Support,Discrimination, and Alcohol Use Among Racially/Ethnically Diverse Sexual Minority Youths

Rates of alcohol use for sexual minority youths are nearly twice that of their heterosexual peers, yet specific risk and protective factors associated with alcohol use among sexual minority youths remain unclear. Structural equation modeling is used to examine relations among alcohol use, peer and family support, and discrimination among 207 diverse sexual minority youths. Discrimination had no relationship to alcohol use; however, it was negatively associated with peer and family support. Peer support was associated with greater alcohol use among bisexual youths. This study adds to our understanding of the roles of discrimination, social support, and alcohol use among diverse sexual minority youths.     

About the authors

This article examines the historical development of formally and informally segregated churches within the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, the role segregated churches continue to have, and the attitudes of religious leaders within these churches towards the issue of racial integration. Data were obtained from surveys, interviews, and historical research. Interview and survey data used for this project were gleaned from Parish Council Presidents, Directors of Religious Education, the Diocesan Pastoral Council, and the Advisory Board for the Office of Black Catholic Ministries within the Diocese of Lafayette. One hundred fifty-five surveys were completed and returned. Thirty-four individuals were interviewed. In addition, the Diocese of Lafayette made their archives available to the researchers.     

The Effect of Absentee Ownership on Local Employment Change

Abstract

To determine whether absentee-owned firms destabilize local economies, we examine the relationship between absentee ownership of manufacturing companies and employment change in manufacturing for 109 Pennsylvania towns. This issue arises because some earlier studies find that corporate connections through absentee-owned firms are positively related to local employment growth, whereas other work claims that locally owned operations are more stable. We attempt to reconcile these findings by arguing that absentee ownership is destabilizing only in the case of non-conglomerate firms. Our results show that absentee ownership in fact increases the closure rate of firms, thereby negatively affecting manufacturing employment change. Yet, this relationship differs by the parent company's organizational structure. Employment in branches of non-conglomerate firms is more detrimental than employment in branches of conglomerates — an important qualification of the argument that the “conglomeratization” of advanced industrial societies negatively affects communities.     

Game-Based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (GB-CBT) Group Program for Children Who Have Experienced Sexual Abuse: A Three-Month Follow-Up Investigation

This study examined the efficacy of a game-based cognitive-behavioral group therapy program for addressing problems typically found among elementary school-aged victims of child sexual abuse immediately after treatment and at three months following treatment. It was hypothesized that positive gains would be observed among the following domains: (a) internalizing symptoms (e.g., anxiety, depression, and trauma); (b) externalizing behaviors (e.g., oppositional behavior, disobedience, and conduct disordered behavior); and (c) sexually inappropriate behaviors. Improved knowledge of abuse and personal safety skills was also predicted. Results indicated that game-based cognitive-behavioral group therapy resulted in improvements in internalizing symptoms, externalizing behavioral problems, total behavioral problems, and personal safety skills both immediately after treatment and at three-month follow-up.     

LGBTQ+ Youths’ Community Engagement and Resource Seeking Online versus Offline

Abstract

LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, etc.) youth are at increased risk for negative outcomes. Yet little is known about their engagement with communities and resources that may ameliorate risk, particularly online. Oriented by a uses and gratifications approach, this secondary analysis (n?=?4,009) of LGBTQ+ youth (aged 14–29) compares online versus offline experiences. Respondents were significantly more likely to participate in LGBTQ+ communities online. Youth were also more active, and felt safer and more supported, when participating in online LGBTQ?+?communities. Additionally, respondents sought online information, support, and resources at higher rates than offline. Increased attention toward online programming and resource development is warranted.     

Types of boys amenable to treatment in a junior republic 1

Abstract

Educators currently are giving considerable attention to the diagnosis and remediation of children with learning disabilities. The integration into clinical social work of this body of knowledge and experience presents a major challenge. The task of understanding the impact on development of neurocognitive delays, distortions, and deficits has just begun. In this paper I review the major paradigms of learning disabilities, and discuss those psychoanalytic developmental theories that have attempted to integrate the concept of neurocognitive differences in endowment into their frameworks. I then offer a developmental perspective based on selfpsychology and the narrative metaphor to assess the impact on children's development of differences in their endowment. A case illustrates a theme in the self‐narrative of a child with a learning disability.     

Older Latina Women and HIV/AIDS: An Examination of Sexuality and Culture as they Relate to Risk and Protective Factors

Older Latina women are one of the least studied American demographic groups with regard to social, health, or sexual behavior. This could leave social workers and other geriatric professionals unprepared for dealing with HIV/AIDS in this population. Currently, older Latina women are one of the fastest growing groups of new AIDS cases. Twenty percent of all women ever diagnosed with the disease are Latina and 5.5% of Latinas infected with the virus are older. The number of diagnosed infections is increasing in older women, including Latinas, in spite of recent declines in infection rates with younger populations. There are also a potentially large number of cases that go misdiagnosed or undiagnosed.

This article also addresses risk and protective factors related to gender roles, traditional Latino family values, religion, socioeconomic factors, health, and health care, with special attention to the triple jeopardy faced by this population by virtue of being female, seniors, and minorities. The article concludes with recommendations for the development of culturally competent practices with older Latinas and the development of a research agenda to better understand their risk-related and health-seeking behavior.     

Community without Propinquity Revisited: Communications Technology and the Transformation of the Urban Public Sphere

Recent discussions of the Internet have touted "virtual community" and a capacity to enhance citizen power in democracies. The present essay (a) calls for a more rigorous understanding of community; (b) suggests that relationships forged with the aid of electronic technology may do more to foster "categorical identities" than they do dense, multiplex, and systematic networks of relationships; and (c) argues that an emphasis on community needs to be complemented by more direct attention to the social bases of discursive publics that engage people across lines of basic difference in collective identities. Previous protest movements have shown that communications media have an ambiguous mix of effects. They do facilitate popular mobilization, but they also make it easy for relatively ephemeral protest activity to outstrip organizational roots. They also encourage governments to avoid concentrating their power in specific spatial locations and thus make revolution in some ways more difficult.     

Source Credibility in Environmental Health – Risk Controversies: Application of Meyer''s Credibility Index

This article applies an existing five-item index for measuring source credibility in the context of environmental health-risk controversy. Survey data were gathered in five upstate New York communities facing environmental health-risk issues. Analysis of the five case studies and a combined dataset (N = 870) show that the credibility index was consistently reliable across all applications. Use of the resulting index is demonstrated through a comparison of the credibility of the New York State Department of Health (active in each case), the industries associated with each case, and the newspaper providing coverage of each case. The credibility index was used to predict risk judgments in a structural equation model. Overall, the analysis demonstrated that the credibility index performed consistently well across the five cases and illuminated important differences in each. As such, the index should be a useful addition to many environmental health and risk communication studies.     

Utility functions that lead to the likelihood ratio as a relative model performance measure

In this paper, we adopt the point of view of a decision-maker who evaluates a probabilistic model based on the test-sample averaged utility of the expected-utility optimal strategy that the model suggests in a horse race setting. After briefly reviewing the basic properties of the resulting performance measure for probabilistic models, we show that such a measure ranks two models according to their likelihood ratio if and only if the performance measure is based on a generalized logarithmic utility function. Thus, we provide a new decision theoretic motivation of the likelihood ratio as a model performance measure.