Home Environment,But Not Socioeconomic Status,is Linked to Differences in Early Phonetic Perception Ability

Infants perceptually tune to the phonemes of their native languages in the first year of life, thereby losing the ability to discriminate non‐native phonemes. Infants who perceptually tune earlier have been shown to develop stronger language skills later in childhood. We hypothesized that socioeconomic disparities, which have been associated with differences in the quality and quantity of language in the home, would contribute to individual differences in phonetic discrimination. Seventy‐five infants were assessed on measures of phonetic discrimination at 9 months, on the quality of the home environment at 15 months, and on language abilities at both ages. Phonetic discrimination did not vary according to socioeconomic status (SES), but was significantly associated with the quality of the home environment. This association persisted when controlling for 9‐month expressive language abilities, rendering it less likely that infants with better expressive language skills were simply engendering higher quality home interactions. This suggests that infants from linguistically richer home environments may be more tuned to their native language and therefore less able to discriminate non‐native contrasts at 9 months relative to infants whose home environments are less responsive. These findings indicate that home language environments may be more critical than SES in contributing to early language perception, with possible implications for language development more broadly.     

Negative (But Not Positive) Parenting Interacts with Infant Negative Affect to Predict Infant Approach: Evidence of Diathesis‐Stress

Temperament by parenting interactions may reflect that individuals with greater risk are more likely to experience negative outcomes in adverse contexts (diathesis‐stress) or that these individuals are more susceptible to contextual influences in a “for better or for worse” pattern (differential susceptibility). Although such interactions have been identified for a variety of child outcomes, prior research has not examined approach characteristics—excitement and approach toward pleasurable activities—in the first year of life. Therefore, this study investigated whether 6‐month maternal reported infant negative affect—a phenotypic marker of risk/susceptibility—interacted with 8‐month observed parenting behaviors (positive parenting, negative parenting) to predict 12‐month infant behavioral approach. Based on a sample of mothers and their infants (N = 150), results indicated that negative parenting was inversely associated with subsequent approach for infants with high, but not low, levels of negative affect. Similar results did not occur regarding positive parenting. These findings better fit a diathesis‐stress model rather than a differential susceptibility model. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.     

Love is Not Abuse (LINA)

The Love Is Not Abuse application is an educational resource that provides information about teen dating violence and simulates the dangers of digital dating abuse.     

Not without my sister(s)

Less than two months after 11 September 2001, and a few weeks after the beginning of the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan, President George W. Bush made an urgent plea to see Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Kandahar. Not only did the President want to see Kandahar; he encouraged US citizens to view it as well. This article offers two readings of Kandahar – the first suggestive of what its filmmaker Makhmalbaf saw in Afghanistan and the second suggestive of what Bush saw (or hoped to see) in Makhmalbaf's Afghanistan. In particular, this article focuses on how the Bush administration – against the intentions of Kandahar's director and star – propelled occidental subjects to ‘lift the veil’ on Afghanistan and on Afghan women by viewing Kandahar as if it positioned the feminine as a needy and willing object of US rescue. It was in part by laying this particular claim to the separated sisters of Kandahar that the Bush administration constructed a humanitarian US ‘we’ as among the foundations of its ‘moral grammar of war’ in the war on terror.     

浅谈如何运用英语语言环境优化英语课堂教学

本文首先阐述了营造英语语言环境的重要性及意义,并基于学生英语学习具体情况的分析,提出了在英语课堂教学过程中营造良好语言环境的方法,及师生如何合理创设并运用这一英语语言环境来优化英语课堂教学,从而能引起教师和学生对英语语言环境的关注。     

You Shall (Not) Pass: Strategies for Third-Party Gatekeepers to Enhance Volunteer Inclusion

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Volunteering appears to be a mechanism that can contribute to societal inclusion. As nonprofit organizations continuously...     

A Womb That Is (Not Always) One's Own

The global diffusion of technology has spurred growth across a variety of sectors and increased linkages among actors in the global political economy. Advances in communication and travel technologies connect disparate regions around the world, while advances in medical technologies have increased the opportunities and options for both extending and creating life. Together these advances have led to the globalization of medical tourism and the rise of reproductive tourism. Reproductive tourism covers a variety of services, including surrogacy. As a result of such technological advances, not only is surrogacy increasing, it is increasingly transnational and commercialized. One of the top destinations for reproductive tourism is India, and Indian surrogates are becoming a hot commodity for western individuals looking to enlarge their families. Hailed by advocates as beneficial to all parties involved, critics are quick to point out the potential for exploitation and abuse in transnational commercial surrogacy arrangements. Adopting Spike Peterson's Reproductive, Productive and Virtual framing, this article explores the contradiction and the potential that results when the boundaries between economies blur and what has traditionally been considered a reproductive activity becomes another form of labor for sale.     

Turkey's Position on IDP Properties: Lessons (Not) Learned

Three issues: security, economics and justice, are the keys to comprehending the essence of problems of property and IDP return in conflict settings. The case of Turkey presents an interesting framework for analysing issues related to IDP property, both in the context of the Kurdish issue in the Southeast of the country, and in Cyprus. Comparing the position of Turkey in these two settings, the article argues that, while it utilizes domestic mechanisms to avoid international pressures very well, especially by exhausting the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights to reinforce legitimacy of its policies, Turkey's position on the return of and/or compensation for IDP properties lacks transparency, disregarding principles of justice without respect for human rights.     

What's (Not) Wrong With Low‐Income Marriages

In the United States, low marriage rates and high divorce rates among the poor have led policymakers to target this group for skills‐ and values‐based interventions. The current research evaluated the assumptions underlying these interventions; specifically, the authors examined whether low‐income respondents held less traditional values toward marriage, had unrealistic standards for marriage, and had more problems managing relational problems than higher income respondents. They assessed these issues in a stratified random sample that oversampled low‐income and non‐White populations (N = 6,012). The results demonstrated that, relative to higher income respondents, low‐income respondents held more traditional values toward marriage, had similar romantic standards for marriage, and experienced similar skills‐based relationship problems. Low‐income groups had higher economic standards for marriage and experienced more problems related to economic and social issues (e.g., money, drinking/drug use) than did higher income respondents. Thus, efforts to save low‐income marriages should directly confront the economic and social realities these couples face.     

Reply to the Commentaries: Of Course,We Do Not Yet Know What it is All About,But Functional Contextualism is a Good Place to Start

In this reply to the commentaries, we note several points of disagreement with Johnson and Greenman on theoretical and empirical grounds. We are particularly surprised by their assumption that attachment has already been established as the key mechanism of change in couple therapy, as our present findings do not support this idea. We also elaborate on Gurman's functional contextualist views and describe why IBCT may be a particularly helpful model for training new couple therapists in a contextualist way.     

(Not) talking about sex: youth, identity and sexuality

Young people remain inhibited in their exploration of sexuality not only by heterosexual morality and gendered power relations but also by their transitional status, yet the age dimension of youth and sexuality has been relatively neglected in recent research. This paper examines a number of social constraints on young people's opportunities for talk and discussion about sex, with reference to their experiences of sex education and services in sexual health. Based on interviews with 147 young women and young men and a separate survey of 400 clinic users, it emphasises the limited social acceptance of teenage sexuality and the forms of its regulation, which are both normative and relational. Attention to social relations with adults also shows how questions of sexual citizenship are closely connected to wider issues of social equality.     

A Commentary on What Social Workers Need to Know About the Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Abstract

The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) offer important legal protections for school age children. This commentary outlines those protections for special needs children in both public and private schools. Social workers need to be aware of the rights children with disabilities have under each law. This information is particularly helpful for those practitioners who wish to advocate for the educational needs of children with disabilities.     

Deciding Not to Un–Do the “I Do:” Therapy Experiences of Women Who Consider Divorce But Decide to Remain Married

This study explores women's experience of marital therapy while they navigated decision making around divorce. A qualitative method was used to gain a deeper understanding of the participants' therapy and relationship decision‐making experiences. How are women's decisions whether or not to exit their marriage affected by therapy? The researchers interviewed 15 women who had considered initiating divorce before they turned 40 and had attended at least five marital therapy sessions but ultimately decided not to divorce. In general, participants reported that the therapy was helpful to them, their decision‐making process and their marriages. Five main themes emerged from the interviews: Women Initiated Therapy, Therapist Was Experienced as Unbiased, Therapy was Helpful, Importance of Extra‐therapeutic Factors, and Gradual Process.     

Why Are So Many (If Not Really All) People and Families Disturbed?*

Many personal and family problems grow out of our not knowing how to process an intricate network of dualities, contradictions, dilemmas, paradoxes, and momentums that are intrinsic to the human condition rather than resulting from “disturbance” or pathology. What we have been learning in family therapy is that the processing of both “right” and “wrong” ways, or “good” and “bad” behaviors, is more likely to yield health and growth, whereas failures to process these dualities are far more the culprit of emotional disorders than bad or wrong behaviors as such. What really becomes important in family life is not the ability to stay out of trouble, but to get out of trouble, that is the ability to process conflicts and dilemmas and unfairness constructively. This way of looking at families helps us to account for and integrate many of the hard empirical findings that have been gathering now for twenty years in family therapy.