Staying close by moving out. The contextual meanings of personal autonomy in the life stories of women of Moroccan descent in The Netherlands

This article focuses on the themes of personal autonomy and communion in the life stories of highly educated women of Moroccan descent in The Netherlands. It is argued that the task to make the most of what The Netherlands have to offer whilst staying loyal to parents who have paved the road, creates a double bind which is the motor behind the development of the ‘plot’ of all collected life stories. While the interviewees tend to interpret the dilemmas they face in finding a satisfactory balance between autonomy and communion in terms of differences between ‘the Dutch individualistic society’ and ‘the collectivistic values’ which characterize ‘the Moroccan’ or ‘Islamic culture,’ comparison with the life stories of members from the established Dutch working class who have socially moved upward, demonstrates that the dilemmas faced are similar. In many instances, climbing up the social ladder appears to play a bigger role than ethnic or religious background in ambivalent feelings abouth belonging. Where the life stories of migrant daughters differ is in narrations on the inheritance of loss and aspirations intrinsic to migration. Also, Moroccan colours, smells, objects, symbols and patterns of conduct inform the interviewees’ sense of belonging and supply them with powerful images and words to describe their experiences.

Mobility,Cognitions, and panic

Responses to the Mobility Inventory for Agoraphobia and the Cognitions Questionnaire were compared from samples of agoraphobics, social phobics, senior citizens, students, and students' relatives. The data illustrate the occurrence of avoidant behavior and panic in groups other than agoraphobics. The Mobility Inventory was shown to have good discriminative power, but the Cognitions Questionnaire failed to discriminate between agoraphobics and social phobics. The relationship of panic to mobility and cognitions is considered.     

居住流动性对心理行为的影响

居住流动性,指某时期个体搬迁的次数或某区域居民搬迁的比率。本文从居住流动性引起社会环境变化入手,综述其心理影响。对儿童/青少年,搬迁中断了成长所需的关键社会环境,影响自我调节、认知能力、情感与群体行为等。对成年人,搬迁使社会环境陌生化、所属群体变换频繁,影响心理健康、人际交往、自我概念和群体认同等。随后,就成年前、后研究的关系、居住流动性对利己行为的影响及国内居住流动性研究的未来方向进行了讨论。     

‘Would I be happier if I moved?’ Retirement status and cultural variations in the anticipated and actual levels of happiness

Should one give up the comforts of home in exchange for more leisure opportunities or a desirable climate? The present research examined the anticipated and actual levels of happiness among non-retirees and retirees in the US and Korea. Both American and Korean non-retirees overestimated the importance of novelty factors (e.g., climate, recreational opportunities) in making a retirement prediction, compared with retirees’ reports. Non-retirees believed that a place with nice weather and plenty of cultural and recreational opportunities would make them happy in their retirement. However, the actual retirees who placed importance on the novelty factor when they made the retirement location decision were not happier than those who placed less importance on this factor. Instead, the retirees who placed more importance on the practicality factor (e.g., easy access to medical services, daily convenience) felt happier and more peaceful than other retirees.     

School Mobility and Achievement: Longitudinal Findings From an Urban Cohort

This study investigated the effects of school mobility on reading and math achievement for 1,087 low-income Black children in the Chicago Longitudinal Study. Between kindergarten and seventh grade, 73% of the students changed schools at least once during elementary school and 21% changed schools three or more times. The prospective longitudinal design of the Chicago Longitudinal Study allowed for controlled analyses of both the predictors and the consequences of school mobility. The significant predictors of the number of moves included prior achievement, the number of years of preschool participation in an education intervention program, and parent education. Although the students who changed schools frequently between kindergarten and seventh grade performed approximately one year behind their nonmobile peers on reading and mathematics achievement tests taken at the end of seventh grade, only one half of this difference appears attributable to frequent mobility. The remaining portion is due to the fact that the mobile students were lower achieving even before they started to change schools. The negative consequences of past school mobility are lower for students who moved into better quality schools such as magnets or academic academies. Findings indicate that it is frequent, rather than occasional, mobility that significantly increases the risk of underachievement.     

Distancing from a stigmatized social identity: State of the art and future research agenda on self-group distancing

Despite equal rights, minority groups such as ethnic minorities, LGBTQ + people, and people with mental or physical disabilities face discrimination on a day-to-day basis in subtle and hard-to-recognize forms. As discrimination slips beneath the surface, it becomes difficult to fight the stigma using collective social identity coping mechanisms. Instead, individual mobility responses such as distancing the self from the stigmatized identity (“self-group distancing”) become more viable as a way to improve one's individual standing. In this overview of the state of the art, we take a social identity lens to reflect on the current empirical knowledge base on self-group distancing as a coping mechanism and provide a framework on what self-group distancing is; when, where and why self-group distancing likely occurs; and what its consequences are at the individual and the collective level. The contributions in this special issue provide novel insights into how these processes unfold, and serve as a basis to set a future research agenda, for example on what can be done to prevent self-group distancing (i.e., interventions). Together, the insights highlight that while self-group distancing may seem effective to (strategically and temporarily) alleviate discomfort or to improve one's own position, on a broader collective level and over time self-group distancing tends to keep the current unequal social hierarchy in place.     

The school-to-work transition: A role identity perspective

The current article provides an extension of the conceptual literature on the school-to-work transition (STWT). Specifically, we attempt to integrate this diverse literature by proposing a role identity approach to studying STWTs. Here, we suggest that an individual’s work role identity plays three roles in understanding the outcomes of STWTs: as a direct predictor of STWT success, as a mediator of distal factors on STWT success, and as moderator variable that interacts with other role identities (e.g., family member) in influencing STWT success. The article concludes with directions for future theoretical and empirical research as well as implications for practice.     

The role of learning and career guidance for managing mid-career transitions – comparing Germany and Denmark

In Germany and Denmark, the systems of further education and career guidance are well developed, offering a wide range of services and learning opportunities for targeted, specific and also general skills development. Based on an empirical study with mid-career individuals in both countries, the article investigates how the different systems support individuals to manage a career transition and develop their individual pathways. Mid-career transitions can be considered particularly challenging as they often reflect a more profound crisis and major concerns about future career opportunities. Constraints that prevent individuals in mid-career to fully benefit from the learning and guidance offers available can be identified in both countries. These range from the availability of programmes and accessing funding to getting the ‘right’ information. These constraints partly derive from adult education and guidance systems presupposing linear careers rather than disruptive trajectories and horizontal mobility.     

Academic promises and family (dis)enchantments: clues for guidance and counselling in higher education

Family has an undeniable influence upon the career construction of higher education (HE) students, since it is a primary source of their socialisation. This article presents a qualitative analysis of 30 interviews conducted with first-year students, aimed at understanding the relationship between family sociocultural status and career choice and the perceived meaning in the family of the enrolment of one of their elements in HE. Results show that HE students came mainly from economic, cultural and social upper classes. It was a ‘logic path’, for who would inherit in the adult age, not only the economic capital, but also the relational capital. The educational and economic resources of the students' families are key factors in the choice to pursue HE studies, rather than the professional world.     

Relational mobility promotes subjective well‐being through control over interpersonal relationships among the Chinese

The present research investigated the relationship between relational mobility (RM) and subjective well‐being and revealed its psychological mechanism among the Chinese. Study 1 demonstrated that RM positively predicted subjective well‐being. In Study 2, imagined ecology with high RM led to higher expected subjective well‐being relative to that observed in low RM. In Study 3, a correlational study, interpersonal relationship mastery mediated the relationship between RM and subjective well‐being. This result was replicated by an experiment in Study 4. These findings highlight a socioecological perspective in understanding people’s subjective well‐being and shed light on understanding the relationship between different types of mobility and subjective well‐being.