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'Sexting' as a form of sexual expression and experimentation has grown increasingly ubiquitous among teens. In addition to fostering intimacy and closeness among selected partners, sexting between minors incurs considerable risks to youth mental, physical, social and emotional wellbeing. Current debates on sexting focus on the conflicting role of pressure and pleasure among youth. We highlight findings from 35 focus groups with Canadian teens examining attitudes and experiences with cyber-risk and sexting. Our results show that youth demarcate boundaries between public and private and an ordered/disordered sense of self as they seek intimacy with others through the exchange of explicit digital material. Drawing on recent conceptual and theoretical work on image-based sexual abuse, we suggest that teens express situated agency when reflecting on sexting, indicating only partial awareness of wider patriarchal contexts mediating and patterning gendered behaviours involved in sexting and its outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender stereotypes are a known issue in video games, where female characters are often hyper-sexualized and relegated to disempowering roles. Numerous quantitative studies paint a grim picture of video game communities as hyper-masculine spaces complicit in reproducing harmful gender ideologies. Missing from the literature are qualitative inquiries of the meaning gamers assign to their engagement with a medium that is known for underrepresenting and objectifying women. This study uses qualitative textual content analysis of an influential, popular Internet video game forum—the largest of its kind—where gamers respond to questions posed by members about gender in video games. My findings show that gamers centralize the role of sexual agency and sexual empowerment to construct multiple, nuanced discourses for understanding gender stereotypes in games. These discourses mirror broader feminist debates about the achievability of sexual empowerment within hyper-sexualized cultural contexts. As video games grow in popularity, their ability to generate meaning among increasingly diverse audiences requires continued investigation. By engaging with gamers as they make sense of gender representation in games, researchers can glean insight into the many ways gamers envision change within the video game industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prisons are increasingly recognized as emotional places, especially for frontline staff. Though sociological accounts of emotional labour in prisons acknowledges the potential for negative outcomes (e.g. burnout), little scholarly attention has investigated the potential for positive outcomes, particularly opportunities for staff to earn moral wages. This article explores the emotional labour undertaken by correctional officers (COs) working with incarcerated youth in Canadian provincial prisons. Utilizing interviews with 40 COs, we unpack the patterned interactions characteristic of frontline work that call for emotional labour by prison staff, and its outcomes. Our results show that staff are aware of the emotional labour expected of them on the frontline, where opportunities to earn moral wages are contextualized by structural limitations inherent to the carceral environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers of responsivity call for a renewed focus on the role of staff–prisoner relationships in facilitating rehabilitative aims in correctional facilities. Although area experts suggest communication styles are crucial indicators of the success or failure of therapeutic efforts, how correctional officers (COs) communicate with prisoners to form trusting, caring relationships within correctional facilities lacks scholarly inquiry. In response, we investigate how COs working with adult male prisoners value and use their communication skills to discern which techniques are consistent with the responsivity principle. Male and female COs (N = 42) employed in remand or correctional centers across Canada participated in semistructured in-depth interviews. Analyses of interview transcripts reveal officers self-report valuing and using prosocial communication techniques when working with male prisoners in a “relational but secure” approach. Findings suggest this approach provides the trust and respect needed for responsivity efforts to be effective. The facets of a “relational but secure” communicative approach, the vehicles by which such an approach is produced by COs, and the obstacles preventing its successful implementation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]