Organising Work and Home in Same‐Sex Parented Families: Findings From the Work Love Play Study

In this article we present findings from the Work, Love and Play (WLP) study: a survey completed by 445 same‐sex attracted parents across Australia and New Zealand. Comparisons of household division of labour are made between a sub‐sample of WLP participants, who were currently cohabiting with a same‐sex partner (n = 317), and 958 cohabiting opposite‐sex parents surveyed as part of a major Australian study, Negotiating the Life Course. This comparison showed that same‐sex couples divided household labour significantly more equally than heterosexual parents, and lesbian couples also shared parenting tasks more equally. Qualitative findings from the WLP study indicate that, for many same‐sex couples, major decisions around who gives up paid work and how many hours parents choose to work, as well as decisions around work/family balance, are negotiated on the basis of couple's preferences and circumstance rather than an assumption that one parent will be the primary child carer. It is speculated that this finding highlights an important point of difference between same‐sex couples and heterosexual couples where the division of household labour is often based on the assumption that the mother will almost always be the primary child carer and homemaker. The research is a collaborative partnership between La Trobe University, Deakin University, The University of Melbourne, and Relationships Australia Victoria.     

Buffering Effects of a Family-Based Intervention for African American Emerging Adults

This study focused on the buffering effects of Adults in the Making (AIM), a family-centered preventive intervention, on the link between life stress and increases in risk behaviors among 347 rural, southern African Americans as they left high school. Of the families, 174 were assigned to the prevention condition and 173 to a control condition. Emerging adults reported risk behaviors at pretest, posttest (7 months after pretest), and long-term follow-up (10 months after posttest). A significant Life stress × Prevention condition interaction emerged: Increases in risk behaviors were significantly greater among emerging adults in the control condition who experienced high stress levels than among those in the prevention condition who experienced equally high stress levels.     

Exploring the promotion of youth voice in community-based youth development programmes

This constructivist grounded theory study used semi-structured interviews with 19 youth service providers in community-based youth development programmes to develop a context-specific framework of how and why youth voice promotion occurred. Factors external to the youth programmes, such as funder expectations, influenced the conceptualization of role for youth workers. The social process of meaning making in relation to role identity impacted how youth workers perceived self-efficacy when working with youth, especially when engaged with behaviours falling outside programmatic expectations or norms. Workers prioritized fostering physical and psychological safe spaces for youth participants. When conflict occurred, perceptions of efficacy guided workers in taking positions that either promoted or restricted youth voice based on their perceptions of efficacy in resolving conflict safely. Youth programmes have the capacity to resist or replicate oppression present within the educational system. The adoption and adaptation of educational models of resistance offer a strategy for community-based youth organizations to promote equity and thriving youth.     

Bowen Family Systems Theory and Practice: Illustration and Critique

This paper will give an overview of Murray Bowen's theory of family systems. It will describe the model's development and outline its core clinical components. The practice of therapy will be described as well as recent developments within the model. Some key criticisms will be raised, followed by a case example which highlights the therapeutic focus of Bowen's approach.     

Responding to children's disclosure of familial abuse: what survivors tell us.

This study is based on the reports of 384 adults who were abused physically, sexually, and/or emotionally in childhood by family members. It describes the survivors' attempts, as children, to get help by disclosing the abuse to someone who might intervene; those who did not disclose explain their reasons. The results indicate that disclosure usually did not bring an end to the abuse, and that little action was taken to control the perpetrator, even after disclosure took place. The responses received by the children to their disclosure are linked to their levels of self-esteem and family functioning as adults.     

Risk Assessment of Laboratory Rats and Mice Chronically Exposed to Formaldehyde Vapors

Experimental data from the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT) are used to estimate the risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the nasal cavity in Fischer 344 (F344) rats over a range of ambient air concentrations of formaldehyde that includes current exposure guidelines for the workplace and home. These values are presented as a best estimate envelope obtained from five mathematical dose-response formulation. The response of Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats dosed at 15 ppm in a separate study at New York University is consistent with the predicted lifetime response for F344 rats at a slightly lower concentration (13-14 ppm). A dose-related mortality effect beyond what is attributable to the occurrence of nasal carcinomas is found in F344 rats at all CIIT exposure levels (2, 6, and 15 ppm). There is no evidence of a mortality effect in B6C3F1 mice of the CIIT study, and data for SD rats of the NYU experiment are inconclusive. In the CIIT study, rats exposed to 15 ppm exhibited a high incidence of nasal cavity squamous cell carcinomas and polypoid adenomas. Polypoid adenomas were also observed with increased incidences at 2 ppm and 6 ppm. Statistical comparisons with matched controls, and the low historical rate of spontaneous occurrence both suggest that polypoid adenomas may be a risk to F344 rats at exposure levels below the current Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard of 3 ppm. Squamous cell carcinomas were observed in two mice exposed to 15 ppm. This finding may be biologically significant since this tumor is rare and has not been previously reported in 4932 untreated B6C3F1 mice from recent National Toxicology Program (NTP) feeding studies.     

The effects of conflict,quality, and time on small group information use and behavior in evaluative decision making situations

Graduate students simulated school board members making decisions about educational programs. Situation contexts within the program evaluation reports were varied by conflict (high, low), quality (high, low), and time (long, short). Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) of the qualitative measures m the 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design indicated significant results at the .01 level. The quality of decisions affect support for program continuation. Interactions of conflict and quality affected need for more information and more time in decision making. A conflict and time interaction affected preference to talk to other board members. Changes in situational contexts affected information need and use in small, decision making groups.     

Code–convergent borrowing in Louisiana French

The nature of lexical and structural borrowing has been at the forefront of sociolinguistic debates for many years. This study analyzes bilingual lexemes and morphemes of English–origin loanwords from a Louisiana corpus of twenty–two French/English speakers. French Louisiana, however, has been undergoing language shift from French to English for three generations and, as a consequence, language dominance is in a parallel state of shift. This competing dominance produces borrowings characterized by a range of phonological integration coupled with bound morphemes from both languages. These data suggest that examining borrowing beyond the word level reveals a highly complex interplay of often competing and overlapping grammars.