Individually, those themes have packed pages of books for young people, but in this month’s Big Picture, Friends are Friends, Forever, Dane Liu manages the impressive feat of weaving them together ...while giving each their due, offering the picture book crowd a multifaceted story that validates the depth and breadth of their inner emotional lives. Dandan’s narration is a true sensorial treat, depicting her physical world with a vivid richness: at dinner, “flame-red chilies speckle silky noodles. The scattered onomatopoeia (“KISH SKISH,” as the girls slide through the snow, and “HISS BOOM CRACK” as the New Year’s fireworks light up the sky) add verve and opportunities for some lively storytime dramatics.
Children's physical activity decreases during school holidays. Less structured days and reduced participation in organised activities may account for some of the decrease. Little is known about the ...factors that influence parents' decision to enrol their child in organised activity such as holiday clubs. This paper sought to explore parents' perceptions of their child's physical activity during school holidays and the factors that influence holiday activity-based decision making. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 42 parents of children aged 10-11 years in July 2017 or March 2018. Data were analysed using a combination of inductive and deductive content analysis to explore parents' perceptions of holiday-based physical activity and the factors associated with how they provide physical activity opportunities for their children. The data revealed that most parents consider their child's physical activity levels when planning for the school holidays. However, work commitments in the holidays meant many parents had to rely on both informal and formal childcare. Grandparents were the primary source of informal childcare, despite a perception that children were not as physically active when with them. Holiday clubs were also a viable option, but the cost, location and age-appropriateness of provision inhibit parents signing older children up to these regularly.
Empirical social contact patterns are essential to understand the spread of infectious diseases. To date, no such data existed for France. Although infectious diseases are frequently seasonal, the ...temporal variation of contact patterns has not been documented hitherto.
COMES-F is the first French large-scale population survey, carried out over 3 different periods (February-March, April, April-May) with some participants common to the first and the last period. Participants described their contacts for 2 consecutive days, and reported separately on professional contacts when typically over 20 per day.
2033 participants reported 38 881 contacts (weighted median first quartile-third quartile: 85-14 per day), and 54 378 contacts with supplementary professional contacts (95-17). Contrary to age, gender, household size, holidays, weekend and occupation, period of the year had little influence on the number of contacts or the mixing patterns. Contact patterns were highly assortative with age, irrespective of the location of the contact, and gender, with women having 8% more contacts than men. Although most contacts occurred at home and at school, the inclusion of professional contacts modified the structure of the mixing patterns. Holidays and weekends reduced dramatically the number of contacts, and as proxies for school closure, reduced R0 by 33% and 28%, respectively. Thus, school closures could have an important impact on the spread of close contact infections in France.
Despite no clear evidence for temporal variation, trends suggest that more studies are needed. Age and gender were found important determinants of the mixing patterns. Gender differences in mixing patterns might help explain gender differences in the epidemiology of infectious diseases.
Leisure activities have been emphasized as an important predictor of well-being. However, little research has examined the effects of leisure activity enactment on well-being over time. Moreover, it ...is unknown which activities are most beneficial for whom. We integrate diverse theoretical accounts of person-environment relations and propose a generic Personality-Activity-Well-Being (PAW) framework, which highlights different relations between personality traits, activities, and well-being. To investigate these relations, we used 11 annual waves from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) panel (total N = 12,703 participants, N = 59,108 assessments), which included measures of the Big Five personality traits, 15 different leisure activities, and affective well-being and life satisfaction. Our preregistered multilevel models revealed three sets of findings. First, we observed on average small expected between-person associations between leisure activities and well-being (e.g., higher average levels of holidays, evening socializing, talking to close others, exercise, and cultural activities were associated with higher well-being). Annual within-person fluctuations in several leisure activities also predicted well-being in expected ways, but effect sizes were very small and varied strongly across participants. Second, personality traits were related to leisure activities in hypothesized ways, yielding on average small but also some moderate and large correlations. Third, Personality Trait × Leisure Activity interactions were only evident on the between-person level, very small in size, and in the opposite direction of our expectations. Personality traits did not moderate well-being benefits from leisure within persons. We discuss the implications of our findings and sketch an agenda for future work.
Why do countries celebrate defining religious moments or significant events in their history, and how and why do their leaders select certain events for commemoration and not others? This book is the ...first systematic study of the role of celebrations and public holidays in the Arab Middle East from the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the present. By tracing the history of the modern nation-state through successive generations, the book shows how Arab rulers have used public holidays as a means of establishing their legitimacy and, more broadly, a sense of national identity. Most recently, some states have attempted to nationalize religious festivals in the face of the Islamic revival. With its many illustrations and copious examples from across the region, the book offers an alternative perspective on the history and politics of the Middle East.
This article describes the contribution of employing community dialogue for the prevention of conflict escalation in ethnically mixed cities. It focuses on preparations of Mediation and Dialogue ...Centers in the Community (MDCC) for dealing with potential eruptions of violent conflicts over 2 years, due to the overlap of two Jewish and Muslim religious holidays, with opposite characteristics and very different styles. By engaging in processes of community dialogue, it became possible to construct a preventive infrastructure, based on a holistic strategy that involved community activists, civil society organizations and institutions, political leaders and religious leaders, law enforcement bodies, etc. The community model adopted for this task was composed of diverse activities that included explanation, enforcement, education, and dialogue. These combined activities contributed to finding agreed‐upon solutions in the event of conflict escalation. The participatory action research (PAR) that accompanied the process combined learning from successes and exchange of information by professionals from the ethnically mixed cities. The insights from the PAR that accompanied the process extracted the model, for the creation of a sustainable community process that creates community resilience. Consequences for praxis include: the creation of an infrastructure of community dialogue; remaining neutral; the undertaking of multiple collaborations, integration of areas in the community, and individual work with stakeholders.
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