Resolving Race: How Adoptive Parents Discuss Choosing the Race of Their Child

This study analyzes narratives of 34 adoptive parents who spontaneously brought up race while recounting stories of infertility and adoption. Pals’ (2006) transformational processing scale is adapted to rate the degree to which participants express resolution regarding race. Resolution is defined as comfort with their racial choice, confidence in their ability to handle racial issues, and integrating their choice into sense of self. Race-based adoption choices are examined in the overall context of a white experience of race in the United States and as part of an ecological perspective on the adoptive family.     

Good Intercultural Practices in Social Services Projects

ABSTRACT

This article reflects part of the results obtained from a wider research project aimed at the elaboration of a “Map of Good Intercultural Practices” in several areas of social intervention in Andalusia, Spain. It also reports the results obtained from the analysis portion related to the participating projects within the social services. Intercultural assessment was conducted at the level of institutional intervention through a 32-item questionnaire that was sent to 139 intercultural project-leading institutions measuring intercultural sensitivity. A definition of the fundamental concepts of “interculturality” and “good practice” is given to support the foundations of “good intercultural practice” (GIP). Such definitions help in the design and validation of a GIP Scale that was used in the analysis of 60 social services projects with an intercultural component. The results obtained underline the relevance of aspects such as intercultural empathy and show significant differences between the social services and other intervention sectors. Future research is proposed that studies GIP scale in other intervention sectors such as the private and public sector. Also, the transferability of the instruments and methodology used makes it possible that the research presented in this article is conducted in other geographical areas.     

Family Therapy with the Elderly

This article outlines health and lifestyle challenges to elderly persons and associated changes in their family systems. Flexibility, related to attachment patterns, is considered central to healthy adaptation. Family therapy approaches and relevant systemic and cultural factors influencing psychotherapy with the elderly are discussed. Key family therapy concepts and strategies (genograms, transmission of family histories and circular patterns of interaction), are reviewed and exemplified. Four types of family therapy presentations are elucidated by composite case examples. Firstly, the elderly person can be the identified patient. Secondly, another family member can seek help for him/herself in relation to the elderly person. Thirdly, another family member can be the identified patient without direct reference to the elderly person. Finally, the wider health care system involved with the elderly person and family can be the focus of therapy. Family therapy offers important conceptual and strategic advantages in working with the elderly and their systems.     

An Interagency Comparison of Screening-Level Risk Assessment Approaches

Approaches to risk assessment have been shown to vary among regulatory agencies and across jurisdictional boundaries according to the different assumptions and justifications used. Approaches to screening-level risk assessment from six international agencies were applied to an urban case study focusing on benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) exposure and compared in order to provide insight into the differences between agency methods, assumptions, and justifications. Exposure estimates ranged four-fold, with most of the dose stemming from exposure to animal products (8-73%) and plant products (24-88%). Total cancer risk across agencies varied by two orders of magnitude, with exposure to air and plant and animal products contributing most to total cancer risk, while the air contribution showed the greatest variability (1-99%). Variability in cancer risk of 100-fold was attributed to choices of toxicological reference values (TRVs), either based on a combination of epidemiological and animal data, or on animal data. The contribution and importance of the urban exposure pathway for cancer risk varied according to the TRV and, ultimately, according to differences in risk assessment assumptions and guidance. While all agency risk assessment methods are predicated on science, the study results suggest that the largest impact on the differential assessment of risk by international agencies comes from policy and judgment, rather than science.     

Review Essay: Race,Class, and Eyes Upon the Street: Public Space,Social Control,and the Economies of Three Urban Communities

Sociological Forum -     

Film Portrayals of Social Workers Doing Child Welfare Work

This article reports on research that investigated the images of social workers engaged in child welfare work as portrayed in movies, a major medium of popular culture. Findings from an analysis of 27 movies spanning from 1938 to 1999 are presented with particular attention to themes about how children are depicted as recipients of child welfare services and how child welfare worker activities and interventions are portrayed. Ways that the results of the research can guide intervention efforts that more accurately and more completely portray the activities, values, and knowledge base of the profession of social work are suggested.     

Staff-resident interaction in the nursing home: An ethnographic study of socio-economic disparities and community contexts

In recent years, nursing home (NH) researchers have paid increasing attention to socio-economic and racial/ethnic disparities in quality of care. Although there is growing evidence of disparities in resident health outcomes, less is known about the ways in which these differences manifest in care processes from a qualitative perspective. This paper addresses this gap by comparing staff-resident interactions in two urban, non-profit NHs, including roughly 50 staff participants in each facility. The researcher conducted ethnographic observation in one facility serving a white, middle class community and another serving low-income Black and Hispanic clients from an underserved neighborhood. Grounded theory methods generated three categories of interaction—activating, relating, and attending—which were performed differently in the two NHs. In the more affluent facility, staff interacted with residents in a dynamic fashion, adapting to residents’ responses, and they were relatively well equipped with resident-specific information when responding to individual concerns. In the safety-net facility, staff interacted with residents in a one-directional, “didactic” fashion, providing instruction without a mechanism for adapting to residents’ responses, and they were not as well equipped with resident-specific information. These differences reflected disparities between the two facilities in staff communication skills, underscoring the importance of workforce development to enhance the quality of staff-resident interaction and promote resident-centered care. This study raises further questions about the role of neighborhood contexts in shaping organizational processes that influence quality of life for NH residents. Moreover, the study offers a unique contribution to the NH literature by generating a typology of styles of interaction that can be used to develop a conceptual framework for understanding staff-resident interaction in the nursing home. Such a framework can inform efforts to improve residents’ quality of life.