Sam was 12 when she began cutting herself.[i] She had been grounded by her parents after she pierced her ears without their permission. ‘I don’t know if it was revenge’ she explains, ‘[but] I felt like “you’re not letting me be who I want to be. I’m an individual, I should be able to do what I want to do.” You know? . . . I felt so upset that no one was listening to me.’ Her frustration led her...
Human heterogeneity in culture, race, gender, sexuality, and any other characteristics – commonly referred to as “diversity” – is often lauded in organizations across the U.S. for its various positive outcomes. While hiring or recruiting a diverse pool of people is arguably an ethical imperative, much of the narrative around diversity instead revolves around how it’s “good for business”. For example, a recent Forbes article argues that “diversity and inclusion are essential to business success”, and Amazon’s website claims that...
In 2015 we all sighed a sigh of relief when mental health was eventually included in the Sustainable Development Goals – Goal 3 to be precise. Conveniently, the World Health Organisation also offered a concise definition: The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as ‘a state of well-being in which the individual realizes their own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or...
The Topic We have recently published an article in Children & Society journal exploring parent and professional views on the child’s voice in multi-agency meetings, considering how meaningful and impactful this was, or if there was voice present at all. An online survey combined with educational documents, subject to thematic and documentary analysis, presented some interesting findings. The findings highlight the importance of professional beliefs around child capacity and their understanding of what constitutes a competent view. In turn, they...
When we see reports from protests, some of us feel uneasy about seeing children taking part. The reasons for this anxiety may vary. But it is interesting to ask ourselves what exactly triggers our reactions. Of course, photos and videos capture a fragment of reality in a specific composition, while the experiences of the participants are more integrated and general. The pictures of children protesting [1] raise in many people the fear that they may have fallen victim to manipulation....
Let’s get things straight. Nowadays, in almost all regions of the world, society discriminates against individuals who don’t fit into the imposed sexuality norms. Individuals who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual/Aromantic/Agender and other sexualities and identities (LGBTQIA+) are subject to systemic violations of their human rights. This is not news; it is a historical reality. LGBTQIA+ individuals are living under pervasive violence that comes in many forms: discrimination, harassment, criminalization, stigma, denial of services, invisibility… However,...
With regards to Covid-19, India is the second most affected country in the world. The urban dimension of Covid-19 in Indian cities reflected the urbanisms, geographies, culture and patterns of life that varied across different intensities and forms. The pandemic has brought to the fore the issue of urban vulnerability, how cities are affected by pandemics and how there is a need to develop pandemic resilience and reimagine cities in the post-pandemic world. The Pandemics of Urban Cities The World Economic...
Some years ago, I started my residency as a psychiatrist in a hospital close to Berlin. I was prepared for my job also to encompass meeting people who were not very pleased about meeting me. As one of the downsides of my career choice, I expected to inevitably become a part of the disciplinary institution that Foucault and others had famously described (Foucault 1965; Goffman 1961; Szasz 1974), being obliged to play a main role in cases of compulsory treatment...
On 13 October 2003 Friends of the Earth led a group of 1000 people on a march through London to Downing Street to present a petition opposing the continued development of genetically modified crops in the UK (Brown, 2003). A week later in Wellington, Greenpeace erected a billboard on the grounds of Parliament asking why the Prime Minister was not listening to the peoples’ concerns over genetic engineering (New Zealand Press Association, 2003). Both these events came in the latter...
These days, it is almost impossible to imagine what our daily lives would look like without social media. Platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram have all come to shape our society in fundamental ways – not least in the ways in which we communicate. On the most fundamental level, social media usage has introduced new words to our language that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago (for example, Merriam Webster now lists a Twitter-specific definition for...
Since Arlie Hochschild’s groundbreaking book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (1983), the concept of “emotional labor” has become increasingly popularized. Writing about jobs in the service industry, Hochschild defines emotional labor as the work that “requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others” (20). In other words, many (if not most) jobs require us to manage and negotiate our own feelings and the...
Outcomes for care leavers The evidence has been well publicised: young people who have spent their formative years in public care are less likely than their peers to be in gainful employment, and more likely to become homeless, to become involved in crime or prostitution or to become long-term dependent on the state. A closer inspection of the data tends to reveal a much more nuanced picture: a small group of care leavers are ‘movers on’ who achieve educational, employment...
Income and wealth inequalities in the United States are ever widening, and it is having a knock-on effect on segregation. Consider your own life. When you think about the people with whom you interact most, both socially and professionally, it is likely that your neighbors, classmates, and coworkers come to mind. This makes sense, as we come to spend a great deal of our time in our own schools, our own neighborhoods, and our own workplaces. Now consider the socioeconomic...
Religion occupies an odd place in British public and social life. On the one hand, there is an established church in England, while the Church of Scotland is recognised as the national church in Scotland, guaranteed under the Act of Union of Scotland and England of 1707. But compared with other countries Britain is at a relatively late stage of secularisation. A decreasing proportion of the public attend a place of worship regularly, even taking into account the relatively greater...
“Do what you love” is something we often hear in response to questions about what career path to choose. Whether from guidance counselors, college professors, or parents, the message is always the same: the best job is the one you are passionate about. A job, in other words, should be more than a job – it should be a part of who you are. While often well-intentioned, this idea is built on several problematic assumptions. First, it presupposes that everyone...
A new report on limited-profit housing associations in Austria quantifies the economic impacts of affordable housing in terms of household budgets, economic output, and state expenditure. This article summarises the key findings from this report and draws conclusions on the links between housing and economic inequality. Profit-limitation and affordability – almost 2k Euros savings to households Limited-Profit Housing Associations (LPHA) in Austria occupy a distinctive Third Sector role in Austria’s housing market, being neither profit-driven nor state-dependent. LPHA provide homes...
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