Search results

Many studies show that incarcerated populations have higher rates of problem drug use than the general population. The purpose of this paper is to analyse trends in addiction treatment demand in prisons in Ireland from 2009 to 2014 using available national surveillance data in order to identify any implications for practice and policy.

National surveillance data on treatment episodes for problem drug and alcohol use from 2009 to 2014, collected annually by the National Drug Treatment Reporting System (NDTRS), were analysed.

In total, 6 per cent of all treatment episodes recorded by the NDTRS between 2009 and 2014 were from prison services. The number of prison service treatment episodes increased from 964 in 2009 to 1,063 in 2014. Opiates were the main reason for treatment, followed by alcohol, cocaine and cannabis. The majority (94–98 per cent) of treatment episodes involved males (median age of 29 years) and low educational attainment, with 79.5–85.1 per cent leaving school before completion of second level. The percentage of treatment episodes with a history of ever injecting drugs increased from 20.9 per cent in 2009 to 31.0 per cent in 2014.

This study can help policy development and service planning in addiction treatment in prison as it provides an insight into the potential needs of incarcerated populations. It also provides a baseline from which to measure any changes in provision of treatment in prison over time.

This is the first study to analyse treatment episodes in prison using routine surveillance data in Ireland. Analysis of these data can provide useful information, not currently available elsewhere.

Databases on compact disc are immensely attractive, as once the system is in place the cost of searches is minimal; there are no telecommunication charges, no connect time charges and no royalty costs. This change in costing has been a major factor in the move towards end user searching. However the CD‐ROM database and its updates may be costly. In this paper the experiences of a university medical library in setting up a CD‐ROM users club with an annual membership fee are described.

Purpose – This chapter examines the complex, multilevel barriers low-income women of color in a medium-sized Midwestern city face when trying to achieve economic self-sufficiency and homeownership. The aim of this study was to determine whether women attempting to achieve self-sufficiency and/or homeownership face different barriers than men as a result of multiple and intersecting social locations.

Design/methodology/approach – The study sample includes 24 low-income women of color, all of whom participated in in-depth interviews in Fall, 2008. Low-income women also completed short demographic surveys. Intersectionality represents the conceptual framework for this study, and data analysis followed phenomenological inquiry.

Findings – Some barriers low-income women of color face are unacknowledged and are gendered and racialized. Many women in this study faced personal barriers (e.g., low-income, lack of savings, poor credit, lack of mentors) and system-level barriers (e.g., banking account requirements and lenders’ downpayment requirements) to obtain economic self-sufficiency and/or homeownership simultaneously.

Research limitations – This study only examined 25 women's experiences in one location. These findings can only be generalized to low-income women of color in this study.

Originality/value – This study addresses the gaps in existing literature about low-income women's journeys toward economic self-sufficiency, and highlights that many women have goals of homeownership as well. Data analyzed here also illustrated the complex nature of barriers.

This paper aims to respond to the following question: What does ongoing recovery from depression look like, and what role might spirituality have for individuals’ meanings of recovery if it has any meaning at all?

In this paper, the authors reconceptualize recovery from depression as ritual, as ongoing recovery, or recovery as a process, resonated with many of the 40 participants (all ages) from the study, and much of the sociological literature on recovery from depression (Fullagar and O’Brien, 2012; Garrett, 1997, 1998; Karp, 1994, 1996, 2016; O’Brien, 2012). To explore the interplay between participants’ accounts of recovery as ongoing, and the meanings of spirituality, the authors used a ritual analysis inspired by Collins (2004).

From the accounts presented in this paper, the authors suggest that participants are, if subconsciously, using objects with a special or spiritual significance to filter through their thoughts and memories as a way to create what Collins (2004) calls an emotional charge. The authors argue that these emotional charges assist people with lived experiences of depression in distancing from, and reconnecting to, certain social ties, including a particular family member, friend or social group, as part of their recovery. The authors are calling this process, ritual distancing.

Recovery from depression includes a process of reconnection to the self and others, and this process sometimes includes a self-defined spirituality (in objects and social connections).

In this chapter, we explore how our backgrounds as mixed-heritage Latinas influence our work as junior faculty members at a four-year public Hispanic-serving institution (HSI). Drawing on the conceptual lens of intersectionality, we address the question: how do our multiple social identities affect our identity development and socialization as faculty members?

As part of a critical mass of junior Latina scholars studying educational issues pertinent to the Latina community, we build a sense of community in what can be an isolated environment for women faculty of color. Using our own examples, we examine how two faculty members who might be considered “outsiders within” the Latina/o community draw on their Latinidad as a source of strength to employ their academic work in advancing social justice for Latina/os. Our identities have influenced us to take into account multiple social categories and social contexts in the study of educational phenomena. Serving as faculty within the institutional context of an HSI has distinctively influenced our socialization as new faculty.

We believe that this examination has implications for understanding how people can build cross-cultural collaborations and identify productively with communities that may not necessarily recognize them as “authentic.” Our exploration also offers insights for building a more inclusive academy, particularly for junior scholars from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Based on the themes identified in this research, we draw recommendations for university personnel interested in the recruitment and retention of Latina junior faculty. More broadly, this research has implications for developing support systems for faculty members who have been historically underrepresented in their fields and those who study marginalized populations.

Purpose – Recent theoretical analyses examining the intersection of race, class, and gender have resulted in exciting new epistemological frameworks in the social sciences. However, feminist researchers have yet to articulate concrete strategies for capturing this intersectionality empirically.

Methodology – On the basis of ethnographic research conducted in Cuba, we build on previous feminist epistemological insights and begin to develop methodological strategies that can be used to capture the intersection of race, class, and gender in the context of cross-cultural research.

Findings – The major contribution of our work is the articulation of theoretical insights into methodological guidelines that can guide research both inside the United States, the site where much of this theorizing takes place, and beyond our borders.

Research limitations – The primary limitation of our research is the lack of collaboration with Cuban researchers. Given the political rancor between the United States and Cuba, and limitations on their academic freedom, is difficult to work with Cuban scholars without compromising their security. Cuban scholars who are critical of the state are fearful of potential reprisals.

Originality – Nonetheless, our work provides a unique analysis of how to capture the intersection of race, class, and gender empirically from a cross-cultural perspective.

I am pleased to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Mildred Harris and Anne Hasiuk in the preparation of this book. In addition, the authors responded quickly to the invitation to submit original papers and were good natured in their responses to numerous remarks and queries. I am grateful to my editors at Elsevier, Mary Malin and Helen Collins, for their attention to this book.

Qualitative research consistently centers Eurocentrism through courses' integrations of ontological, epistemological and axiological perspectives. This literal whitewashing was a source of great frustration and confusion for the authors, four Black women, who found their identities omitted and disregarded in qualitative inquiry. Using Collins' outsider-within concept and collective narratives to center their experiences, the authors seek through their writing to actively repurpose and re-engage with qualitative scholarship that generally seeks to exclude Black women.

Theoretically informed by Collins' outsider-within concept, the authors use Deleuze and Parnet's collective biography to tell the stories of four Black doctoral students negotiating race, gender, class and intellectual identity, while critiquing Eurocentric theory, through coursework. The collaborative writing process provided shared space for the engagement of individual thoughts and experiences with(in) others' narratives.

Black women can interpret qualitative inquiry outside of the Eurocentric norm, and qualitative courses can provide spaces for them to do so by repositioning Black women philosophers as central to understanding qualitative inquiry.

Through collective biography (Deleuze and Parnet, 2007), this paper centers the voices of four Black women scholars who use a creative writing approach to think with/through theory as Black women (Jackson and Mazzei, 2012). The paper offers new discussions of and ways in which qualitative researchers might decolonize Eurocentric ways of knowing in qualitative inquiry and qualitative pedagogy from students' perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model describing potential relationships among transformational leadership, charisma, credibility and organizational performance.

This paper is conceptual, based on a review of current transformational leadership, charisma and credibility literature.

The authors present a model where credibility is an antecedent of transformational leadership; transformational leadership has a positive effect on organizational performance; and charisma positively moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance.

A model to integrate credibility into transformational leadership research is proposed.

This paper considers credibility as an important attribute of transformational leadership, and thus credibility may have significant implications for practitioners in leadership development strategies.

Currently, there is a lack of research on the role of credibility in leadership. The authors discuss the importance of measuring leader credibility and generating a credibility scale.

Considerable research has been conducted into the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace, although most of this research has been undertaken in the United States, particularly since the 1970's (Mackinnon, 1979; Rowe, 1981; Collins and Blodgeth, 1981). In 1974, for example, a group of women, almost equally black and white and with economic backgrounds ranging from very affluent to poor, discovered a common thread in their employment careers, which Farley (1980, p.1) summed up, saying: