'It's like saying "coloured" ': understanding and analysing the urban working classes

This paper draws on data from a qualitative project exploring the engagement of working class families in London with childcare. It is a first attempt to throw some light on our usage of the term ‘working class’, and consider what forms ‘working class‐ness’ takes in relation to our respondent families. We discuss some recent sociological literature on the working class(es) in order to understand the emphasises and focuses of other research. We emphasise the heterogeneity of the working class(es), the differences in attitude and experiences based on place, gender, occupational status, education, age and family membership. Then we consider our respondents in relation to their strategies and exercise of agency, their engagement with the labour market, and their embedded‐ness in social networks. We conclude that one way of understanding the lives of urban working class families is to consider the extent to which they ‘manage or struggle to cope’, a focus which emphasises process, activity and the differential degrees of agency which the respondents are able to exercise.     

Respondents' Intrusion Upon the Situation: The Problem of Interviewing Subjects with Special Qualities*

Researchers have long been aware that when they become part of the system they are investigating, their own behavior may affect the behavior they wish to study. Little data has been collected on the effect of respondents on the researcher and the consequences of this on the research process. The problem is described and analyzed in this paper. We contend that respondents who have special qualities may intrude upon the researcher's role and make it difficult for him to collect necessary data. An illustration is presented from the authors' study of stripteasers.     

The Use of the Computer in Counseling College Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the usefulness of a computer program in helping clients clarify their concerns and identify goals for behavior change, prior to their first session counselor. A counseling treatment consisting of three initial computer-interaction sessions, followed by two sessions with a counselor, was compared to a treatment consisting of five sessions with a counselor and no computer interaction, and to a no-contact control group. Participants were 46 college students. The two treatment groups achieved their self-determined goals, as measured by the Goal Attainment Scale (Kiresuk & Sherman, 1968), and reported similar levels of satisfaction with counseling than students working with the computer-based counseling system. It was concluded that computers may be effectively used as part of the counseling process, allowing for a more efficient use of the counselor's time. However, more research is needed to identify the type of counselor intervention needed to facilitate the acceptance of these systems by students.     

Migration and health

Investigation of migration and health often forces us to acknowledge that the types of migration (international, internal, and residential) interact with each other as well as other population parameters such as the age/sex structure, sexual activity, fertility, mortality, and family structure. Research on migration is often obscured by these interactions. In fact, the adoption of a health perspective in the design of migration research represents a substantial improvement over traditional approaches that are based on distinctions among the various types of population movement. This is because a health perspective treats population movement as a dynamic process by which individuals are related to specific locations by reason of their participation in human networks. In other words, migration is regarded as a human process rather than a discrete event, and accordingly, it becomes less important to describe the individual's involvement with human networks and the institutions sustaining them. The use of a health perspective in migration research often calls our attention to the ways in which the types of migration are interconnected. For example, a migrant from Mexico might exhibit considerable internal mobility and may circulate between Mexico might exhibit considerable internal mobility and may circulate between Mexico and the US over several years until he develops enough contacts in the US to settle in a particular community in which his personal contact with human networks and place-specific institutions are conducive to settlement. Through him, family members may attach to the community. In the process, they all encounter health risks, make demands on the health care system, change the demographic/health characteristics of both sending and receiving places, sometimes act as transmitting agents of disease to those with whom they interact and, undergo changes in their levels of personal development and well-being. A research perspective that investigates these processes will consider all of the types of movement and characterize them as dynamic processes rather than as discrete events. The articles in this issue all touch on the ways in which migration can affect the health of migrants, and show the circle range of ways migration and health are interrelated. A special introductory note also suggests Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) should receive special attention in the study of this interrelationship. The uneven distribution of AIDS is heightening concern about the health implications for receiving countries.     

Residential choices of immigrants in Australia

"In recent years Asian-Australians, especially those born in Indochina, have become a target of criticism by anti-immigration groups which accuse them of choosing to live only in ?closed societies' and ?ethnic ghettos' in Australian cities.... Evidence presented in the article shows clearly that while immigrant groups may prefer to settle in close proximity of their family and kin for practical and/or emotional reasons, their preference is not ethnically determined.... We also show that affordability, closeness to spouse's work, and neighbourhood services, rather than family and social contacts, are important factors for Asian-born immigrants when they move." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

The Bene‐Anthony Family Relations Test

David, aged twelve, is seated comfortably at a long desk. Arrayed in front of him, within easy reach, are twelve outline drawings of people attached to little cardboard boxes, which serve as bases and have slots at the top for the ‘posting’ of message cards. David has chosen the figures from a larger range that I set out before him at the start of our session, to represent the members of his family. The drawings vary in size, shape, clothing, and hairstyle, but the faces are empty of other features. David found it easy to recognise the figures as adult males and females, plus boys and girls of various ages. The empty faces allowed him to choose figures for each family member, without needing to search for a photographic likeness. The same set of figures used by David can thus be employed by other children to represent their own unique set of family members. David is about to enter the world of the Family Relations Test.     

The Blended Family Life Cycle

Blended families face unique challenges that differ greatly from those encountered by nuclear families. Societal stereotypes that view blended families as abnormal, taking nuclear family functioning as the prototype for all family units, create a lack of role clarity for each of the members involved. Although many strategies exist with which to help families, many are based on nuclear family systems and thus are inapplicable to blended families. The creation of a blended family life cycle specific to blended family systems could help members of a blended family create a successful family unit as they work with a counselor.     

Contraceptive counselor's dilemma: Safety or effectiveness?

Thirty family planning counselors were studied to see if they experience conflict in having to choose between safety and effectiveness of the contraceptives they recommend to their clients. Three variables were measured: (1) knowledge about the adverse effects of the pill and the IUD, (2) the degree to which counselors perceive their own influence in the contraceptive decision‐making process, and (3) counselor conflict. Low levels of perceived influence and conflict were found, as well as a moderate level of knowledge‐ability. A significant inverse correlation between knowledge and conflict was found.     

Survey of state vocational rehabilitation counselor roles and competencies in assistive technology

The delivery of assistive technology (AT) within the state and federal vocational rehabilitation systems in the United States has been developing and refining itself over the last twenty years. Many challenges have been confronted in an attempt to use this relatively new service to increase the employment options and success for individuals with disabilities. In this process, the rehabilitation counselor serves as a critical player in the planning and delivery of AT as it articulates with other rehabilitation services. This study investigated counselor views regarding their role and competence in providing AT services and devices to individuals with disabilities throughout the state of Wisconsin. The results of the survey indicated, in general, that counselors find AT to be a cost-effective service that can increase employment related outcomes. As with other service areas, the counselors' role in AT service delivery involves coordinating, purchasing and following up on services. Interestingly, while counselors expressed confidence in performing these overall functions, they reported a lack of confidence in identifying the need for AT services. Without a comfort level to make this determination, benefits from the implementation of AT may be quite limited. Results suggest that intervention is needed to improve counselors' abilities to make decisions regarding AT services.     

Assumptions Regarding Vocational Counseling

Vocational counseling interviews involve the client and counselor in viewing each other, as the term inter-view indicates. As counseling begins, counselor and client view each other's assumptions about the nature of counseling processes and outcomes. Clients have assumptions about the kind of help they need to make occupational choices, what they can expect of counselors, what they can expect from any tests used, what they may be asked to do, and what will occur in the total process. Counselors need to understand the kinds of results clients expect from vocational counseling. Many assumptions, when held by either clients or counselors, lead to client (and possibly counselor) dissatisfaction with counseling because the assumptions build false anticipations for the client. Essentially, both clients and counselors often expect more definite outcomes and less effort from each party than is reasonable. This paper is written to promote counselors' reflections on their own and their clients' vocational counseling assumptions.     

Identification and Integration of Career Theory: Students’ Perspectives on the Process

In many counseling programs, while students are learning about career theory, they may be tasked in a separate course with identifying a theoretical approach to counseling. This may result in a dichotomous situation in which students lack an understanding of the relationship between career theory and counseling theory. Career counselors have long recognized the artificial distinction between career counseling and general counseling. However, counselor education programs generally lag, and there is a dearth of literature regarding the process of identifying and integrating career theory and counseling theory. This phenomenological study examined 6 students’ perceptions of the process of career theory identification and integration. Analysis of in‐depth interviews yielded 5 major themes: theory identification and integration, perceptions of career counseling, resources, personal dimensions, and application across the life span. Findings of this study have the potential to inform counselor education pedagogy regarding career theory identification and its application to the counseling context.     

Everything You've Always Wanted Your Clients to Know But Have Been Afraid to Tell Them

The regulations of the Privacy Act of 1974 have had far-reaching effects on Federal Agencies and on their record keeping practices. This article discusses the impact on one counselor and the culminating development of the unique interviewing technique of openly sharing the written record with the client which answers the patient's age-old question of what the therapist is thinking about him and his problems.     

The Impact of New Medical Technologies in Human Reproduction on Childrens Personal Safety and Well-Being in the Family

By nature and law, parents are expected to be the guardians and protectors of their children. Yet, evidence is available that the majority of children at risk are victimized by those who should protect them: their closest family. Parenthood is a desired and valued task by individuals and soci- ety, and the new medical technologies in human reproduction assist individuals and couples to realize their wish for parenthood. Regret- fully, they also create new and unprecedented forms of risk to chil- drens personal safety and well-being in their family. The purpose of this paper is to show how childrens personal safety and well-being in the family are affected by the circumstances under which their conception has occurred, and that use of modern technologies in the process of human reproduction may lead to child maltreatment, abuse, neglect or abandonment. Thus, societal intervention may be necessary in order to obviate the scope of these social phenomena.     

The Role of the Pharmacist in the Delivery of Family Planning Services to College Students

Abstract

A survey was conducted among college students to determine their assessment of the potential of the pharmacist as a family planning counselor. Pharmacists were seen as an appropriate source of contraceptive information for many contraceptive methods, but few respondents had actually consulted a pharmacist. Pharmacists were viewed as competent to provide contraceptive information by a slight majority of the respondents, but only half indicated they would use the pharmacist as a source of this kind of information.     

The Structure of the Families of Schizophrenics

In the families of schizophrenic patients everything is subordinated to the neurotic or psychotic needs of one of the parents, and the whole family then works together to stop that parent from becoming psychotic. The other parent must become completely subjugated or withdrawn and leave the family under the domination of his spouse. This becomes a rigid system in which the patient's role is to “feel nothing, do nothing, and be nothing”, and any minor change in him becomes a major threat to the integrity of the whole family. It is when he can no longer maintain this role that the person becomes clinically schizophrenic. Some of the difficulties in treating schizophrenic patients in individual or family therapy are discussed.     

Giving away one's poverty. On the consumption of scarce resources within the family

This article draws on qualitative data from a Belgian poverty research. Intensive in‐depth interviews questioned parents of deprived households about the way they deal with their limited means. To make ends meet, they are forced to restrain their personal needs and desires until they are adapted to the financial stringency of their condition. Further analysis of their situation is somehow confronted with a marked contrast between the parental austerity and the sometimes affluent way in which the wants of their young children are gratified. The poor household's consumption is indeed favouring the kids. Although there is not that much to share, the respondents prefer to neglect their own basic needs in order to satisfy their children's desires. This self‐sacrifice is upholding one's honour as a parent and it develops at the same time a relationship with the children marked by affection, care and loyalty. By giving one can take up the parental role of a responsible actor who preserves his/her children from economic adversities. Consequently the gift bestows an identity upon the parents and helps to constitute a family bond marked by internal solidarity. This altruism clearly shows that consumption is not a simple deduction of the available income, nor is it a strictly utilitarian business. The means of consumption are also cultural means of communication, through which people assume roles and create social ties, resulting in a moral economy that tries to counter the misfortune of the outside world.     

Family Changes in the Context of Lowest-Low Fertility: The Case of Japan

Abstract: Japan has currently one of the lowest-low fertility rates in the world. Low fertility in Japan is due to the extreme postponement of marriage and childbearing, and their weak recuperation in women in their 30s, as well as very low levels of cohabitation and extra-marital fertility. Both changing and unchanged aspects of families are related to lowest-low fertility in Japan. Although premarital sexual activities have increased, women's contraceptive initiative is very weak: they may be connected with weak partnership formation. "Parasite singles", "freeters", or "NEETs", probably related to weak family formation, have increased, but they may be connected with strong filial bondage derived from the traditional family system, i.e. Women have been normatively, educationally, and occupationally emancipated, but gender norms are currently divided in half among Japanese people, which may deter the revising of working conditions for women with children, leading to delaying family formation among working women. Lowest-low fertility conversely brings about family changes. Its direct effect is the increase of lifetime celibacy and childless couples, which may jeopardize the universality of families. Its indirect effect is through policy response to low fertility as well as labor shortages and population aging: recently, both family and labor policies have been strengthened to make it easier for working women to continue their jobs after marriage and childbirth, which might in turn promote family formation in Japan.     

提升辅导员队伍建设实效的途径探讨

高校辅导员集教育、管理与服务于一体的职责决定了其在高校学生管理与大学生思想政治教育中具有举足轻重的地位。文章从辅导员角色的定位，辅导员应具备的职业素质，辅导员考核体系的完善方面进行了阐述，旨在提高人们对辅导员角色及辅导员职业素质的认识，以便更好地开展辅导员队伍的选配、培养与考核方面的工作，提升辅导员队伍建设的实效。