Intergenerational Associations between Parents’ and Children’s Adverse Childhood Experience Scores

Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are stressful childhood events associated with behavioral, mental, and physical illness. Parent experiences of adversity may indicate a child’s adversity risk, but little evidence exists on intergenerational links between parents’ and children’s ACEs. This study examines these intergenerational ACE associations, as well as parent factors that mediate them. Methods: The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) 2013 Main Interview and the linked PSID Childhood Retrospective Circumstances Study collected parent and child ACE information. Parent scores on the Aggravation in Parenting Scale, Parent Disagreement Scale, and the Kessler-6 Scale of Emotional Distress were linked through the PSID 1997, 2002, and 2014 PSID Childhood Development Supplements. Multivariate linear and multinomial logistic regression models estimated adjusted associations between parent and child ACE scores. Results: Among 2205 parent-child dyads, children of parents with four or more ACEs had 3.25-fold (23.1% [95% CI 15.9–30.4] versus 7.1% [4.4–9.8], p-value 0.001) higher risk of experiencing four or more ACEs themselves, compared to children of parents without ACEs. Parent aggravation, disagreement, and emotional distress were partial mediators. Conclusions: Parents with higher ACE scores are far more likely to have children with higher ACEs. Addressing parenting stress, aggravation, and discord may interrupt intergenerational adversity cycles.

Stony Brook University Forging Intergenerational Links Through Life-Story Sharing Project

According to the World Health Organization, the global population is aging, but ageism may now be the most socially “normalized” of any prejudice, more pervasive than sexism or racism. Ageism produces avoidant and disrespectful treatment of older adults and contributes to a shortage of college students seeking careers with older adults. To foster positive intergenerational contact and combat ageism, we organized life-story sharing by older adult community members in four undergraduate psychology courses with lifespan themes (Psychology of Aging, Memory, Death & Dying, Developmental Psychology; n≅500). A panel visited each class; instructors and graduate students facilitated discussion between students and panelists. Students completed pre- and post-surveys of ageism and attitudes toward aging. A majority of students recommended integrating the activity into future semesters. In free-responses, students also frequently expressed surprise that panelists reported not feeling different than they had at age 20, and that this information challenged previously held stereotypes.

The association between birthweight and grandparental type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in a multiethnic population

Intergenerational links of chronic disease have been suggested, as birthweight (BW) is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) in both parents and grandparents. However, most studies investigating these relationships have used relatively homogenous, white, majority populations. This study aimed to investigate the association between BW and CVD and T2D in a multiethnic population, that is, where the parents and grandparents often developed in a different environment from that where the child was born. Participants were women from a population-based cohort study of pregnant women (STORK Groruddalen), attending Child Health Clinics for antenatal care in three administrative city districts in Oslo, Norway, 2008–2010. Information about socioeconomic and lifestyle factors were collected among mothers and fathers. Parents reported history of CVD or T2D among grandparents. In logistic regressions, higher BW z-scores were associated with lower odds of T2D among maternal (OR 0.71 (95% CI 0.53, 0.97) and paternal (0.68 (0.49, 0.94) grandmothers after adjustments for parental and grandmothers’ characteristics. BW was not associated with CVD, but the association in maternal grandfathers was borderline significant. Our results indicate intergenerational transmission of chronic diseases like T2D in a multiethnic population.

Decoupling Genetics from Attainments: The Role of Social Environments

This paper examines the extent to which growing up in a socially mobile environment might decouple genetic endowments related to educational attainment with actual attainments. Many models of intergenerational transmission of advantage contain both a transmission channel through endowments (i.e. genetics) from parents to children as well as from parental investments and “luck”. Indeed, many scholars consider the intergenerational links due to the transmission of genetically based advantage to place a lower bound on plausible levels of social mobility—genetics may be able to “lock in” advantage across generations. This paper explores this idea by using new genetic measurements in the Health and Retirement Study to examine potential interactions between social environments and genetics related to attainments. The results suggest evidence of gene environment interactions: children born in high mobility states have lower genetic penetrance—the interaction between state-level mobility and the polygenic score for education is negative. These results suggest a need to incorporate gene-environment interactions in models of attainment and mobility and to pursue the mechanisms behind the interactions.

Romantic functioning mediates prospective associations between childhood abuse and neglect and parenting outcomes in adulthood

Research suggests intergenerational links between childhood abuse and neglect and subsequent parenting quality, but little is known about the potential mechanisms underlying intergenerational continuities in parenting. Adult romantic functioning may be one plausible mechanism, given its documented associations with both adverse caregiving in childhood and parenting quality in adulthood. The present study used data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation to (a) investigate prospective associations between childhood experiences of abuse and neglect and multiple parenting outcomes in adulthood, and (b) evaluate the degree to which adult romantic functioning mediates those associations. Information regarding childhood abuse and neglect was gathered prospectively from birth through age 17.5 years. Multimethod assessments of romantic functioning were collected repeatedly through early adulthood (ages 20 to 32 years), and parenting quality was assessed as participants assumed a parenting role (ages 21 to 38 years). As expected, childhood abuse and neglect experiences predicted less supportive parenting (observed and interview rated) and higher likelihood of self-reported Child Protective Services involvement. The association with interview-rated supportive parenting was partially mediated by lower romantic competence, whereas the association with Child Protective Services involvement was partially mediated by more relational violence in adult romantic relationships. Implications of these novel prospective findings for research and clinical intervention are discussed.

The Putaketanga Model

This chapter supports Māori practitioners, counsellors, educators, and social service providers to unpack societal issues that underpin sociological theories applied to Māori in mainstream New Zealand. It employs an indigenous model, specifically created from a traditional mātauranga Māori base for examining contributing factors not always evident in Western socially constructed systems that scrutinize Māori. The rationale for developing an indigenous model from a traditional mātauranga Māori perspective allows for a critique and analysis of Western ideologies through a Māori lens. This enables Māori practitioners, counsellors, educators, and social service providers space to articulate underlying themes and intergenerational links to Māori deficit statistics that Western socially constructed systems do not take into account.

How to understand international society differently: Mauss and the chains of reciprocity

In international relations, reciprocity means a phenomenon based on international law that maintains equality, continuity, and stability of cooperation between states. Most of the time, the logic of contract and rationalist perspectives prevail to deal with it. Nevertheless, reciprocity does not exclusively embody a contractual mechanism that aims at a symmetrical balance between two partners. Marcel Mauss was one of the first sociologists to observe the existence of group cohesion when studying reciprocity in his gift-giving model. Beyond a dual relationship, Mauss unveils an intergenerational solidarity that he calls “alternating and indirect reciprocity.” Implicitly, this refers to chains of reciprocity developed earlier by Malinowski. Yet, it enriches the notion by also including intergenerational links. This article proposes to extend the Maussian framework to the international level because sociology is not limited by borders of national societies as Mauss underlined himself. International chains of reciprocity are significant in several areas such as environment, cultural heritage, and economic development. By describing these chains, international relations scholars de-center the studies on reciprocity and explore the constitution of a world society. The chains of reciprocity are also very helpful to enter into a dialog with the English School both analytically (extension of the mechanisms that set up world society) and internally (contribution to the debate between pluralists and solidarists).

October

This chapter describes the east country in October, when rain lashed the land and wind tore through trees. It looks at controversies concerning a national tabloid publishing what it called evidence that the planet had not warmed at all, and an operation that lobbied for fossil fuel companies revealing it paid large sums to the party of government. People need modern medical, farm, and transport technology, phones, robots, and many computers. Yet people need to break the current rules, bring the wilds to the city, and create different aspirations. The chapter then argues that greener economies in which material goods had not destroyed the planet would be good economies. There would be regular engagements with nature; people doing things together that make these behaviors valued and worth repeating; people giving to others and making intergenerational links; and communities investing time in activities that build contentment and well-being.

‘I Am Doing a Double Thing. It Is For Me and It Is For Her’

This article draws on 30 interviews conducted with newcomer immigrant and refugee youth in Canada to explore how they make sense of their migration and the consequences these meanings have on how they imagine their future selves. The article is based on the understanding that a key task of any immigrant is to negotiate the experiences of continuity and change indicative of the migration experience—a task that takes on unique contours for young immigrants who are simultaneously negotiating their transitions to adulthood. Analysis of the migration narratives of newcomer youth demonstrates that in making sense of their migration, young migrants draw on the general situation of their country of descent, their experiences of emigration and poignant intergenerational links to construct meaning of their lives in their new country of residence. These meanings orient their social actions and animate their life projects in their new host society.