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Few studies assess how child abuse and neglect (CAN) affects adolescents’ mental health. Further, the majority of studies conducted to date discount the individual CAN items and report overall prevalence rates for different types of abuse and neglect. The purpose of this study was to examine the levels of and gender differences in CAN subtypes, lifetime prevalence of individual CAN items and the contribution of different CAN subtypes for explaining depression, anxiety and irritability.

The sample included Jamaican (n = 7,182, 60.8% female) and Ugandan (n = 11,518, 52.4% female) youths. The authors used a population-based cross-sectional study design. Youths completed an anonymous survey in school settings.

The authors found gender differences in the levels of CAN subtypes. Maltreatment behaviors of lesser severity were more commonly endorsed by the youths than those of greater severity. Neglect and emotional abuse were the strongest correlates of depression (e.g. neglect: ß = 0.23, among Jamaican youths; emotional abuse outside-the-home: ß = 0.23, among Ugandan girls), anxiety (e.g. neglect: ß = 0.17, among Ugandan girls; emotional abuse outside-the-home: ß = 0.27, among Ugandan girls) and irritability (e.g. emotional abuse in-the-home: ß = 0.17, among Jamaican boys; emotional abuse outside-the-home: ß = 0.17, among Ugandan girls) in most samples.

These findings will inform policymakers and professionals working with youths in Jamaica and Uganda, providing comprehensive contemporary insights beyond existing research in these regions.

Children's food insecurity experiences are largely unrepresented in academic literature. Parents and caregivers cannot always accurately evaluate their children's attitudes or experiences, and even within the same family unit, children and their parents may report differing views and experiences of family food insecurity. The purpose of this narrative review is to identify studies that include children's voices and their perceptions, understanding, and experience of food insecurity in the household.

This narrative review aimed to address the following questions: (1) “What research studies of household food insecurity include children's voices?” and (2) “Across these studies, how do children perceive, understand and experience food insecurity in the household?”. A database search was conducted in October 2022. After inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, 16 articles remained for review.

The findings from this review were organised into three themes: Theme 1: Ways children coped with accessing food or money for food; Theme 2: Food-related strategies children used to avoid hunger; and Theme 3: Children attempt to mask food insecurity.

Future research should further explore the long-term consequences of social pressures and informal economic engagement on children's well-being and social development. By addressing the social determinants of food insecurity, this study can strive to create supportive environments that enable all children to access adequate nutrition and thrive.

Overall, the findings of this review demonstrate the significant social pressures that shape children's responses to food insecurity. Results suggest that children's decision-making processes are influenced by the desire to maintain social standing and avoid the negative consequences of being food insecure. As such, this review underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding of the social context in which food insecurity occurs and the impact it has on children's lives. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for developing effective interventions and policies addressing the multifaceted challenges food insecure children face.

This review has highlighted a need for interventions to incorporate trauma-informed strategies to protect children from and respond to the psychologically distressing experiences and impact of living in food insecure households.

Myra Hindley is typically described as an ‘icon of evil’. In the 1960s, Hindley and her boyfriend Ian Brady sexually tortured and murdered at least two girls and three boys, aged between 10 and 17 years, in the Manchester area of the UK. All except one were sexually assaulted. She has provoked a huge amount of public commentary for more than three and a half decades after her conviction. This chapter asks how Hindley's actions were understood and interpreted at the time. Central themes are the concept ‘evil’, sexual violence, pornography, permissive society and patriarchy, as refracted through gender and class.

The topic of parent migration and its effects on the family environment has become a focus of moral dilemmas in East Europe for the last three decades. Children have been portrayed as social orphans and parents working abroad as neglectful parents. Today, with more evidence from research and experience, the impact of parental migration is much more comprehensive and nuanced, recognising its noxious or even harmful but also possibly empowering effects. This chapter reflects on the involvement of left-behind adolescents as co-researchers in a study of transnational families. It acknowledges the agentic role of children (often automatically labelled as victims of neglect), amplifies their voices to inform existing data on the impact of parents' departure to work abroad and identifies directions for intervention that might strengthen families.

The research is an integral part of CASTLE – Children Left Behind by Labour Migration, an ongoing project (June 2021–December 2023). ¹ This chapter presents the research collaboration experience with 12 co-researcher adolescents with previous left-behind experiences, originating from Moldova and currently residing in Romania. The co-researchers participated in all stages of the research process: training, design of data collection, recruitment of research participants, data analysis and dissemination of results. Taking co-researcher roles had an empowering effect on adolescents, who learnt how to express their views on the topic, voiced their experiences about the emotional costs of being left behind by their parents and reflected on sensitive issues like separation of family members and violence in the family.

The figure of the female revenger has haunted the western imagination as far back as some of the earliest extant texts, most starkly in Euripides' tragedies Hecuba and Medea (c. 430–420 bc). She has tended to take on one of three forms: the scorned woman, the vengeful mother or the victim of physical violence, almost always sexual violence.

This chapter presents an interdisciplinary and transhistorical understanding of the troubling figure of the violent female revenger in her shifting incarnations. The investigation traces conceptual strands through a variety of cultural texts, focusing on specific instances that are both situated historically and simultaneously analysed for the ways in which they reflect recurring priorities and cultural anxieties through the centuries.

After considering key ideas such as revenge and justice and gender and revenge, the chapter looks more closely at the so-called rape-revenge genre, moving from the earliest examples such as I Spit on Your Grave (1978) to more recent films which are considered for the ways they intersect with the global feminist protest movement #MeToo, and other key cultural moments such as the Harvey Weinstein case and the very public trial of the USA Gymnastics national team doctor Larry Nassar: Revenge (2017), The Nightingale (2018) and Promising Young Woman (2020). The chapter draws direct lines of connection between imaginative works, cultural types and stereotypes, and lived reality in order to come to a fuller understanding of the female revenger.

This paper offers a unique perspective on the urbanisation process in developing cities, with a particular focus on the region of the Gulf States. Beyond economic considerations, the analysis sheds light on the complex interplay of socio-cultural factors, gender dynamics and urban development. Based on the calls for human-centred approaches to rethinking urban design and management of cities require the integration of these cities’ inhabitants’ lived experiences, that impact residents’ daily lives. The focus is on the importance of women’s perspectives in the development process.

The paper uses a systematic literature review that builds on existing knowledge relating to urbanisation, modernisation, sustainable cities, gender and the Arabian Gulf. It uses Lefebvre’s 'right to the city' theory to understand the evolution of the Gulf Cities which is a novel approach. This adaptation offers a unique perspective on the transformations and challenges that these urban spaces face. Furthermore, it offers a firm foundation for developing advanced knowledge on the interdisciplinary nature of the topic discussed and assists in integrating empirical findings and perspectives from different resources.

The extreme levels of transformation in urbanisation in the Gulf States built cities that are no longer solely places for settlement, production and services but operate as significant influencers on the social, economic and political relations that produced design and cultural challenges. These cities became epicentres of power and politics that shaped the national visions and influenced policy. The process of inclusive and considerate urban development that the Arabian Gulf region is aiming to embark on is not a new exclusive strategy. But a process that has been implemented and tested in other urbanised areas globally.

Very little historical urban research on the Arabian Gulf countries exists, hence, the difficulty in researching the Gulf urbanisation process or providing historical encounters of the change.

This paper delves into the gendered aspects of urban planning, an aspect that is frequently overlooked. It contributes to the discourse on gender inclusivity in urban spaces by focussing on Khaleeji women’s experiences, offering insights that go beyond economic considerations. The use of Lefebvre’s “right to the city” theory to understand the evolution of the Gulf Cities is a unique approach. It investigates the interaction of various factors such as economic, cultural and political influences on Gulf urban development. This adaptation offers a distinctive perspective on the transformations and challenges that these urban spaces face.

This article aims to help educators provide a holistic view of the LGBTQ community by highlighting children’s books that include non-parental LGBTQ characters.

The author selected over 80 children’s books honored by the American Library Association’s Rainbow Book List. Twenty-two books were analyzed that contain examples of LGBTQ adults existing beyond the homonormative nuclear family, e.g. two same-sex parents raising children.

The author discusses various ways of living represented in these books, such as chosen families, extended families, romantic partnerships and singlehood.

With the increased number of high-quality LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books published in the past decade, this study provides the foundation for educators to select various texts that reveal diverse representations of LGBTQ individuals.

The venture capital industry is an important provider of capital to start-ups and has grown considerably in recent decades. This study explores how investors' gender perceptions influence venture capital investment decisions in an industry that remains highly gender imbalanced, both amongst the venture capital decision-makers and with respect to the allocation of capital to entrepreneurs.

The authors' approach was informed by a thorough literature review and in-depth qualitative interviews with ten decision-makers at some of the foremost venture capital funds in Norway. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded using NVivo.

The authors' findings demonstrate that the Norwegian venture capital industry is influenced by homophily and role congruity. The authors highlight the challenges entrepreneurs face in gaining access to venture capital if they are not already members of the investors' network, a situation that results in a recycling effect that helps maintain the industry’s gender imbalance. Moreover, it appears that venture capitalists (VCs) favour masculine characteristics when assessing entrepreneurs, revealing a potential incongruence between female characteristics and perceived entrepreneurial attributes.

The authors' study contributes to and extends the extant literature on homophily and role congruity. Indeed, through investigating the gender-based perceptions of VCs, the authors shed new light on the mechanisms involved in their assessment of entrepreneurs, as well as on the drivers and barriers affecting female entrepreneurs.

This study aims to investigate the gender diversity within innovation and entrepreneurship teams and the perceptions of gender imbalance in digital skills among team members in Kazakhstan, a Central Asian country belonging to the Global South.

Primary data were collected from ten leading firms in Kazakhstan's manufacturing, construction and oil and gas sectors, which have international connections or perspectives. The members of the research and development (R&D) departments of these firms completed an online, structured closed-question questionnaire anonymously. A total of 169 completed responses were analyzed using regression analysis, controlling for company size and sector, with gender as the independent variable.

The gender diversity within innovation teams is not as high as anticipated, even though there is a substantial representation of women in the scientific workforce across many firms. Similarly, there is a gender gap in entrepreneurship teams involved in business innovation, although it is slightly less pronounced. Female employees report a greater disparity compared to their male counterparts. Surprisingly, over 60% of both male and female respondents agree that women lack the same level of digital expertise and knowledge as men.

The findings of this research should be interpreted in light of the fact that they are based on a perception-based survey. Local firms exhibit skepticism toward external researchers due to privacy concerns, making their participation challenging. However, it is noteworthy that the survey targeted front-line workers in the innovation and entrepreneurship field, providing informed perspectives that strengthen the study's outcomes.

This study reveals that while women form a considerable proportion the scientific workforce, gender diversity in innovation and entrepreneurship teams is lacking in a Global South country. Gender imbalance in innovation and entrepreneurship is thus present in both developing and developed countries, highlighting the need for interventions to promote gender diversity at the firm level.