Marital Conflict Behaviors and Implications for Divorce Over 16 Years

This study examined self‐reported marital conflict behaviors and their implications for divorce. Husbands and wives (N = 373 couples; 47% White American, 53% Black American) reported conflict behaviors in Years 1, 3, 7, and 16 of their marriages. Individual behaviors (e.g., destructive behaviors) and patterns of behaviors between partners (e.g., withdrawal‐constructive) in Year 1 predicted higher divorce rates. Wives' destructive and withdrawal behaviors decreased over time, whereas husbands' conflict behaviors remained stable. Husbands reported more constructive and less destructive behaviors than wives, and Black American couples reported more withdrawal than White American couples. Findings support behavioral theories of marriage demonstrating that conflict behaviors predict divorce and accommodation theories indicating that conflict behaviors become less negative over time.     

The Middle Years of the Decade Publication Project

This article reports the results of a qualitative study of the professional identities, roles, and relationships of a variety of geriatric case managers located in nine demonstration sites around the United States. Beginning with an overview of social work and nursing roles in health care settings, the authors provide background on the study and its methods, followed by results that highlight the voices of persons interviewed. They conclude with implications for social work education in five areas: articulating social work's great tradition, developing career opportunities, building alliances with students and educators in other professional schools, engaging in ongoing faculty development, and infusing the social work curriculum with geriatric content.     

Divorce in Research vs. Divorce in Media

What is the case for divorce? Researchers in the sociology of family tend to find that divorce's impact depends on what the comparison is: compared to a distressed marriage, divorce has its benefits. Meanwhile, policy makers and general audiences alike get much of their information about divorce research via the news media, where the negative consequences of divorce tend to be exaggerated, especially when comparisons, selection bias, or other research issues are neglected. Over the past 20 years, U.S. news coverage of divorce illustrates two key, intertwined topics: moral entrepreneurship using divorce as an issue and divorce research using (or not) careful methods of comparison. Three cases discussed below (in 1988–1989, 2002–2004, and 2008) illustrate these two themes. The underlying research on the health and mental health effects (including by gender) of divorce on children and adults reviewed in this article makes a case for divorce. The overlay of media reporting on divorce research illuminates the purpose for offering a case for divorce.     

Teachers' and School Children's Stereotypic Perception of the Child of Divorce: 20 Years Later

ABSTRACT

This is a replica of a study carried out in 1988. Its main objective is to reexamine after 20 years how teachers' and 8th-grade students' evaluations of a child's academic, social, and emotional functioning are affected by the knowledge that the child's parents are divorced. One hundred and twenty junior high school students and 115 female teachers watched a specially produced film of a child engaged in various activities. The child's gender and family structure were experimentally manipulated. The main results show that whereas in the earlier study both teachers and the students rated the child of divorce more negatively than the child of an intact family, in this study this was true only for the teachers. These and other results are discussed in the context of cultural attitudes, the more extensive contact teachers have with children of divorce, and the risk that they and their students become trapped in the Pygmalion cycle.     

六十年来我国媒体关于中东问题的报道

中国与中东关系60年既是短暂而急剧变动的历史,又是一个宏大的主题。本文从中国媒体对中东问题特别是巴以冲突报道的微观角度出发,从国家政策影响和媒体表现案例分析两大层面作初步考察,并提出几点建议。笔者认为,中国媒体的中东问题报道随着国内外形势变化尤其是国内政策的调整,大致可以分为前后30年两个阶段。前30年比较稳定,后30年特别是近10年,中东报道多元倾向日益明显,所体现的世界观、价值观、外交观和利益观呈现碎片化。尽管在政府意志和主流新闻管制层面上还保持着较为清晰的方向引导和政策干预,但民意、学者甚至媒体从业者本身的立场分歧日益严重和公开化,甚至反作用于主流媒体。为应对新形势下传播领域的认识和情感巨变,政府、学者和媒体人士都必须认真思考,从战略上考虑和规划未来中国与中东国家在深度交往和交融中面临的挑战。     

六十年来我国媒体关于中东问题的报道

中国与中东关系60年既是短暂而急剧变动的历史,又是一个宏大的主题.本文从中国媒体对中东问题特别是巴以冲突报道的微观角度出发,从国家政策影响和媒体表现案例分析两大层面作初步考察,并提出几点建议.笔者认为,中国媒体的中东问题报道随着国内外形势变化尤其是国内政策的调整,大致可以分为前后30年两个阶段.前30年比较稳定,后30年特别是近10年,中东报道多元倾向日益明显,所体现的世界观、价值观,外交观和利益观呈现碎片化.尽管在政府意志和主流新闻管制层面上还保持着较为清晰的方向引导和政策干预,但民意,学者甚至媒体从业者本身的立场分歧日益严重和公开化,甚至反作用于主流媒体,为应对新形势下传播领域的认识和情感巨变,政府,学者和媒体人士都必须认真思考,从战略上考虑和规划未来中国与中东国家在深度交往和交融中面临的挑战.     

After the Divorce

The present study compares postdivorce adjustment factors among older, long-married persons with similar familial factors among younger divorced persons. Data collected from personal interviews indicate that older divorced persons are not devastated by their divorce. Although these two groups do not differ in their overall scores of emotional health as measures by the General Well-Being Scale, within certain categories the older persons appear to be emotionally healthier. Statistically significant differences between the two samples include: importance of family closeness; conflict in relationships; and forewarning of the divorce from family members. There are also differences in the familial factors that predict well-being for the two age groups. Professionals intervening at all system levels should be sensitive to age differences and incorporate familial factors that ameliorate postdivorce adjustment. Implications for practice with older divorced persons include strengthening parent/adult child relationships and creatively designing programs at macro and micro levels to decrease family conflict. With younger divorced persons, conflict mediation with the family following divorce is necessary.     

Divorce in the Kibbutz:

This study examines the main determining factors in the decision to divorce among 100 kibbutz members. The data and the conclusions are based on extensive open-ended and structured interviews. It is suggested that analysis of the reasons of divorce in the Israeli commune will contribute towards a better understanding of the intrinsic causes of divorce in modern society, since in the kibbutz the decision to terminate a marriage is based on the quality of the marital relationship per se, markedly unhindered by economic, legal or religious considerations. Following divorce, both husband and wife are assured full economic security, with equal rights as to the continued co-parenting of the children.     

Divorce

Intervention techniques for helping children of divorce have generally been implemented after the formal announcement of the disruption of the family. However, children are aware during the preseparation phase of the imminent crisis. A play, written by a third-grade boy, is presented here, to dispel the notion that children are oblivious to the marital disharmony, and to encourage all professionals who work with couples in the early phases of separation to deal immediately with its impact on the children.     

Divorce in Ireland

Ireland is one of the few countries where divorce is constitutionally prohibited. In this article, the author sets out the present legal position, explains the historical background, examines the relations between church and state on the question of marriage, and discusses the social effects of the prohibition on divorce. He goes on to analyze public attitudes toward divorce and to consider proposals for reform of the law.     

Divorce and the Divine: The Role of Spirituality in Adjustment to Divorce

This study examined the role of three spiritual responses to divorce for psychological adjustment: appraising the event as a sacred loss/desecration, engaging in adaptive spiritual coping, and experiencing spiritual struggles. A sample of 100 adults (55% female) was recruited through public divorce records. Most appraised their divorce as a sacred loss/desecration (74%), experienced spiritual struggles (78%), and engaged in adaptive spiritual coping (88%). Appraisals of sacred loss/desecration and spiritual struggles were tied to higher levels of depression. Adaptive spiritual coping was tied to greater posttraumatic growth. Spiritual coping and struggles each contributed uniquely to adjustment beyond parallel forms of nonspiritual coping and struggles and mediated links between viewing the divorce as a sacred loss/desecration and depression.     

Divorce Law in the United States

The purpose of this paper is to review recent changes in divorce law in the United States. Divorce grounds, distribution of property, spousal support, and child support are each discussed with- in the context of the following: the effects of no-fault legislation, the trend toward gender neutrality and equality, and child support re- form. The paper is concluded by discussing the role of divorce law in our culture.     

Divorce Under the Divorce Act of Canada, 1968-1978

This paper compromises a survey of 10 years of judicial interpretation of the 1968 reforming legislation and seeks to explain the demands for further change in the law of divorce and the acceptance of those demands by the federal and provincial governments.     

Divorce Research

This paper reviews research on the antecedents and the consequences of divorce for adults. Divorce is discussed as part of a continuum of marital instability. Research on historical and sociological causes of divorce and theoretical models for the study of divorce are reviewed. The changes in health status and the role redefinitions experienced by the divorced are discussed. The contribution of unmodifiable and modifiable factors in easing adjustment to divorce is examined. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues relating to sampling and measurement that need to be addressed in future research in order to improve and expand upon previous studies.     

Divorce:

This article approaches divorce from a combined family systems, individual life cycle and stage theory of development perspective. It posits that the choice of what kind of therapy is apt to be most efficient and most efficacious for any patient/couple should be made after identifying at what stage in the divorce process the person(s) is/are in when they enter treatment and what their respective ego strengths, cognitive functioning, and social and resource networks are. There is an assumption of flexibility in the therapist's style and philosophic orientation. It is recommended that therapy encompass interventions that are likely to be the most effective in the various stages rather than be a rigid adherence to one dogma. Several illustrative case vignettes are presented.     

Children of Divorce in the 1990s

Abstract

Amato and Keith's (1991) comprehensive meta-analysis of well-being differences in children from divorced and intact families found that, when studies were divided by era (1950-1969, 1970-1979, and 1980-1989), the apparent decrements to children of divorce became smaller over time. In an attempt to replicate and extend the Amato and Keith meta-analysis, we conducted a similar one for the 1990s, drawing from 35 published articles. Results showed that across several domains of child well-being (school achievement, conduct, psychological adjustment, self-concept, social adjustment, mother-child relations, and father-child relations), decrements to children of divorce between 1990-1999 were slightly-though consistently-more pronounced than in the previous decade.     

Profiles of the Divorce Prone

No abstract available for this article.