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This article examines the educational decision-making of hearing parents for their deaf children born during a period (1970–1990s) before the introduction of new-born hearing screening in New South Wales, where the study was conducted, and prior to the now near-universal adoption of cochlear implants in Australia.

We present findings from an oral history study in which parents were invited to recall how they planned for the education of their deaf children.

We propose that these oral histories shed light on how the concept, early intervention – a child development principle that became axiomatic from about the 1960s – significantly shaped the conduct of parents of deaf children, constituting both hope and burden, and intensifying a focus on early decision-making. They also illustrate ways in which parenting was shaped by two key structural shifts, one, being the increasing enrolment of deaf children in mainstream rather than separate classrooms and the other being the transformation of deafness itself by developments in hearing assistance technology.

The paper contributes to a sociological/historical literature of “parenting for education” that almost entirely lacks deaf perspectives and a specialist literature of parental decision-making for deaf children that is almost entirely focussed on the post cochlear implant generation. The paper is distinctive in its treatment of the concept of “early intervention” as a historical phenomenon rather than a “common sense” truth, and proposes that parents of deaf children were at the leading edge of late-20th and early-21st century parenting intensification.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a methodological experiment designed to test the potential of an auto/biographical (Stanley, 1992) life history. Could it serve a purpose for which it was not originally intended? Specifically, I consider the extent to which a life history articulates with the literature on migration, even though it was not written for this purpose.

I consider this issue via a series of four narrative vignettes representing the story of this experiment.

I found that the life history does more than articulate with the migration literature on conceptual distinction. It also animates, supplements and interrogates theories therein about the utility and futility of making distinctions. In this respect the experiment has been a success.

This paper has not explicitly engaged with the ethics and politics of employing life history in ways for which it was not intended.

This paper is making a methodological contribution to the area of qualitative research and suggests that multiple analyses might perhaps make life history more attractive to funders.

It is unclear whether information obtained from a one parent can be used to infer the other parent's history of psychopathology. Two hundred and one parental dyads were asked to complete psychiatric interviews. Based on maternal report, non-participating husbands/ fathers had higher rates than participating fathers of psychiatric illness. For fathers who did participate, maternal report did not match direct interview of paternal psychopathology with sensitivities less than 0.40 and positive predictive values of 0.33 to 0.74. Psychopa -thology may be over-represented among fathers who do not participate in research. Mother report of paternal symptoms is not an effective proxy. Alternative methods need to be developed to: i) improve father participation or ii) identify psychiatric status in fathers who do not participate in research projects.

The chapter explores an overlooked theme across the literature: capturing the experience of childhood family disruption and transitional flux between foster family homes and the independent sensemaking into the present of young care-experienced parents. The chapter draws upon research that constructed 20 biographical life story accounts of a diverse sample of foster care-experienced young people. The chapter aims to reflect upon the findings garnered from six of these accounts through extracting the narratives of a selection of participants who were to become or had become parents. This chapter makes sociological connections between past family disruption, demarcating present families of choice, and reconciliation of the past through experiencing parenting into the future within constructed ‘family displays’ (Finch, 2007). The chapter illustrates this phenomenon through narrative accounts offering a family history of parents who have experienced a variance of transitions between family units and who were negotiating, or had negotiated, their post-care independence through the role of becoming a parent themselves. The chapter highlights the symbolic value of parenting to the lives of young people who have experienced care in recalibrating their past familial experiences, as demonstrated through their family displays. Through the family displays of care-experienced parents, the importance of the relational context to youth transition ultimately reveals itself, as does the development of relational agency, and ultimately the role of parenting in developing a young person’s independent ‘post-care’ identity.

A growing stream of consumer research has examined the intersection of family dynamics, consumption practices and the marketplace. The purpose of this paper is to make sense of the complex nature of family for senior families (adult children and their elderly parents) who employ the use of elder care services and facilities.

This research analyses data gathered from in-depth interviews with adult siblings and their elderly parents through the lens of assemblage theory.

This paper advances a conceptulisation of the family as an evolving assemblage of components, including individual members; material possessions and home(s); shared values, goals, memories and practices; prominent familial attributes of love and care; and marketplace resources. Three features of the assemblage come to the fore in senior families: the fluid meaning of independence for the elderly parent, the evolution of shared family practices and the trajectory of the assemblage that is a function of its history and future.

This research focuses on a stage of family life that has been under-theorised; applies assemblage theory to the family collective, demonstrating that a family can be conceptualised as an ever-evolving assemblage of human and non-human components, and this is a useful lens for understanding how senior families “do” family; and argues for a broader notion of family – one that is not household-centric or focused on families with young children, that encompasses members and materiality and that foregrounds the dynamic, evolving nature of family life.

Lactose intolerance (LI) is a disturbing gastrointestinal disorder with a high prevalence in all parts of the world, especially in Asian countries. The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of LI in students from Zabol, Iran.

Based on cluster random sampling method, 887 subjects were selected for the study. Of all, 54.7 per cent of the students were boys. The mean (±SD) of age, weight and body mass index (BMI) for participants were 13.27 ± 1.14 years, 42.12 ± 10.25 kg and 18.7 ± 3.9 kg/m², respectively. LI was assessed using a validated self-administered questionnaire. After measuring the anthropometric indices, students were asked to ingest 200cc of milk. The questionnaires were completed 2 h after the ingestion of milk.

In total, 25.8 per cent of the adolescents had LI. Of all, 1, 4.6, 11, 30.2 and 53.2 per cent of affected students had severe, relatively severe, moderate, relatively mild and mild LI, respectively. The association between LI and gender, and BMI was not significant (p > 0.05 for both); however, the association between LI and the history of LI in parents (OR = 2.06; 95 per cent CI: 1.47-2.88; p < 0.001), and breakfast consumption was significant (OR = 1.49; 95 per cent CI: 1.04-2.14; p = 0.028).

Although the prevalence of LI is noticeable, majority of adolescents had mild and relatively mild LI. Parents’ history and breakfast consumption are related to the rate of LI prevalence. Appropriate strategies should be considered to prevent breakfast skipping.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the current literature uncovering specific factors associated with self-harm and suicidality among young Asian-American women, as well as to present the Fractured Identity Model as a framework for understanding these factors. This paper offers concrete suggestions for the development of culturally competent interventions to target suicidality, substance abuse, and mental illness among young Asian-American women.

Empirical studies and theory-based papers featured in peer-reviewed journals between 1990 and 2014 were identified through scholarly databases, such as PubMed, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, JSTOR, and Google Scholar. Of an original 32 articles, 12 were chosen for in-depth empirical review due to relevance to the topics at hand, quality of research, and significance of findings.

The paper identified several factors associated with suicidality among young Asian-American women: family dynamics, or having lived in a household where parents practice “disempowering parenting styles,” substance use/abuse, and untreated mental illness(es), which are exacerbated by the stigma and shame attached to seeking out mental health services. The Fractured Identity Model by Hahm et al. (2014) is presented as a proposed causal pathway from disempowering parenting to suicidal and self-harm behaviors among this population, with substance abuse playing a significant mediating role.

The review focussed on Asian-American women, substance use among Asian-Americans, and mental health among Asian-Americans. Literature that focused on Asians living in Asia or elsewhere outside of the USA was excluded from this review; the review was limited to research conducted in the USA and written in the English language.

The complex interplay among Asian-American culture, family dynamics, gender roles/expectations, and mental health justifies the development of a suicide and substance abuse intervention that is tailored to the culture- and gender-specific needs of Asian Pacific Islander young women. It is imperative for professionals in the fields of public health, mental health, medicine, and substance abuse to proactively combat the “model minority” myth and to design and implement interventions targeting family dynamics, coping with immigration/acculturative stresses, mental illnesses, suicidal behaviors, and substance abuse among Asian-American populations across the developmental lifespan.

This paper provides specific suggestions for interventions to adequately respond to the mental health needs of young Asian-American women. These include addressing the cultural stigma and shame of seeking help, underlying family origin issues, and excessive alcohol and drug use as unsafe coping, as well as incorporating empowerment-based and mind-body components to foster an intervention targeting suicidality among Asian-American women in early adulthood.

This article is an extended version of an ‘experts’ briefing' commissioned to inform senior child welfare managers in English local authorities and voluntary agencies about the available evidence to inform the provision of effective services in complex child protection cases. It starts by noting how differences in the approach to service provision in different jurisdictions affect both the nature of research conducted and its transferability across national boundaries. It then summarises the characteristics both of parents who are likely to maltreat their children and also of the children most likely to be maltreated. The factors that make some families ‘hard to engage’ or ‘hard to help/change’ are then discussed, as are the essential elements of effective professional practice in child protection. Particular attention is paid to effective approaches to helping families and young people who are hard to identify or engage.

Despite the importance of increasing engagement and minimising attrition and drop‐out in parenting interventions, there is a paucity of empirical evidence examining factors related to engagement and participation. The range of factors examined in relation to engagement is generally limited in scope and variety, focusing on variables of convenience rather than utilising a theoretically‐driven approach.The aim of this article is to review the factors related to parental engagement with interventions and to describe strategies and implications for improving engagement with parenting interventions. Several policy and practice implications are identified: (1) Poor parental engagement may threaten or compromise the capacity of parenting programmes to deliver valued outcomes. Viable engagement strategies need to be a core part of prevention and early intervention parenting programmes; (2) Agencies delivering parenting services need a proactive engagement strategy, which includes strategies to prevent drop‐out, as well as strategies to actively respond to parental disengagement; (3) Research is needed to test the efficacy and robustness of different engagement enhancement strategies. Empirical tests are needed to test the effectiveness of different engagement strategies in order to ensure that the most efficient, cost‐effective and efficacious approach is used in order to engage parents. Investment of research effort to improve parental engagement is likely to have a high yield in terms of programme efficiency, utility and cost effectiveness. We conclude that research examining how to improve engagement and decrease non‐completion is needed to strengthen the population level value of parenting programmes as preventive interventions.

Through this exploration of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge, we present two stories of teaching social studies in the sixth grade. Using a narrative inquiry approach, we share the complexities and complications of teaching children content within standards related to world history and religions. We call on the writings of Schwab to consider these experiences. Using Schwab’s concepts of deliberation, the balanced negotiation between the commonplaces of curriculum in a meaning-making process, first, exposes tensions and the teacher’s acts of negotiating between the learners’ needs and the subject matter (the standards). The teacher stretches to meet the requirements of the standards in different ways that take care of herself and her students. Schwab’s commonplaces are used in a more straightforward exploration of the second story. The interplay between the commonplaces is less nuanced and less deeply understood, coalescing in tensions between the commonplaces. The stories and our analyses illustrate Schwab’s assertion that there is no right alternative. Daily, and moment-to-moment, teachers are in the position of deliberating – making the best choice of many alternatives. “Ramifying consequences must be traced to all parts of the curriculum” (Schwab, 1978, p. 319). Schwab, we find, counsels that the consequences of a chosen action must be considered by all those who must live with those consequences.