Search

Despite a wide range of family policies, marriage and fertility rates in Japan remain very low among developed countries. Drawing on data from a national survey experiment, this study aims to examine whether dissemination of existing family policies can increase marriage and fertility intentions of Japanese young individuals and whether the effect depends on their gender‐role preferences. The results show that informing and/or reminding respondents of the existing family policies can significantly increase their marriage intention, but not their fertility intention. Moreover, the effect on marriage intention is moderated by their gender‐role expectations for future spouses. Specifically, the policy information effect is more pronounced among women who expect a relatively equal share of financial responsibilities and among men who expect their future wives to assume the primary housework responsibilities. This suggests that although existing family policies may lower marriage costs for economically independent women, the same policies could potentially exacerbate domestic gender inequalities and women's work‐life conflicts by helping less domestically engaged men enter into marriage. Overall, these findings contribute to the feminist literature on gender and family by highlighting the potential consequences of family policies on the pre‐marriage mechanisms of domestic gender inequalities and calling for actions to change men's traditional gender ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opportunities for incarcerated persons to connect with their loved ones exist in several forms. Yet, there is limited evidence documenting the scope of state prison family engagement policies beyond visitation. To fill this gap, a systematic policy review and content analysis of nine state prison family engagement policies was conducted. The results provide evidence of both consistencies and inconsistencies in policies across forms of prison contact, as well as opportunities and barriers for incarcerated persons. Important policy and practice takeaways are discussed, particularly the need for more timely, transparent, and clear policies regarding family engagement in correctional settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family language policy (FLP) is a key focus of immigrant families, as parents are considered to play a vital role in children’s bilingual language development. Nevertheless, many parents report that they do not have an FLP. Accordingly, their FLP planning style is unplanned and spontaneous. This study compares families’ FLP planning styles (overt vs. covert). Data was collected via questionnaires from parents and their English-Hebrew bilingual children (n = 82). Children’s receptive and expressive vocabulary of both languages were assessed to explore the impact of FLP planning style. Results confirm that families present with a desire for proficient outcomes in both languages. However, families with an overt planning style present with more pro-heritage language policies (e.g. promoting English use with siblings). Those with a covert planning style lean towards pro-societal language policies and children may be allowed to speak any language at home. Differences in FLP planning did not significantly impact ratings of home language use or children’s vocabulary. The perceived value of English as a global language may be partially responsible for the findings. The study confirms that although there are many effective ways to raise a bilingual child, FLP planning has implications for the bilingual language learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Title I accountability requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) represent the present-day instantiation of Lau, which requires schools to provide a program for English learners (ELs) that supports their meaningful engagement and to provide transparent information about EL program quality. This study uses critical policy analysis to explore whether ESSA accomplishes what it intends. Employing a parallel mixed methods design, we first analyze longitudinal data from two states to examine whether their approaches to assessing EL students’ academic performance and progress support valid claims about EL achievement. Then, we analyze focus group and interview data from educators, advocates, and families in states to understand how they assess the quality of a school’s EL program. Taken together, our findings highlight the need for the incorporation of multiple perspectives into the design of state accountability systems and for the development of robust data systems that facilitate the sharing of accurate and nuanced information related to EL student outcomes and opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: As there remains a paucity of research into the use of communication strategies in Polish transnational communities, this paper seeks to delineate the code-switching practices of Polish-speaking families residing in Australia. The tripartite framework of Family Language Policy has been applied for the analysis of affordances of code-switching patterns. Methodology: Based on the data collected through the online questionnaire supplemented with in-depth interviews and observations, a qualitative analysis has been conducted to obtain the sociolinguistic picture of the code-switching practices. Data and analysis: The interviews and discussions during the observations were recorded, transcribed verbatim and coded according to the Grounded Theory Approach. The recurrent themes were noted. The existing patterns were conceptualised through the process of constant comparison. Findings and conclusions: The conducted study draws our attention to the fact that Polish speakers in Australia differ from speakers of other heritage languages. Language management efforts through a great exposure to Polish translates to HL proficiency, maintenance and the degree of bilingualism, as well as the rate of code-switching. All joint family and extracurricular activities organised by Saturday schools and cultural centres augment the HL retention despite the constant attempts to code-switch among the young family members. Originality: This paper delves into how Polish is maintained as a HL among Polish-speaking immigrants to Australia and their offspring. It explores one of the well-established yet understudied communities that makes up multicultural Australia. It unfolds an account of the dynamics of code-switching, illustrating how its affordances are utilised to foster communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nebraska is often referred to as "the good life" by state residents. In 2022, Nebraska was comprised of over 800,000 family households and had a population nearing two million. Nebraska is the only state in the U.S. with a unicameral legislature and is comprised of both rural and urban contexts over a diverse geography. Like other states, in the past decade, there have been changes in the demographic makeup of the population, due in part to immigration, an aging population, and out migration. Given this context, we focus our review of Nebraska families on state priorities identified in a Nebraska Cooperative Extension needs assessment that include attracting and retaining a skilled workforce, and enhancing economic vitality, health, and wellbeing. We describe the state geography, demographics, and government contexts. We then describe where current policy programming, and resources stand in addressing relevant family-focused needs and issues of the key working age population. We end with recommendations focused on the strengths of Nebraska, given its relatively small population and community-oriented nature that can be leveraged to support innovations in policies and programs to create a healthy environment for families, that ultimately enhance the economic vitality of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India, a traditional collectivist country, has a complicated family system rooted in its diverse culture and religion. With nearly 302.4 million households in 2021, the country experienced various political, social, and economic challenges due to globalization and Westernization. Data from six nationally representative surveys are used in the present study. In this article, we have reported findings in four sections: (1) Demographics, (2) Family Wellness, violence, and empowerment, (3) Aging and grandparenthood, and (4) developmental initiatives and policies for augmenting family welfare in India. The main findings of the report provide an overview of the difficulties faced by Indian families such as poverty, alcohol abuse, casteism, and gender-based violence. Given these challenges, the country is seeing several promising changes, including a rise in women empowerment, age at first marriage, and fertility. India overcomes these challenges by understanding them systematically, reaching the most affected, and addressing societal challenges. The report concludes by calling policy makers for investment in education, infrastructure, and policy execution and evaluation. We expect the study results to contribute to India's health and family welfare policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores two types of population policies common in Arab countries: pro‐natalist policies, aimed at encouraging higher birth rates, and anti‐natalist policies, aimed at reducing birth rates. Determining their practical impact is often challenging due to the lack of control or comparison groups. However, historical policy patterns in two groups of Arab countries over the past six decades offer a unique opportunity for comparison. Between the 1970s and 1990s these two groups implemented opposing programs (pro‐ vs. anti‐natalist), followed by predominantly anti‐natalist policies in both groups. By comparing fertility rates between these groups and discussing various factors influencing fertility changes, this study suggests that the influence of population policies in Arab countries may have been smaller than anticipated, to the point that it is questionable whether they have been worthwhile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the findings from a study that explored how the language practices and management to which 156 students from universities in China reported being exposed at home, alongside their language beliefs, use of their entire linguistic repertoire when reading, listening, speaking, and writing at university, and emotions related to being multilingual predicted the language practices and management they envisioned for their own families. Data were gathered through a comprehensive questionnaire administered on campus. The results revealed that the more participants reported exposure to multilingual language practices at home and the stronger their beliefs in the benefits of a multilingual upbringing, the more determined they were to implement multilingual language practices with their own families. Moreover, using languages fluidly at university correlated positively with participants’ desire to adopt a more conscious approach to language management in their future families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Families are vital providers and recipients of pediatric palliative care (PPC) services. Understanding the scope and nature of evidence at the intersection of family science and PPC research is necessary to develop family-focused interventions that enhance child and family health. Explore and describe the family-level impact of pediatric serious illness. We conducted a librarian-assisted scoping review using Arskey and O'Malley's approach. We searched PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and EMBASE databases for empirical publications from 2016 to 2021 that focused on families navigating serious pediatric illness published in English. Two reviewers assessed eligibility, with discrepancies resolved by a third. We used Covidence and REDCap for data management and extraction. We screened 10,983 abstracts; 309 abstracts were included in full text screening. The final group of 52 citations was analyzed by the entire team. Most research was conducted in Western Europe and North America. The perspectives of parents of children with cancer were most frequently described; voices of seriously ill youth and their siblings were less often presented. Most of the research was descriptive qualitative, followed by descriptive quantitative. Few studies were mixed methods, inferential, or interpretive. Studies most often described parent, youth, and family experience with illness and less often explored family processes and relationships. Irrespective of the approach (i.e., qualitative, quantitative), few studies focused on families as the analytic unit or used family-level analysis techniques. Study participants were usually from local dominant populations and less often from historically marginalized communities. The robust, descriptive, and individual-level evidence describing family impact of serious pediatric illness provides a solid foundation for future research priorities. Stronger integration of family techniques and diverse family voices in pediatric palliative care research can clarify family processes, illuminate structural barriers, and inform interventions that are responsive to family needs. These steps will enhance the education, policy, and clinical provision of PPC to all who would benefit, thereby advancing health equity for children living with serious illness and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines household change and related demographic and social factors in Botswana during the last 40 years (1971–2011). The analysis uses data from five Botswana censuses and three nationally representative surveys: the 1988 Botswana Standard Demographic Health Survey (BSDHS), the 2000 Multiple Indicator Survey (MICS) and the 2007 Botswana Family Health Surveys (BFHS). Overall, the analysis affords a demographic and socio-economic perspective on the change in Tswana households, which is not generally available in census reports and other population survey analyses but is crucial to family and household policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article highlights some of the many challenges that disabled parents face in the family regulation system. Using one mother's case, as documented by a New York Family Court Judge following a termination of parental rights trial, I surface the assigned child welfare agency's limited and binary approach to mental health concerns, failure to provide appropriate services to parents with intellectual and developmental disability, and failure to address the trauma of parents involved in the family regulation system. I argue that the issues surfaced in the case of Ms. M. are emblematic of the broader failures of the family regulation system, case workers, state agencies, and others in the context of working with parents with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of International Business Studies is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective: This essay discusses the challenges and opportunities of defining family in the context of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people. Background: LGBTQ+ people and their families remain at the forefront of novel family scholarship. Interrogating methodological approaches to defining family are critical for overcoming the continued marginalization and misrepresentation of LGBTQ+ family scholarship. Method: We review and present select literature to frame the current challenges and subsequent opportunities for advancing LGBTQ+ family scholarship through the conceptual and methodological defining of family. Results: Framed in a U.S. context, we discuss the oppressive and emancipatory consequences that have occurred through the project of defining family. We then highlight current challenges of defining LGBTQ+ families, emphasizing data inclusion and measurement considerations that arise when grappling with the methodological complexities of LGBTQ+ people versus LGBTQ+ families, chosen families and fictive kin, LGBTQ+ children in families, and consensually non‐monogamous relationships. Throughout, we present opportunities to address current shortcomings within family scholarship regarding LGBTQ+ families. We end with clear and pointed steps on how family researchers can integrate practical but nevertheless influential strategies to advance and enrich LGBTQ+ family research through intentional reflections on research design, sampling, and measurement. Conclusion: Despite progress, family scholarship alongside current social events entreats a more intentional commitment from family scholars to measure and advocate for data and methods that properly illuminate (LGBTQ+) family life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what degree is explicit care/work policy taught in family courses in Canada's leading research-intensive universities? We analyze family courses in sociology departments and in political studies and women's/gender studies programs in Canada's 15 R1 universities to make a contribution to the scholarship of teaching and learning. This national scan marks a methodological innovation from curriculum studies that generally adopt a single-program or single-site focus. From a Canadian universe of 74 family courses, we identify 15 whose formal course calendar description explicitly addresses care/work family policy (measures to reconcile caring for young children with employment, through early learning and childcare, parental leaves, and child benefits). Sociology predominates among courses where family policy is taught, yet care/work policy content is not common. Given growing concerns about the care crisis and the care deficit in Canada, the low profile of care/work family policy content in family courses is significant. This study sheds light on the value of national postsecondary education curricular reviews and suggests that family curriculum renewal is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A short birth interval adversely affects the health of mothers and children. This study aimed to measure the prevalence of short birth intervals and identify their associated factors in a semi-urban setting in Burkina Faso. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study in which data were collected in households between May and October 2022. The dependent variable was the short birth interval (SBI), defined by the World Health Organization as the time between two live births. We performed a multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regression with robust variance to determine the factors associated with the SBI by reporting adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI). Results: A total of 5544 birth intervals were recorded from 4067 women. A short birth interval was found in 1503 cases out of 5544, i.e., a frequency of 27.1%. The prevalence of short birth interval (time between two live births less than 33 months) was higher in never users of modern contraceptive users (aPR = 1.24; 95% CI [1.14–1.34] vs. previous users), in younger ages with aPR of 4.21 (95% CI [3.30–5.37]), 2.47 (95% CI [1.96–3.11]), and 1.45 (95% CI [1.16–1.81]), respectively for under 18, 18–24 years old, and 25–34 years old, compared to 35 and over. Childbirths occurring before the implementation of the maternal and infant free health care policy (aPR = 2.13; 95% CI [1.98–2.30]) and also before the free family planning policy (aPR = 1.53; 95% CI [1.28–1.81]) were more likely to have SBI. Women with low socio-economic positions were also more likely to have SBI. Conclusion: This study found a high SBI in Burkina Faso (more than one woman out of four). Our results have programmatic implications, as some factors, such as contraceptive practice and socioeconomic status, are modifiable. These factors need particular attention to lengthen birth intervals and, in turn, improve mother–child couple health by reducing short birth interval consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue came about as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought unprecedented shifts in the conditions and opportunities for language education. In the context of heritage languages, there were significant challenges for learners, parents, and teachers, but there were also new opportunities for rethinking the ways in which languages were taught and passed on to the next generation. In this Special Issue, we take an ecological perspective on language policy and planning (henceforward LPP) and focus on micro- and meso-level LPP related to language learning and the intergenerational transmission of heritage languages. While the approach taken in this volume aligns with the notion that macro, meso and micro perspectives, goals and activities are not independent of each other but form a complex ecology (Baldauf, 2006), our focus here is not on formal policy making and implementation, but on the practices surrounding language learning, teaching and use, as forms of LPP (Liddicoat, 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnationals constitute one-third of the population of the economically prosperous Singapore. Applying a family language policy (FLP) framework and collaborative autoethnography from data (interviews, videos, and diaries) spanning 13 years, this study delves into the linguistic journey of an Italian-Chinese family with two children born in Singapore. The analysis demonstrates the dynamics of language ideologies, management, and practices, following changes in parental beliefs, children's linguistic proficiencies and agency, availability of resources within the family and the host country, and unexpected events like COVID-19. The article highlights how multilingual parents' ideologies shape up owning to individual experiences, beliefs, and aspirations, and how these ideologies are translated into language choices and day-to-day language maintenance, vis-à-vis Singapore's English-centric policies. This unique longitudinal case study also touches on features pertaining to transnational families in Singapore, such as the perception of the local variety 'Singlish,' caregiving, and schooling options, illustrating the intricate interplay of micro and macro factors governing family multilingualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Language policies in multilingual families refer to parents' decisions, whether explicitly articulated or not, regarding which languages will be used in which contexts. However, because most studies that explore language allocation focus on families with young children, they do not address how family language policies impact the retention of a home language through to the next generation. The present study investigates an important perspective on this issue, specifically how emerging adults' childhood experiences with their family language policy relate to the languages they currently use and plan to retain in the future. Methods: In all, 62 multilingual Canadian adults, aged between 17 and 29 years, participated in focus group interviews concerning their experience of language policies in their birth families, their current beliefs concerning language allocation and retention, and their plans about language policy in their future families. Results: The data revealed that not only are most participants interested in retaining their home language, thereby continuing to speak the language in their future families, but most are also open to incorporating additional languages into their policies. Discussion: The results provide insight into how to identify effective heritage language retention policies that transcend generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In recent years, China has implemented a national language policy promoting the use of Putonghua (Standard Chinese) in ethnic minority schools. This study investigates how mesolevel institutions (i.e., schools) have responded to this macro‐level national language policy change, and how the institutional policy changes have affected Korean‐Chinese bilingual family language policies in Yanbian, China. Based on an analysis of the teaching and learning materials used in schools and data gathered through interviews with and observations of 16 Korean‐Chinese bilingual families, this study finds that schools have actively responded to macro‐level policy changes with organised, large‐scale language practice activities. As a result of factors such as educational pressure and broader societal ideologies, families have been pressured to align with the meso‐level language policy despite their desire to maintain their heritage language and culture. Consequently, it is likely that future generations of Korean‐Chinese individuals, who would previously have been ‘born’ bilinguals, may become monolinguals. This study contends that in countries with a unified language ideology and a dominant language, the impact of macro‐level policy reforms can restrict or promote micro‐level family language policies through the mediating influence of meso‐level institutions. Family language policy researchers may need to recognise that there is a one‐way, rather than two‐way, relationship between the aims of the state and the desires of families in such contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the Schur concavity of the von Neumann entropy and introduce a majorization-based entanglement criterion for the states of systems consisting of identical fermions. This criterion is in the form of an inequality between the von Neumann entropies of the total density matrix and the single-particle reduced density matrix which have to be satisfied by the separable states of such systems, and therefore, its violation indicates the entanglement. Our criterion is an improved version of the one introduced by Zander et al. (in Eur. Phys. J. D 66: 14, 2012). To illustrate its utility, we use the criterion to various illustrative instances of the families of mixed states and find that when the single-particle Hilbert spaces are of dimension four, the criterion indicates all the entangled states within the families under consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has a profound impact on millions of families in the United States. While Hispanic families represent the most rapidly growing demographic group within this population, little research explores their unique experiences in coping with the family impacts of ASD. This comparative study explored the lived experiences of Hispanic parents of children with ASD. Fifteen Hispanic parents were part of the studies and a comparison study was conducted deriving from both. Moutstakas' modified data analysis approach was used to theme out the findings. Four major themes emerged from the data analysis: 1) parental response 2) the other children 3) parental impact 4) future. Findings suggest ways in which the construction of the role of parenthood in a Hispanic culture held unique implications for participants as they sought and struggled to find the balance of ASD. Implications for practice and scholars with Hispanic families of children with ASD based on their lived experiences are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly attention to China's domestic experimentation and control measures applied to its population (e.g. the Family Planning Policy and Zero-Covid) has expanded. So, too, has the popularity of the Foucauldian concept of biopolitics, which refers to political strategies of governing based on a population's biological features. However, China's biopolitical rationales for its growing participation in global governance (全球治理 quanqiu zhili) beyond its borders have received less attention. This research focuses on the Arctic, a region where China does not claim territorial sovereignty but has significant involvement, to examine the Chinese state's exertion of biopolitical control over its outbound tourist population. Drawing on a review of policy texts and media reports, complemented by observations at an Arctic conference held in China and three field visits to the Arctic in 2018–2019, we show how China's interventions in Arctic tourism seek to transform Chinese tourists into a productive, self-disciplining population who practice and promote state logics of social and environmental responsibility. The paper contributes to the understanding of tourism governance in frontier regions with geopolitical significance, as well as the modern state's exterritorial power over its own citizens even when they are beyond its sovereign territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides a conceptually informed empirical critique of the pursuit of social licence as a warrant for data linkage and predictive analytics in the field of family policy intervention. It draws on research focusing on parental views of digitally‐driven family governance in the United Kingdom. We identify the notion of consensus that undergirds the concept of social licence that acts to obscure inequalities and silence conflict, and to reframe digital surveillance and prediction as a moral rather than political issue. Using focus group and individual interview material, we show how parents assert professional or lay experiential knowledges in making judgements about the legitimacy of and trust in operational data technologies, involving struggles between positionings as parents like 'us' and 'other' parents. We demonstrate how parents have different leverages from these unequal and morally charged social locations. Inevitably, the application of social licence in the domain of digital family policy and intervention is fractured by entrenched social divisions and inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everyday caregiver‐infant interactions are dynamic and multidimensional. However, existing research underestimates the dimensionality of infants' experiences, often focusing on one or two communicative signals (e.g., speech alone, or speech and gesture together). Here, we introduce "infant‐directed communication" (IDC): the suite of communicative signals from caregivers to infants including speech, action, gesture, emotion, and touch. We recorded 10 min of at‐home play between 44 caregivers and their 18‐ to 24‐month‐old infants from predominantly white, middle‐class, English‐speaking families in the United States. Interactions were coded for five dimensions of IDC as well as infants' gestures and vocalizations. Most caregivers used all five dimensions of IDC throughout the interaction, and these dimensions frequently overlapped. For example, over 60% of the speech that infants heard was accompanied by one or more non‐verbal communicative cues. However, we saw marked variation across caregivers in their use of IDC, likely reflecting tailored communication to the behaviors and abilities of their infant. Moreover, caregivers systematically increased the dimensionality of IDC, using more overlapping cues in response to infant gestures and vocalizations, and more IDC with infants who had smaller vocabularies. Understanding how and when caregivers use all five signals—together and separately—in interactions with infants has the potential to redefine how developmental scientists conceive of infants' communicative environments, and enhance our understanding of the relations between caregiver input and early learning. Research Highlights: Infants' everyday interactions with caregivers are dynamic and multimodal, but existing research has underestimated the multidimensionality (i.e., the diversity of simultaneously occurring communicative cues) inherent in infant‐directed communication.Over 60% of the speech that infants encounter during at‐home, free play interactions overlap with one or more of a variety of non‐speech communicative cues.The multidimensionality of caregivers' communicative cues increases in response to infants' gestures and vocalizations, providing new information about how infants' own behaviors shape their input.These findings emphasize the importance of understanding how caregivers use a diverse set of communicative behaviors—both separately and together—during everyday interactions with infants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the stochastic matching model on a non-bipartite compatibility graph and analyze the impact of adding an edge to the expected number of items in the system. One may see adding an edge as increasing the flexibility of the system, for example, asking a family registering for social housing to list fewer requirements in order to be compatible with more housing units. Therefore, it may be natural to think that adding edges to the compatibility graph will lead to a decrease in the expected number of items in the system and the waiting time to be assigned. In our previous work, we proved this is not always true for the First Come First Matched discipline and provided sufficient conditions for the existence of the performance paradox: despite a new edge in the compatibility graph, the expected total number of items can increase. These sufficient conditions are related to the heavy-traffic assumptions in queueing systems. The intuition behind this is that the performance paradox occurs when the added edge in the compatibility graph disrupts the draining of a bottleneck. In this paper, we generalize this performance paradox result to a family of so-called greedy matching policies and explore the type of compatibility graphs where such a paradox occurs. Intuitively, a greedy matching policy never leaves compatible items unassigned, so the state space of the system consists of finite words of item classes that belong to an independent set of the compatibility graph. Some examples of greedy matching policies are First Come First Match, Match the Longest, Match the Shortest, Random, Priority. We prove several results about the existence of performance paradoxes for greedy disciplines for some family of graphs. More precisely, we prove several results about the lifting of the paradox from one graph to another one. For a certain family of graphs, we prove that there exists a paradox for the whole family of greedy policies. Most of these results are based on strong aggregation of Markov chains and graph theoretical properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the role of maternal years of education and family language policy (FLP) in monolingual and bilingual children's acquisition of Hebrew plural morphology. The case of the Hebrew plural system is especially interesting when examining the influence of the above factors on morphological performance, given that it demands both a mastery of morphological rules (characterized by a high degree of transparency in Hebrew) and a lexicon-based mastery of exceptions. Participants were 146 children, 74 bilinguals (heritage language: Russian; societal language: Hebrew) and 72 Hebrew monolinguals, aged 5–8 (kindergarten, first grade, and second grade), from the same schools and neighborhoods. A Hebrew pluralization, sentence completion task that included 99 items from two categories: fully regular words whose plural forms are based on a morphological rule and non-regular words whose plural forms (also) require lexical and/or morpho-lexical knowledge. The parents of the bilingual children filled out a questionnaire with questions on background variables (e.g., maternal education) and language practice in both languages by different family members and language use at home. The findings indicated that maternal education contributes differently and distinctly to the linguistic performance of children from different linguistic backgrounds. For monolingual children, an increase in the number of years of maternal education is associated with an increase in the likelihood of success in the lexical and morpho-lexical aspects of Hebrew. By contrast, for bilingual children, no significant contribution of maternal education to children's performance was found. For bilingual participants, their performance in the lexical and morpho-lexical aspects of the Hebrew plural system was consistently influenced by FLP across all school settings—increased use of Russian at home was associated with a lower likelihood of success in the societal language. FLP characteristics were not found to be related to maternal education. These findings have clinical implications for both assessment and intervention processes when working with bilingual children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages with scholarly debates on the emergence of market logics in family life. By deploying qualitative data from couple interviews in Germany and Spain, we show how the existence of a so-called managerial family is salient among interviewees in both countries. Couples might introduce weekly family planning meetings or follow investment strategies when organizing childcare and housework. Drawing on the theoretical concept of moral economies, the article adds a macro-level institutional perspective to this picture of entrepreneurial family life by linking how couples justify their managerial practices to macro-level moral ideas and the institutional setup in which they live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combining high birth rates with gender equality and women's reproductive choice is often put forward as a Nordic success story. We analyze Norwegian governmental commission reports delivered 1984–2017, tracing how fertility issues are approached in policy-making under shifting demographic conditions. We focus on four key topics—pro-natalism, individual versus societal level effects of policies, socioeconomic differences in fertility, and immigration. We see little or no attention given to the fact that policy effects may vary by class background or preferences. Relatively high fertility is considered positive, but pro-natalist intent is downplayed or absent, even when fertility is falling. We connect these findings to the distinctive Nordic dual earner/care-giver model, a historical legacy of "unintentional" pro-natalism, and features of the commission system. We call for more interchange between demography and institutionalist scholarship and argue that questions of macro-level fertility effects of family policies could be better handled in a more explicit debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The American parenting economy is built around the notion that raising children is a matter of private parental investment. This essay outlines briefly the features of what is best characterized as, not family-friendly, but rather family-hostile policy in the United States, before it proposes two reasons for why the ideal of parental investment holds its grip. The first is the historical political entanglement of neoliberalism with neoconservatism that continues to entrench the focus on traditional family values. The second is the more recent cultural backdrop of building knowledge infrastructure around “the economic way of looking at parents” to repurpose economist Gary Becker's Nobel Laureate lecture title, which has permeated public discourse and reframed “childrearing” as “parental investment.” Therefore, the possibility of policy change is not simply a matter of political struggle. A potent obstacle to family-friendly policy is cultural. Parents and nonparents will not demand, nor will politicians embrace, radical institutional transformation of the American family policy if we do not shift our thinking. We need less economic reasoning and more sociological imagination, recognizing that parenting, no matter how intimate and personal it seems, is inextricably and thoroughly bound up with social structures and culture. And that raising children—all children in the manner they deserve—is not a matter of private investment but a common responsibility.

The article is devoted to the study of the family institute and models of reproductive behaviour of the Russian population in the formation of a new sociо-gender order and demographic environment. The article considers the demographic situation in Russia, analyses the peculiarities of birth rate and the problem of interethnic marriages. The dependence and interrelation between changes in society and the socio-gender order as its constituent are also investigated. Special attention is paid to the anti-family policy of the West being an instrument of the socio-gender strategy. The article presents the research results and statistical data that allow us to draw conclusions about the impact of socio-gender changes on the family institution and reproductive behaviour of Russians. Finally, with the help of the analysis, we comprehend that in the formation of the new socio-gender order and demographic environment of the country, the institution and reproductive behaviour patterns of the citizens are undergoing significant transformations. These changes require an in-depth study and understanding in order to develop effective measures to support the family institution and increase the birth rate in Russia. The paper examines in detail the peculiarities of the Russian demographic situation, including analysis of the birth rate and problems of interethnic marriages. The author reveals the dependence and interrelation between the socio-gender changes and reproductive behaviour of the Russians. The study is valuable to understand current structural and value-based changes of the family as a social institute, its subjectivity and to develop support measures for families and to increase the birth rate. The article may be useful for specialists in demography, sociology, psychology, and other related sciences.

Introduction. Scientific discussions on the implementation of the second demographic transition have not been completed, it is possible to identify specific features of changes in the structure of families in different countries or different social groups (for example, religious ones), but it is premature to talk about the universality of this process. In modern Russia, the social structure of families and households has changed, however, in order to capture the essence of the changes and identify the factors that have had an impact; it is necessary to constantly monitor the situation. The answers to the following questions are of scientific interest: how the structure of families in Russia has changed; what motivation is the basis for reproducing the structure of large families in different periods of demographic transition? The article presents an analysis of empirical data that allows us to identify trends in the transformation of the structure of the Russian family; to characterize the motives of reproductive behavior in large families, to determine what conditions and resources are required in large families to form or maintain well-being. Materials and methods. The information base was the data of the All-Russian population censuses for 2002, 2010 and 2020; the results of the author's research were an in-depth interview with parents from a large family in the course of the All-Russian sociological study ‘Demographic well-being of the regions of Russia’, 2021. Results. The changes in the structure of Russian families towards the increasing share of large families under the influence of demographic policy measures have been revealed, the consolidation of this trend requires the implementation of targeted measures to support the institution of a large family, which, in the authors’ opinion, should correspond to the ideal model of a ‘prosperous family’. Discussion. It is important to develop a demographic policy strategy taking into account trends in the structure of Russian families. The analysis of interviews with large families provided for the formulation of the main directions of assistance to large families, as well as to systematize social practices of members of large families aimed at preserving and developing the family well-being.

Kinship structures among Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (2SLGBTQI+) individuals differ from conventional nuclear families. Heteronormative models of family and cohabitation impact housing options, resulting in the marginalization of queer households in Canada. This paper examines systemic factors in federal, provincial, and municipal policies, focusing on two specific policies: Multigenerational Home Renovation Tax Credit and Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods, which limit housing provision for 2SLGBTQI+ individuals. Using Toronto as a case study, it evaluates how these policies affect the household needs of 2SLGBTQI+ adults based on queer kinship and identifies opportunities for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Honor requires that individuals demonstrate their worth in the eyes of others. However, it is unclear how honor and its implications for behavior vary between societies. Here, we explore the tension between competing views about how to make sense of honor–as narrowly defined through self-reliance and self-defense or as broadly defined through strength of character. The former suggests that demonstrating the ability to defend one's self, is a crucial component of honor, while the latter allows the centrality of self-reliance to vary depending on circumstances. To examine these implications, we conducted studies in the U.S., where self-reliance is central to honor, and in Iran, where individual agency must be balanced against the interests of kin. Americans (Studies 1, 2a; n = 978) who endorsed honor values tended to ignore governmental COVID-19 measures because they preferred relying on themselves. In contrast, honor-minded Iranians (Study 2b; n = 201) adhered to public-health guidelines and did not prefer self-reliance. Moreover, honor-minded Iranians endorsed family-reliance, but did not moralize self-reliance (Study 3; n = 107), while honor-minded Americans endorsed family-reliance and moralized self-reliance (Study 3; n = 120). Results suggest that local norms may shape how honor is expressed across cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Desired fertility measures are routinely collected and used by researchers and policy makers, but their self-reported nature raises the possibility of reporting bias. In this paper, we test for the presence of such bias by comparing responses to direct survey questions with indirect questions offering a varying, randomized, degree of confidentiality to respondents in a socioeconomically diverse sample of Nigerian women (N = 6,256). We find that women report higher fertility preferences when asked indirectly, but only when their responses afford them complete confidentiality, not when their responses are simply blind to the enumerator. Our results suggest that there may be fewer unintended pregnancies than currently thought and that the effectiveness of family planning policy targeting may be weakened by the bias we uncover. We conclude with suggestions for future work on how to mitigate reporting bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis contribution addresses the strategic significance of family politics for the Islamic Republic of Iran, facing multifaceted crises. It identifies Iran’s recent family and gender policies, which are characterised by the fusion of neoliberal principles with moral politics and can be found in other authoritarian neoliberal regimes. Drawing on a historical analysis of familialism in Iran, spanning pre- and post-revolutionary periods, we contend that the recent shift towards a gendered-moral politics emphasising harsh pronatalism and family-oriented governance, termed  ‘neoliberal familialism’, reflects a profound shift in the political rationality of the Islamic Republic towards neoliberal governance to manage its socio-economic crises. In other words, not only have neoliberal principles affected the family politics of the last decade in Iran, but a specific form of masculine nationalist neoliberalisation in Iran has also been possible and advanced partly through neoliberal familialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childcare has been considered a ‘new’ social risk and various childcare regimes have been developed worldwide to tackle this social problem. While welfare attitude studies have paid attention to public attitudes toward childcare services, little is known about public attitudes toward other childcare‐related family policies (i.e., leave and allowance). Using novel and unique survey data on welfare attitudes from China, this article investigates how socioeconomic factors matter to general as well as prioritised support for three types of childcare‐related family policies and to policy regimes in China where low fertility crisis is emerging. The survey data suggests the biggest gap between general and prioritised support is found in allowance policy and the smallest in service policy. Regression models suggest that the biggest gap between general and prioritised support for allowance policy can be explained by the reversed and negative effects of education and gender. We further develop a typology of public support for childcare regimes using Latent Class Analysis (LCA) and find four types: implicit and explicit familialism, de‐familialism, and ambiguous familialism. The results of multinomial logistic regression on public support for childcare regimes confirm the findings on prioritised support for different policies and suggest a bifurcation effect of age on regime preferences. We discuss the implications of the findings in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: This paper highlights the conflicting language ideologies and translanguaging practices of a transcultural (Korean/Canadian) Korean/English-speaking family residing in South Korea through the lens of family language policy. Methodology: This paper draws on qualitative case study methods. Data collected consisted of interview data, language portraits, audio and video recorded family discussion of the language portraits, familial meals, and board/card game playing, as well as participant journal entries. The data from this paper comes from a larger project. Data and analysis: Data were gathered from four members of a multilingual family residing in South Korea. Data were coded and analyzed iteratively using thematic analysis. Findings: Findings from this paper suggest that language ideologies among multilingual family members vary due to the influence of local language ideologies and individual language experiences; this can lead to a disconnect between language practices and language ideologies and a multilingual identity in children. Originality: To my knowledge, this paper is the first study to use a family language policy lens in a transcultural multilingual family in South Korea. In addition, the study utilized unique data collection activities such as the video-recorded discussion of family member language portraits. Significance: This paper argues for parents in multilingual families to take a translanguaging stance when considering their language policies in the home to support their children's multilingual identities. This is the first paper to take this stance by involving all family members, and by using multiple sources of data, including language practices. Furthermore, this paper takes a critical approach to the lens of family language policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Obesity is the most common chronic condition in the United States (US), yet primary care physicians face barriers in providing obesity treatment. This study examines the prevalence of American Board of Obesity Medicine (ABOM) certified obesity specialists on the faculty of US Family Medicine residency training programmes, the preparedness of graduating resident physicians to treat obesity, and residency training programme director preferences for supporting faculty development to improve residency education in obesity management. This cross‐sectional on‐line survey of programme directors addressed the number of ABOM‐certified faculty, perceived graduate preparedness to treat obesity, and priorities to improve faculty expertise and obesity curriculum. Of 672 eligible programme directors, 298 (44%) responded to our survey. Most programmes (76%) had no ABOM‐certified faculty. The proportion of programme directors assessing their graduates as prepared to care for patients with obesity has significantly decreased in the last 5 years (2018: 74%, 2022: 58%, p =.016). Residents in programmes with ABOM‐certified faculty member were more likely to be assessed as very prepared to provide medical care (18% vs. 7.8% p =.047). A majority (54%) of programme directors identified limited faculty training and expertise as the biggest faculty and resident‐level barrier to quality obesity care. This study demonstrates an important trend towards increasing ABOM‐certification among Family Medicine residency programme faculty and an urgent need to prioritise faculty development to improve faculty expertise and resident training to address the obesity epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biographical narratives generate a continuous sense of political community across the state's past, present and future, and provide the state with ontological security. Building on growing International Relations scholarship that highlights the power of visuals in shaping global politics, our article proposes visual rhetorical analysis as a tool to interrogate how governments employ images to tell their biographical narratives. The rhetorical approach transcends the methodological divide in the current 'visual turn' literature between the cognitive psychological and poststructuralist perspectives. We illustrate the analytical value of the rhetorical approach through an empirical study of how the totalitarian regimes of China and North Korea communicate their biographical narratives – the 'rightful great power' narrative and the 'family state' narrative, respectively – through propaganda imagery of their leaders. To this end, we develop a close semiotic reading of selected photographs of Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un in different narrative settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Africa Spectrum is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We analyse a model in which families may either be 'traditional' single-earner that care for the child at home or be ' modern' double-earner households that use market child care. Family policies may favour one or the other group, like market care subsidies vs. cash-for-care. Policies are determined by probabilistic voting, where distributional impacts matter, both within and across groups. A higher share of modern households—which can be induced by changes in social norms or by changes in gender wage inequality—may have non-monotone effects, with lower net subsidies to traditional households when their share is very low or very high, and higher subsidies in some intermediate stage. This may explain the implementation of cash-for-care policies and their subsequent tightening in late stages of development, when most voters come from modern households, observed in Norway and Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family language policy (FLP) impacts the maintenance of heritage language(s) in the family domain, where parents play a crucial role in making language-related decisions for their children. Globalisation, immigration, the COVID-19 pandemic, and digital communication have all affected FLP. Studies are now calling for examining how dispersed transnational families incorporate digital practices as a part of their FLP, given the shift from the exclusive use of traditional face-to-face communication to the inclusion of digital communication media such as Skype and WhatsApp. This research examines the viability of utilising Spolsky's tripartite framework to study the new concept of 'networked FLP,' a term coined by Curdt-Christiansen and Huang, which acknowledges dispersed families and digital communication. We examine data from ten Bengali immigrant families in Australia with dispersed senior family members living abroad. Our findings enrich the concept of networked FLP by highlighting the digital affordances that networked FLP provides to dispersed transnational families and the importance of socio-cultural and emotional factors when applying Spolsky's framework to FLP with digital media. We show that family bonding, maintaining heritage culture, and emotional connections are the primary motivations for digital communication, while language learning is secondary. Our study finds that it is essential to incorporate sociocultural and emotional factors when investigating networked FLP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community volunteers occupy a unique position, being at the margins of institutional systems but central to public life in communities. They play a crucial role in forming and maintaining primary-level social order. Through life history interviews that explore the spiritual world of community volunteers, this study proposes a typology of community actors: enthusiasts, devotees, the dissatisfied, and neutrals. The first two types broadly constitute what can be termed "community volunteers." Analyzing the multiple cultural origins that give rise to proactive community actors reveals that the interplay of familial, individual, and danwei (work unit) consciousness is the fundamental driving force behind their engagement in public life. Actors carry the cultural weight of multiple contexts through their life practice, with community an intermediary structure between family and state. This exploration provides a new framework for understanding contemporary Chinese urban community volunteers and community governance, uncovering the consciousness and emotional structures embedded in individual actors by macro-social transformation and highlighting a historical path of primary-level governance modernization in China that is distinct from that of the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Elementary Education / Revija za Elementarno Izobraževanje is the property of University of Maribor, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the 2010s, new family benefits were introduced in Hungary, focusing on large families to halt population decline. However, poverty reduction became sidelined, as these schemes benefited higher‐income earners. Based on poverty statistics, the article investigates how two family types associated with a higher risk of poverty—large families and single‐parent families—fare under this new selective pronatalist system. Furthermore, based on new representative national survey data, the article explores public support for the reforms. Although the income poverty rate for large families significantly decreased during the 2010s, it remained persistently high for single‐parent families, especially large single‐parent families. The findings indicate strong public support for state assistance to large, single‐parent and poor families and state pronatalism. However, the public prioritises support for poor, single‐parent families. This underscores a partial mismatch between public attitudes and government policy. Nonetheless, this policy probably secured public legitimacy, chiefly due to the general support for state pronatalism and large families, which were vigorously implemented in family policies, albeit selectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Methods Results Conclusions Research implies early relational factors – parental appropriate mind‐mindedness (MM) and mutually responsive orientation (MRO) – as antecedents of children's Theory of Mind (ToM), yet the longitudinal path is unclear. Furthermore, little is known about the process in father–child relationships. In two studies of community families in a Midwestern state in United States, we tested a path from parental appropriate MM in infancy to parent–child MRO in toddlerhood to children's ToM at preschool age in mother– and father–child relationships, using comparable observational measures at parallel ages.In Children and Parents Study (CAPS) of children born in 2017 and 2018, we collected data at 8 months (N = 200, 96 girls), 38 months, age 3 (N = 175, 86 girls), and 52 months, age 4.5 (N = 177, 86 girls). In Family Study (FS) of children born mostly in 2001, we collected data at 7 months (N = 102, 51 girls), 38 months, age 3 (N = 100, 50 girls), and 52 months, age 4.5 (N = 99, 49 girls). Parental MM (verbal comments aligned with the infant's psychological state) was observed in infancy, MRO (parent and child responsiveness to each other and shared positive affect) at age 3, and ToM (false belief tasks) at age 4.5.The findings supported the proposed indirect effects of parents' MM on children's ToM, mediated by MRO, for fathers and children in both studies, and for mothers and children, in CAPS. In FS, mothers' MM predicted MRO and ToM, but there was no mediation.This investigation, testing a path from MM to MRO to ToM in both mother– and father–child relationships in two longitudinal studies, adds to the literature that has described relations among those constructs but rarely integrated those in one model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]