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Abstract Background This review summarises the present state of research on health inequalities using a social network perspective, and it explores the available studies examining the interrelations of social inequality, social networks, and health. Methods Using the strategy of a scoping review, as outlined by Arksey and O’Malley (Int J Sci Res Methodol 8:19–32, 2005), our team performed two searches across eight scientific, bibliographic databases including papers published until October 2021. Studies meeting pre-defined eligibility criteria were selected. The data were charted in a table, and then collated, summarised, and reported in this paper. Results Our search provided a total of 15,237 initial hits. After deduplication (n = 6,168 studies) and the removal of hits that did not meet our baseline criteria (n = 8,767 studies), the remaining 302 full text articles were examined. This resulted in 25 articles being included in the present review, many of which focused on moderating or mediating network effects. Such effects were found in the majority of these studies, but not in all. Social networks were found to buffer the harsher effects of poverty on health, while specific network characteristics were shown to intensify or attenuate the health effects of social inequalities. Conclusions Our review showed that the variables used for measuring health and social networks differed considerably across the selected studies. Thus, our attempt to establish a consensus of opinion across the included studies was not successful. Nevertheless, the usefulness of social network analysis in researching health inequalities and the employment of health-promoting interventions focusing on social relations was generally acknowledged in the studies. We close by suggesting ways to advance the research methodology, and argue for a greater orientation on theoretical models. We also call for the increased use of structural measures; the inclusion of measures on negative ties and interactions; and the use of more complex study designs, such as mixed-methods and longitudinal studies.

By immediately responding to achievement progress data, teachers can improve students’ performance by using curriculum-based measurement. However, there are studies showing that teachers are prone to make biased judgments about the students providing the data. The present investigation experimentally examined whether pre-service teachers in Germany were biased by the use of gender stereotypes when judging students’ achievement derived from progress data. N = 100 pre-service teachers received graphs that depicted the development of either oral reading fluency or math achievement of girls and boys over a time interval of 11 weeks. The results obtained confirmed the hypotheses partially. The participants did not favor girls over boys on average. However, they judged achievement in reading to be higher for girls than for boys, and math achievement to be higher for boys than for girls. The results suggest that gender stereotypes (boys are good at math, girls are good at reading) are still prevalent in pre-service teachers.

This conference report gives an overview of the international conference: "Identity Development—Towards an Integration of Quantitative and Qualitative Methods" that took place in Braunschweig, Germany, in November 2005. The six invited speakers introduced the scope of current psychological approaches to research on identity development by means of plenary sessions and in-depth discussions about their research objectives. All contributions focused on the identity status approach, its advancements and possible alternatives. This report attempts to give a summary of the individual contributions and the conference as a whole. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0602462

This study contributes to a topic, which is located at the intersection of demography, sociology, and psychology and which is still rarely addressed by research. It deals with young men's motives and opportunities for aspiring to have their own children. We examine using a qualitative approach how men frame their decision-making, and which factors and individuals influence their intentions in this biographic transition. A multidisciplinary design was implemented both in the development of the research questions and in the analysis of the interview. We draw upon concepts derived from personality and social psychology as well as from demography and sociology in order to attain an adequate approach to the topic throughout the course of the study and to be able to interpret results from different disciplinary perspectives. We interviewed 30-year-old men from East Germany, most of them childless, using a problem-centered interview technique that was strongly inspired by ideas of WITZEL. Our interviewees were participants from a large medical-psychological longitudinal survey, which allowed us access to selective quantitative data and served as background information. A particular point of interest for our study was to examine the subject of men's desire for children in times of a massive, and still unexplained fertility decline in East Germany. Results show a large variety and variability within the stories of our respondents. We refer to different social-psychological theories (the Theory of Symbolic Self-Completion and the Theory of Planned Behavior) in order to understand how processes of motivation, intention-formation, and decision-making in men occur during this important biographic transition in times of societal upheaval. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs030386

Recent calls to include psychological theories of decisionmaking and intention-formation in research on family formation coincide with calls for improving research on male fertility and fatherhood. In this article we address these notions and present findings from in-depth interviews with 30-year-old childless men from Eastern Germany on their desire to become parents. The context for this research is the societal situation of contemporary Eastern Germany, where birth rates have faced a historical low - the lowest in more than 10 years. Our innovative analytical paradigm draws on the contemporary social cognitive theory of intention-formation. The focus lies on the examination of male attitudes, values, motives, interests, goals, action beliefs and self-concepts, and their connection with men's intentions for parenthood. We compare our results with explanations given by the Theory of Symbolic Self-Completion and the Theory of Reasoned Action. We argue for the need to bring together psychological and sociological theorizing in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]