Practice Links [Issue 50, December 2012]

Practice Links is a free e-publication for practitioners working in Irish social services, voluntary and nongovernmental sectors. Practice Links was created to enable practitioners to keep up-to-date with new publications, electronic resources and conference opportunities. Issue 50 celebrates the tenth anniversary of the original publication of Practice Links in 2002. In addition to this milestone the issue features reviews on Behavioural and Cognitive-Behavioural Group-Based Parenting Programmes for Early-Onset Conduct Problems in Children Aged 3 to 12 Years.

The brand-orientated play-community: toxic play in the marketplace

This ethnographic study makes a number of original contributions to the consumer identity projects and the marketplace cultures dimensions of consumer culture theory research. This study introduces the notion of the brand-orientated play-community, a novel consumption community form, which displays, as locus, a desire to play. This contributes to our understanding of the fluid relationship between subcultures of consumption, consumer tribes, and brand community. It was found that the brand-orientated play-community’s prime celebration, conceptualised as the ‘branded carnival’, displays characteristics of the archetypal carnival. The community access carnivalistic life and a world-upside-down ethos via the use and misuse of marketplace resources. The branded carnival is further supported by the community’s enactment of ‘toxic play’, which entails abnormal alcohol consumption, black market illegal resources, edgework activities, hegemonic masculinity and upsetting the public. This play-community is discussed in terms of a hyper-masculine playpen, as the play enacted has a direct relationship with the enactment of strong masculine roles. It was found that male play-ground members enact the extremes of contrasting masculine roles as a means to subvert the calculated and sedate ‘man-of-action-hero’ synthesis. Carnivals are unisex, and hence, women have begun entering the play-ground. Female members have successfully renegotiated their role within the community, from playthings to players – they have achieved player equality, which within the liminoid zone is more powerful than gender equality. However, while toxic play is essential to the maintenance of collective identity within the culture so too is the more serious form of play: the toxic sport of professional beer pong. The author conceptualises beer pong as a ‘toxic sport’, as it displays the contradictory play foundations of agon and corrupt ilinx: this is understood as a milestone step in the emergence of the postmodern sport era, in which spontaneity and the carnivalesque will dominate.

College adjustment, depressive symptoms and peer support among undergraduate university students

Background: College adjustment is a developmental milestone that can be stressful and may lead to mental health problems such as depression. Support during this adjustment period is seen as essential, however it is unknown if informal peer support from fellow students has any impact on either college adjustment or depressive symptoms. Aim: To identify levels of social and personal college adjustment, depressive symptoms and peer support among students, and to examine the relationship between the variables. Design: A quantitative correlational design was used Instruments: Data were collected using two subscales of the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire; the Centre for Epidemiology Depressive Symptoms Scale and a subscale of the Peer Support Evaluation Inventory. Sample: The sample consisted of 417, first (n=188), second (n=134) and fourth (n=94) year nursing and midwifery students from one University in Ireland. Findings: The findings indicated that 20% of participants were poorly personally adjusted and 9% poorly socially adjusted. Furthermore, 34% of participants experienced significant depressive symptoms. Most students had good levels of peer support. Statistically significant relationships were found between all key variables, the strongest of which were between personal adjustment and depressive symptoms and social adjustment and depressive symptoms. Differences in adjustment and depressive symptom scores were found based on year of study, with second year students experiencing more depressive symptoms and having poorer personal adjustment scores. Participants who had poor relationships with their father’s experienced greater depressive symptoms and had more difficulties personally and socially adjusting to college. The alcohol consumption of participants had a statistically significant correlation with college adjustment, depressive symptoms and peer support, with higher consumption having a positive impact on the variables.