Team Training for Community Change: Concepts,Goals, Strategies,and Skills,by Eva Schindler-Rainman and Ronald Lippitt. University of California Extension,Riverside, California, 1973. $2.50. 83 Pages

Abstract

Social work education in Nigeria is taught only in polytechnic schools and in-service training institutes. Only recently have social work course units been introduced at the university level; no Nigerian university offers a degree in the field, yet. The social work courses available are offered toward degrees in sociology.

This paper describes how social work students at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, built a dispensary as part of their fieldwork in a newly-introduced social work methodology course. It discusses implications for social work education in Nigeria.     

Identification of the covariance structure of earnings using the GMM estimator

In recent years there has been a rapid growth in the number of studies that have used the GMM estimator to decompose the earnings covariance structure into its permanent and transitory parts. Using a heterogeneous growth model of earnings, we consider the performance of the estimator in this context. We use Monte Carlo simulations to examine the sensitivity of parameter identification to key features such as panel length, sample size, the degree of persistence of earnings shocks and the specification of the earnings model. We show that long panels allow the identification of the model, even when persistence in transitory shocks is high. Short panels, on the other hand, are insufficient to identify individual parameters of the model even with moderate levels of persistence.     

Social Work Faculty Development: An Exploratory Study of Non-Tenure-Track Women Faculty

Administrators of schools of social work are paying more attention to the changing roles and types of faculty in their institutions, particularly given the surge of non-tenure-track faculty in academia. This topic is timely as social work grapples with the divergent roles, structure, and demographic characteristics of non-tenure-track faculty compared to their tenured or tenure-track counterparts. This exploratory study presents data from non-tenure-track women faculty (N = 10) on how they experience professional development. In-depth, qualitative data was collected to answer the research question, What do faculty identify as the barriers, supports, and opportunities for professional development and job satisfaction? Results indicate that organizational climate and mentoring are barriers and facilitators of faculty development, and the subjective definition of faculty development varies.     

Eating Disordered Behaviors and Body Disapproval in Adolescent Males Adjudicated for Sexual and Nonsexual Crimes

Using a large sample of adjudicated delinquent male youth (N = 696), we compared data from youth who had been adjudicated for sexually aggressive crimes and those who had been adjudicated for nonsexual offenses on eating dysfunction, body disapproval, history of sexual abuse, and pornography exposure. The sample included 526 (75.8%) youth adjudicated for sexual offenses and 170 (24.4%) youth adjudicated for nonsexual crimes. The average age of the sample was 16.8 years (SD = 1.6), and approximately half of the sample (47.7%, n = 310) self-identified as White. The results of hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that sexually aggressive youth scored significantly higher than nonsexually offending youth on both eating dysfunction and body disapproval measures. Pornography exposure and substance use predicted body disapproval and eating dysfunction in the entire sample of adjudicated youth. History of sexual abuse was a significant predictor of body disapproval in all adjudicated youth but was not a significant predictor of eating dysfunction. Implications for research and practice are offered.     

Association of Egalitarian Attitudes with Income,Poverty, and Entitlement Program Utilization

This article examines the relationship between egalitarian gender attitudes and its effect on income, poverty, and social service utilization. In a sample of married fathers in the Fragile Families data (N = 717), we conducted regression analyses on these questions, five years after initial interviews. Our results indicate that egalitarian attitudes were positively associated with income and social service utilization and negatively associated with poverty. Implications of these findings are discussed, including possible explanations for these findings, their importance for social work practice, and recommendations for social policy.     

Vignette development and administration: a framework for protecting research participants

This paper is a discussion regarding vignette development and administration as a means of protecting research participants in social research. Health and social care researchers investigate a plethora of issues that may be sensitive or upsetting, for example, abuse or bereavement. This exposes participants to potential emotional harm caused by revisiting the original trauma. Using research methods that offer a protective layer is important. Evidence suggests that vignettes provide protection for research participants by placing distance between their experience and that of the vignette character. However, there are few methodological papers regarding vignette use. Utilising examples from our own research, we engage in a critical discussion regarding vignette development and administration. The paper offers a new framework to support researchers – particularly those in health and social care – in the development and administration of vignettes. We contend that the framework supports best practice in vignette use, particularly when researching sensitive issues.     

The predictive role of bone turnover markers for BMD in middle-aged men

Measurement of bone turnover markers has been proposed as a potentially valuable clinical laboratory aid in osteoporosis risk assessment. These markers may allow quantitative evaluation of rates of bone loss, and thereby identify persons at risk for osteoporosis at an earlier stage. As far as we know, this is the longest longitudinal study on bone turnover markers conducted in adult men. The objectives of this study were to determine whether markers of bone formation (type I procollagen amino-terminal propeptide, PINP, and carboxy-terminal propeptide, PICP), and of bone resorption (type I collagen carboxy-terminal telopeptide, ICTP), are predictive of changes in lumbar spine and femoral neck BMD over a 5-year period, and to determine the ability of the bone resorption marker urine amino-terminal telopeptide (NTx) to explain the variance in BMD change over the past 5 years in a group of men 35–69 years old. In this group, NTx was the only marker to correlate significantly with BMD changes at the femoral neck (r = ?0.21), but not at the spine. The use of the biochemical markers studied to predict change in bone density in adult men in middle-aged years is of very limited value.