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The last two decades have seen an increase in service user involvement (SUI) in the training of Mental Health Professionals (MHP). There is developing empirical support for SUI in MHP training, however, there is no published research into SUI in the training of Cognitive Behavioural Therapists. The purpose of this paper is to explore cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) trainees’ experience of SUI in their training. The study focuses on how an individual service user (SU) led training session is experienced and how this differs to routine CBT training.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants. Transcripts of the interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.

Data revealed three superordinate themes: first, predisposing influences on learning; second, factors associated with emotional processing of experience; and third, impact upon learning outcomes. The results suggest that participants’ appraisal of their learning from SUI maybe influenced by how they accommodate the emotional impact of the experience.

The paper makes recommendations for educators on courses involving service users (SUs), acknowledges the study’s methodological limitations and suggests areas for future research.

Cultures don’t clash … people do. Hidden below the veil of “incompatible cultures” is a complex network of human-to-human interaction involving information-exchange transactions that have gone awry. The multitude of these troubled exchanges results in what is often branded as “M&A failure, due to culture conflict.”

This chapter presents a theoretical discussion that features practical dynamics of the post-merger integration (PMI) process. The aim is to cultivate a deeper understanding of critical, less-acknowledged micro-level aspects of the post-merger integration stage, specifically, those which underlie the development and maintenance of an organization’s culture and lead to organization performance. It is the unseen information exchange among human actors that leads to the perceptible post-merger outcomes, such as cultural unity and task performance. The quality of these micro-exchanges leads to the value capture from the M&A transaction, thus determining the success – or not – of the combination.

Presented is a synthesis of numerous existing theories, perspectives, and ideas from various scholarly communities, combined with a drill-down to the basic human interactions that define a culture and lead to positive performance. Information flow is the sustenance of an organization, so when merging organizations restructure the information flow is abruptly disrupted, often at pronounced near-term cost. The information-flow channels must be mended for social unification and performance value goals of the combined organization to be realized. The information-transporting social networks of the organizational actors must therefore adapt and intermingle across the old-organizational faultlines. This is accomplished when individual actors alter their personal social networks and retool themselves for a new set of information-exchange interactions.

In closing, the author counsels managers to focus on the dyadic information exchange of their direct-reports as an actionable approach to PMI management. The chapter concludes by pointing researchers toward studying the micro-level aspects of PMI and offers computer modeling and simulation, and laboratory experiments as effective ways to study PMI dynamics at the micro-level of organization behavior. Such methods may also lead to an ability to forecast outcomes of specific post-merger integration scenarios.

The purpose of this paper is to investigates if and why audience gender ratios vary between museum YouTube channels, including for museums of the same type.

Gender ratios were examined for public comments on YouTube videos from 50 popular museums in English-speaking nations. Terms that were more frequently used by males or females in comments were also examined for gender differences.

The ratio of female to male YouTube commenters varies almost a hundredfold between museums. Some of the difference could be explained by gendered interests in museum themes (e.g. military, art) but others were due to the topics chosen for online content and could address a gender minority audience.

Museums can attract new audiences online with YouTube videos that target outside their expected demographics.

This is the first analysis of YouTube audience gender for museums.

Chronic illnesses require long term, ongoing medical care as well as the provision of a variety of social support services. These diverse systems of care need to be integrated. However, under managed care, health care systems adhere to a disease model where emphasis is placed upon cure rather than care. While managed care can increase system coordination, the logic of cost containment favors acute services over the long term supportive services needed by chronic care clients. In this paper I describe efforts in one community which has received funding to integrate services for individuals with chronic mental illness as well as a planning grant to integrate multiple chronic care systems (HIV, mental health, and substance abuse) for minority clients. I describe various models of system integration and how diverse systems can be coordinated. In the conclusion I examine the barriers to system integration and argue that sociologists need to play a stronger role in understanding systems of care.

Who will lead Ambridge in the years to come? Theories rooted in psychology and political science, when applied to family dynamics in The Archers, allow for some educated guesses. Social learning theory suggests that children who see their parents vote, run for office and participate in other civic activities are more likely to do the same in adulthood. Emma Grundy did just that when she followed in the footsteps of her father, Neil Carter, in winning a seat on the parish council. Previous research has found that birth order also can shape future leaders, with the eldest child more likely to benefit developmentally from parents' undivided attention in the early years, and also more likely to establish a hierarchy of power over younger siblings. With these factors in mind, who are the most probable contenders to lead Ambridge in the spheres of politics, business and civic affairs? The extant research points to Pip Archer, Lily Pargetter, Phoebe Aldridge and George Grundy. The unique circumstances of Ruairi Donovan's childhood suggest he may also be a formidable candidate. And, as is the case in so many contexts, one would be wise not to overlook Molly Button.

The current study examines the media's depiction of demands to defund the police. Although this call to action has been a part of the public discourse for decades, the call has reached mainstream attention following the police-involved death of George Floyd in May 2020. Black Lives Matter, the American Civil Liberties Union, Color of Change, and other prominent organizations have endorsed this call. However, there is a lack of agreement on the “correct” meaning of this socio-political movement.

The authors performed an inductive content analysis of the news articles using MaxQDA, a qualitative data analysis program. The authors focus on the text and its themes and patterns in the descriptions of #DefundThePolice, both implicit (e.g. tone) and explicit (e.g. defining the movement as problematic). The codes were further refined following open coding to fully develop the existing patterns. The results are organized by the themes within the articles. The findings also include direct quotes to reinforce the themes.

In the authors' content analysis of news reports, the authors find that the US and UK news outlets report definitions that parallel the M4BL's description of the movement. In this respect, media coverage reflected the basic tenets of the movement accurately as opposed to using definitions that misrepresent the group's primary objective. Although these sampled news articles generally adhered to the basic description of the defund movement, the authors found that the overall substance and tone of coverage varied across outlets. This divergence yielded five overarching themes that included: the involvement of corporate America in the defunding debate, the frequent use of opinion pieces, mentions of history for informing the debate, the inclusion of the police perspective, and reporting that seemed to tie the defund movement to increases in violent crime.

This article explores how the mass media reports and defines the #DefundThePolice movement. Although much debate surrounds this issue, there is limited understanding of the mainstream news media's depiction of the movement. The current study addresses this research gap and informs the defunding debate by examining whether media descriptions of the movement coincide with the Movement for Black Lives benchmark delineation.

Socioeconomic status (SES) has been known to be associated with many aspects of social life such as health. We argue that social stratification remains relevant in understanding differentials in health during a pandemic, as countries globally have encouraged or enforced social distancing and remote work measures.

By examining data sources and news reports on the COVID-19 pandemic, we aim to highlight the relationship between SES and morbidity, through the ability to adopt social distancing measures and work remotely. Utilizing publicly available data from the Maryland Transport Institute and the US Census, we performed linear regressions on median income, social distancing index and percentage of individuals working from home.

Individuals with higher SES are more likely to have jobs that provide opportunities for remote work to be performed, which allows for social distancing. Comparatively, individuals with lower SES are more likely to be involved in jobs that cannot be performed remotely. The linear regression models suggest a positive moderate and significant correlation between median income and social distancing index (R² = 0.4981, p-value < 0.001), and a positive weak and significant correlation between median income and remote work (R² = 0.2460, p-value < 0.001).

Governments need to account for SES in policymaking to reduce inequalities in health.

The paper aims to improve the understanding of social stratification and morbidity through examining data on the COVID-19 pandemic.