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Short interbirth interval (IBI) has serious adverse health consequences, yet has an estimated prevalence of 35% in the United States. Similarly, intimate partner violence (IPV) around time of pregnancy, experienced by approximately 5% of women, is associated with increased risk of poor pregnancy outcomes. IPV might compromise women's decision-making, contributing to unintended pregnancy and short IBI. This study examines the relationship between pre-pregnancy IPV and short IBI, and whether insurance status moderates this relationship among multiparous women who responded to the 2009–2011 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System survey (N = 13,675). Pre-pregnancy IPV (yes; no), insurance status (Private insurance; Medicaid/public insurance; no insurance), and short IBI (yes; no) were examined. Insurance status was identified as an effect modifier (p =.03), and maternal age, maternal and paternal education, marital status, and drinking alcohol were identified as potential confounders. Multiple logistic regression analysis stratified by insurance status provided adjusted odds ratios (aOR) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI). Overall, 4.6% of women reported IPV before pregnancy, and 48% had a short IBI. When stratified by insurance status, the odds of short IBI was about 3 times higher among women with no insurance and women on Medicaid/public insurance who reported IPV compared to women who did not report IPV (aOR = 3.36, 95% CI = [1.02, 8.02], and aOR = 2.50, 95% CI = [1.04, 5.92], respectively). There was no observed significant difference in the likelihood of short IBI by experience of IPV among privately insured women. Findings from this study strengthen the evidence that women who experience IPV before pregnancy are significantly more likely to have short IBI compared to women who do not experience pre-pregnancy IPV. Furthermore, the odds of short IBI is highest among women experiencing pre-pregnancy IPV who are uninsured or on Medicaid/public insurance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research details women's career launch and childbearing timing strategies without fully theorizing how such work–family plans may be developed alongside men. Overlooking men's role in this process obscures how women's partners can shape their work–family experiences. This study examines how young dual-professional couples plan two careers while timing childbearing. Interviews with 40 partners from 21 mostly White different-sex couples reveal that partners plan simultaneous career launches; sequence men's career launches before women's; or independently pursue career plans. These career launch strategies are not tightly linked to whether couples agree to forgo parenthood; delay childbearing; or initiate childbearing soon. In some couples, women had thought in more detail about childbearing timing in relation to the partners' careers than men had. These couple-level data show that men's career plans more directly shape women's career plans than childbearing plans do because men and women can view childbearing as separate from career planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the critical potential of everyday practices within early childhood spaces, this article builds on a growing body of pedagogical research that challenges researchers 'to use theory to think with data' and create new concepts that are born out of the possibilities of the theory–practice relationship. By aligning Deleuze and Guattari's theory of immanence with the concept of 'an attitude of research', it is argued that an inherent quality of this concept is that it is shaped by the subjectivities, values and processes of children's spaces. It is in the critical potential of one's engagement with quotidien practices that the identity of an attitude of research is created. By identifying the aesthetic qualities that guide interactions, visibility is brought to the patterns of thinking that are contextual and therefore unique to an early childhood space. This article demonstrates that practice and an attitude of research constitute one another, creating a new theory – 'research as lingering' in the threshold of the everyday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Educators have considered how Minecraft supports language and literacy practices in the game and in the spaces and circumstances immediately surrounding gameplay. However, it is still necessary to develop additional conceptualizations of how children and youth's online and offline worlds and experiences are blurred by and through the games. In this study, I take up this call and examine how the boundaries of the digital were blurred by one child as he wrote in response to a standardized writing prompt within his urban fourth-grade classroom. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Through snapshots of Jairo's writing, I illuminate how he muddled the lines between his physical play experiences and those he had in the virtual world of Minecraft. In doing so, I argue that he carried over his personal interest as a fan of Minecraft into the writing curriculum through creative language play. As Jairo "borrowed" his physical play experiences in the virtual world of Minecraft to complete an assigned writing task, he exemplified how children blur playworlds of physical and digital play in the elementary ELA classroom. Research design: Drawing on data generated in an 18-week case study, I examine how one child, Jairo, playfully incorporated his lived experiences in the virtual world of Minecraft into mandated writing tasks. Conclusions/Recommendations: My examination of his writing is meant to challenge writing scholars, scholars of play, and those engaged in rethinking media's relation to literacy. I encourage a rethinking of what it means for adults to maintain clear lines of what is digital play and what is not. I suggest adults might have too heavy a hand in bringing play into classrooms. Children already have experiences with play--both physical and digital. We must cultivate a space for children to build on what was previously familiar to them by offering scaffolds to bridge these experiences between what we, as adults, understand as binaries. Children do not necessarily see distinctions between "reality" and play worlds, or between digital and physical play. For children, play worlds and digital worlds are perhaps simply worlds; it is we as adults who harbor a desire for clear boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women experiencing homelessness have higher rates of unintended pregnancy than stably housed women and may benefit from reproductive interconception care. How reproductive interconception care differs between women who did and did not experience perinatal homelessness is not known. We estimated prevalence ratios of reproductive interconception behaviors among US women experiencing homelessness during the perinatal period.We used data from the 2016-2019 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System to calculate the prevalence of 5 reproductive interconception care outcomes: attending a maternal postpartum checkup, participating in a conversation with a health care provider about birth intervals, receiving family planning counseling, obtaining a prescription for short-acting contraception, and having a long-acting reversible contraceptive inserted. We used complex survey weights, stratified by perinatal homelessness, and converted adjusted logistic regression odds ratios between housing status and outcome variables to adjusted prevalence ratios (aPRs) and 95% CIs.Among participants, approximately 2.4% (weighted percentage; unweighted 2953 of 100 706) experienced homelessness sometime in the 12 months before their children were born; the majority were non-Hispanic (83.2%) and White (69.4%), were not married (82.2%), and had public health insurance (56.8%). Perinatal homelessness was significantly associated with a lower prevalence of attending a postpartum maternal visit (aPR = 0.90; 95% CI, 0.87-0.94) and a higher prevalence of having a conversation about birth intervals with their health care providers (aPR = 1.13; 95% CI, 1.03-1.21).Findings suggest that improving attendance at postpartum visits and evaluating birth interval conversations may strengthen interconception care practices while contextualizing social determinants such as housing stability. Improving uptake of postpartum visits may reduce unintended pregnancy, short birth intervals, and adverse birth outcomes in future pregnancies among women experiencing homelessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers and caregivers organize children's everyday life in early childhood settings to support children's well-being, learning and development. Teachers' organizational decisions (e.g. daily schedule, arrangement of furnishings, activities, behavioural expectations) are influenced by a set of ideas, norms and values which they may or may not be conscious of at the time. The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of how democratic, caring and disciplinary values are communicated and negotiated between adults and children (from birth to five) in crèche and preschool settings, with particular attention to whether these values are animated in isolation (e.g. separately from one another) or in a more unified fashion. The conceptual framework for this study is based on previous theories and research on democracy education, communicative action, educational content and children's democratic formation, caring values and disciplinary values. The researchers analysed video recordings of interactions between children and teachers during lunch, circle time and free activities. The findings reveal the nature and extent to which teachers expect children to follow and participate in the social order that adults have established for them, as well as ways in which empathic practitioners create space for children to influence changes in the social order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many urban districts use a portfolio management model, hoping to promote school choice and improve school performance. This model requires school closure, which has predominantly impacted lower income families. In 2013, Chicago Public Schools relocated Granger Elementary into one of 48 schools it closed, placing its middle-class parents in the unusual position of resisting a school closure-related decision. Our case study explores parents' resistance from a perspective of capital use and parental agency. Interview participants leveraged extensive capital in response to the proposed closure–relocation. When their efforts failed to halt the directive, they used their resources as consumers, largely finding their children spaces in other schools. Parents were unable to effectively exercise agency to influence district-level policy, but they secured educational advantages for their own children by leveraging their capital. Findings inform implications for market-based policy theory, equity, and democratic control of public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most engaging claims of Patel and Moore's book is that abstract ideas have played a powerful role legitimating the exploitation of swathes of humanity, through distinguishing ontologically and epistemologically between nature and society. As most women, and indigenous people, were defined as part of nature, their labours and lives, including their care labour, were deemed to be part of nature and thereby legitimately exploitable. The authors claim that the cheapening of care arose from the separation of spheres between care work and paid work, between home and the economy, arising from the development of enclosures and the demise of the commons. What the book does not address, however, is how the exploitation of women's domestic and care labour was not only beneficial to capitalism: men of all classes were and are beneficiaries of women's unpaid care labour. The authors also suggest that the primary purpose of caring is to reproduce people for capitalism. But caring is not undertaken simply at the behest of capitalism. Nurturing and caring for others are defining features of humanity given the lengthy dependency of humans at birth and at times of vulnerability. The logic of care is very different to market logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of the length of birth intervals in the past and factors influencing them could help us to reveal many aspects of reproductive behavior at that time. The aim of this article is to describe the reproductive behavior in families from Jablonec (Czech lands) before the onset of the fertility transition using survival analysis and Cox regression based on individual observations acquired from family reconstitution. A usability description of these methods is the methodological aim of this article. The results show that birth intervals were affected, above all, by the survival of the previous child, birth order, and age of mother. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that birth-order position has a lasting impact on personality has been discussed for the past 100 years. Recent large-scale studies have indicated that birth-order effects on the Big Five personality traits are negligible. In the current study, we examined a variety of more narrow personality traits in a large representative sample (n = 6,500-10,500 in between-family analyses; n = 900-1,200 in within-family analyses). We used specification-curve analysis to assess evidence for birth-order effects across a range of models implementing defensible yet arbitrary analytical decisions (e.g., whether to control for age effects or to exclude participants on the basis of sibling spacing). Although specificationcurve analysis clearly confirmed the previously reported birth-order effect on intellect, we found no meaningful effects on life satisfaction, locus of control, interpersonal trust, reciprocity, risk taking, patience, impulsivity, or political orientation. The lack of meaningful birth-order effects on self-reports of personality was not limited to broad traits but also held for more narrowly defined characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which investigates the correlation between perinatal characteristics and risk of lupus using data from Sweden. Identification of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) cases from Sweden's National Patient Register and controls are conducted. Moreover, it concludes that birth order was significantly correlated with SLE.

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of rural Filipinos concerning the various factors influencing birth spacing. The Household Production of Health nested in the Ecological Model was used to provide the conceptual framework for this study. Analysis of ethnographic data produced one domain of meaning, Factors Influencing Birth Spacing, and six categories: (a) gender relations, (b) religion and the Catholic Church, (c) contraceptive technology, (d) media, (e) family and friends, and (f) family planning education. Understanding the factors influencing birth spacing in different cultures may provide health care providers with a broader scope for providing culturally competent care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors used data on 426 older mothers' relationships with their 1,823 adult children to explore the relationship between birth order and parental favoritism. The findings demonstrate that birth order continues to play an important role in explaining favoritism when families enter later stages of the life course. Last-born adult children were most likely to be named as those to whom their mothers were most emotionally close; firstborn children were most likely to be chosen as those to whom mothers would turn when facing personal problems or crises. Further analyses revealed that these patterns remained largely unaffected by family size, race, and child spacing. Middle-born children were substantially underrepresented in mothers' choices; such a pattern is particularly striking considering that the number of middle-born children far exceeded that of firstborn and last-born children in the sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study was designed to define the relation between some sibling characteristics (birth order, sex, and interval between successive births) and some behavioral problems in children, on the one hand, and certain dimensions of the mother-child relationship, on the other hand. Method: The sample, from National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, included 1196 families with 2 biological children aged 4 to 11 years. Behavioural problems and dimensions of the mother-child relationship were assessed by mothers. Repeated-measures multivariate analyses of variance were conducted. Results: Analyses showed that first-born children have more internalized symptoms than second-born children. Second-born children also have more positive interactions with their mothers than first-born children. The interval between successive births does not affect these results. Conclusion: Several differences emerged between siblings. Health professionals should take these findings into account in their clinical assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to recent studies in evolutionary anthropology, firstborn daughters influence both parity progression and sibling survival by acting as so-called helpers at the nest. Based on 534 sets of household data from family reconstitution, the current analysis fails to show that offspring sex had any direct impact on maternal fertility, sibling survivorship, birth spacing, or reproductive span. instead, the results indicate that fertility decisions were heavily affected by proximate factors such as child mortality and gender preferences. Families who had experienced child death were swift to substitute the loss with another pregnancy—a phenomenon known as replacement strategy. Similarly, a surplus of daughters acted as a strong impulse for parity progression, not because of potential helping effects but in an attempt to conceive additional sons. This is particularly apparent when the odds of grandmultiparity are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rotter's Locus of Control scale was administered to 64 first-born and 157 other undergraduate students, and data on the sex of participants' siblings were also obtained. The sex of participants' siblings was significantly correlated with locus of control among first-borns but not among other participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses data from the Ghana Fertility Survey (GFS) 1979/1980 to examine the changing pattern of fertility behavior through the timing of births among different birth cohorts representing the onset of the fertility transition. Although the cohort changes expected do not appear to be large, there is some evidence of a pattern of birth intervals which suggests that the younger birth cohorts have shorter durations between marriage and first birth, and a slower pace for childbearing thereafter. Older women, on the other hand, exhibit relatively longer intervals from marriage to first birth and a little shorter intervals for their next births. In contrast to some previous studies, these patterns indicate that shorter intervals are not necessarily associated with shorter subsequent intervals and vice versa. The changing social meaning of marriage, increasing opportunities for the younger generation of women and prevalence of family limitation measures appear to have caused the recent changes in the fertility behavior of Ghanaian women. The composite effect of the socio-economic, and cultural variables on the timing of births in Ghana will be the focus of future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although sociologists have identified factors associated with the timing of births, little is known about the consequences of the spacing of births. Several perspectives imply a negative effect of close spacing of siblings on educational attainment, but these perspectives differ in the mechanisms used to explain this effect. We use data from the High School and Beyond survey to investigate the effect of spacing on high school attrition and post-secondary school attendance. Our analysis confirms that close spacing increases the likelihood of dropping out of high school and decreases the odds of attending post-secondary school. The direct effect of close spacing on post-secondary school attendance persists net of ability and academic performance; the effect of spacing on dropping out of high school is mixed. Close spacing of siblings also constrains the allocation of family resources, which in turn affects educational attainment. Alternative explanations of the relationship between sibship structure and educational outcomes are reinterpreted in light of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents first study of season of birth effects in American athletes. Previous literatures reporting uneven distribution of birth dates in European athletes; Absence of uneven distribution found in a sample of 167 football players or in a sample of 600 baseball players.

Examines the relationship between age spacing of children, family resources and children's academic performance in Australia. Relationship between family social status and outcome scores; Significance of spacing with parents' aspirations and children's word performance.

The article investigates the connection between birth order and children having learning disabilities. The Psychological Services Division of the Memphis City Schools selected thirty-eight children as learning disabled and expecting placement in special education classes. The study found out that children with learning disabilities tend to come from huge families, although significant variables including socioeconomic status, spacing of children in the families and the number of actual pregnancies remain to be considered.