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In recent years, a wide range of psychosocial health interventions have been implemented among military service members and their families. However, there are questions over the evaluative rigor of these interventions. We conducted a systematic review of this literature, rating each relevant study (k = 111) on five evaluative rigor scales (type of control group, approach to participant assignment, outcome quality, number of measurement time points, and follow-up distality). The most frequently coded values on three of the five scales (control group type, participant assignment, and follow-up distality) were those indicating the lowest level of operationally defined rigor. Logistic regression results indicate that the evaluative rigor of intervention studies has largely remained consistent over time, with exceptions indicating that rigor has decreased. Analyses among seven military sub-populations indicate that interventions conducted among soldiers completing basic training, soldiers returning from combat deployment, and combat veterans have had, on average, the greatest evaluative rigor. However, variability in mean scores across evaluative rigor scales within sub-populations highlights the unique methodological hurdles common to different military settings. Recommendations for better standardizing the intervention evaluation process are discussed.

The study of family mobilities necessitates an examination of how practices are orchestrated in time as well as space. Conventional approaches to the study of family time use either quantitative analysis of time-use data or qualitative studies of time pressure and work/life balance. The limitation with these approaches is that they assume a rather static family structure that is dominated by parents with young children. Moreover, these studies do not capture the dualistic quality of time; that time constitutes and is a constituent of family life. In this chapter, I use one-day diaries on organising and experiencing time, collated as part of the UK Mass Observation Project in Autumn 2017, to interrogate the relationality of family time. The analysis examines how family practices maybe sequential, synchronous, planned or serendipitous and how these different temporalities permeate the busyness of time pressure. These one-day accounts confirm how time is experienced through and by family and intimate relationships.

The promise of Next Generation Learning Spaces appears to remain unfulfilled. This chapter explores why and how the design of professional learning for academics teaching in such spaces can and should be transformed. It takes a fresh look at why old professional development is failing and proposes a new way to engage academics in their own professional learning. Rather than continuing with traditional professional development that is most often, ad hoc, formal and centrally driven, comprising mandated professional development workshops and a website that may only be visited once, the chapter explores the move from ‘old’ professional development to ‘new’ professional learning. It draws on the fields of organisational theory, cognitive theory and behavioural economics.

New professional learning is characterised by a ‘pull’ rather than a ‘push’ philosophy. Academic staff themselves drive their own learning, choosing what, when and how they want to learn to become better teachers. Multiple and various learning opportunities embedded in day to day work are just-in-time, self-directed, performance-driven and evaluated within an organisational system. In this way the institutional setting influences behaviour by ‘nudging’ habits and setting defaults resulting in academics making the ‘right’ decisions and doing the ‘right’ thing. By addressing the compelling issue of how to enhance academic staff teaching capability, this chapter can help university leaders to think beyond the professional development approaches of yesterday. Aligning with this new direction will result in enhanced learning and teaching in the future.

To reexamine the Weber Thesis pertaining to the relationship between ascetic Protestantism – especially Calvinism – and modern capitalism, as between an economic “spirit” and an economic “structure,” in which the first is assumed to be the explanatory factor and the second the dependent variable.

The chapter provides an attempt to combine theoretical-empirical and comparative-historical approaches to integrate theory with evidence supplied by societal comparisons and historically specific cases.

The chapter identifies the general sociological core of the Weber Thesis as a classic endeavor in economic sociology (and thus substantive sociological theory) and separates it from its particular historical dimension in the form of an empirical generalization from history. I argue that such a distinction helps to better understand the puzzling double “fate” of the Weber Thesis in social science, its status of a model in economic sociology and substantive sociological theory, on the one hand, and its frequent rejection in history and historical economics, on the other. The sociological core of the Thesis, postulating that religion, ideology, and culture generally deeply impact economy, has proved to be more valid, enduring, and even paradigmatic, as in economic sociology, than its historical component establishing a special causal linkage between Calvinism and other types of ascetic Protestantism and the “spirit” and “structure” of modern capitalism in Western society at a specific point in history.

In addition to the two cases deviating from the Weber Thesis considered here, it is necessary to investigate and identify the validity of the Thesis with regard to concrete historical and empirical instances.

The chapter provides the first effort to systematically analyze and distinguish between the sociological core and the historical components of the Weber Thesis as distinct yet intertwined components.

Although many employers continue to adopt various forms of worker participation or employee involvement, expected positive gains often fail to materialize. One explanation for the weak or altogether missing performance effects is that researchers rely on frameworks that focus almost exclusively on contingencies related to the workers themselves or to the set of tasks subject to participatory processes. This study is premised on the notion that a broader examination of the employment relationship within which a worker participation program is embedded reveals a wider array of factors impinging upon its success. I integrate labor relations theory into existing insights from the strategic human resource management literature to advance an alternative framework that additionally accounts for structures and processes above the workplace level – namely, the (potentially implicit) contract linking employees to the organization and the business strategies enacted by the latter. The resulting propositions suggest that the performance-enhancing impact of worker participation hinges on the presence of participatory or participation-supporting structures at all three levels of the employment relationship. I conclude with implications for participation research.

At a recent meeting of the Glasgow Grocers' and Provision Merchants' Association, it was alleged that there are provision merchants in Glasgow who are doing a large business in selling margarine as butter at 1s. 2d. per pound. In commenting upon this statement The Grocer very properly urges that the officials of the Association referred to should take prompt steps to place the facts in their possession before the Glasgow authorities and their officers, and observes that in certain cities and towns—Birmingham, for example—the grocers' associations have co‐operated with the authorities in their efforts to suppress illegal trading, particularly in regard to the sale of margarine as butter. It appears that one of the members of the Glasgow Association expressed the opinion that the Margarine Act has been a failure and that shopkeepers who sell margarine as butter should be charged with obtaining money under false pretences.

Developmental delays in social and communication functioning have been proposed as a possible risk factor for offending behaviour in both young people and adults. These deficits may be particularly common in young people with both offending behaviours and mental health needs. This article describes how an assessment for pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) may be undertaken in a forensic adolescent mental health setting and integrated into the overall needs and risk assessment. Two case histories are summarised to illustrate the advantages and challenges of using this approach as part of the assessment and management of young people. It is likely that a thorough evaluation of social and communication functioning can contribute to developing effective management strategies for patients with offending behaviours and complex needs.