A Therapeutic Summer Weekend Camp for Grieving Children: Supporting Clinical Practice Through Empirical Evaluation

Through collaborative action-oriented community research, agency-based clinicians, and university-based researchers engaged in a two-year theory-driven evaluation of a therapeutic summer camp for grieving children. The evaluation examined the camp practice model and children’s engagement in therapeutic camp activities and psychosocial functioning based on the camp staff and parental caregivers’ assessments. The first year findings led to a synergistic decision-making process that strengthened one of camp therapeutic activities. The overall results reveal a high consistency among staff on assessments of engagement and psychosocial functioning, and parental caregivers’ satisfaction with the camp. Limitations of research evaluation and implications for practice are considered.     

Perceptions of students' locus of control of discipline among pre‐service and in‐service teachers in multicultural classrooms

The purpose of this study was to determine teacher perceptions of students' behavior/misbehavior in the classroom, and the differences between pre‐service and in‐service teachers' perceptions of students' locus of control of discipline (i.e. the source of discipline) in multicultural classrooms. The study also investigated perceptions in three related dimensions of discipline: motivation, mechanism and the basis of discipline. Furthermore, the study generated data to determine whether culture was perceived as a factor in teachers' perceptions of students' locus of control of behavior in the classroom. Findings were intended to assist in determining choices for appropriate intervention strategies for use in effective discipline or management of behavior in multicultural classrooms.     

Treatment Choices in a Managed Care Environment: A Multi-Disciplinary Exploration

This article reports the results of an exploratory study to determine how managed care is influencing mental health practice from an inter-disciplinary perspective. Using two case vignettes, respondents were asked about how they would classify presenting problems and treatment strategies within the context of two scenarios: (1) managed care and its limitations, and (2) fee-for-service/private pay. Findings suggest that managed care has a significant influence on case assessment and treatment planning across the mental health disciplines. Although respondents did not favor adjusting treatment approaches to meet managed care expectations, they nevertheless did so. Findings also substantiate managed care's negative impact on earnings and job satisfaction. These preliminary results begin to address discipline-related cost effectiveness from the perspective of practitioner treatment choices and preferences and highlight the perceived incompatibility between preferred practice and the dictates of managed care.     

Ambivalence and the paradoxes of grandparenting

This paper focuses on ‘normative talk’ about grandparenting. It is based on a secondary analysis of a study involving 46 interviews with grandparents. It identifies two main cultural norms of grandparenting that emerged from the data –‘being there’ and ‘not interfering’. There were very high levels of consensus in the study that these constituted what grandparents ‘should and should not’ do. However, these two norms can be contradictory, and are not easy to reconcile with the everyday realities of grandparenting. The study found that norms of parenting and also of self determination were also very important for the grandparents in the study. They had a keen sense of what being a ‘good parent’ (to their own adult children) should mean – especially in terms of allowing them to be independent – but this could sometimes conflict with their sense of responsibility to descendant generations of grandchildren. Using the concept of ambivalence and drawing on the accounts of grandparents in the study, the paper explores and offers an explanation for both the coexistence and conflict between different sets of norms, as well as for the remarkably high levels of consensus about ‘being there’ and ‘not interfering’. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the limitations of the data and the analysis, and with suggestions for the development of further work in this area.     

Career Salience of Institutionalized Adolescent Offenders

This study investigated self-esteem and career salience of institutionalized adolescent offenders in the context of Super's (1980) lifespan career development theory. Participants were 185 male adolescents. Results indicated that participation, commitment, and values expectations in home-family roles contribute significantly to self-esteem in adolescent offenders. Additionally, adolescent offenders differ from adolescent non-offenders on home-family and work roles, with adolescent offenders scoring higher. Implications for career counseling of institutionalized adolescent offenders for transition into the community are discussed.     

Age patterns of mortality and cause-of-death structures in Sweden,Japan, and the United States

This paper uses a new standard model of adult mortality to compare the mortality patterns of Swedes, Japanese, and U.S. whites between 1950 and 1985. It examines changes in the age patterns of mortality and the cause-of-death structures within the populations. and the relationships between those two factors. As Japan has reached a level of mortality similar to that in Sweden, the age patterns of mortality in the two populations have become more similar despite distinct differences in causes of death. The United States has a cause-of-death structure similar to that of Sweden, but the age pattern of mortality is very different. High mortality in the middle age range in the United States results in approximately a one-year loss of life expectancy at age 45 in comparison with Sweden.     

Part-Time Work and the Gender Division of Labor

In response to the incompatible demands of work and motherhood, many mothers seek out part-time work schedules. Although many mothers consider this option “the best of both worlds,” scholars are divided about whether part-time work is in women’s best interest because it is linked to the gender division of labor in the home, and hence, to gender inequality. In this paper, we investigate the mostly unintended consequences of part-time work on the gender division of labor within the household. Drawing on 54 in-depth interviews with mothers who voluntarily work part-time, we explore how mothers experience household work and child care arrangements when they work part-time. Three factors emerged as most important in understanding how part-time work can shape mothers’ experiences of the gender division of labor: pathway to part-time work, work location, and work schedule. Depending on these factors, part-time work may be experienced as either enhancing or undermining of the gender division of labor, and thus, as promoting or undermining gender equality in their families.