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The front‐line of the welfare state is increasingly not a letter, phone call or face‐to‐face visit, but an online user‐interface. This ‘interface first’ bureaucracy is a fundamental reshaping of social security administration, but the design and operation of these interfaces is poorly understood. Drawing on interview data from senior civil servants, welfare benefits advisors and claimants on the UK's flagship Universal Credit working‐age benefit, this paper is a detailed analysis of the role played by interfaces in the modern welfare state. Providing examples from across the Universal Credit system, it sets out a five‐fold typology of user‐interface design elements in the social security context: (i) structuring data input, (ii) interaction architecture, (iii) operative controls, (iv) prompting and priming, and (v) integrations. The paper concludes by considering the implications of an ‘interface first’ welfare bureaucracy for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excerpted from my book Generally Speaking, this paper introduces "concept‐driven sociology," a special way of theorizing designed to reveal abstract social patterns. As such, it examines the methodological process by which we can "distill" generic patterns from the culturally, historically, and situationally specific contexts in which we encounter them. It thus champions a "generic sociology" that is pronouncedly transcontextual (transcultural, transhistorical, transsituational, and translevel) in its scope. In order to uncover generic, transcontextual social patterns, we need to collect our data in a wide range of social contexts. Such contextual diversity is manifested multi‐culturally, multihistorically, multisituationally, as well as at multiple levels of social aggregation. True to its message, the book illustrates generic social patterns by drawing on numerous examples from diverse cultural contexts and historical periods and a wide range of diverse social domains, as well as by disregarding scale. Emphasizing cross‐contextual commonality, concept‐driven sociology tries to reveal formal "parallels" across seemingly disparate contexts. The paper features the four main types of cross‐contextual analogies concept‐driven sociologists tend to use—cross‐cultural, cross‐historical, cross‐domain, as well as cross‐level—disregarding conventionally noted substantive differences in order to note conventionally disregarded formal equivalences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occupation of commercial fishing is recognized as a comparatively stressful and hazardous job characterized by a myriad of risks to health, including high rates of job‐related injury, morbidity, and mortality. Nonetheless, systematic study of fisher health is limited. This paper examines a particularly understudied aspect of illness among fishers: the physical and social contexts, pathways, and potential for adverse disease interactions. The focus of the paper is on a biosocial disease process called syndemics, which increases the health burdens of this population. The paper is presented as an initial testing of the hypothesis that a "lens" of syndemics improves occupational health research and advocacy for commercial fishermen who face a substantial burden of biosocial challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that nurses need to be aware of how the production of space in specific contexts – including health care systems and research institutions – perpetuates marginalized populations' state of social otherness. Lefebvre's idea regarding spatial triad is mobilized in this paper, as it pertains to two‐spirited, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer populations (2SLGBTQ*). We believe that nurses can create counter‐spaces within health care systems and research institutions that challenge normative discourses. Lefebvre's work provides us the necessary tools to understand how various places or environments produce identities. In understanding Lefebvre's principles, we believe that nurses can play an essential role in creating counter‐spaces, thereby instigating counter‐institutional practices, for those who experience otherness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Evidence supports the effectiveness of shared book reading for promoting language and literacy development, but it is known that families experiencing vulnerability may have reduced access to books and are less likely to share books regularly at home. Community hubs often provide support to families experiencing vulnerability and may provide an opportunity to create environments that support families to engage in shared book reading, especially if families are invited into the creation of these environments through co‐design. However, there is currently little evidence regarding the impact of co‐designing shared book reading environments with families in community settings. Aims: The current study is part of a broader project which used co‐design to develop a shared book reading environment in collaboration with stakeholders in a community hub. This small‐scale study aimed to provide a preliminary evaluation of the impact of this co‐designed shared book reading environment at the community hub on (1) the frequency of shared book reading at the hub; (2) participants' confidence and enjoyment of reading with children at the hub; and (3) participants' experiences of shared book reading at the hub. Method & Procedures: The co‐design project was carried out in four phases with families, staff and community partners at the community hub. A convergent mixed‐methods approach was used to collect and analyse quantitative and qualitative data in the first and last phase of the project to evaluate project outcomes. Quantitative data (environmental observations of reading at the hub and participant ratings of confidence and enjoyment of reading with children at the hub) were analysed using descriptive statistics and nonparametric statistical tests. Qualitative data (participants' responses regarding their experiences of changes implemented in the community hub) were analysed using inductive content analysis. Outcome & Results: An increased frequency of shared book reading was observed within the community hub after changes were implemented, and positive changes in enjoyment of book reading were recorded. Qualitative responses from participants following conclusion of the project were organised into three main categories, which showed that (1) children and families were reading more and enjoying reading activities that were happening; (2) children and families were borrowing more books; and (3) families had changed the way they were reading at home with their children. Conclusions & Implications: A co‐designed shared book reading environment within a community hub had a positive impact on shared book reading experiences for families in areas with high levels of vulnerability. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject: Community hubs provide a unique opportunity to support early language and literacy development in partnership with families in areas of vulnerability; however, there is limited literature investigating the impacts of these supports. A previous study utilised co‐design to develop a shared book reading environment with stakeholders at a community hub in an area where a high proportion of children are considered to be 'vulnerable' in terms of language and literacy development. It was found that co‐design enabled the development of collaborative changes to support shared book reading that were valued and owned by families, staff and community partners at the community hub. What this study adds: The current study focused on evaluating the impact of a co‐design project on the frequency of shared book reading at the hub and participants' experiences, confidence and enjoyment of reading with children at the hub. Analysis of pre‐ and post‐data provide preliminary evidence that a co‐designed shared book reading environment in a community hub can have a positive impact on increasing families' awareness and engagement with book borrowing, engagement in shared book reading activities in the community and at home, and participants' confidence and enjoyment of reading with children. What are the clinical implications of this work?: Speech pathologists have an important role to play in prevention and promotion. This study has shown that collaboration with families experiencing vulnerability can support the implementation of strategies to promote shared reading in a community hub and demonstrate increased quality and frequency of shared book reading. The utilisation of a community hub also highlights the opportunities for the speech pathology profession to deliver community‐based promotion and prevention initiatives as a strategy to address equitable language outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Louise Aston's work during the 1840s is usually read within the context of the author's life and biography. This paper differs from this reading. Instead, I explore the extent to which a reading fixated on the author's life runs the risk of overlooking the perspective of behaviours and gender roles that Aston portrayed in her fictional worlds. Using Aston's poem cycle Wilde Rosen (1846), her 1846 pamphlet Meine Emancipation, Verweisung und Rechtfertigung and the three novels Aus dem Leben einer Frau (1847), Lydia (1848) and Revolution und Contrerevolution (1850), I analyse some of the central motifs of her work. Furthermore, I examine Aston's analysis of socio‐economic violence against women and the intersectional perspective in the context of the situation of the proletarian workers of her time. Finally, my focus lies on Aston's gender practices, as can be seen particularly in her character Alice von Rosen. It is precisely Aston's intersectional connection between gender, and sexual and socio‐economic violence that make her literary works so intriguing up to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model to explain why and how some expatriate managers engage in misbehavior in host countries, a notoriously elusive phenomenon in the academe. Integrating social cognitive and fraud triangle theories, we conceptualize this phenomenon as an externally driven, cognitive decision‐making process. Specifically, we theorize that discrepancies between both home and host country environments and expatriate managerial and parent‐company performance expectations and on the ground realities that expatriates face trigger expatriate managerial cognitive self‐regulatory dynamics. Consequently, extrinsic reputation and intrinsic self‐esteem threats provide motivation for managers to learn vicariously from the host social environment about the effectiveness of misbehavior for achieving their goals. Expatriate self‐efficacy and the propensity to morally disengage moderate this process. Parent company controls also impact the influence of vicarious learning on expatriate managers' development of motivation, justification, and opportunities for misbehavior. Our model contributes to the misbehavior and expatriate literatures and extends social cognitive and fraud triangle theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the exponential increase in the number of refugees and displaced people worldwide, it has become critical to examine the experiences of refugees; particularly their identity, since it is an important marker of their adjustment to the new context. Besides other factors impacting their identity and adjustment, the role of the leader is important as it can impact the construction of refugee identities. This paper explores the construction and negotiation of Tibetan refugee identities through the identity entrepreneurship of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and erstwhile political leader of the Tibetans. It is postulated that leaders are entrepreneurs of identity who shape identity construction and negotiation. With an emphasis on the social, political, and historical context, three kinds of sources are analysed using a discourse‐historical approach to understand how leaders function as entrepreneurs of identity across the various contexts and negotiate identity construction across the shifting contexts. First, 12 speeches by the Dalai Lama on 10 critical events in Tibetan history since 1959; second, six speeches by the Dalai Lama for Tibetan Uprising Day (1961–2009); and third, two international interviews (CNN, 2009; BBC, 2012). The analysis demonstrates that the identity entrepreneurship of the Dalai Lama has strong elements of protection towards the ingroup, that is, the Tibetan refugees, through the crafting of a collective sense of identity for Tibetans. The study sheds new light on the nature of refugee leadership, acknowledging the impact of the shifting nature of identity, from a native citizen to refugee; and the leader's identity entrepreneurship in these evolving and often malleable contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The complexity of communication presents challenges for clinical assessment, outcome measurement and intervention for people with acquired brain injury. For the purposes of assessment or treatment, this complexity is usually managed by isolating specific linguistic functions or speech acts from the interactional context. Separating linguistic functions from their interactional context can lead to discourse being viewed as a static entity comprised of discrete features, rather than as a dynamic process of co‐constructing meaning. The ecological validity of discourse assessments which rely on the deconstruction of linguistic functions is unclear. Previous studies have reported assessment tasks that preserve some of the dialogic features of communication, but as yet, these tasks have not been identified as a distinct genre of assessment. We suggest the term 'co‐constructed communication' to describe tasks which are specifically designed to capture the dynamic, jointly produced nature of communication within a replicable assessment task. Aims: To identify and summarize how co‐constructed communication has been assessed with individuals with non‐progressive acquired communication disability regarding task design, measures and psychometric robustness. Methods: A scoping review methodology was used to identity relevant studies. Systematic database searches were conducted on studies published before July 2021. Studies in the yield were assessed against eligibility criteria, with 37 studies identified as eligible for inclusion. Main contribution: This is the first time that co‐constructed communication has been defined as a genre of discourse assessment for stroke and traumatic brain injury populations. Co‐constructed communication has been assessed for 144 individuals with aphasia and 111 with cognitive–communication disability. Five categories of co‐constructed communication tasks were identified, ranging in complexity. Variability exists in how these assessment tasks are labelled and measured. Assessment measures require further psychometric profiling, specifically regarding test–retest reliability and validity. Conclusions: Co‐constructed communication is a discourse genre which offers researchers and clinicians a replicable method to assess language and communication in an experimentally rigorous way, within an ecologically valid context, bridging the gap between experimental and ecological assessment approaches. What this paper adds: What is already known on this subject: Standardized assessments of language skills and monologue offer reliable, replicable ways to measure language. However, isolating language from an interactional context fundamentally changes the behaviour under study. This raises questions about the ecological validity of the measures we routinely use to determine diagnoses, guide treatment planning and measure the success of treatment. What this study adds to the existing knowledge: This review highlights studies that conceptualize, and often quantify, interaction by combining experimental rigour and aspects of everyday dialogue. This is the first time this genre of discourse assessment has been identified. We propose the term 'co‐constructed communication' to describe this genre and provide an operational definition for the term. What are the practical and clinical implications of this study?: Co‐constructed communication assessment tasks require refinement, particularly regarding aspects of psychometric robustness. In the future, these tasks offer pragmatic, meaningful ways to capture the effect and impact of aphasia and cognitive–communication disability within interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores modes of expectation among care‐experienced young people when navigating educational success. Luhmann's theoretical framework is used to conceptualise experiences of educational success and the role of uncertainty. We identify three modes of expectation: trust, risk and danger. To illustrate these modes, we draw on selected examples from an interview study with 28 care‐experienced young people focusing on their experiences of support and aftercare while transitioning out of care. The trust mode of expectation is based in a confidence that the future entails a positive outcome—in the case of this study, regarding educational success. This expectation is characterised by the young person's feelings of belonging, underpinned by a safety net of unconditionally supportive caregivers. The risk mode of expectation is characterised by the young person's feeling of being overwhelmed and burdened by the complexity of the educational system in combination with unknown future circumstances when leaving care. The battle against child welfare services to keep supportive measures increases levels of uncertainty. The danger mode of expectation emerges when educational success is disrupted by the interference of child welfare services. The system is seen as unpredictable and powerful, making the young person withdraw from formal support. We conclude that educational success for care‐experienced young people is closely linked to their mode of expectation with regard to managing the uncertainty of the future and that their mode is highly dependent on their social, institutional and biographical contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although human–robotic interaction is a rapidly burgeoning area of study within education, and social robots are being widely tested for use in schools, few studies have focused on early adolescent interactions with robots under actual classroom conditions. Objectives: We introduced an autonomous, social robot ('Pepper') into a project‐based learning environment at a public elementary/middle school in order to see how long‐term exposure to a robot in a project‐based classroom affected student conceptions of robots. Methods: We conducted unstructured classroom observations, focus‐group interviews with students, and took videos of students interacting with the robot at key points in the project. We engaged in joint coding and memo writing to summarize key themes. Results: Our results showed the limitations of these social robots as interactive educational technology, but also revealed the complexity of young adolescent beliefs about robots as social actors. Although current technology limits the ability of robots to be widely deployed in public‐school classrooms, skillfully designed interventions using social robots have the potential to motivate and engage students. Takeaways: Exposure to the robot stimulated students to discuss robots as social actors, raised issues about gender identification of artificial agents in the classroom, and stimulated discussion on what constitutes a social being. The initial novelty of the humanoid robot enhanced engagement with the longer‐term project and also challenged teachers to be more reflective and flexible in planning the project. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Social robots are increasingly being used in K‐12 classrooms.Robots are still a novelty for students, but technical limitations mean students rapidly lose interest.Some students appear to form emotional bonds with the robots or believe the robots can think and feel.Most of this research has been done under experimental conditions with younger children.We know little about how early adolescents react to robots under normal classroom conditions. What this paper adds: Using social robots in actual classrooms requires teachers to invest considerable time to learn about the technology and solve multiple implementation issues in order to keep up student engagement.The novelty of a social robot can greatly enhance student motivation to engage in long‐term, complex projects.Interacting with social robots stimulates young adolescents to discuss what aspects of the robot make them appear 'social'.Interacting with social robots stimulates young adolescents to consider whether or not robots are truly 'social beings'. Implications for practice and/or policy: The current generation of social robots is not suitable for most public school classrooms.Social robots have potential for project‐based or problem‐based classrooms as they pose complex problems that stimulate young adolescent thinking about social beings and social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Very young children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds often show poorer language development. Whilst there have been attempts to provide early intervention programmes, these sometimes miss the most disadvantaged groups. Aims: This report presents preliminary feasibility and effectiveness data for a novel language intervention designed for parents of toddlers in the United Kingdom. Methods and Procedures: In total, 43 UK families of 2–4‐year‐olds were recruited to the study, half of whom completed an 8‐week course (Tots Talking) focussed on parent interaction, and half of whom acted as wait‐list controls. Results and Outcomes: Results suggest that such programmes are feasible for families with 86% staying in the intervention. In addition, greater changes in underlying communication skills such as joint attention and gesture were evident compared to wait‐list controls. Conclusions and Implications: We conclude that pre‐verbal skills may be more important to measure as initial outcomes than language or vocabulary change in this population. What This Paper Adds: What is already known on the subject: Children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are at higher risk of communication difficulties and there is a need for community intervention programmes for very young children. What this study adds: This study suggests that such programmes can be feasible and effective, but that very early/basic communicative skills (such as joint attention) may be boosted first rather than language or vocabulary. What are the clinical implications of this work?: Children's centres and other community services could feasibly run short parent facing courses emphasising contingent communication in low SES families and other diverse groups. These may be more successful run with younger preschoolers. Joint attention may be a better focus of intervention before expecting vocabulary or language change. Community health professionals may find this information useful in referring and supporting families in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]