships beyond childhood. The analysis draws on two cross-national studies in Europe: Beyond Contact, which examined policies and systems for work with families of children in care, and Against All Odds?, a qualitative longitudinal study of young adults who have been in care. Policy discourses that reify and instrumentalize the concept of family—for example, through the language of “contact,” “reunification,” and “permanence”—neglect the complex temporality of “family” for young people who have been in care, negotiated and practiced across time and in multiple (and changing) care contexts, and forming part of complex, dynamic and relational identities, and understandings of “belonging” for young adults who have been in care

The equivalence of four extensions of context-free grammars

There is currently considerable interest among computational linguists in grammatical formalisms with highly restricted generative power. This paper concerns the relationship between the class of string languages generated by several such formalisms, namely, combinatory categorial grammars, head grammars, linear indexed grammars, and tree adjoining grammars. Each of these formalisms is known to generate a larger class of languages than context-free grammars. The four formalisms under consideration were developed independently and appear superficially to be quite different from one another. The result presented in this paper is that all four of the formalisms under consideration generate exactly the same class of string languages

Academic self-concept, gender and single-sex schooling

This paper assesses gender differences in academic self-concept for a cohort of children born in 1958 (the National Child Development Study). We address the question of whether attending single-sex or co-educational schools affected students’ perceptions of their own academic abilities (academic self-concept). Academic selfconcept was found to be highly gendered, even controlling for prior test scores. Boys had higher self-concepts in maths and science, and girls in English. Single-sex schooling reduced the gender gap in self-concept, while selective schooling was linked to lower academic self-concept overall

Political activism across the life course

The study of political activism has neglected people’s personal and social relationships to time. Age, life course and generation have become increasing important experiences for understanding political participation and political outcomes (e.g. Brexit), and current policies of austerity across the world are affecting people of all ages. At a time when social science is struggling to understand the rapid and unexpected changes to the current political landscape, the essay argues that the study of political activism can be enriched by engaging with the temporal dimensions of people’s everyday social experiences because it enables the discovery of political activism in mundane activities as well as in banal spaces. The authors suggest that a values-based approach that focuses on people’s relationships of concern would be a suitable way to surface contemporary political sites and experiences of activism across the life course and for different generations

Spring School on Language, Music, and Cognition: Organizing Events in Time

The interdisciplinary spring school “Language, music, and cognition: Organizing events in time” was held from February 26 to March 2, 2018 at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Cologne. Language, speech, and music as events in time were explored from different perspectives including evolutionary biology, social cognition, developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience of speech, language, and communication, as well as computational and biological approaches to language and music. There were 10 lectures, 4 workshops, and 1 student poster session. Overall, the spring school investigated language and music as neurocognitive systems and focused on a mechanistic approach exploring the neural substrates underlying musical, linguistic, social, and emotional processes and behaviors. In particular, researchers approached questions concerning cognitive processes, computational procedures, and neural mechanisms underlying the temporal organization of language and music, mainly from two perspectives: one was concerned with syntax or structural representations of language and music as neurocognitive systems (i.e., an intrapersonal perspective), while the other emphasized social interaction and emotions in their communicative function (i.e., an interpersonal perspective). The spring school not only acted as a platform for knowledge transfer and exchange but also generated a number of important research questions as challenges for future investigations

Thinking with ‘White Dee’: The Gender Politics of ‘Austerity Porn’

Focusing on Benefits Street, and specifically the figure of White Dee, this rapid response article offers a feminist analysis of the relationship between media portrayals of people living with poverty and the gender politics of austerity. To do this we locate and unpick the paradoxical desires coalescing in the making and remaking of the figure of 'White Dee' in the public sphere. We detail how Benefits Street operates through forms of classed and gendered shaming to generate public consent for the government's welfare reform. However, we also examine how White Dee functions as a potential object of desire and figure of feminist resistance to the transformations in self and communities engendered by neoliberal social and economic policies. In this way, we argue that these public struggles over White Dee open up spaces for urgent feminist sociological enquiries into the gender politics of care, labour and social reproduction

Getting It Straight: Accommodating Rectilinear Behavior in Captive Snakes-A Review of Recommendations and Their Evidence Base.

Snakes are sentient animals and should be subject to the accepted general welfare principles of other species. However, they are also the only vertebrates commonly housed in conditions that prevent them from adopting rectilinear behavior (ability to fully stretch out). To assess the evidence bases for historical and current guidance on snake spatial considerations, we conducted a literature search and review regarding recommendations consistent with or specifying ≥1 × and <1 × snake length enclosure size. We identified 65 publications referring to snake enclosure sizes, which were separated into three categories: peer-reviewed literature (article or chapter appearing in a peer-reviewed journal or book, = 31), grey literature (government or other report or scientific letter, = 18), and opaque literature (non-scientifically indexed reports, care sheets, articles, husbandry books, website or other information for which originating source is not based on scientific evidence or where scientific evidence was not provided, = 16). We found that recommendations suggesting enclosure sizes shorter than the snakes were based entirely on decades-old 'rule of thumb' practices that were unsupported by scientific evidence. In contrast, recommendations suggesting enclosure sizes that allowed snakes to fully stretch utilized scientific evidence and considerations of animal welfare. Providing snakes with enclosures that enable them to fully stretch does not suggest that so doing allows adequate space for all necessary normal and important considerations. However, such enclosures are vital to allow for a limited number of essential welfare-associated behaviors, of which rectilinear posturing is one, making them absolute minimum facilities even for short-term housing

Patterning and process parameter effects in 3D suspension near-field electrospinning of nanoarrays

The extracellular matrix (ECM) contains nanofibrous proteins and proteoglycans. Nanofabrication methods have received growing interest in recent years as a means of recapitulating these elements within the ECM. Near-field electrospinning (NFES) is a versatile fibre deposition method, capable of layer-by-layer nano-fabrication. The maximum layer height is generally limited in layer-by-layer NFES as a consequence of electrostatic effects of the polymer at the surface, due to residual charge and polymer dielectric properties. This restricts the total volume achievable by layer-by-layer techniques. Surpassing this restriction presents a complex challenge, leading to research innovations aimed at increasing patterning precision, and achieving a translation from 2D to 3D additive nanofabrication. Here we investigated a means of achieving this translation through the use of 3D electrode substrates. This was addressed by in-house developed technology in which selective laser melt manufactured standing pillar electrodes were combined with a direct suspension near-field electrospinning (SNFES) technique, which implements an automated platform to manoeuvre the pillar electrodes around the emitter in order to suspend fibres in the free space between the electrode support structures. In this study SNFES was used in multiple operation modes, investigating the effects of varying process parameters, as well as pattern variations on the suspended nanoarrays. Image analysis of the nanoarrays allowed for the assessment of fibre directionality, isotropy, and diameter; identifying optimal settings to generate fibres for tissue engineering applications