Book reviews

Review Symposium: Cross‐Cultural Roots of Minority Child Development. P.M. Greenfield & R. R. Cocking (Eds.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994. 431 pp. $89.95, $39.95 (paper).

Understanding Practice. S. Chaiklin and J. Lave (Eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 414 pp. $59.95.     

Core Competencies in Social Constructionist Supervision?

Family therapy is moving increasingly toward evidence‐based practice and competency‐based training. This article explores what might seem to be an unlikely link between social constructionist supervision, which is based on dialogic and fluid processes of meaning‐making, and the increasing reliance on discrete core competencies in the education and training of family therapists. We propose an alternate approach to competencies for supervision with therapists in training that, among other things, invites accountability and provides evaluative props. The approach we propose is based on a set of orientations that we hope reflect the dialogic and contextual nature of social constructionist practice and supervision. These orientations consist of reflexivity and attention to power, fostering polyphony and generativity, collaborative stance, and focus on client resourcefulness. Ideas and questions for supervisors and therapists in training to address the orientations are articulated.     

Psychological Distress and Related Factors in Female College Students

Abstract

Objective: This study assessed the psychological distress in Spanish college women and analyzed it in relation to sociodemographic and academic factors. Participants and Methods: The authors selected a stratified random sampling of 1,043 college women (average age of 22.2 years). Sociodemographic and academic information were collected, and psychological distress was assessed with the Symptom Checklist-90–Revised. Results: This sample of college women scored the highest on the depression dimension and the lowest on the phobic anxiety dimension. The sample scored higher than women of the general population on the dimensions of obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid ideation, psychoticism, and on the Global Severity Index. Scores in the sample significantly differed based on age, relationship status, financial independence, year of study, and area of study. Conclusion: The results indicated an elevated level of psychological distress among college women, and therefore college health services need to devote more attention to their mental health.     

‘Wiggle your Wits!’ Social Restructuring and the Transformation of Entertainment Genres in Today's Russia

Among print genres that soared in popularity after the fall of socialism, crossword puzzles have been prominent, with their monthly sales reported around 36 million copies in 2001–02. Drawing on ethnographic observation, interviews with crossword readers, traders and publishers, as well as on analysis of the puzzles themselves, I argue that the Russian crossword boom is an instructive case of how forms of popular entertainment are borrowed and re-appropriated to serve distinctively local cultural logics. More specifically, the recent popularity of crossword puzzles has to be viewed in the context of the sweeping changes in the social structure of the Russian society. In the face of multiple dislocations of postsocialism, of frustrated expectations and unfulfilled claims, the changed genre of crosswords, far less high-brow and encyclopaedic than its Soviet predecessor, offered a wide circle of Russians a vocabulary for articulating their claims of cultural competence and, increasingly, of moral worth, and allowed them to imagine themselves as a moral community juxtaposed to the hostility of the surrounding world.     

UNDER PRESSURE: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN OUTPUT QUALITY AND QUANTITY UNDER COMPETITION AND TIME CONSTRAINTS

Gender gaps in the workplace are widespread. One explanation for gender inequality stems from the effects of the interaction between competition and two pressure sources, namely, task stereotypes and time constraints. This study uses a laboratory experiment to find that the gender gap in performance under competition and preferences for competition can be partly explained by the differential responses of men and women to the above pressures. In particular, while women underperform the men in a high‐pressure math‐based tournament, women greatly increase their performance levels and their willingness to compete in a low‐pressure verbal environment, such that they actually surpass the men. This effect appears largely due to the fact that extra time in a verbal competition improves the quality of women’s work, reducing their mistake share. On the other hand, men use this extra time to increase only the quantity of work, which results in a greater relative number of mistakes. A labor market study suggests that the nature of the job and the stress level are correlated with the gender gap in the labor market in a manner consistent with the results of my experiment.     

《缁衣》"君以民芒"原义之推论

汉代在整理<缁衣>时将"君以民芒"句中之"芒"字读为"亡",因为难以理解君以民灭亡的意思,故又补上了"君以民存"之句.本文发现,"芒"、"(眩)"、"望"三字都从"亡"得声,而且文献中有具体混用的例子,故"君以民芒"句中"芒"可读为"望".据此本文推论,原来<缁衣>中"君以民芒"之句并不是要说君以民灭亡,而是表达先秦儒家的"民望"观念,这从<左传>和<孟子>中亦可见到.     

Theoretical Explanatory Model of International Adoption Failure: Attachment and Ecological Systems Perspectives

International adoption, the transfer of children for parenting purposes from one nation to another, presents an extreme form of what is often known as “stranger” adoption, in contrast to relative adoption (Bartholet, 2005 Bartholet, E. (2005). International adoption. In L. Askeland (Ed.), Children and youth in adoption, orphanages, and foster care (pp. 107–130). Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. [Google Scholar], p. 8). Adoption brings major changes to the lives of children and adoptive parents. Intercountry adoptions are associated with high monetary costs, long waiting periods to adopt, changes of the family environment, and cultural challenges, along with other bureaucratic and socioeconomic factors. This paper explores the issue of international adoption failure through the prism of two theories: attachment theory and ecological systems theory. The author begins with a brief history of international adoption into the United States, followed by a discussion of factors contributing into adoption failure as discussed in other literature. Next, adoption failure is theoretically analyzed using the concepts of attachment and ecological systems theories. Suggestions for adoption practitioners are included.     

‘If I was a different ethnicity,would she treat me the same?’: Latino parents’ experiences obtaining autism services

This article reports on an ethnographic study with 12 Latino families of children on the autism spectrum related to obtaining autism services in Los Angeles County. Using critical discourse analysis of interviews, observations, and records, we consider the experiences of the Latino families in relation to: a discursively constructed ‘autism parent’ subject position that mandates ‘fighting’ service systems to ‘win’ autism services for children, originating from White middle-class parents’ socioeconomic resources and social capital; a neoliberal social services climate that assumes scarcity of available resources and prioritizes austerity in their authorization; and a media and institutional ‘cultural deficit’ discourse that attributes disparities in autism services for Latino children to their parents’ presumed culturally-based ‘passivity.’ We argue that parental discourse about fighting, or not fighting, for autism services is engendered by a tension between a parental logic of care, and the logic of competition of the economic market.     

School pathways and economic practices of Portuguese Ciganos: some continuities and changes

The main aim of this article is to offer a comprehensive perspective to a better understanding of the actual situation of Portuguese Ciganos.¹ In Portugal, the lack of recognition of Ciganos (Roma) and the sometimes incorrect ‘knowledge’ about them which are reflected in images that are limitative and distorted, suggest inferiority and are full of disdain, all of which negatively affects and restricts the life of Ciganos persons. This article intends to presents some of the main results of two qualitative studies conducted between 2004–2010, one of which sought to get to know Ciganos’ representations of domains, practices and situations perceived as discriminatory, while the other looked at the social integration paths of these persons. These studies produce new knowledge about both individual academic and occupational trajectories, and some of the main intergenerational changes that have occurred among Portuguese Ciganos. In addition, the article offers a new view about some social policies in Portugal and its impacts on Ciganos singularities. In fact, it’s possible to conclude that the universalism of the national social policies has not produced the desired effects in terms of a reduction in levels of poverty, exclusion, discrimination among Portuguese Ciganos.