Negotiating faith on the Coventry Road: British-Muslim youth identities in the ‘third space’

This article, which arises from three years of ethnographic fieldwork, explores the negotiation of faith, place and social identity amongst British-Muslim youth in one inner-city community in Birmingham, UK. Narratives drawn from fieldwork are brought into a critical dialogue with theoretical discourse about the nature of culture, the built urban environment, youth identities and contextualised religious discourse within the British-Muslim community. The article suggests that a dynamic definition of culture as an open and ongoing process of meaning-making and the utilisation of ‘third space’ thinking are needed to adequately explore the multifaceted contextual religious discourse of British-Muslim youth. The article seeks to answer a key question: how do urban British-Muslim youth negotiate faith and meaning in a society that increasingly questions their presence and what might their experience have to teach wider society about the impact that contemporary urbanism has on the articulation of personal, political and religious identity?     

Urban–rural differences in children's earliest memories

The purpose of the present study was to address the effects of urban vs. rural upbringing on earliest autobiographical memories. We asked children (aged 10–13) brought up in an urban vs. in a rural setting to report their earliest memories. Earliest memories of children from rural areas were a year later than those of children from urban areas. Moreover, memories of children from rural areas were more likely to contain social interactions and tended to be less detailed compared to those from urban areas. The groups, however, were not different in specificity, autonomous orientation, or emotion. Results are discussed in the context of a social cultural developmental approach.     

Economic inequality and the rise of far‐right populism: A social psychological analysis

It is argued that far‐right (FR) populism in the West is fuelled by inequality. In this paper, we argue that three social psychological processes are central to explaining these phenomena. We suggest that these processes are recursive although we do not specify their temporal order. Drawing on the social identity tradition, we first examine how inequality is linked to reduced social trust and cohesion, which has consequences for both low‐ and high‐income groups. We examine the known effects of perceived threat in amplifying tensions between groups and consolidating identity positions. Second, we argue that national identity consolidation is a particularly likely response to inequality, which, in turn, reduces tolerance of cultural diversity as an associated consequence. Finally, we consider the value of these strengthened national identities to those who harness them effectively to gain political ground. In this way, those who offer FR populist rhetoric aligned with nationalism can blame immigrants, “foreign” powers, and mainstream politics for both the lack of social cohesion and reduced economic circumstances of many. We conclude that FR populist leaders not only tap into the negative social consequences of inequality, their policy positions also fail to address and may even compound the situation.     

A Longitudinal Assessment of Teacher Perceptions of Parent Involvement in Children's Education and School Performance

This study examines the ways in which parental involvement in children's education changes over time and how it relates to children's social and academic functioning in school. Teachers provided information on parent involvement and school performance for 1,205 urban, kindergarten through third-grade children for 3 consecutive years. They rated the following four dimensions of parent involvement: frequency of parent-teacher contact, quality of the parent-teacher interactions, participation in educational activities at home, and participation in school activites. As predicted, the frequency of parent-teacher contacts, quality of parent-teacher interactions, and parent participation at school declined from Years 1 to 3. Every parent involvement variable correlated moderately with school performance and parent involvement in Years 1 and 2, and accounted for a small, but significant amount of variance in Year 3 performance after controlling for initial performance level. Participation in educational activities at home predicted the widest range of performance variables. Results suggest that enhancing parental involvement in children's schooling relates to improvements in school functioning.     

Contextual Competence: Multiple Manifestations Among Urban Adolescents

The authors develop and validate multidimensional and contextual profiles of competence among low-income, urban, middle adolescents (N = 560). The assessment of contextual competence was based on youth self-reports of involvement, performance, and relationship quality in the peer, school, athletic, employment, religious, and cultural contexts. A principal components analysis of these engagement indices revealed the six expected components with the addition of a component labeled self-in-context. To identify holistic, multidimensional profiles of contextual competence, scores along the seven domains were cluster analyzed. Nine clusters emerged, each representing a distinct constellation of youth experience. Profiles were associated with demographic variables and youth adjustment. Profiles reflecting high engagement in two or more contexts predicted higher self-esteem and lower depression. In contrast, profiles marked by high engagement in the contexts of athletics or employment predicted more serious delinquency. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for future research and intervention.     

Relative deprivation,national GDP and right-wing populism: A multilevel,multinational study

We conducted a secondary analysis of the 2018 (ninth round) European Social Survey dataset (N = 19,512, nested in 24 countries) to analyse the association between relative deprivation and right-wing populist voting, moderated by participants' income and their country's GDP. A multilevel moderated model showed that relative deprivation, income and GDP had no association with right-wing populist votes by themselves. However, income and GDP moderated the relation between relative deprivation and right-wing populist votes, that was significant for participants with high incomes and for those living in wealthy countries. The strengths, limitations and future developments of the study are discussed.     

Chinese childbearing decision-making in mainland China in the post-one-child-policy era

In 2016, China enacted its two-child policy, further lifted to a three-child policy in 2021, in response to low birth rates and imbalanced sex ratios resulting from the almost 40-year one-child policy. Despite this, China's birthrate is at a historic low as fewer parents are having children. Now more than ever, inductive explorations are needed to understand what motivates Chinese parents to have first and second children in the post-one-child policy era, particularly explorations that situate individual decision-making within the larger social context. Individual and relational choices occur in larger sociopolitical contexts. Understanding these “personal” actions involves considering how micro and macro processes inform each other. In this study, we elicited qualitative responses from Chinese mothers (N = 117) with two children in early childhood (firstborn ≤8 years old) from Liao Ning province. Most mothers were well educated, employed, and married to children's fathers. Using inductive thematic analysis procedures, we coded qualitative responses about the factors that motivated mothers to have first and second children. Our data revealed that (a) mothers expressed different reasons for having firstborns compared to secondborns, and (b) decision-making occurred against a backdrop of interacting micro-level and macro-level influences (e.g., cultural norms, national policy changes). In particular, mothers described the decision to have secondborns as more deliberative than with firstborns, considering long-term benefits siblinghood and shared demands of elderly caregiving. If efforts to stimulate the national birthrate are likely to succeed, policymakers should consider micro-level as well as macro-level factors that shape mothers' childbearing decision-making.     

青少年的自尊与父母教育方式的关系——不同群体间的一致性与差异性

对８９５名初中阶段城乡青少年进行自尊和父母教育方式测量,考察青少年的自尊与父母教育方式的关系,以及这种关系在不同青少年群体中可能存在的差异。结果显示：（１）从总体上看,青少年的自尊与其报告的父母教育方式各维度之间有极显著或显著的正相关或负相关关系;（２）父母教育方式对青少年的自尊有较好的预测作用;（３）在不同青少年群体中,父母教育方式对自尊的影响存在某些差异。     

我国乡镇卫生资源二次配置模式探讨

长期以来,我国卫生资源配置城乡不均衡的局面比较严峻,大量优质卫生资源主要积聚在大中城市,而乡镇基层医疗机构的卫生资源比较稀缺。以增加政府财政投入,引入私人资本与第三部门力量等方式来提高农村卫生资源增量势必会遇到投入缓慢、资金不足、技术瓶颈等现实障碍。通过改革公立医院,调整城市卫生资源存量,把大中城市公立医院中的富余卫生资源以二次配置方式转移到农村卫生服务机构,是破解农村卫生资源存量不足、增长缓慢的困境,提高农村卫生服务能力和水平,改善农民就医问药问题的新途径。     

Race,resource utilisation,and perceived need among urban community development workers from faith-based organisations

Organisations providing social services in communities of high crime and violence must address staff well-being. The current study surveyed 284 urban community development workers from faith-based organisations in five US cities. The study explored the effects of race and ethnicity on service utilisation and perceived need using binomial logistic regression. Race and ethnicity significantly predicted medical service utilisation, indicating that Caucasian participants were five times more likely and African-American participants were 3.8 times more likely than Latino/a participants to utilise medical services. Race and ethnicity did not predict differences in use of psychological or spiritual services, nor of perceived need for services. Furthermore, volunteer staffs were approximately four times more likely than paid staff to report self-addressing their psychological and spiritual needs rather than utilising services, despite a felt need for support. Barriers to resource utilisation and implications for policies and practices of urban community development organisations are discussed.