Changing Homeowners' Behaviors Involving Toxic Household Chemicals: A Psychological, Multilevel Approach

We describe an education and behavior change program with a multi-level approach. The program goal is to change how people think about, use, store, and dispose of toxic household chemicals. We assume that changing long-standing behaviors is difficult, requires interventions at multiple points in the individual/group/society/physical environmental system, and requires interventions that address both short- and long-term behavior change. The heart of our program is small group discussions, with a trained leader who uses psychological theories to increase educational impact. Questionnaires indicated that participants were very pleased with the program, especially recipes for homemade nontoxic alternatives. We estimate that the presentation yielded almost three times as much cooperation as the previous 5 years of publicity and promotion (33% vs. 12%).     

Homophobic Name‐calling,Peer‐groups,and Masculinity: The Socialization of Homophobic Behavior in Adolescents

Social network analysis and multilevel modeling were used to examine the formation of homophobic name‐calling behavior in adolescents. Specifically, peer group contextual and socialization effects on homophobic name‐calling as well as the influence of masculinity attitudes, general bullying perpetration, and victimization were tested. Participants included 493 fifth‐ through eighth‐grade students from two middle schools. Results indicated that peer groups play an important role in the formation of homophobic name‐calling. Additionally, students who were victims of homophobic name‐calling over time increased their own perpetration of homophobic name‐calling. Non‐homophobic bullying was also related to homophobic name‐calling, but only for male peer groups. And finally, the role of masculinity attitudes was shown to be complex, as peer group masculinity attitudes were significantly predictive of an individual's homophobic perpetration; however, this effect did not remain significant over time. Results suggest that homophobic name‐calling during early adolescence is strongly influenced by peers and rooted in gender and masculinity.     

Teaching Note—BSW Students’ Experiences With an MBSR Assignment and the Five Facets of Mindfulness

BSW students appear to be under increasing levels of stress. In response to concerns about students’ well-being, we developed a three-credit-hour self-care elective. This article explores students’ participation in the primary assignment of the course, a modified version of mindfulness-based stress reduction. We also present empirical findings of an exploratory study examining students’ mindfulness and their subjective experiences with the assignment. Results support the usefulness of mindfulness-based stress reduction assignments in supporting BSW students’ well-being. This kind of assignment may also contribute to the development of the first social work competency, “demonstrate ethical and professional behavior,” (Council on Social Work Education, 2015, p. 7) through an increase in self-reflective and self-regulation skills.     

Extra-activism: counter-mapping and data justice

ABSTRACT

Neither big data, nor data justice are particularly new. Data collection, in the form of land surveys and mapping, was key to successive projects of European imperialist and then capitalist extraction of natural resources. Geo-spatial instruments have been used since the fifteenth century to highlight potential sites of mineral, oil, and gas extraction, and inscribe European economic, cultural and political control across indigenous territories. Although indigenous groups consistently challenged maintained their territorial sovereignty, and resisted corporate and state surveillance practices, they were largely unable to withstand the combined onslaught of surveyors, armed personnel, missionaries and government bureaucrats. This article examines the use of counter-mapping by indigenous nations in Canada, one of the globe’s hubs of extractivism, as part of the exercise of indigenous territorial sovereignty. After a brief review of the colonial period, I then compare the use of counter-mapping during two cycles of indigenous mobilization. During the 1970s, counter-mapping projects were part of a larger repertoire of negotiations with the state over land claims, and served to re-inscribe first nation’s long-standing history of economic, social and cultural relations in their territories, and contribute to new collective imaginaries and identities. In the current cycle of contests over extractivism and indigenous sovereignty, the use, scope and geographic scale of counter-mapping has shifted; maps are used as part of larger trans-media campaigns of Indigenous sovereignty. During both cycles, counter-mapping as data justice required fusion within larger projects of redistributive, transformative and restorative justice.     

Contraceptive practice required to meet a prescribed crude birth rate target: a proposed macro-model (tabrap) and hypothetical illustrations

TABRAP (TArget Birth Rate Acceptor Program) is a computer programmed model that provides a direct solution to the problem of determining the total annual numbers of contraceptive acceptors required to achieve a prescribed crude birth rate target path. Applied to an initial population for which age structure, the fertility schedule, and expected trends in life expectancy and age-specific proportions of females married are known, TABRAP incorporates the following factors: age at acceptance, with acceptors drawn from currently married nonusers; age-method-specific attrition rates of users; a potential fertility schedule of acceptors that allows for aging and sterility; and allowance both for postpartum anovulation and nine months for gestation to time properly the averted births. TABRAP generates annual data on acceptors, couple-years of use, births averted and age-specific fertility rates that meet the crude birth rate target. Resulting changes in population size, age structure and crude vital rates, also yielded, are invariant with respect to acceptor age and method mix. Assuming a target to reduce the crude birth rate from 45 to 30 in ten years, TABRAP is illustrated for seven mixes of acceptor age-method combinations applied to a population approximately that of Thailand, circa 1965.     

Husband-wife agreement about reproductive goals

Data from Malaysia on the reproductive goals of husbands and wives are analyzed to determine level of agreement, using new scale measures on preferences for number and sex of children as well as the conventional measure of desired number of children. The level of agreement between husband and wife varies considerably depending on the focus of analysis and the measure of agreement used. Overall aggregate agreement of men and women is high but lower for subgroups of the population, particularly among various ethnic groups. For marital partners, the agreement is much lower, especially on sex preferences. The level observed depends on whether the measure is identity of responses or an index of homogeneity which allows for couple concordance based on chance or common socialization factors. The views about the reproductive goals of one marital partner cannot with confidence be assumed to represent the views of the other.     

The social ecology of the Columbine High School shootings

The Columbine High School shooting in 1999 prompted school officials and policy-makers to create and implement programs and policies that would prevent violence in school and ensure school safety. Ten years have passed since the Columbine shooting; however, debates concerning risk factors for the shootings continue to ensue. The focus of this article is to examine the Columbine school shootings within the context of Bronfenbrenner's (1994) ecological systems analysis. We examine the most commonly identified risk factors, which operate within five systems levels: chrono-, macro-, exo-, meso-, and microsystems, and draw implications for school-based practice and policy.     

Qualitative psychological autopsy interviews on suicide in post-conflict Northern Uganda: the participants' perceptions

Participants' perceptions of psychological autopsy interviews were investigated in post-conflict Northern Uganda. Data were derived out of their responses in the debriefing session after the formal interviews. These responses were subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The majority of the participants were positive about the interview as reflected in the two broad themes: positivation of the situation through the possibility of helping others and opportunity for personal development through sharing. To some few participants the interview aroused guilt, self-reproach, and anger and reactivated painful memories. As regards suicide postvention, the findings implied that not much has been done to help the bereaved by suicide in this region, and few resources for such efforts are currently available. However, the bereaved are ready to contribute toward the fight against suicide in their communities. Hence, it is argued that a community-based mental health and Primary Health Care approaches should be encouraged in this context.     

Manifestations of the therapeutic alliance in children and adolescents

Building the therapeutic alliance is a creative process and is a central issue for all age groups. In the absence of an alliance, there can be no therapy. The alliance contains many primitive sources for collaboration with the therapist. It is a combination of both rational and irrational elements. The therapist's awareness of developmental issues and defense mechanisms are utilized to guide one along the pathway of productive therapy. In addition, the unique psychodynamic factors are considered when working with children and adolescents. The clinical examples distinguish pitfalls which are destructive and could be avoided, in contrast with understanding and responding appropriately to the verbal and nonverbal communications of the young patient.This paper was presented to the International Conference for the Advancement of Private Practice of Clinical Social Work, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 1987. Ms. Marcus is in private practice in New Orleans.