MARITAL THERAPY: QUALITIES OF COUPLES WHO FARE BETTER OR WORSE IN TREATMENT

To evaluate the effectiveness of couples therapy and determine the characteristics and qualities of couples who fare best in treatment, 139 couples presenting at a nonlaboratory sliding-fee clinic in Dallas, Texas, were evaluated. Observational and self-report measures of the Beavers Systems Model were taken at the first session and, for some subjects, at termination. Therapists also rated the couples on goal attainment and on dimensions of the therapeutic alliance. Not surprisingly, there was a direct association between number of sessions and goal attainment, with couples attending only one or two sessions having the lowest goal attainment. There were also significant family functioning qualities associated with success: more competent couples fared better in therapy. Another consistent finding was that couples with no children did better in treatment than those who were also parents. It is interesting that remarried couples without children did best in treatment, followed by first-married couples with no children, first-married couples with children, and, finally, remarried couples with children. Implications for screening and clinical work with couples are presented.     

Race, Gender, and the Black Women's Standpoint

Hill Collins (1997, 1998, 2000) argues that because of their position within the intersecting hierarchies of race, gender, and class, black women as a group possess a “unique angle of vision” on the social world. Rooted in the everyday experiences of black women, the “black women’s standpoint” is marked by an intersectional understanding of oppression and a “legacy of struggle” against such oppression. In this article, I employ quantitative analyses of data from the National Survey of Black Americans (1992) and the National Black Feminist Study (2004–2005) to investigate the black women’s standpoint. I ask: “Do black women as a group tend toward the black women’s standpoint that Hill Collins describes?” and “Do black women embrace this perspective more than black men?” Results from numerous χ² and logistic regression analyses suggest that, within the black community, gender is not a significant predictor of the standpoint that Hill Collins describes, with black men and black women being equally likely to embrace many of the core ideas associated with the black women’s standpoint. I conclude by discussing the implications of this finding for gender and race‐based standpoint theory.     

“Where the Danger Lies”: Race,Gender, and Chinese and Japanese Exclusion in the United States, 1870–19241

Race too often is used as the explanatory variable for understanding immigration exclusion, marginalizing the significance of race making, ethnic differentiation, and gender construction in particular. This article explores these processes by examining exclusionary policies implemented against Chinese and Japanese immigrants from the mid‐1870s to 1924, the year the National Origins Act was passed. Politicians, intellectuals, and moral reformers used a gendered logic—the construction of idealized gender norms, roles, and sexual propriety and the attachment of these meanings to male and female bodies—to distinguish Japanese immigrants from the Chinese immigrants they followed, allowing for ethnic differentiation and dissimilar policies. The convergence toward exclusion rested on a racialized logic—the construction and attachment of inferior status and meanings to immigrant groups through discourse, formal and informal categorization, or social closure—which claimed that the Japanese were unassimilable and racially undesirable like the Chinese. Exclusionists focused on the immigrant women, decrying their sexual and gender impropriety as evidence of the groups’ threats to the sanctity of white families, which imperiled the nation. Gender and race both mattered in these logics and their meanings were constructed as their salience interconnected.     

Can balance exercise programmes improve balance and related physical performance measures in people with dementia? A systematic review

This review presents the physical performance outcomes of randomised trials investigating exercise programmes that included balance exercise for older people with dementia. A systematic literature search through five computerised bibliographic databases until February 2009 was carried out. Of 1,038 potentially relevant published articles, only seven met the inclusion criteria and were extracted. Findings from the review for a total of 632 participants showed that almost all of the included studies addressed exercise or physical activities as the main intervention; however, only two of the studies focused on balance exercise. The effect size values varied from no effect (0.00) to a large effect (3.29) of the interventions for a range of physical performance outcome measures. Findings also suggest that it is feasible to conduct exercise programmes with older people with dementia. However, further studies with more specific exercise designed to improve balance performance in order to prevent falls are required for older people with dementia.     

On the Measurements of Board Composition: Poor Consistency and a Serious Mismatch of Theory and Operationalization

Over two dozen operationalizations of board composition can be identified from the empirical literature. A structural equations confirmatory factor analysis (LISREL 8.03) suggests that these operationalizations do not constitute a single construct of board independence. Instead, analyses strongly indicate three separate constructs. Common operationalizations of board composition, then, are neither tenable surrogates for one another nor are they interchangeable. Implications for empirical aggregation of studies, theory/measurement convergence, and the current corporate governance public policy debate are discussed.     

Income management in Australia: A critical examination of the evidence

The introduction of income management – sometimes called welfare quarantining – for subgroups of Australian income security recipients within the Northern Territory, and subsequently a number of other trial sites, has provoked considerable contention. The present study critically examined the arguments and evidence presented in favour of income management with particular reference to the guidelines, methodology and findings of official evaluations conducted by the Commonwealth Government. We identified five key issues that do not seem to be adequately addressed by official evaluations: choice and control, the quality of decision making, consultation with local community members, structural disadvantage and economic cost. We used these concepts to develop a proposed alternative model for assessing the impact of income management on local communities.     

Media exposure and the engaged citizen: How the media shape political participation

Media exposure is widely known to increase institutional forms of political participation such as voting. Less well understood is whether media exposure also affects protest, a less institutional form of engagement. This paper examines the mechanics through which this relationship operates by considering the media's direct and indirect effect on voting and protesting, via political trust, efficacy, and knowledge. We make these comparisons by analyzing the unique Jennings panel dataset that collects information on respondents at three separate points. The results show that media exposure affects voting more than protesting and that these relationships operate through different mechanisms. While media exposure leads to voting because it increases political knowledge, it is associated with protest via external political efficacy. Furthermore, while this relationship is causal for voting it is only correlational for protest. The results illustrate the importance of disentangling forms of political engagement when considering media effects.     

Modeling the Niger Delta Insurgency

Nigeria's oil guarantees its role in the global economy; however, the state's overwhelming weaknesses perpetuate a high level of volatility vis-à-vis the potential for an immediate disruption of the national, regional, and global environment. This study presents a current qualitative analysis of Nigeria to produce a model that characterizes current conditions in the state and the state response to the nefarious acts in the delta region. This model will serve as a baseline for a significant iteration of the model that reflects the delta region counter-insurgency at various levels of strength: a what-if scenario of the region with an increase of state security over southern separatists, insurgents seeking to gain control of the oil assets. The conjectured model serves to inform/educate decision and policy makers in developing proactive, effective strategies to counter existent and potential threats in the Niger Delta.     

Women's abuse of their children in the context on domestic violence: reflection from women's accounts

This paper draws upon the findings of a study that looked at women's experiences of mothering in the context of co-occurrence of domestic violence and child abuse, and considers the issue of women's violence towards children – while acknowledging the fact that men are the main perpetrators of violence towards women and children in these families. The paper first explores the relationship between women's victimization and women's violence, and suggests that women's abuse of their children can be seen as a consequence of their own experiences of domestic violence. The findings nonetheless suggest that abused women have agency, and therefore have responsibilities when they chose to use violence towards their children. The paper also considers the feelings of guilt and blame that tend to arise in these circumstances. Implications for research, policy and practice are identified.