Neither market income nor consumption expenditure provides an adequate picture of individual standard of living. It is time which enables and restricts individual activities and is a further brick to a more comprehensive picture of individual well-being. In our study we focus on a prominent part of time use in non-market services: it is parental child care which contributes not only to individual but also to societal well-being. Within a novel approach we ask for multidimensional polarization effects of parental child care where compensation/substitution of time for parental child care versus income is interdependently evaluated by panel estimates of society's subjective well-being.The new interdependent 2DGAP measure thereby provides multidimensional polarization intensity information for the poor and the rich and disentangles the single time and income contribution to subjective well-being for targeted policies ensuring at the same time the interdependence of the polarization dimensions. Socio-economic influences on the polarization pole risk and intensity will be quantified by two stage Heckman estimates. The analyses are based on the German Socio-Economic Panel with 21 waves and robust fixed effects estimates as well as the German Time Use Surveys 1991/92 and actual 2012/13 with detailed diary time use data.Prominent result: compensation between parental child care time and income proved to be significant, but there are multidimensional regions with no compensation, where parental child care time deficit is not compensated by income. Interdependent multidimensional polarization by headcount and intensity increased significantly over the twenty years under investigation with remarkable risk and intensity differences.
The aim of this paper is to highlight major shifts in research regarding children and childhood as a narrative of the author. It starts from presenting a retrospective of child poverty research in Estonia, and it is demonstrated how it has developed from the social and political acknowledgement of poverty as a social issue in the early 1990s. Then it revisits main shifts in theory and methodology of childhood research and reaches international comparative approaches to child subjective and relational well-being.
Emotional wellbeing in adolescence develops within interconnected personal and relational systems, but the relative salience of family, peer, and school contexts may vary across sociocultural experiences. The present study examined associations among perceived functioning in school, family, and peer domains, everyday emotion-regulation difficulties, and affective emotional wellbeing in 79 third-year middle-school students in Rome (M age = 13.80 years, SD = 0.45; 45.6% female), including 42 adolescents without and 37 with a migratory background, defined as having at least one foreign-born parent. Participants completed self-report assessments of relational functioning across the three domains, emotion-regulation difficulties, and positive and negative affect. Two separately estimated observed-variable path models were used for exploratory purposes. Among adolescents with a migratory background, school ( β = 0.44, p = 0.002) and family ( β = 0.53, p < 0.001) indicators were independently associated with greater emotional wellbeing. No direct relational-context path to emotional wellbeing reached significance in the group without a migratory background. Emotion-regulation difficulties were not independently associated with emotional wellbeing in either group, and percentile bootstrap confidence intervals based on 5,000 resamples did not support indirect pathways through emotion regulation. The findings point to the possible importance of family and school as interconnected relational systems while providing no support for the hypothesized regulatory pathway in this sample. Given the modest subgroup sizes, cross-sectional design, single-item contextual indicators, and heterogeneous migratory-background category, the results should be considered exploratory and hypothesis-generating.
Francesca Federico, Michela Mellone, Sergio Melogno et al.
Background This study aimed to explore young people's knowledge and attitudes around illicit drug use, its prevention, and the barriers and facilitators to accessing support, with the aim of informing the development of preventative interventions that resonate with young people and address their specific needs and concerns. By drawing on these insights, interventions can be tailored to be more engaging, relevant and impactful for young people. Methods A qualitative approach was used to analyse data collected from focus groups and interviews with young people ( N = 97) in the United Kingdom, living in areas of socioeconomic disadvantage. Questions focused on the knowledge of young people around substances, the sort of substance use prevention education, or interventions, they would see as beneficial, and the obstacles and facilitators to accessing support for issues around substance use. Findings The findings suggest that prevention strategies which are likely to appeal to young people should provide non-stigmatizing, harm-reduction approaches to prevention education, which are provided as early as possible. Interventions should provide the skills to enable autonomous decision making, consider including parents/families in education and include trusted sources of support such as those with experience and knowledge of substance use. Conclusions This study informs the development of preventative interventions for young people by providing insight around the knowledge and views of young people in the United Kingdom. It highlights the importance of taking a multifaceted approach to prevention that considers individual, social, and systemic factors.
Abstract Therapeutic advances and the rapid, cost-effective development of next-generation sequencing (NGS) have increased interest in expanding newborn screening (NBS) through genomics. The SeDeN-p2 study assessed the acceptability among healthcare professionals in France, of expanding NBS, particularly with genetics as a first-line test, by examining areas of convergence and divergence in their expectations. A national cross-sectional survey was conducted between June and December 2021 via professional networks and learned societies involved in NBS and genetics, in partnership with the French Society of Newborn Screening. The questionnaire comprised 101 closed-ended and 14 open-ended questions. After data cleaning, 1077 responses were analysed. Respondents were mainly paediatricians (43%), gynaecologists or midwives (36%), and medical geneticists or genetic counsellors (17%). Support for the inclusion of treatable childhood-onset conditions was very high, with over 95% endorsing their integration into NBS, although 29% still considered the current NBS programme sufficient. Views varied substantially by specialty, particularly regarding the scope of conditions and the use of NGS. Genetics professionals were more conservative, especially concerning variants with limited actionability, organisational constraints, and interpretive uncertainty, while midwives and gynaecologists were generally more favourable. Convergence was strongest for treatable paediatric conditions and shared ethical concerns, notably data misuse, psychosocial burden, and the child’s future autonomy. The need for improved communication with families was widely emphasised. The SeDeN-p2 study shows strong but conditional support among French healthcare professionals for integrating genetics into NBS, providing key insights to inform future policy and practice.
Camille Level, Frédéric Huet, Dominique Salvi et al.
The aim of this study was to compare pre-service teachers' preference of information stemming from different diagnostic approaches. Participants ( N = 185) evaluated vignettes containing diagnostic information from norm-referenced testing, criterion-referenced testing, and two types of information coming from dynamic testing (Graduated Prompt training scores and pretest/posttest scores). They rated these vignettes regarding their usefulness for understanding a child's difficulties and for planning individualized education. Additionally, attitudes towards diagnostics, beliefs about diagnostic goals and prior knowledge of diagnostic approaches were examined as potential moderators. Overall, information from norm-referenced testing was seen as least useful. No differences were found between the other diagnostic approaches. Moderation effects were found for all of the assessed variables.
Taina Gabriel, Jochanan Veerbeek, Moritz Börnert-Ringleb
Purpose To develop a simple screening tool, the Thumbs-Out Classification (TOC), for detecting thumb-in-palm deformity during clinical follow-ups of children with cerebral palsy (CP), and to evaluate its reliability.Methods The TOC was developed through expert consensus and consists of three levels of radial thumb abduction: normal (green), slightly reduced (yellow), and severely reduced (red). Classification cut-offs were established using goniometric measurements from 20 typically developing children. These cut-offs were then applied to classify active and passive radial thumb abduction in 61 children with CP (median age 9 years). Inter-rater, intra-rater, and test-retest reliability were assessed using Cohen’s weighted kappa (κw) and percentage agreement.Results Agreement between goniometric measurements and TOC levels was moderate for both active (κw = 0.59) and passive (κw = 0.54) radial abduction, with substantial percentage agreement (79% and 81%, respectively). Inter-rater reliability was almost perfect for active (κw = 0.93) and passive (κw = 0.89) radial abduction. Test-retest reliability was also almost perfect (active κw = 0.84; passive κw = 0.93).Conclusions The TOC is a reliable screening tool for monitoring thumb positioning in children with CP. It may facilitate detection of thumb-in-palm deformity and support timely interventions aimed at optimising hand function.
Jenny Hedberg‐Graff, Lena Krumlinde‐Sundholm, Fredrik Granström et al.
This study applies the Cognitive Grammar framework to Alice Munro’s short story My Mother’s Dream, which centres on a young woman’s struggle to reconcile motherhood with her identity as a violinist in a post-war provincial Canadian community. The narrative intricately plays with the theme of infant death, presented initially as part of the young mother’s dream and revisited as a possibility in the post-climactic scene. Both scenes are analysed through the Cognitive Grammar concept of construal and its dimensions of specificity, prominence, and perspective (Langacker, 2008), complemented by the reference point model and the notion of action chains to explore how narrative meaning emerges through conceptual patterns. These tools enable a scientifically justified explanation of foreboding in the early scene and panic in the later one. Employing a qualitative, interpretive methodology based on close reading and the manual application of the Cognitive Grammar toolkit (Stockwell, 2014; Harrison, 2017a; Giovanelli, et al., 2021), this study demonstrates the framework’s potential to illuminate the processes of meaning encoding and decoding in fictional texts.
Abstract Populism has emerged as a defining challenge for contemporary democracies, yet empirical research has largely overlooked younger populations during their critical phase of political development. This study examines populist attitudes among adolescents and young adults, addressing how this multidimensional construct manifests in youth and its implications for future research on youth populism. Drawing on a German sample of 523 participants aged 14 to 21, we adapted a validated adult measurement tool to assess three dimensions of populism: people-centrism, anti-elitism, and Manichean outlook. We tested scalar measurement invariance across age groups and employed bifactor modeling to distinguish general and specific components of populism. Validity was examined through associations with conspiracy mentality, authoritarianism, political trust, satisfaction with democracy, and voting intentions for populist parties. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the three-dimensional structure with satisfactory psychometric properties and full scalar invariance. Bifactor modeling revealed that anti-elitism serves as the core binding element of the three populism facets. The general populism factor showed substantial associations with conspiracy mentality, moderate associations with authoritarianism, and strong negative associations with political trust and satisfaction with democracy. Logistic regression analyses demonstrated that each unit increase in general populist attitude doubled the odds of supporting populist parties (AfD, BSW), with additional significant effects of gender and school track. The results support both the applicability and validity of the adapted instrument among youth and demonstrate that bifactor modeling offers a valuable approach for capturing populism's complexity as a multidimensional attitude comprising general and specific components.
Elise Grunwald, Katharina Eckstein, Astrid Körner et al.
Introduction Screen time may influence language development during early childhood, although its effects may vary depending on contextual factors. While screen use can support development when guided by adults, excessive exposure has been associated with less favorable language outcomes. Methods Data from 16,914 children (51% girls, 78% White; M = 3.03 years, SD = 1.37) were obtained from the 2023 National Survey of Children’s Health. Networks of red-flag language milestones were estimated separately for children aged 1-2 and 3-5 years. Participants were classified according to World Health Organization (WHO) screen-time recommendations (<1 h/day vs. ≥1 h/day). Results Partially regularized network models revealed denser connectivity among language-development indicators in children with higher levels of screen exposure. This pattern was reflected in a greater number of network edges and fully connected subclusters and was particularly pronounced among children aged 3-5 years. Discussion The findings suggest that higher screen-time exposure is associated with more interconnected patterns of language-development difficulties during early childhood. These results contribute to a deeper understanding of language development in the context of children’s screen use and may provide useful insights for families, educational professionals, and policymakers interested in promoting healthy developmental environments and informed decisions regarding screen exposure.
Ana María Ruiz‐Ruano García, Trine Flensborg‐Madsen, Jorge López Puga
