Changing College Students’ Financial Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior through Seminar Participation

This pilot study examined the influence of Credit Wise Cats, a financial education seminar presented by Students in Free Enterprise, on the attitudes, knowledge, and intentions toward financial responsibility of college students (N = 93). Findings suggest that the seminar effectively increased students’ financial knowledge, increased responsible attitudes toward credit and decreased avoidant attitudes towards credit from pre-test to post-test. At post-test, students reported intending to engage in significantly more effective financial behaviors and fewer risky financial behaviors. Finally, demographic factors (e.g., gender and employment status) predicted students’ financial knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. These results suggest that a seminar format may be useful in reaching a wider audience of college students and, thus, warrants future longitudinal evaluation.

Theoretical Perspectives of Male Sexual Abuse: Conceptualization of a Case Study

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the traumatic impact that sexual abuse can have on a young male's development by addressing mediating dispositions that can render a child vulnerable to the effects of sexual abuse. Consideration is given to three different theoretical perspectives that are not exclusive to male victims but shed light on the impact that sexual abuse can have on the development of a young boy. These perspectives include early family relationships and attachment theory, developmental psychopathology, and trauma theory. These theoretical lenses provide a conceptual understanding into why some victims are vulnerable to the effects of sexual abuse. Each theoretical view is applied to a case study of an adolescent male with a history of early trauma and sexual abuse. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Jealousy in sexual and emotional infidelity: An alternative to the evolutionary explanation

In an effort to make unequivocal the boundaries of infidelity, the present study used three infidelity scenarios (sexual infidelity, emotional infidelity, and the combination of sexual and emotional infidelity). Two other variables, gender of the participants and the extent to which they reported either few or several jealous tendencies, were included to generate a 3 × 2 × 2 independent groups design. Reactions of 317 undergraduate college students (165 women and 152 men) to the scenarios were assessed using both Smith and Ellsworth's (1985) six cognitive dimensions of emotion and a measure of emotional upset. A multivariate analysis of variance yielded significance for two of the main effects, the nature of the infidelity scenario and the gender of the participant. Univariate analyses indicated that women experienced more emotional distress over all of the conditions of infidelity, and, for women and men alike, conditions of infidelity involving a sexual component, whether alone or together with emotional infidelity, proved to be more upsetting than those involving only an emotional component.     

Aboriginal Practitioners Speak Out: Contextualising Child Protection Interventions

Abstract

One month before the June 2007 Federal Government Emergency Intervention in the Northern Territory some 55 West Australian Aboriginal child protection workers attended a 3-day summit in Fremantle. Their purpose as front-line practitioners from across the State was to identify how more nurturing and healing communities could be developed and supported in a climate of despair. This paper reports on how the summit was designed and on some of the ideas and concerns that emerged within this dialogical space of cooperative inquiry. The project was a partnership between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal representatives of university, government, and community-service bodies. Aboriginal practitioners identified the complexity of what was happening in their experience and where changes were needed. Integral to this participation and coproduction of knowledge by Aboriginal child protection workers was the provision of a safe space for the articulation of reflected experience. Implications for policy, practice, and curriculum of both process and outcome dimensions to considering Aboriginal views on this contentious issue are discussed.     

Measuring Usage: A Comprehensive Analysis of a Social Work Journal Collection

Abstract

This study examines what can be learned about a library’s electronic social work journal collection from usage statistics, survey data, faculty publications, and an examination of open access (OA) availability. A collections analysis was completed using data from two sources: a custom report by 1Science and results of a faculty survey on top journals for teaching. After creating a list of journals important to social work, top journals were identified by article downloads, faculty-authored publications, and references to faculty-authored papers. A publications analysis using faculty websites and author searches in Web of Science was also completed, to provide local, contextual data. SHERPA/RoMEO was used to determine the journals’ OA level and archiving policy. Library coverage for the journals was also included in the analysis. Results show that the McGill University Library has access to almost all of the journals identified as important to social work. Nearly one-third of publications authored by the McGill University School of Social Work since 2006 are OA, and more than half of the faculty in the school have at least one article published in an OA journal. While this is a good start for librarians who want to help faculty and students understand OA publishing and access, there is room for outreach in this area. While these results will aid librarians supporting faculty, students, and practitioners in the field of social work, a secondary aim of the study is to demonstrate a method that can be used by librarians undertaking similar analyses in other fields.     

Women,empowerment and development in Arab Gulf States: a critical appraisal of governance,culture and national human resource development (HRD) frameworks

This phenomenological study focuses on Western expatriates working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and their experiences and perceptions of their cross-cultural adjustment. To this end, eight Western expatriates working and living in Saudi Arabia were interviewed face-to-face in an effort to explore and document their lived experiences of adjusting to life in Saudi Arabia, thus extending the current knowledge of this phenomenon. These in-depth face-to-face interviews and the subsequently employed rigorous methods of abstracting data led to the discovery of four critical themes that were viewed by all participants as having the greatest impact on their adjustment to working and living in Saudi Arabia. These themes were Adjustment of Spouses, Life on the Company Compounds, Lack of Activities Between Saudis and Westerners, and Relationship Between the Westerners and Saudis.     

Charismatic,ideological, and pragmatic leaders: An examination of leader–leader interactions

Although a number of researchers have examined and demonstrated the unique relationships different types of leaders develop with their followers (Dansereau, F., Graen, G.B., & Haga, W.J. (1975). A vertical dyad linkage approach to leadership within formal organizations: A longitudinal investigation of the role making process. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 13, 46–78.; Dienesh & Liden, 1986; Mumford, 2006), relatively little is known regarding how outstanding leaders interact or work together (Hunter, Bedell-Avers, Mumford, 2009-this issue). Given the particular importance of such questions, especially when considering leaders who have the potential to influence national and worldwide developments, the intent of the present study was to examine the leader–leader exchange relationships of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders. Due to the difficulty associated with examining high-level leader–leader exchanges, a hybrid qualitative–quantitative approach was taken to assess the interactions of Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. Dubois, and Booker T. Washington – three high-level leaders who responded to the same crisis, in the same time period, in the same region of the world. The results provide preliminary evidence regarding the interactions of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders; in fact, they indicate that leaders interact in a manner consistent with their mental model.     

Peers influence the tobacco and alcohol use of Chinese adolescents

This two-wave longitudinal study examined peer selection and influence pertaining to tobacco and alcohol use by adolescents and their friends in a sample of 854 Chinese adolescents (384 girls: mean age = 13.33 years). Participants nominated friends and self-reported their tobacco and alcohol use at seventh and again at eighth grade. Longitudinal social network analyses revealed evidence of friend influence but not selection over smoking and drinking. Boys increased their levels of smoking at rates greater than that of girls, but no sex moderation of either selection or influence was found. In interpreting these results, it is important to understand the gender norms for Chinese boys and girls and the cultural context of tobacco and alcohol use.