Do the Kids Think They're Okay? Adolescents' Views on the Impact of Marriage and Divorce

A sample (N?=?365) of middle school and high school students from both divorced and intact families were surveyed with regard to their opinions about the impact of their parents' relationships (divorced or married) on a variety of areas of their lives. Adolescents from separated or divorced (S/D) families tended to rate their parents' relationships and impact on them more negatively than adolescents from living together or married (L/M) families. However, both groups consistently rated their parents in the same direction on a variety of topics. Gender was not a factor in the responses of either group. However, age (middle school vs. high school) was related to significant differences in adolescents' views about parents.     

The Gender of Pregnancy: Masculine Lesbians Talk about Reproduction

Heterosexism and patriarchy collude to create an expectation of pregnancy for all women. In addition, the bodily production of pregnancy has been socially gendered as feminine because of its association with female-bodied people. These two ideological codes—that all women should become mothers through pregnancy and that pregnancy is a femininely gendered endeavor—suggest conundrums for masculine lesbians. This study relies on interview data with 14 childfree masculine-identified lesbians about the ways in which they are able (or unable) to imagine themselves as pregnant people in their future lives. Participants’ navigation of the concept of pregnancy reveal the complexity of gendered bodies and gender practice.     

Between the Cracks: Macedonia and the ‘Mental Map’ of Europe

As arguably the most peripheral region within the Balkans, itself the most peripheral subset of Europe, Macedonia at the turn of the century was represented as the crossroads of East and West. Macedonia’s perceived schizophrenia crystallized during the Ilinden Uprising of 1903, a rebellion that brought the provinces of Ottoman Macedonia to the attention of the European press. The seeming brutality of the violence, and the diplomatic questions related to the future administration of Macedonia, produced conflicting interpretations among journalists as to the ‘allegiance’ of the region. The discourse over the rebellious provinces in the Ottoman Empire involved two parallel lines of thinking, one placing it within the periphery of Europe, the other at the core of “Near Eastern” politics. This article explores the approach of the British press towards the perceived ambiguities of Ottoman Macedonia and sheds greater light upon the imagining of the geographic dimensions of contemporary Europe and the Middle East.     

Family Migration: The Role of Children and Education in Family Decision‐Making Strategies of Polish Migrants in London

Poland’s accession to the European Union in May 2004 brought many new possibilities and opportunities for Polish migrants to the United Kingdom. However, the focus on individual migrants has underestimated the complex roles of families in migration strategies and decision making. This paper brings together data from two studies of Polish migrants in London. In 2006–2007, we carried out a qualitative study, Recent Polish Migrants in London. That research examined how families may be reconfigured in different ways through migration, for example, transnational networks and splits within families. While the study participants represented varied examples of family reunification, they also revealed the complex decision making processes about leaving, staying, rejoining and returning. In our most recent study, Polish Children in London Primary Schools, we interviewed parents, who had migrated with children, about their experiences and expectations of London schools. This study revealed that the age of children was usually a factor in family migration decision making. There was a common expectation that younger children could easily adapt to a new school and learn English quickly. Drawing on the findings of these two studies, this paper will explore firstly, the variety of family migration strategies and secondly, the factors that inform migrants’ decisions to bring their families (especially children) or to leave them back home. Finally, the paper concludes by considering some of the policy implications of our findings.     

Marital Satisfaction,Family Emotional Expressiveness,Home Learning Environments,and Children's Emergent Literacy

The current study investigates associations among marital satisfaction, family emotional expressiveness, the home learning environment, and preschool‐aged children's emergent literacy skills among 385 Midwestern mothers and their children. Path analyses examined how marital satisfaction related to emotional expressiveness in the home and whether this path was associated with the home learning environment and children's literacy skills. Higher maternal satisfaction was associated with higher levels of positive and lower levels of negative family emotional expressiveness. Additionally, family emotional environments characterized by mothers with higher positive expression were related to better home learning environments, which in turn were associated with higher literacy skills in children. Study findings underscore the importance of marital and family processes when considering young children's academic development.     

An Attachment Primer for Couple Therapists: Research and Clinical Implications

According to attachment theory, humans are relational beings and even a child's earliest experiences with caregivers have a profound effect on emotional development and an overall approach to relationships. With increasing regularity, couple therapy has utilized attachment language as a conceptual tool, but more work is needed to understand the full clinical implications of attachment theory. These include understanding the intergenerational nature of attachment and adapting the delivery, timing, and pace of interventions to client attachment strategies. In this article, we summarize the origins of attachment theory, its measurement, the role of attachment in couple relationships, attachment stability and change, and ways that attachment informs therapy process and intervention. We hope that this article will provide an impetus for couple therapists to expand their conceptualization and use of attachment in their clinical work and for couple researchers to conduct more clinically relevant, attachment‐oriented process research.     

Educating for mental health practice: Results of a survey of mental health content in Bachelor of Social Work curricula in Australian schools of social work

Health problems are amongst the most pressing encountered by social workers in practice. Health policy, largely through deinstitutionalisation, has placed mental health problems in the mainstream of health practice. One in 25 Australians will require professional assistance with mental health problems. Moreover, other professions are increasingly claiming that mental health is their area of expertise. Social work needs to reclaim this area as their own and hence it is incumbent on social work education to prepare students to practise in this area. As the second of a two-part survey of health and mental health curricula in Australian schools of social work, the findings of the survey on mental health curricula conducted in 1997 are presented in this article. Based on responses from 95% of the schools, nine of the 20 respondent schools were found to offer a separate mental health unit. The remaining 11 schools' coverage ranged from no coverage at all through to considerable integration in other subjects. Overall it was concluded that the majority of students received a significant amount of input on mental health. A number of recommendations are made to improve mental health input including more skill development, greater local contextualisation, more attention to an anti-oppressive agenda, and more explicit links to field education.     

SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION,EMOTIONAL COPING,AND CRIMINAL DESISTANCE: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF MEN UNDERGOING CHANGE

Retrospective narratives of change consistently emphasize the importance of religious devotion and spirituality in initiating sustained behavioral change, but little is known about the process by which religion and spirituality promote desistance from crime. The current project is designed to add to the knowledge of the relationship between religion/spirituality and behavioral change by systematically investigating the ways that men residing in a halfway house define the role of religion/spirituality as an emotion-coping mechanism in their desistance efforts. The qualitative data reveal that religion/spirituality is primarily used by these men currently undergoing behavioral change as a form of emotional comfort, a distraction from current stressors, and as factor demarcating the transition from deviance to a more conventional life. Suggestions for religious programming designed to stimulate behavioral changes are discussed.     

Bullying in secondary schools: through a discursive lens

Abstract

This paper analyses students’ constructions of bullying from a social constructionist perspective. Interviews were conducted with 24 students at a small semi-rural secondary school in New Zealand. These were taped, transcribed and a discourse analysis, informed by the work of Foucault, was carried out. It was found that students made sense of bullying by drawing on constructions that included bullying as a consequence of differences and as a form of discipline. These constructions had the effect of legitimizing the school's institutional power imbalance. This was supported by students and teachers who both played an active role in simultaneously enforcing, and being subjected to, the disciplinary technologies of normalization characterized by bullying. The goal of this research is to provide a critical focus to the political nature, power relations and ideological effects of these prevailing discourses that function to both create and support bullying behaviour in our schools.     

Money Buys Financial Security and Psychological Need Satisfaction: Testing Need Theory in Affluence

The most prominent theory to explain the curvilinear relationship between income and subjective well-being (SWB) is need theory, which proposes that increased income and wealth can lead to increased well-being in poverty because money is used to satisfy basic physiological needs. The present study tests the tenets of need theory by proposing that money can buy happiness beyond poverty if the money satisfies higher-order needs. Findings indicate that in older adults (n = 1,284), as economic standing rises, so do individual perceptions of financial security (a safety need), which in turn increases overall life satisfaction. Further, a path model tested the degree to which financial security and psychological need satisfaction mediated the path from economic standing to life satisfaction and demonstrated the complete mediation through higher-order needs—there was a 66% reduction in the direct link through financial security and a 34% reduction through psychological need satisfaction. Discussion focuses on how these mediation and path models extend need theory.