Bakgrund: Alkoholberoende är en psykisk sjukdom med både hög förekomst och stor utbredning. Socioekonomisk status (SES) är ett begrepp som innefattar utbildningsnivå, yrkesstatus och inkomst (Statistikcentralen, i.d). Många olika faktorer såsom arv och miljö kan öka risken för att en person drabbas av ett alkoholberoende. Tidigare forskning är oense gällande sambandet mellan alkohol och SES. Syfte: Att kartlägga hur människor med olika socioekonomiska förutsättningar upplever sitt alkoholberoende och mötet med sjukvården. Metod: En explorativ design med kvalitativ forskningsansats som bygger på personers egna upplevelser och erfarenheter av fenomenet alkoholberoende. Resultat: Känsloliv och tillgänglighet var avgörande orsaker till att ett alkoholberoende utvecklades. Yrkeslivet kunde både bidra till ökad och minskad alkoholkonsumtion. Alkohol kunde användas för att uppnå behag, dämpa ångest och känna samhörighet. Nyktra alkoholister upplevde överlag inte alkohol som något negativt. Personer med högre SES konsumerade mer alkohol i veckorna och fick lättare och snabbare tillgång till vård. Oavsett SES kunde alkoholberoende leda till psykiska besvär och försämrad ekonomi, vilket påverkade de personer med lägst SES hårdast. Rattfylleri var det mest frekvent rapporterade riskbeteendet under alkoholpåverkan, detta hade ingen koppling till SES. Upplevelser av passivitet från omgivningen var vanligt, när omgivningen agerade kunde det väcka förnekelse. Sjuksköterskans bemötande upplevdes som oklanderligt men sjukvården betraktades generellt som icke-fungerande. Terapeutisk effekt uppnåddes lättare om hjälparen också hade ett alkoholberoende, en av orsakerna till att Anonyma Alkoholisters verksamhet upplevdes som positiv. Produktivitet, intressen och motivation var nyckelfaktorer för att motverka återfall. Slutsats: I de socioekonomiska grupperna varierade upplevelserna av alkoholberoendet främst gällande dryckesmönster, tillgång till vård samt bakomliggande orsaker till alkoholdrickandet. Ett alkoholberoende drabbade de personer med lägst SES hårdast. Bemötandet av personer med alkoholberoende inom svensk hälso- och sjukvård upplevdes som oklanderligt, dock var många delar av vården utformade på ett icke-fungerande sätt. / Background: Alcohol addiction is a widespread mental illness with high prevalence. Socioeconomic status (SES) is a term that includes education, occupational status and income (Statistikcentralen, i.d). Many different factors such as heredity and the environment may increase the risk of a person becoming addicted to alcohol. Previous research presents different results about the relationship between alcohol and socioeconomic status. Aim: To chart how people with different socioeconomic conditions experienced their alcohol addicition and the health care. Methods: An explorative design with qualitative research approach based on people’s own experiences of the phenomenon alcohol addiction. Results: Emotions and availability were main reasons of the development of an alcohol addiction. People´s employment could contribute to both increased and reduced alcohol consumption. Alchol could be used to reach amenity and solidarity and to decrease anxiety. Sober alcoholics did not experience alcohol as something negative. People with a high SES consumed a greater quantity of alcohol during the weekdays and had easier and quicker access to health care than people with lower SES. Alcohol addition could contribute to psychological issues and a worsened economy, especially for the people with lowest SES. Drunk driving was the most highly reported risk behaviour under the influence of alcohol but without connection to the SES. The respondents experienced that the surrounding people mostly remained passive but when they did react it could issue in denial. The nurse’s treatment were experienced as impeccable but the health care was generally considered as not effective. Therapeutic effect was achieved more easily if the helpers had their own addictions, one of the reasons to that Anonymous Alcoholics was regarded as a positive activity. Productivity, hobbies and motivation were key factors to prevent relapse. Conclusion: The experience of the alcohol addiction varied between the socioeconomic groups, mainly concerning drinking patterns, access to health care and the underlying causes to alcohol drinking. An alcohol addiction affected those people with the lowest SES mostly. The treatment of people with alcohol addiction in the swedish health care were experienced as faultless, yet there were many aspects of the healthcare that were generally considered to be dysfunctional.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In this dissertation, Van Davy makes a case for a cohesive system of schools which can serve the public — both the national interest and individual interests — while directly addressing the current national schooling system’s failure: * to replace, for the entire student cohort...high levels of student boredom with high interest and engaging curriculum and pedagogy; * to replace, for low SES and indigenous students...low levels of learning outcomes, low enrolment levels in senior schooling, and only brief experience of curriculum choice with a curriculum paradigm providing intrinsic value, understanding of pathways from disempowerment to empowerment, curriculum choice from the earliest years, and schooling outcomes which, over time, equal those of the national cohort of students * to replace a citizenry divided in its support for public, church-based, and exclusionary schools with a community united in its support for a socially agreed set of social purposes for schooling and a new curriculum paradigm, one half of which is generated by this set of social purposes * to address a major political issue: social cohesion The proposed new and cohesive system of schools is envisaged to meet the needs - both Common Good and Individual Good - of the citizenry. It will grow from an earlier and pre-requisite national social agreement around a set of political goals which together sketch a preferred future society - these political goals in the hands of education specialists will generate an "essential" curriculum as one of two elements in a new two-tiered curriculum to be followed from the earliest until the latest years of schooling. The second element, occupying the other half of the curriculum from the earliest to the latest years of schooling, will be an elective curriculum designed to encourage all students to pursue their own interests in as much depth as desired. Studies of sectarian studies will be included in the elective curriculum. Davy’s analysis ranges across a number of disciplines, fusing together a number of viewpoints: historical, political theory, educational performance, and educational theory. It searches Australia’s schooling outcomes, identifies low SES and Aboriginal outcomes as major areas of failure, and challenges a number of widely accepted schooling practices. In the process, Davy discovers OECD and ACER data, but little official interest or analysis, concerning widespread boredom amongst Australia’s students. He argues that, in respect of both low SES students and student boredom, system responsibilities such as the nature of Australia’s curriculum, could be just as implicated as concerns for “teacher quality.” Davy’s interest extends beyond the purely educational. He examines the purposes that public and non-public school authorities articulate, as well as reasons parents give for enrolling their children in schools. From this research Davy identifies several issues and suggests that very considerable “choice” in schooling could be found in a different curriculum paradigm, and that both public and non-public schools are deficient when measured against widely-accepted concerns for religious freedom, social cohesion, and fundamental democratic principles. For Davy, a major political issue confronting Australia is the national imperative of “social cohesion.” He searches Australia’s schooling history for evidence of any social agreement around the social purposes of schooling, including more recent attempts to formulate “essential" and “new basics” and “national” curriculum. He concludes that while many educators, and the OECD, refer to the need for a pre-requisite set of social purposes that outline a preferred future society, the politics of schooling has not permitted this to eventuate and, given the absence of this management fundamental, “it is not surprising that schooling systems are shaped by internal logics (ideologies, religions, personalities, internal politics, quest for advantage and/or privilege) rather than wider concerns for the shape of the globe’s and nation’s future, and the advancement of the twins: Common Good and Individual Good.” With these problems laid bare — low SES and indigenous outcomes, student boredom, and social cohesion — Davy addresses all three simultaneously. He draws confidence from contemporary political theorists proposing political processes which engage the public in a “deliberative democracy.” He constructs a surrogate “foundation of agreed principles” which, he deduces, the processes of deliberative democracy might lead the Australian people to construct, then outlines a step-by-step means by which these principles can generate an essential curriculum for all Australian children, while encouraging a full range of choice within an elective stream. The political processes of open collaboration throughout civil society which produces the social agreement may produce a new political context. This new, less adversarial and more trusting political context is seen to be fertile ground for the replacement of Australia’s fractured schooling system with a cohesive schooling system for the Australian public — an Australian schooling system — to be managed nationally.

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 21-22).

Book sharing is a key literacy activity in the early years that predicts children's subsequent literacy and language abilities, and a wealth of evidence illustrates socioeconomic status (SES) differences in early childhood abilities. However, whilst research has examined book sharing frequency in depth, far less is known about how the quality of verbal and non-verbal interactions varies by the SES of the parent. This thesis addresses this question by considering the quality of book sharing interactions between mothers and their infants or children across three studies. In the first, longitudinal study, mother-infant dyads (N = 44) were filmed book sharing at 12 and 18 months (N = 34), and infant development was measured. A novel coding scheme identified a wide range of verbal and non-verbal book sharing behaviours. High SES dyads produced more positive behaviours at 12 and 18 months and these predicted infants' linguistic and cognitive abilities at 18 months. Differences in infants were observed only at 18 months, with low SES infants disengaging more frequently. To examine the link between book sharing, SES and emotional functioning in older children, the second study considered mother-child book sharing behaviours in a preschool aged sample (N = 46). There were SES differences in verbal, but not non-verbal book sharing behaviours. A small number of maternal book sharing behaviours were associated with children's social and emotional abilities, suggesting children's behaviour influenced the book sharing interaction. In the final study, a book sharing intervention was designed and delivered predominantly to low SES mothers (N = 24) to explore whether mothers' book sharing behaviours could be enhanced, and increases were found in all targeted behaviours. In conclusion, book sharing behaviours that have been found to provide a more enriched interaction were seen more in high SES dyads, and predicted infants' abilities. Encouraging low SES mothers to use these enhanced interactions was successful, indicating that higher quality book sharing can be increased via a short intervention.

Introduction: In Sweden today a third of all those 60+ live alone and the absolute number will continue to increase because of the aging population. The aim of this thesis was to identify if the subgroup, older individuals living alone, might be more disadvantaged in regard to the four key sources to vulnerability suggested by Mechanic and Tanner (2007): Poverty and low socioeconomic status, personal functions, low social network and lack of support, and physical location. Gender differences were also investigated.   Method: Data was from the Swedish Panel Study of Living Conditions of the Oldest Old (SWEOLD) collected in 2014. The total sample in this thesis includes 987 individuals with an age between 70-105. To estimate the current living conditions in regard to vulnerability among the subgroup, five dimensions of vulnerability were analyzed with multiple logistic and linear regressions.   Results: More disadvantages are found for those men and women living alone in all domains, except in social activity for women where living arrangement made no difference. Significant gender differences can be seen in depressive symptoms and social activity, but not for financial insecurity, mobility problems or living in a disorganized local community.   Conclusion: Men and women living alone are more disadvantaged compared to those living with a partner, according to the four key sources to vulnerability. With this deeper insight it is possible to obtain a greater understanding in where policies to support and strengthen this subgroup should be placed.

Este estudio tiene como objetivo explorar longitudinalmente los eventos estresantes en preadolescentes de una zona urbana de Lima. Una muestra no clínica (N = 170, 9-11 años) proveniente de niveles socioeconómicos (SES) alto y bajo en la zona urbana de Lima, fue evaluada en cuatro momentos a lo largo de dos años. El análisis multinivel mostró que la intensidad de estrés percibido disminuyó durante los dos años. Los preadolescentes de SES bajo, mostraron más estrés sobre sí mismos y sobre sus familia en comparación con los de SES alto. Las niñas se estresaban más por sus familias y amigos que los niños. Finalmente se describen los estresantes más frecuentes encontrados en este grupo de preadolescentes limeños que viven en una zona urbana. / Revisión por pares

People’s self-perception biases often lead them to see themselves as better than the average person (a phenomenon known as self-enhancement). This bias varies across cultures, and variations are typically explained using cultural variables, such as individualism versus collectivism. We propose that socioeconomic differences among societies—specifically, relative levels of economic inequality—play an important but unrecognized role in how people evaluate themselves. Evidence for selfenhancement was found in 15 diverse nations, but the magnitude of the bias varied. Greater self-enhancement was found in societies with more income inequality, and income inequality predicted cross-cultural differences in self-enhancement better than did individualism/collectivism. These results indicate that macrosocial differences in the distribution of economic goods are linked to microsocial processes of perceiving the self. / Steve Loughnan is a postdoctoral research associate funded by the Leverhulme Trust (F/00236/W). Peter Kuppens is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders and is supported by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Research Council Grants GOA/05/04 and OT/11/031. Anu Realo and Jüri Allik were supported by a grant from the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science (SF0180029s08). Junqi Shi was supported by a grant from the National Nature Foundation of China (NSFC:71021001). / Revisión por pares

Multiple theoretical frameworks posit that interactions between the autonomic nervous system and higher-order neural networks are crucial for cognitive regulation. However, few studies have directly examined whether autonomic physiology influences brain activity during cognitive tasks, and even fewer of those studies have examined both autonomic branches when doing so. Measures of selective attention derived from event-related brain potentials (ERPs) are particularly well-suited for addressing this question, given that ERP selective attention tasks are designed to control for the influences of psychomotor processes and arousal and are predictive of higher-order cognitive function in children and adults. Such research is particularly promising for understanding how early adversity impacts neurocognitive development in children, given that stress experienced early in life impacts both autonomic function and selective attention. Here, a broad literature review is presented, integrating findings across studies of autonomic physiology, cognition, and brain activity in children and adults (Chapter 1). Then, two experiments are described where cardiac measures of parasympathetic and sympathetic activity were recorded concurrently with ERPs during an auditory selective task in a sample of adults (Chapter 2) and in a sample of preschool-aged children (Chapter 3). Results from both experiments demonstrate a key role for the sympathetic nervous system in selective attention for adults and children, such that greater sympathetic activity is associated with larger effects of selective attention on ERPs. These findings are then reviewed with suggestions for how existing models of neurovisceral integration might be updated to better emphasize the role of sympathetic nervous system activity in neurocognitive processes, emphasizing measures of threat-related and reward-related arousal, as represented by galvanic skin response and pre-ejection period, respectively (Chapter 4). Future directions are also discussed, including recommendations for future studies of neurovisceral integration to examine associations between physiology, behavior, and brain activity at the single-trial level, to incorporate participants from more diverse backgrounds of life experience, and to examine the plasticity of autonomic mechanisms implicated in neurocognitive function.

Parents and Children Making Connections – Highlighting Attention (PCMC-A) is a dual-generation intervention program for families from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds that includes parenting training for parents and attention training for preschool-aged children. PCMC-A has been shown to impact brain function for selective attention in children, the ability to enhance relevant information and suppress competing, distracting information. With the goal of increasing our understanding of how PCMC-A operates to promote gains in child brain function for selective attention, the main objective of this dissertation was to test intervention-related changes in supportive parenting behaviors as an explanatory mechanism for the effect of PCMC-A on neural indices of selective attention. To better understand the profile of those who benefit from PCMC-A to different extents, we also examined moderators of the effect of PCMC-A on supportive parenting and on child brain function for selective attention. These questions were examined as part of the randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of PCMC-A on Head Start preschoolers and their parents, employing a multi-method approach. We found that participation in PCMC-A led to increases in specific aspects of supportive parenting behaviors coded from observed parent-child interactions, which were moderated by child and mother characteristics at the pre-assessment, including mother reports of child behavior problems, child age, and maternal interactive language use. We also replicated with a larger sample an effect of PCMC-A on child selective attention measured using the event-related potential technique, which was moderated by mother reports of child social skills at the pre-assessment. Even though we documented changes in both of these outcomes as a function of PCMC-A, we did not find evidence that changes in supportive parenting explained gains in child selective attention, suggesting that other explanatory mechanisms may be at play. Together, the findings of the present dissertation characterize the effect of PCMC-A on supportive parenting behaviors and child selective attention, begin to paint a picture of the families who benefit most and least from this intervention, and contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms through which PCMC-A impacts child brain function for selective attention. This dissertation includes unpublished co-authored material.

O presente estudo investigou a transição para a vida adulta em jovens de diferentes níveis socioeconômicos (NSE) no sul do Brasil, e objetivou identificar a existência ou não do fenômeno chamado adultez emergente (AE) no sul país. A amostra foi composta de 547 jovens, residentes em Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, entre 18 e 29 anos (M = 22 anos; IQ = 19-26), 196 (35,8%) homens, e 351 (64.2%) mulheres; de NSE baixo (n = 194, 35.5%) e alto (n = 353, 64,5%). O primeiro conjunto de estudos foi composto por análises estatísticas uni e multivariadas (Análise Fatorial, MANCOVA, e Regressões Múltiplas Moderadas). Os inventários examinados, IDEA e FESA, apresentaram nova estrutura fatorial, associadas a influências do contexto brasileiro e à necessidade de revisão das medidas originais. A AE mostrou-se mais provável de ocorrer em contextos de NSE alto. O grupo de NSE baixo apresentou tendência a assumir responsabilidades adultas precocemente, o que dificulta a experimentação de um período mais exploratório de suas identidades. A dimensão Foco em si mesmo na amostra brasileira foi associada com o processo gradual dos participantes construírem uma base para sua vida adulta; e também a uma orientação mais individualista. A análise temática desenvolvida no estudo qualitativo identificou a presença das cinco principais características da AE e sua dimensão oposta, Foco nos outros, na amostra. Indivíduos de NSE alto descreveram uma transição para a vida adulta em harmonia com o que é observado em outros países industrializados. Indivíduos de NSE baixo apresentaram uma tendência diferente. A oportunidade de serem Focados em si mesmos e investirem na Exploração de sua identidade aconteceriam após um período de Foco nos outros. / The present study investigated the transition to adulthood in Southern Brazilians from differing SES and aimed to examine whether or not the phenomenon of EA exists in the country. The sample included 547 individuals; residents in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul State, between 18 and 29 years old (M = 22 years; IQR = 19-26), 196 (35.8%) males, and 351 (64.2%) females, of low (n = 194, 35.5%) and high SES (n = 353, 64.5%). The first set of studies was composed of univariate and multivariate statistical analysis (Factor Analysis, MANCOVA, and Moderatared Multiple Regressions). The inventories examined, IDEA and FESA, presented a new factor structure, associated with Brazilian contextual influences and the necessity of reviewing the original measures. The EA phenomenon was more likely to be present in HSES contexts in Brazil. The LSES group trend to assuming adult responsibilities earlier blocks their opportunities of exploring diverse fields. The dimension Self-focused in the Southern Brazilian sample was associated with participants’ gradual process of building a foundation to adulthood, and also with a more individualistic orientation. The thematic analysis developed in the qualitative study identified the presence of the five main EA features and its counterpart, Other-focused in the sample. HSES individuals were more likely to experience the EA features in harmony with this transition in industrialized countries. LSES individuals presented a divergent trend. Their opportunity to be Self-focused and invest in their Identity Exploration would happen after an Other-focused period.