The dynamics behind ever-increasing consumption have long been a core issue of ecological economics. Studies on this topic have traditionally drawn not only on insights from economics, but also from ...such disciplines as sociology, anthropology and psychology. In recent years, a practice theory approach has emerged in sociological consumption studies, as part of a general wave of renewed interest in practice theory emanating from a desire to move beyond such dominant dualisms as the structure-actor opposition in sociology. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the practice theory approach in relation to studies of everyday life, domestic practices and consumption, and to argue that this approach can be fruitful for ecological economics and other fields interested in the environmental aspects of consumption. The paper emphasizes the immense challenge involved in promoting sustainable consumption, and the need for collective efforts supported by research into the co-evolution of domestic practices, systems of provision, supply chains and production.
Amid growing controversy about the oft‐cited “30‐million‐word gap,” this investigation uses language data from five American communities across the socioeconomic spectrum to test, for the first time, ...Hart and Risley's (1995) claim that poor children hear 30 million fewer words than their middle‐class counterparts during the early years of life. The five studies combined ethnographic fieldwork with longitudinal home observations of 42 children (18–48 months) interacting with family members in everyday life contexts. Results do not support Hart and Risley's claim, reveal substantial variation in vocabulary environments within each socioeconomic stratum, and suggest that definitions of verbal environments that exclude multiple caregivers and bystander talk disproportionately underestimate the number of words to which low‐income children are exposed.
This article is commented on by Golinkoff et al (2019) and the authors in response. The commentary and author response were published in the previous 90.3 issue in error and are available online: Golinkoff et al (2019): https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13128 Sperry et al (2019): https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13125
In recent years, much has been written on ‘big data’ in both the popular and academic press. After the hubristic declaration of the ‘end of theory’ more nuanced arguments have emerged, suggesting ...that increasingly pervasive data collection and quantification may have significant implications for the social sciences, even if the social, scientific, political, and economic agendas behind big data are less new than they are often portrayed. Compared to the boosterish tone of much of its press, academic critiques of big data have been relatively muted, often focusing on the continued importance of more traditional forms of domain knowledge and expertise. Indeed, many academic responses to big data enthusiastically celebrate the availability of new data sources and the potential for new insights and perspectives they may enable. Undermining many of these critiques is a lack of attention to the role of technology in society, particularly with respect to the labor process, the continued extension of labor relations into previously private times and places, and the commoditization of more and more aspects of everyday life. In this article, we parse a variety of big data definitions to argue that it is only when individual datums by the million, billion, or more are linked together algorithmically that ‘big data’ emerges as a commodity. Such decisions do not occur in a vacuum but as part of an asymmetric power relationship in which individuals are dispossessed of the data they generate in their day-to-day lives. We argue that the asymmetry of this data capture process is a means of capitalist ‘accumulation by dispossession’ that colonizes and commodifies everyday life in ways previously impossible. Situating the promises of ‘big data’ within the utopian imaginaries of digital frontierism, we suggest processes of data colonialism are actually unfolding behind these utopic promises. Amid private corporate and academic excitement over new forms of data analysis and visualization, situating big data as a form of capitalist expropriation and dispossession stresses the urgent need for critical, theoretical understandings of data and society.
Expressing gratitude improves well-being for both expressers and recipients, but we suggest that an egocentric bias may lead expressers to systematically undervalue its positive impact on recipients ...in a way that could keep people from expressing gratitude more often in everyday life. Participants in three experiments wrote gratitude letters and then predicted how surprised, happy, and awkward recipients would feel. Recipients then reported how receiving an expression of gratitude actually made them feel. Expressers significantly underestimated how surprised recipients would be about why expressers were grateful, overestimated how awkward recipients would feel, and underestimated how positive recipients would feel. Expected awkwardness and mood were both correlated with participants’ willingness to express gratitude. Wise decisions are guided by an accurate assessment of the expected value of action. Underestimating the value of prosocial actions, such as expressing gratitude, may keep people from engaging in behavior that would maximize their own—and others’—well-being.
What does it mean to wear a routine? This article explores a number of implications for the engagement of wearable fitness technology in everyday life. It straddles both a critical hermeneutic that ...explores the institutional prescription of wearable technology to combat the so-called “obesity epidemic” in American society, as well as a more phenomenological and experiential analysis that argues these data-driven technologies actually produce a qualitative re-engagement with social relationships. Expanding and enriching Adam Greenfield’s concept of “everyware” to describe ubiquitous technologies, this article develops the sub-variant “everywear” as a way to understand the increasing prevalence of technologies that are worn or in some way tethered to the body. Ultimately, it argues that studies of technology in everyday life must attend to a multiplicity of complex individual and institutional values and engagements. Furthermore, it suggests quantitative and qualitative modes of being operate dialectically in the production of everyday practice and experience.
Social relationships are often touted as critical for well-being. However, the vast majority of studies on social relationships have relied on self-report measures of both social interactions and ...well-being, which makes it difficult to disentangle true associations from shared method variance. To address this gap, we assessed the quantity and quality of social interactions using both self-report and observer-based measures in everyday life. Participants (N = 256; 3,206 observations) wore the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), an unobtrusive audio recorder, and completed experience sampling method self-reports of their momentary social interactions, happiness, and feelings of social connectedness, 4 times each day for 1 week. Observers rated the quantity and quality of participants' social interactions based on the EAR recordings from the same time points. Quantity of social interactions was robustly associated with greater well-being in the moment and on average, whether they were measured with self-reports or observer reports. Conversational (conversational depth and self-disclosure) and relational (knowing and liking one's interaction partners) aspects of social interaction quality were also generally associated with greater well-being, but the effects were larger and more consistent for self-reported (vs. observer-reported) quality variables, within-person (vs. between-person) associations, and for predicting social connectedness (vs. happiness). Finally, although most associations were similar for introverts and extraverts, our exploratory results suggest that introverts may experience greater boosts in social connectedness, relative to extraverts, when engaging in deeper conversations. This study provides compelling multimethod evidence supporting the link between more frequent and deeper social interactions and well-being.
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread across the United States, resulting in significant changes in almost all aspects daily life. These changes place parents at increased risk for parental ...burnout. Parental burnout is a chronic condition resulting from high levels of parenting-related stress due to a mismatch between the demands of parenting and the resources available for parents to meet those demands. Research on parental burnout has suggested that parents who experience burnout are more likely to engage in child abuse and neglect, placing children at risk for detrimental short- and long-term outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to review the concept of parental burnout, discuss parental burnout in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, and focus specifically on the effects of child maltreatment. Implications for practitioners will be discussed.
Background
Lack of agreement about criteria and terminology for children's language problems affects access to services as well as hindering research and practice. We report the second phase of a ...study using an online Delphi method to address these issues. In the first phase, we focused on criteria for language disorder. Here we consider terminology.
Methods
The Delphi method is an iterative process in which an initial set of statements is rated by a panel of experts, who then have the opportunity to view anonymised ratings from other panel members. On this basis they can either revise their views or make a case for their position. The statements are then revised based on panel feedback, and again rated by and commented on by the panel. In this study, feedback from a second round was used to prepare a final set of statements in narrative form. The panel included 57 individuals representing a range of professions and nationalities.
Results
We achieved at least 78% agreement for 19 of 21 statements within two rounds of ratings. These were collapsed into 12 statements for the final consensus reported here. The term ‘Language Disorder’ is recommended to refer to a profile of difficulties that causes functional impairment in everyday life and is associated with poor prognosis. The term, ‘Developmental Language Disorder’ (DLD) was endorsed for use when the language disorder was not associated with a known biomedical aetiology. It was also agreed that (a) presence of risk factors (neurobiological or environmental) does not preclude a diagnosis of DLD, (b) DLD can co‐occur with other neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. ADHD) and (c) DLD does not require a mismatch between verbal and nonverbal ability.
Conclusions
This Delphi exercise highlights reasons for disagreements about terminology for language disorders and proposes standard definitions and nomenclature.
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