Commitment in same-sex love relationships

This study sought to desribe and compare commitment structures among lesbian and gay male living-together relationships, and to develop an instrument which would measure different dimensions of commitment among gay dyads without some heterosexual biases inherent in traditional measures of interpersonal commitment. Questionnaire data collected from 32 lesbians and 50 gay males who had lived together for at least six months were factor analyzed, yielding three factors: (1) intradyadic commitment, (2) extradyadic commitment, and (3) commitment-as-trust. On all three of these indices the lesbians scored somewhat higher than did the gay males, but in fact there were surprisingly few significant differences between the gay men and the lesbians. Suggestions in the data that lesbians report somewhat less social supports and are more concerned with couple boundary maintenance, whereas gay males report somewhat more jealousy and dependency, are discussed in terms of their implications for such relationships.     

Johann Gottfried Herders philosophische Grundlegung der Iernenden Organisation

Herder’s philosophical model of the learning organisationThe author describes Johann Gottfried Herder’s education philosophy and his plans for an ?alternative“ school. His ?alternative school concept“ shows how the teacher as supervisor of the learning process should take the individual needs into account and adapt the didactics and methods of teaching to these needs. This practice conforms to the rules of today’s reformed schools. Learning as an extension of subjective experiences and life possibilities requires an open organisational structure, and this is what Herder designed.     

In sickness but not in health: self-ratings, identity, and mortality

Self-rated health as a predictor of mortality has been studied primarily in large, representative populations, with relatively little progress toward understanding the information processing that individuals use to arrive at these ratings. With subsamples of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Epidemiologic Follow-up Study (NHEFS) data for respondents with circulatory system disease (N = 3,709) and respondents with no diagnosable disorders (N = 1,127) at baseline, we test the idea that individuals with experience of chronic disease of the circulatory system will have more predictive self-ratings of health than healthy individuals. Poor or fair self-rated health increased the adjusted hazard of all-cause mortality for respondents with circulatory system disease, but not for respondents who were healthy. Additional analyses confirm that poor or fair self-rated health is particularly predictive for respondents with self-reported history of circulatory system diagnoses and perception of symptoms, but not for respondents without symptoms or diagnoses prior to the NHANES physical exam.     

Family therapists' ethical decision-making processes in two duty-to-warn situations

This quantitative study investigated the ethical decision-making process of 177 Missouri members of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy using two in-session duty-to-warn scenarios of child abuse and HIV transmission. The components of the critical-evaluative level of ethical decision making include the lower-level decision components of personal/therapeutic response, professional ethics, and legal considerations/laws of the State, and the components of the higher-level decision base, the meta-ethical principles, which are nonmaleficence, autonomy, beneficence, fidelity, and justice. Statistical results indicated that in the child abuse scenario, professional ethics and legal considerations/laws of the State were considered most important, whereas in the HIV scenario, professional ethics were the preferred lower-level decision base. Across scenarios, the preferred higher-level decision base was nonmaleficence. There were differences across the child abuse and HIV scenarios in the perceived significance of the remaining lower-level decision base items as well as differences in perceived significance and ordering of the remaining meta-ethical principles. Limitations are discussed.     

Letters to the editor

Relatively little attention has been paid to the use and importance of labels used by men who have sex with men to describe insertive or receptive sexual behavior during intercourse. This study examines sexual self‐labels, sexual behavior, HIV transmission risk, and psychological functioning among 205 HIV‐seropositive men who have sex with men. The majority of participants (88%) identified as a “top, “ a “bottom, “ or “versatile. “ Tops were more likely to engage in insertive anal intercourse than bottoms, and bottoms were more likely to engage in receptive anal intercourse than tops, with versatiles reporting intermediate rates of both behaviors. Although the results suggest preliminary evidence regarding the predictive utility of self‐labels, sexual behaviors of self‐label groups were greatly overlapping. Differences were found among self‐label groups in gay self‐identification, internalized homophobia, sexual sensation seeking, and anxiety. Results suggest an added value in assessing self‐labels in addition to asking about sexual behavior.     

Using Nursing Students to Enhance One College's Immunization Program

Abstract

In New York State, all college students who were born on or after January 1, 1957, are required to show proof of immunity against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) before the 1st day of classes. Colleges have established immunization programs so that those students who do not have the required proof can be given the necessary injections. Often, our health service office does not have enough staff to administer the MMR shots during the registration period, resulting in long lines of students waiting to be immunized. In this article, the authors describe how one college used nursing students to assist with and enhance its immunization program. The 45 nursing students who participated in this project administered 694 injections over a 5-day period, They received credit from the nursing department for clinical time and all of the participants agree that the project was a success.     

Culture and Co‐residence: An Exploration of Variation in Home‐Returning among Canadian Young Adults*

Cet article s'inscrit dans la lignée des études sur les dimensions culturelles de la cohabitation entre générations en examinant de près le comportement des jeunes adultes canadiens qui retournent vivre chez leurs parents. Nous explorons les rapports mutuels entre la famille et la diversité culturelle, entre le capital financier et le capital social, et entre le rythme et les mécanismes de transitions précoces qui se manifestent au cours d'une vie. Les modéles de hasards proportionnels sont appliqués à un sous‐échantillon de 2 549 jeunes adultes, àgés de 19 á 34 ans, en tenant compte des données de l'Enquete sociale générale, cycle 10, de 1995. L'une des principales conclusions tirées ici indique que les jeunes qui sont de langue maternelle anglaise sont beaucoup plus susceptibles de retourner chez leurs parents après un premier départ que ceux dont la langue maternelle est le français ou une autre langue. Les autres variables qui entrent en jeu sont le niveau d'education du père, le nombre de frères et de soeurs, le sexe, l'âge au moment du depart de la maison et la raison de ce départ. L'article aborde aussi les questions des responsabilités et des rôles des parents autour de la cinquantaine, et de la socialisation au sein de la famille au cours de la vie. This article offers a focussed examination of variation in home‐returning behaviour among Canadian young adults. Framed within the life course perspective, we explore the interrelationships among family and cultural diversity, financial and social capital, and the timing and pathways of early transitions. Proportional hazards analyses are performed on a subsample of 2,549 young adults aged 19–34, using data from the 1995 General Social Survey, Cycle 10. A major finding is that those whose mother tongue is English are significantly more likely to return to the parental home than those with French or “other” mother tongues. Other variables include: father's education, number of siblings, gender, age at home‐leaving, and initial reason for home‐leaving. Implications for midlife parental roles and responsibilities, and for family socialization are discussed.     

CURRICULUM CHANGES TO MEET CHALLENGES: PREPARING MFT STUDENTS FOR MANAGED CARE SETTINGS

Fledgling therapists who graduate from family therapy traning programs will have to navigate the world of managed care. In this article, faculty of University of San Diego share changes in its accredited training program that prepare students for practice in an increasingly multidisciplinary world where health maintenence organizations and other versions of managed care predominate. The paper touches on contextual issues, provides a detailed outline of coursework presenting basic knowledge and skills involved in clinical pracice in a managed care environment, and comments on clinical placements and the challenge of helping the next generation of clinicans "fit" into the future of health care delivery while maintaining their unique identity as family therapists.     

Risk,Media, and Stigma at Rocky Flats

Public responses to nuclear technologies are often strongly negative. Events, such as accidents or evidence of unsafe conditions at nuclear facilities, receive extensive and dramatic coverage by the news media. These news stories affect public perceptions of nuclear risks and the geographic areas near nuclear facilities. One result of these perceptions, avoidance behavior, is a form of "technological stigma" that leads to losses in property values near nuclear facilities. The social amplification of risk is a conceptual framework that attempts to explain how stigma is created through media transmission of information about hazardous places and public perceptions and decisions. This paper examines stigma associated with the U.S. Department of Energy's Rocky Flats facility, a major production plant in the nation's nuclear weapons complex, located near Denver, Colorado. This study, based upon newspaper analyses and a survey of Denver area residents, finds that the social amplification theory provides a reasonable framework for understanding the events and public responses that took place in regard to Rocky Flats during a 6-year period, beginning with an FBI raid of the facility in 1989.