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The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions created a range of potential additional stressors for families, particularly for parents living with children. This study aims to explore whether there were any differences in the mental health and emotional experiences of those living with children, and those who were not, during the pandemic and related lockdowns; and whether there were any specific risk factors associated with these mental health outcomes and emotional experiences.

Regression analyses of ten-wave repeated cross-sectional surveys between May 2020 and November 2021 on a total sample of 42,529 UK adults, which measured mental health with a range of pleasant and unpleasant emotional experiences. The interaction effects of living with children and age as well as marital status were tested.

During the pandemic, individuals who were living with children were more likely to feel hopeful (OR: 1.1) and grateful (OR: 1.163), less likely to feel hopeless (OR: 0.918) and lonely (OR: 0.799), while more likely to feel guilty (OR: 1.185), unprepared (OR: 1.195) and pressurised (OR: 1.14), than those not living with children. More nuanced findings and diverse emotional experiences were also found in people of different age groups and marital statuses.

This study has highlighted that being parents and living with children could be important factors of emotional distress, especially during the special circumstances of the pandemic and lockdowns, drawing on the large-scale national data.

The goal is to deliver a decision-support framework to both public and private entities engaged in energy retrofit investments in the property market.

The evaluation algorithm that is being offered takes an innovative approach to financial and economic analysis. Its foundation is a market-driven/cost-driven method, drawing logic from operational research and goal programming.

The algorithm is tested to a real estate portfolio yielding an optimal asset retrofitting schedule. The ranking list is determined by taking into consideration a variety of parameters, including investment costs and total CO₂ emissions from energy retrofit initiatives. The Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor’s (CRREM) emission targets for 2030 are employed as a reference point in the process of creating a ranking list of the assets that compose the real estate portfolio under examination.

The evaluation algorithm will allow to determine, in a real estate portfolio, a priority list of assets to be enhanced. This is accomplished by taking into account the client’s financial resources, the overall cost of the intervention programmes for each asset, and the effects that each asset would have on the environment and the energy once the suggested retrofit programme is put into place.

The study proposes a methodological approach that seeks to balance the optimisation of energy performance, the reduction of environmental effect, the promotion of social well-being and economic sustainability in the context of managing the current property sector.

There is a clear gap in the literature regarding the factors that determine social conductivity (extent of interactions) in project relationships. This study aims to use social capital theory to answer the research question – What factors determine social conductivity in project relationships?

In the study, the authors use fuzzy synthetic evaluation based on the findings from a survey of 203 project practitioners to quantify the impacts of three principal components of factors determining social conductivity in project relationships.

The study findings reveal the structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of project social capital are all significant (impact levels exceeding 3.50) for determining social conductivity in project relationships. However, the study’s main finding reveals – issues relating to the cognitive dimension of project social capital are the most critical factors determining social conductivity in project relationships (a criticality index of 4.326).

This study provides evidence of varieties of ways social capital can boost the conductivity of project relationships.

The key contributions of this study are linked to the manner in which project social capital determines social conductivity in project relationships. The findings add to previous research by extending the dimensions of the factors that increase social conductivity from relational project social capital to include two new dimensions (the cognitive and structural dimensions of project social capital).

As the Latinx population continues to increase in the United States, so has the number of families who experience disability. Latinx families of children and youth with disabilities face unique challenges as they navigate services and systems to advocate for the rights of their children. These challenges impact their health and wellbeing. Grounded in the Social Ecological Model (SEM), in this chapter, the authors discuss the challenges, support systems, and resources available to Latinx families of children and youth with disabilities across levels of influence, including the individual/family, interpersonal, community, and societal/systems levels. The authors highlight empowerment-focused interventions designed to promote advocacy efforts and the health and wellbeing of Latinx families of children and youth with disabilities, and the authors close with recommendations for future research, practice, and policy.

Prior research on the situated model of mediation has suggested that mediators’ abilities to be more flexible and adaptive in responding to potential derailers in mediation situations lead to better outcomes. The purpose if this paper is to build on this theory and research by developing a new scale of mediator behavioral adaptivity and investigating the hypothesized effects of mediator adaptivity on their sense of efficacy, empowerment and satisfaction when mediating.

The paper presents findings from two survey studies with currently active, experienced mediators.

The findings offer a new scale for the study of effective mediation – the mediator behavioral adaptivity scale – and offer support for the hypothesis that mediators reporting an ability to use more diverse behavioral tactics and strategies (both standard and specialized strategies) report higher levels of satisfaction with mediation outcomes as well as more self-efficacy and empowerment during mediations.

These studies are both self-report and correlational and so should be supplemented by subsequent research using experimental methods and more objective measures of mediation outcomes.

The program of research extended in this paper offers a new integrative model of adaptive mediation, which aims to provide evidence-based guidelines for using different types of mediation strategies in categorically different conflict situations. The model can ultimately help the field transcend discussions of preferred or best mediation styles and focus instead on how distinct strategies offer different degrees of fit for different types of mediation challenges.

Respectful co-production is one of the principles of ethical Indigenous research. However, this participatory approach has yet to be thoroughly discussed in social marketing. This study aims to provide reflections and recommendations for respectful co-production of research with Indigenous people in social marketing.

This study draws upon case study reflections and lessons learned from a research program respectfully co-produced with members of the Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous group of the Peruvian Amazon called the Comando Matico. The authors focus on the challenges and strategies for respectful co-production during different stages of the research process, including consultation, fieldwork and co-authoring articles. The authors foreground how their Comando Matico co researchers infused the research process with Shipibo knowledge.

The authors reflect on three recommendations concerning 1) respectful co-production, 2) power dynamics and 3) facilitating co-authorship. Social marketers interested in respectful co production of research with Indigenous people may need to adopt a flexible and practical approach that considers the characteristics of the context and Indigenous co-researchers.

This study contributes to the discussion about the importance of respectful co-production of research with Indigenous people to ensure it accounts for their needs and wants.

Since its introduction by Anthony Giddens in the early 1980s, the use of the concept of “agency” as a way to accommodate an irreducible element of voluntarism into sociological explanations has grown exponentially in the literature. In this chapter, we examine the most prominent theoretical justifications for adopting the notion of “agency” as an integral part of such explanations. We distinguish three broad sets of justifications: the meaningfulness/intentionality of social action, the need for “agency” to explain change in social structures, and the link between agency, social accountability, and human dignity. We find that none of these provides a convincing rationale for the analytical utility of agency. This raises the question of what work it actually does perform in the sociological literature.