Collegiate Recovery Communities Programs: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?

As the broad construct of recovery increasingly guides addiction services and policy, federal agencies have called for the expansion of peer-driven recovery support services. The high prevalence of substance use and abuse in colleges and universities in the United States constitutes a significant obstacle to pursuing an education for the unknown number of youths who have attained remission from substance use dependence. Collegiate recovery programs (CRPs) are an innovative and growing model of peer-driven recovery support delivered on college campuses. Although no systematic research has examined CRPs, available site-level records suggest encouraging outcomes: low relapse rates and above-average academic achievement. The number of CRPs nationwide is growing, but there is a noticeable lack of data on the model, its students, and their outcomes. We review the literature supporting the need for the expansion of CRPs, present information on the diversity of CRP services, and outline key areas where research is needed.     

Intersectional Epistemologies of Ignorance: How Behavioral and Social Science Research Shapes What We Know,Think We Know,and Don’t Know About U.S. Black Men’s Sexualities

Epistemologies of ignorance describe how ignorance influences the production of knowledge. Advancing an intersectional epistemologies of ignorance approach that examines how conscious (or unconscious) ignorance about racism, heterosexism, and classism shapes empirical knowledge about Black men’s sexualities, we conducted a critical review of the behavioral and social science research on U.S. Black men, ages 18 and older, for two time frames: pre-1981 and the most recent decade, 2006–2016. Our search yielded 668 articles, which we classified into five categories: sexual violence, sexual experiences and expressions, sexual identities, cultural and social-structural influences, and sexual health and sexual risk. We found that most of the research, particularly pre-1981, centered the experiences of White heterosexual men as normative and implicitly constructed Black men as hypersexual or deviant. Most of the research also color-blinded White privilege and ignored how racism, heterosexism, and classism structured Black men’s inequities. We also found notable exceptions to these trends. Black men who are gay, bisexual, or who have sex with men, and research on HIV risk were prominent in the past decade, as was research that emphasized the social-structural (e.g., poverty, heterosexism, racism) and cultural (e.g., masculinity, religion) contexts of Black men’s lives and sexualities. We provide 10 recommendations to avoid intersectional epistemic ignorance in future research.     

Children's Experience of Sport: What Do We Really Know?

Internationally, children's participation in leisure activities, including sport, is considered to be of such importance that it is enshrined as a human right. However, there is a growing awareness that children's experience of sport is not always benign; abuse and harm frequently occur within a broad range of organised sport contexts. This systematic literature review examines the international research evidence from both peer reviewed and grey literature on the abuse and harm of children that can occur in sport. Four areas of focus were apparent in this literature: first, types of abuse encountered by children in sport and the harm caused to them; second, persons responsible for the abuse and harm; third, circumstances under which children may be most vulnerable; and fourth, the role that culture plays in facilitating abuse in sport. The paper concludes identifying the need for further research in this domain.     

“This is Who We are and This is What We Do”: Social Work Education and Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Citing anecdotal evidence about the poor self-efficacy among graduating social work students manifesting in student claims that they lack the skills to practice effectively, the present paper suggests that the cause may lie, in part, in the manner in which social work education is undertaken. Instead of adjusting curriculum content, the author suggests that educators need to moderate the emphasis they place on social work as a professional project, as well as clarify the status and use of practice theory. The paper concludes with three additional recommendations for consideration by educators and suggests a research agenda for assessing student self-efficacy.     

The End of the World as We Know It?: American Exceptionalism in an Age of Disruption

This essay explores the recent election of President Donald J. Trump against the background of the idea of American exceptionalism. It posits that there have been a variety of versions of the notion of exceptionalism, one of which involves the question, “Why is there no fascism in the United States?” It argues that Trump may render invalid the assumption behind that question and that at best during his tenure we are likely to have a continuation of the “bad exceptionalism” associated with the question, “Why is there no socialism in the United States?”     

“Do You Know Your Real Parents?” and Other Adoption Microaggressions

Myths, fairy tales, films, books, and everyday communication contain images and stories of orphans and adoptees that convey societal discomfort and judgment about adoption (i.e., adoption stigma). In this article, I apply the microaggression model to adoption-related experiences using the literature and theory on adoption stigma. Definitions for adoption-related microaggressions (microassaults, microinvalidations, and microinsults) and a fourth type of microaggression called microfictions (i.e., shared and hidden narratives that contribute to and define the secrecy in adoption) are introduced. Thirteen themes for adoption microaggressions and examples for each are proposed.     

The Kirgiz Women I Know

With a population of 114,000, most Kirgiz people reside in the Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture in the southern region of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.The Kirgiz survive by stock raising, and making handicrafts. Sideline industries include raising crops and processing livestock products. Most of the Kirgiz live a nomadic life, moving about in search of green pastures.The Kirgiz are known for their hospitality and courtesy. Any visitor, known to them or not, is always warmly received.Kirgiz men commonly wear a corduroy cap with a round top all year round. Young men wear caps of green, purple or blue, while old men sport black caps.Kirgiz women love to dress in red. Some wears short blouse and long skirt, others wear dresses. They also wear loose-fitting blouses with a tight collar. And their hair is always beautifully decorated, with embroidered strips binding the plaits and round, silver coins at the end of each plait.The main dish of the Kirgiz is horse meat, beef, lamb and dairy products.     

Controversy in the Curriculum: What Do We Know About the Content of the Social Work Qualifying Curriculum in England?

This article reports the results of a scoping review into the content of the social work qualifying curriculum in England exploring whether recommendations made by the Social Work Task Force and the Social Work Reform Board for an ‘overhaul of the content and the delivery of the qualifying curriculum’ were grounded in published research. The review found that rigorous research-based published evidence about the qualifying social work curriculum was lacking. In particular, most material dated from the early years of the social work degree and did not appear to have been replicated more recently to see if the original findings held true. Other subjects, such as how students are taught about older people's human development, had been considered by researchers but were not addressed by the Task Force and the Reform Board. The implications of this are that, while the content of the social work qualifying curriculum needs to adapt to reflect changing professional contexts, there is a need for greater consensus and clarity about what should be taught and how. The development of an evidence-based curriculum in terms of course content and delivery remains a priority for social work education in England.     

Professional Socialization and Social Work Values: Who Are We Teaching?

Despite the centrality of values to professional socialization, the social work literature lacks an extensive exploration of the readiness of students to be socialized into the profession and taught the theoretical framework and skills for ethical decision making. This study explored the relationship between age, academic class standing, and identity development. Results indicated that the Identity Achievement status occurs later than traditional university years and correlates with age but not with academic class standing. Important implications for teaching social work values, ethical decision making, and the significance of a liberal arts foundation are discussed.     

Social Work and Social Justice: What Are We Fighting For?

Abstract

A cardinal value of social work practice is social justice. Social justice ranks as the second of five values that underpin the Code of Ethics of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW. However, although social work's commitment to promoting social justice is laudable and, indeed, may even be a distinguishing feature of the profession, precisely what kind of social justice does social work espouse? The answer to this question remains unclear. Views about the nature and scope of social justice stem from broader conceptions of justice that not only differ from, but may also conflict with, each other. Therefore, it is important not only for social work to be clear about the type of social justice that it currently advocates, but also to ensure that it is one that the profession seeks to defend and maximise. It is argued that the choice must be as egalitarian as possible. Indeed, it must be radically so. Otherwise, what is social work fighting for?     

Stranger-Danger: What do Children Know?

The current practice in many schools of educating children on how to keep themselves safe from abuse and abduction tends to concentrate on teaching them about stranger-danger and how to avoid it. However, recent research suggests that children may have difficulty in understanding the stranger-danger message (Mayes, Gillies and Warden, 1990). The present study examines 6-, 8- and 10-year-old children's understanding of the concepts of ‘stranger’ and ‘danger’ by analysing their verbal responses to videotaped sequences depicting child encounters with a variety of known and unknown male adults. Results indicate that, although there is some evidence of developing wariness, children at ages 8 and even 10 years appear still to be vulnerable to approaches made by strangers. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can (and Should) We Construct an Evolutionary Psychological Theory of Institutions?

This article considers the question of whether, as a number of scholars have suggested, we can (or should) develop a theory of institutions from the perspective of evolutionary psychology (EP), construed broadly. To do so, the article reviews EP's core explanatory strategy and the main claims that have been made by proponents of an EP institutional theory, focusing on arguments about (1) welfare states and (2) “honor cultures” and the institutions associated with them. On the one hand, the article argues, there are both logical and empirical problems with current efforts to develop EP theories of these institutional domains. On the other hand, sociology's relative absence from the development of such theories contributes to these problems, and sociologists can learn from EP. Above all, insights drawn from EP may help us to construct better accounts of various institutions’ micro‐foundations. To this end, collaboration and exchange between EP scholars and sociologists is called for, and some suggestions are made about how this might be done most fruitfully.     

‘We Thought the World Was Makeable’: Scenario Planning and Postcolonial Fiction

Abstract

This essay uses Indra Sinha's 2007 novel, Animal's People, as a critical lens to analyse the discourse of scenario planning. I argue that scenario planning, a strategy of speculation about possible futures, elides history—specifically the intertwined processes of colonialism and capitalism—in favour of the idea of globalization as an inexorable unfolding of the world as a complex system. Following a brief genealogy of the discourse of scenario planning that highlights its Cold War origins, and ongoing function in imagining, and helping to secure, the future of global capitalism, I offer as counterpoint a postcolonial reading of Animal's People. A fictional exploration of the aftermath of the 1984 Union Carbide factory gas leak in Bhopal, India, the novel contests (thematically and formally) the hegemonic temporality of globalization that informs scenario planning and the model of risk management it inspires.     

Mental Health Among College Students: Do Those Who Need Services Know About and Use Them?

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine connections between university students' mental health and their knowledge and use of campus mental health services. Participants and Methods: In March 2001, a sample of undergraduate students (N = 266) completed a Web-based questionnaire, providing information related to their mental health, knowledge of mental health services, and use of those services. Results: Students who were mentally distressed were more likely to know about and use services; however, some students who reported to be mentally distressed either did not know about services or knew about services but did not use them. Living off campus, identifying as male, and having fewer years in college were related to less knowledge of campus mental health services. In addition, female sex and number of years in college were predictive of higher service use. Conclusions: With the high prevalence rates and severity of mental health problems, university mental health providers must continue to make strategic efforts to disseminate knowledge about mental health services to all students.     

City Children Now Know How a Tomato Grows

"WHERE does a tomato come from?" The top class in a Chinese kindergarten was silenced by this question. Some children looked to the right and left. Others twiddled their fingers and lowered their heads. The teacher in charge of the class called a student's name, "Come, you answer it." "A tomato grows on a plate." Before the little boy finished his words, the children began to discuss this point heatedly.     

Dealing with Endogeneity to Understand the Societal Impact of the Third Sector: Why Should We Care and What Can We Do about It?

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Endogeneity is often regarded as a key barrier in establishing the causal relationship between the third sector and its...     

What Shall We Call Ourselves? Last Names Among Lesbian,Gay, and Heterosexual Couples and Their Adopted Children

ABSTRACT

Choices of last names for both adults and children are important family decisions that are often made upon marriage or upon the birth of a child. The gendered nature of such choices among heterosexual populations is well known, but they have not been widely studied among lesbian or gay populations. We studied selection of last names among 106 adoptive families—27 headed by lesbian couples, 29 headed by gay couples, and 50 headed by heterosexual couples—all of whom had adopted children at birth or in the first weeks of life. Whether in selection of last names for adults or for children, we found that heterosexual adoptive couples were more likely than lesbian and gay adoptive couples to follow patronymic conventions. Thus, heterosexual parents and their children were most likely to have identical last names. For lesbian and gay couples, in contrast, the most common scenario was for both adults to retain last names given to them at birth and hyphenate them to create last names for their children. Parents in lesbian and gay couples offered more detailed explanations of their choices than did those in heterosexual couples. Explanations offered by heterosexual parents were most likely to refer to tradition, but those given by same-sex parents were more likely to mention egalitarian or practical considerations. Overall, we found that same-sex and other-sex couples took very different approaches to the problem of naming themselves and their children.