Factors affecting exclusive breastfeeding practices among working-class women in Osun State, Nigeria.

Breastfeeding has been accepted as the most vital intervention for reducing infant mortality and ensuring optimal growth and development of children. However, studies on the factors affecting exclusive breastfeeding, especially, among working-class women are sparse. This study determined the factors affecting exclusive breastfeeding among working-class women in Osun state. Multistage sampling was used to select a total of 316 respondents for this cross-sectional study and a pretested, interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to elicit information. More than half (57.6%) of the respondents were between the ages of 26-35 years. Ninety-eight percent (98.1%) of the respondents had good knowledge of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF). Sixty-six percent (66.8%) had good exclusive breastfeeding practices. The study showed that there was a significant relationship between knowledge and practices of exclusive breastfeeding among the respondents (P<0.05). Identified factors affecting exclusive breastfeeding among the respondents are: duration of maternity leave, availability of crèche near the place of work, breastfeeding break at work, husband and family support, health conditions that could hinder EBF, and engagement in other activities with work. Breastfeeding breaks at work (AOR=4.717; P=0.000), husband and family support (AOR=2.944; P=0.000), and one-month maternal leave (P=0.000) were factors significantly associated with EBF practices. We conclude that good knowledge and good practices of exclusive breastfeeding were found among the study group. Improved policies around maternity leave and the provision of breastfeeding friendly work environment are needed to increase exclusive breastfeeding practices. Husbands and family members should be educated on the need to provide support to breastfeeding mothers.

Top Shelf Drinks, Bottom Line Play: Examining Representations of Class in Bartending and Mixology Games.

There is an emerging body of games that simulate the labor of drink making and serving at the forefront of play through the role of a bartender or artisanal mixologist. Both are working class but the creative variance between them challenges how economic precarity is understood. The authors ask how this translates to video games when these positions are foregrounded. How do play, poverty, and precarity interconnect in drink making and serving games? Through the qualitative analysis of four games that put the player in the position of bartender or mixologist, this paper shows how creative labor and precarity are illuminated or obfuscated through mechanics and narrative. In doing so, it argues how games, as one form of media, obscure or make visible labor and precarity to players and simultaneously reinforce the romanticization of often exploited creative labor. These findings prompt further questions and research directions on representations of working-class labor.

"As a psychiatry resident I am invited to explore my identity. But when I accept that invitation, I still encounter a wall." A qualitative study on inclusion experienced by psychiatry residents with a migration background, sexual minority identity and/or working-class background.

Diversity in terms of class, sexual identity and migration background among medical students in high income countries has increased greatly in recent decades. Some research into the experiences of these new groups of doctors has been performed. However, no previous research into the experiences of psychiatry residents specifically, is known. This qualitative study investigates how psychiatry residents, from these minoritized groups, experience their training regarding inclusion. Inclusion is defined as the degree to which one's needs for connection and for being valued in one's uniqueness, is satisfied. In-depth interviews with 16 psychiatry residents were conducted. These interviews were transcribed and coded using MaxQDA software. Initial themes that were constructed, were explored further in subsequent interviews and linked to literature. Finally, the developed themes were ordered in a model conceptualizing inclusion. Participants reported high belongingness within psychiatry training. Their experienced value in uniqueness, however, was generally quite low. Participants reported to experience little interest in and sensitivity for their perspectives and lived experiences from their co-workers. When faced with stigmatization and discrimination, participants reported lack of support from their colleagues. Assimilation was found to be the most frequently used coping strategy in dealing with diversity. Participants seemed to conform to the 'neutral' norm and experienced barriers in expressing themselves. Through this mechanism of assimilation, the added value that participants might bring with their unique knowledge and lived experiences was not used, both in patient care and in creating an inclusive climate within the organization. Moreover, assimilation is associated with psychological strain.

Social, Community, and Cultural Factors Associated with Parental Stress in Fathers and Mothers.

Parenting stress is a key factor in predicting the quality of parent−child relationships and child development outcomes. Previous research tends to focus on examining individual factors contributing to parental stress, with minimal attention to other important contextual factors that may affect parenting. This study examines the issue from a broader ecological perspective by investigating social, cultural, and community factors associated with parental stress in a community sample of economically active fathers and mothers in Hong Kong. A secondary analysis was conducted using the data from the 2017 Family Survey, a territory-wide household survey conducted in Hong Kong. The data of the current study included a sub-sample of 736 working-class parents (48.4% males and 51.6% females). The mean age of fathers and mothers was 50.99 (SD = 11.2) and 48.68 (SD = 10.34) years, respectively. Mothers reported significantly higher levels of parental stress than fathers, t = −4.241, p < 0.001. Different social, cultural, and community factors were associated with parental stress for fathers and mothers. Strong endorsement of traditional family values (B = −0.23, p = 0.032) and frequent practice of filial piety (B = −0.005, p = 0.019) reduced parental stress in fathers. Additionally, fathers who perceived formal support as effective scored higher levels of parental stress, B = 0.20, p < 0.001. For mothers, informal social support from family members was the only social predictor for reduced parental stress (B = −0.14, p < 0.001) among all the other contextual variables. Community support to reduce parental stress in working parents should address the respective risk factors for fathers and mothers.

Working class economic insecurity and voting for radical right and radical left parties.

The radical right's rise is widely assumed to go hand-in-hand with increasing economic insecurity, as manual workers are considered typical radical right voters. We question whether economic insecurity actually drives working class members to vote for radical parties, both right and left. Using European Social Survey data from 12 Western European countries (2002-2014), we tested whether less secure employment links to vote for such parties. We did this by distinguishing people in permanent employment from those in the same social class but not in permanent employment. Our outcome was surprising: whereas perceived job insecurity correlated with radical right voting, actual economic insecurity in terms of temporary employment was not associated with greater likelihood of voting for a radical right party among the working class. Instead, it was the radical left for which we found indications that it appealed more to groups of people in such an insecure economic position.

Wilhelm Reich and Sexology from Below.

One of sexologist Wilhelm Reich's most ambitious and enduring theories claims that sexuality and sexual repression play a central role in the production and reproduction of class structures and hierarchies. From 1927-1933, Reich combined his sexological work with his communist political convictions in a movement that became known as sex-pol. Reich developed some of his most provocative and potentially emancipatory theories through this empirical work with members of working-class communities. Though they often remain anonymous in his writings, the traces of their voices remain audible throughout. In this paper, I employ a Gramscian method, developed by post-colonial scholars, to read for the trace of proletarian voices in Reich's archive. I argue that these subjects helped to theorize the role of sex in producing and reproducing class oppression. Reading for the trace of proletarian voices in the archive expands our understanding of how working-class subjects in early twentieth-century Germany and Austria helped to produce concrete sexological knowledge from below.

Fighting inequalities in times of pandemic: The role of politicized identities and interdependent self-construal in coping with economic threat.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions encouraged social isolation and non-interaction with other people to prevent contagion. Still, the response to an impending economic crisis must be through the collective organization. In this set of pre-registered studies, we analyse two possible mechanisms of coping with collective economic threats: shared social identity and interdependent self-construction. We conducted three correlational studies during the pandemic in May-October 2020 (Study 1, N = 363; Study 2, N = 250; Study 3, N = 416). Results show that shared identity at two levels of politicization (i.e., working-class and 99% identities) and interdependent self-construal mediated the relationship between collective economic threat, intolerance towards economic inequality and collective actions to reduce it. The results highlight that the collective economic threat can reinforce the sense of community-either through the activation of a politicized collective identity, such as the working class or the 99% or through the activation of an interdependent self-which in turn can trigger greater involvement in the fight against economic inequality. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

America's rusted families: working-class political participation through three biological generations (1965-1997).

Has social reproduction through families preserved unequal political participation amongst the working class in post-industrial society? This article builds on both political and sociological traditions to consider the family as a tenacious social structure that reproduces political participation from one generation to the next. In order to answer this empirically, the study uses a longitudinal panel data of political behaviour across three biological generations in the United States (1965-1997). The findings show that respondents who grew up in working-class families are less likely to vote as adults regardless of whether they have working-class occupations or not. The transmission of un-equal participation is partially mediated by the voting behaviour of the parent who models this behaviour to their children. The study also shows that the second generation of respondents transmits low political participation to their offspring in the third generation. This study implies that occupational structures of a past industrial society are still politically relevant and that inequalities in political participation remain a legacy amongst the biological descendants of working-class families from the 1960s. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2044220 .

Post-industrial masculinities and gym culture: Graft, craft, and fraternity.

This article theorizes a link between contemporary masculinity in post-industrial spaces and 'hardcore' gym culture. Over the last three decades the health and fitness industry has grown exponentially, with bodily modification and the proliferation of gymnasia, health supplements and wearable fitness trackers now a dominant means by which many construct their identities. Simultaneously, the onset of wholesale neoliberalism, which has caused large-scale de-industrialization and the global outsourcing of labor, has resulted in a macro-economic shift from production to consumption in the West. Set against this backdrop, this article draws upon two ethnographic studies in 'hardcore' gyms to examine the significance of bodywork in the lives of men in two working-class, post-industrial locales in England. First, gym work is conceptualized as a form of both graft and craft within our samples, and the role of the male body as a post-industrial project is considered. Following this, the gym is presented as a site of fraternity which, following the loss of collectivizing industry in both areas, allows men to bond over a shared endeavor and build genuine kinship. Ultimately, we conclude that the gym is a space of production within consumption, furnishing our sample with a means of performing their embodied masculinity and repurposing formative notions of graft, craft, and fraternity in a new adaptive space.

Working: Glimpses of the pandemic from this fine place so far from home.

This manuscript was written for a special issue on Reflections on a Pandemic. In it, I write as an emerging scholar from a working-class background. The pandemic has underscored the divergence between my working life as an academic, which is unintelligible to those I love, and their "essential" work, which increasingly renders them expendable. In this essay I struggle with the tensions that other working-class scholars have articulated before me: I am tentatively welcome in a place that asks, or even demands, that I become someone whose work is unrecognizable to my loved ones. Through the use of reflective inquiry and (counter) narratives, I am working to alter social work education, creating space for others from working-class backgrounds who might find themselves in this fine place so far from home.

As marcas da interseccionalidade nas trajetórias de três acadêmicas negras / The marks of intersectionality in the trajectories of three black scholar women

Nesta pesquisa, propomo-nos a repensar o lugar da mulher negra em ambientes acadêmicos, os quais, supostamente, constituem espaços de produção democrática de saberes e de profissionais compromissados com a realidade social e suas fissuras. Por meio do método da história oral temática, foram entrevistadas três professoras universitárias negras, na busca da compreensão dos significados assumidos e conferidos às transformações experenciadas ao longo de suas vidas escolares e acadêmicas. Desse modo, procuramos compreender as características e contradições do processo identitário dessas mulheres e perceber de que modo as marcas interseccionais de raça, gênero e classe perpassam suas existências e seus projetos políticos; orientadas, sobretudo, pela ética da emancipação.

In this research, we propose to rethink the place of black women in academic environments, which supposedly constitute spaces for democratic production of knowledge and professionals committed to social reality and its fissures. Through the method of thematic oral history, three black female university professors were interviewed, in an attempt to understand the meanings assumed and given to the transformations experienced throughout their school and academic lives. In this way, we seek to understand the characteristics and contradictions of the identity process of these women and to understand how the intersectional marks of race, gender and social status permeate their existences and their political projects; guided, above all, by the ethics of emancipation.

Doomed Youth: Antonio Cánovas, a Young Sportsman in Time of War in 1930s Spain.

During the Spanish Civil War (SCW) 1936-1939, many young working-class sportsmen volunteered. They were both physically and politically active and some of them outstanding athletes. The search of these unknown men has just begun. Doomed Youth is a tribute to them and the first step toward a bigger attempt to better comprehend the role of sportsmen volunteers enlisted during the first months of the SCW, a fact that to date has received little scholar attention. Archival research, especially war combatants' family records as well as newspaper archives, oral memories of the protagonists left alive, and historical contextualization were defined as the appropriate methods to conduct the research. This paper is devoted to one of these young volunteers, Antonio Cánovas, recently dead in 2018 at the age of 98, whose life story in the 1930s and 1940s may be taken as the epitome of the young working-class sportsman of the cutting-edge regions of Spain in the first half of the 20th century: youngsters aware of their political and social rights whose dreams of social justice and active life were dashed by the war.

Crise econômica e a Covid-19: rebatimentos na vida (e morte) da classe trabalhadora brasileira / Economic crisis and COVID-19: impact on the life (and death) of the Brazilian working class / Crisis económica y Covid-19: los golpes en la vida (y muerte) de la clase trabajadora brasileña

Resumo Nesta breve exposição, pretende-se discutir como a crise político-econômica conjugou-se, à perfeição, à pandemia, para construir soluções lucrativas aos grandes capitais. O texto apresenta, com base na análise de dados recentes, como o Estado brasileiro, no governo Bolsonaro, empenha-se em aprofundar o programa de ajuste, por meio de privatizações de estatais e de rebaixamento dos direitos e do valor da força de trabalho, como base de um programa político-econômico e fiscal. A Nota explora ainda a hipótese de que tal plataforma tem o potencial de assegurar o continuado apoio da grande burguesia ao governo de Bolsonaro e Guedes.

Abstract In this brief presentation, we intend to discuss how the political-economic crisis combined perfectly with the pandemic to build profitable solutions for big capitalists. Based on the analysis of recent data, the text shows how the Brazilian State, under the Bolsonaro government, is committed to deepening the adjustment program, through privatization of state enterprises and downgrading the workforce's rights and value, as the basis of a political-economic and fiscal program. The Note also explores the hypothesis that such a platform has the potential to ensure the continued support of the great bourgeoisie to the government of Bolsonaro and Guedes.

Resumen En esta breve exposición, se pretende discutir como la crisis político económica se conjugó, a la perfección, con la pandemia, para construir soluciones lucrativas para los grandes capitales. El texto, basado en el análisis de datos recientes, presenta como el Estado brasileño, en el gobierno Bolsonaro, se empeña en profundizar el programa de ajuste, por medio de la privatización de las estatales y rebajando los derechos y el valor de la fuerza de trabajo, como base de un programa político económico y fiscal. La Nota explora aun la hipótesis de que tal plataforma tiene el potencial de asegurar el continuado apoyo de la gran burguesía al gobierno de Bolsonaro y Guedes.

Political Openings: Class Struggle During and After the Pandemic.

Capitalism's sustained failures to address popular needs, hopes, and fears have led to a delegitimation of state institutions and mainstream political parties. The crisis is consequently not primarily economic but social and political. The pandemic further exposed capitalism's social irrationalities, intimated how unprepared we were for the much larger environmental pandemic to come, and generated a new level of empathy for the value of frontline workers and the workplace health risks they are exposed to. Building on these openings requires identifying a few key demands around which to unify fragmented social movements; acquiring new understandings; placing larger issues of property rights and democracy on the agenda; and creating workplace, local, and national organizations with the capacity to realize substantive change. The strategic demands the article suggests and elaborates are an emergency wealth tax, conversion of industrial capacity for environmental reconstruction, and the strengthening of unions as a social force.

Suburban ethnicities: Home as the site of interethnic conviviality and racism.

This article explores the ways in which the white working-class residents of a suburban English town reflect on their relationships with their British Asian Pakistani Muslim neighbors. Its focus is on how everyday constructions of home become sites for the intermingling of discourses of intercultural conviviality and racism. My contention is that the idea of home has not yet been given the detailed critical attention that it deserves in the sociological literature on everyday manifestations of multiculturalism, conviviality, and racism. My supposition is that a special focus on the idea of home as the site of conviviality offers a productive avenue to analyze how intercultural relationships are formed and how the norms of neighborliness are thought to break down, opening a space for commonplace racialized and racist stereotypes to take hold. The idea of home is central to the rhythm and landscape of the English suburbs. It conjures up the idea of a uniform and aspirational white space. Drawing on this imaginary of home, I shall trace how "white working class" "English," "Scottish," and "Anglo-Italian" residents' everyday constructions of home become embroiled with their relationships with their British Asian Pakistani Muslim neighbors.

Navegando por los servicios de salud públicos: experiencias de mujeres de sectores populares en la periferia de Buenos Aires / Navigating the public health services: the experiences of women who live in the periphery of Buenos Aires city

Resumen Con base en datos cualitativos de seis grupos focalizados, realizados durante los años 2015 y 2016, con mujeres de 18 a 60 años residentes en un barrio de sectores populares del conurbano norte bonaerense, analizamos las lógicas de utilización y sus experiencias con los servicios de salud públicos. Nos centramos en las barreras que las participantes identifican para acceder a la infraestructura sanitaria pública del barrio (Centro de Salud y postas sanitarias) y en los establecimientos hospitalarios de la localidad, considerando las necesidades, expectativas y demandas de cuidado médico, no sólo curativo, sino también preventivo y de salud mental. Observamos las consecuencias de las barreras en el acceso a la atención, cómo reaccionan frente a ellas y los recursos que algunas mujeres y sus grupos familiares movilizan para sortearlas (contar con medios para desplazarse a otras localidades, el pago de bolsillo para consultas y tratamientos privados, contar con cobertura de obra social, etc.).

Abstract Based on the qualitative data gathered from six focus groups conducted between 2015 and 2016 with women aged from 18 to 60, it is analyzed how they utilize public health services. Focusing on the barriers of access to local (the community health center and primary health posts) and to nearby hospitals, it is considered their health needs, expectations and demands to both preventive and curative care. Access to mental health care is also addressed. We observe how women and their families respond when facing these barriers and the resources they can mobilize to overcome them (spatial mobility, relative financial capacity, access to social security and private health coverage etc.). Also, the negative consequences of organizational barriers and deficiencies of the public services network on neighbors' health are shown.

Dirty work: cultural iconography and working-class pride in industrial apprenticeships.

In the seemingly routine and the everyday, lie layers of cultural and social symbolism. So it is with dirt. This article examines the social and cultural roles of dirt within socialization practices in working-class industrial and ex-industrial communities. Drawn from oral history accounts with 46 former and current engineering apprentices, the discussion demonstrates dirt as a concept and a practicality, and how the idea of 'getting dirty' provided a cultural imagery used to renegotiate moral boundaries that devalue working class, masculine experiences and identities. Building on from the work of Skeggs (1997, 2004, 2011), it demonstrates the lived experience of value within the industrial workplace past and present. Through dirt, the role of cultural artefacts and iconography within working-class experience and workplace training is explored. Additionally, the role of a cultural icon like dirt in the intergenerational dialogues of workplace communities is given new attention. In doing so the article argues that while after decades of underinvestment in apprenticeships as a model for training in the UK, a recent resurgence in interest can go some way in overcoming the long-term effects of the loss of large-scale industrial work. However, the cultures of work attached to the apprenticeships of the past are, within deindustrialization, much more complicated to develop or recreate.

The Effect of Long Working Hours and Overtime on Occupational Health: A Meta-Analysis of Evidence from 1998 to 2018.

There has been no subsequent meta-analysis examining the effects of long working hours on health or occupational health since 1997. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a meta-analysis covering studies after 1997 for a comparison. A total of 243 published records were extracted from electronic databases. The effects were measured by five conditions, namely, physiological health (PH), mental health (MH), health behaviours (HB), related health (RH), and nonspecified health (NH). The overall odds ratio between long working hours and occupational health was 1.245 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.195-1.298). The condition of related health constituted the highest odds ratio value (1.465, 95% CI: 1.332-1.611). The potential moderators were study method, cut-point for long weekly working hours, and country of origin. Long working hours were shown to adversely affect the occupational health of workers. The management on safeguarding the occupational health of workers working long hours should be reinforced.

Working-Class Men's Constructions of Help-Seeking When Feeling Depressed or Sad.

In this study, we conducted interviews with 12 working-class men employed in industrial and manual labor to identify their constructions of help-seeking in response to feeling depressed or sad. The semistructured interview format explored participant men's understanding and reactions to depression or sadness, their experiences of depression and reluctance to seek help, and their own and others' reactions to seeking help for feeling depressed or sad. Utilizing the consensual qualitative research methodology, four domains emerged: Concern About Threat and Stigma, Being a Man Means Not Seeking Help, Experiences of Safety and Relief, and Conditions That Reduce Threat and Stigma. The results suggest the need to account for men's experiences of both negative influences (e.g., masculinity injunctions, stigma, and threat to manhood status), as well as adaptive influences (e.g., contexts that reduce stigma) when addressing men's help-seeking for depression and sadness. The domains are illustrative of several theoretical frameworks including social-psychological models of social norms and stigma, precarious manhood theory, inclusive masculinity theory, as well as convergence with other research examining working-class men. Implications are discussed for outreach and practice addressing men's depression and help-seeking.

Why the White Working-class Mortality and Morbidity Is Increasing in the United States: The Importance of the Political Context.

This article analyzes critically the most recent scientific bibliography on the causes of the growth of mortality and morbidity in the white working class of the United States. The methodology used in these studies, and also the insufficient conceptualization of the variables used (such as social class), limits the understanding of the increment of the "diseases of despair" in that sector of the population. This article emphasizes the need to analyze the evolution of the social classes in the United States, and the political determinants that have changed not only the character and composition of that class, but also the power differentials between this class and other classes in the United States.