Relationship building and message planning: An exploration of media challenges and strategies used during school crises at the P-12 level

Schools at the P-12 level increasingly face crises related to school shootings, violence, and other tragedies. Understanding the communication challenges schools face is paramount to assisting schools with communication before, during, and after crisis events. The current study focuses on the challenges created by media interest in such crises and the strategies implemented to overcome these challenges and provide responsible information to stakeholders. Interviews conducted with 21 school crisis teams at the P-12 level revealed that sensationalism, seeking alternative routes to information, and framing were key challenges in working with the media. In light of these challenges, administrators focused on creating media plans, building relationships with the media, being accurate but guarded, and communicating reassurance and reunification. Implications are discussed for school districts nationally.     

Insider/Outsider: A Muslim Woman's Adventure Practicing ‘Alongside’ Narrative Therapy

The following paper centres on my unique experience as a white Australian therapist who is able to sympathise with a Western world view while being immersed in an Islamic world view. The goal is to share my journey as a Muslim Australian via an auto‐ethnography reflexive method. Using diaries, intentional reflexive positioning, and multiple modes of supervision, I contemplate an Islamic identity and value system while negotiating poststructural therapies such as solution‐focused collaborative, and in particular, narrative therapy as viable approaches to working with the Muslim community. There are two inquiries which are of interest. The first is to reflexively describe the experience of being a Muslim practitioner and wondering whether core differences in epistemological views between social constructionism and Islamic doctrine can be overcome. Secondly, this enquiry explores Quranic guidelines about how to perceive ‘problems’ in life, based on the premise that understanding how an Islamic world view addresses life's troubles may add to deeper conceptions of the role of difficulties. I propose that adherent Muslims have a natural metaphorical way of thinking that connects with some of the poststructural therapeutic skills and techniques and at the same time draw on past Quranic solutions for contemporary problems. Little has been written on narrative therapy as a suitable approach to working with Muslim clients. In the current paper I review my personal experience as a veiled Muslim therapist striving to implement narrative therapy alongside an Islamic epistemology.     

The Influence of Career Planning on Career Thoughts in STEM‐Interested Undergraduates

Undergraduate career planning courses have shown efficacy in decreasing students’ negative career thoughts; however, universities have minimally applied these courses to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) populations. This study compared the influence of a STEM‐focused career planning course for undecided STEM students with a seminar course for decided STEM majors. An analysis of covariance with covariate adjustment revealed that undecided career planning students had lower adjusted mean scores on a measure of negative career thinking than the decided STEM majors after the first semester of college. The results provide support for the efficacy of STEM‐focused career planning courses and measuring negative career thoughts with STEM undergraduates.     

Career Assessment and Counseling for STEM: A Critical Review

Career counselors must continually enhance their knowledge and skills to assist clients contemplating careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Therefore, the authors review STEM disciplines and theory‐driven strategies for assisting diverse individuals to explore, enter, and persist in STEM careers. Appropriate use of career assessments can contribute greatly to this effort. To identify available measures for STEM‐focused domains and constructs, the authors conducted a journal content analysis of stand‐alone STEM‐related career assessments from 1983 to 2016, identifying 39 articles with 153 measures. Notable results included the emergence of social cognitive theory and social cognitive career theory as prevailing frameworks for instrument development, a wide variety of disciplines and journals represented, an underrepresentation of minority samples, and untapped potential for cross‐discipline and researcher–practitioner collaboration. Useful strategies and resources for counselors and recommendations for enhancing career assessments and interventions are addressed.     

Career Counseling With Black Men: Applying Principles of Existential Psychotherapy

Counselors may benefit from applying principles of existential psychotherapy to career counseling with Black men. Existential psychotherapy asserts that there are 4 issues that all people experience: death, freedom, isolation, and meaning. The life experiences of Black men, including difficulty with their careers, suggest that they may struggle with these existential concerns, particularly finding meaning in their lives. Because work and issues in other domains of life (e.g., family, community) often intersect, an existentially based career counseling approach may prove useful. An overview of existential psychotherapy is presented, followed by a discussion of its applicability to career counseling with Black men. In addition to suggestions for career counselors, recommendations for training and professional development are offered.     

The victim–offender overlap in late adulthood

This study contributes to the general knowledge of the victim–offender overlap by determining whether the phenomenon exists among older adults and whether known correlates of crime and victimization explain the relationship. Cross-sectional survey data from telephone interviews conducted with individuals 60 years and older (N = 2,000) residing in Arizona and Florida are used to estimate confirmatory factor models for both victimization and criminal offending. The results from a series of multivariate regression models show that victimization is associated with criminal offending. While factors such as low self-control, depression, and spending time in commercial drinking establishments partially attenuate the victimization–crime link, the statistically significant relationship persists in a multivariate context. Further testing indicates that the observed findings are robust across measurement and modeling strategies. Coupled with prior research, the results support the argument that the victim–offender overlap exists (and is difficult to explain) over the life course.     

Making Civil Society Sustainable: The Legacy of USAID in Croatia

What makes civil society sustainable? This paper examines USAID “Legacy Mechanisms”—programs designed to support a stable civil society after USAID withdraws aid—in the context of post-war Croatia to reconceptualize civil society sustainability in terms of resilience. Rather than examine whether specific legacy mechanisms remained intact, this paper looks at how Croatian civil society organizations adopted, adapted, and dropped these legacy programs to respond to novel crises and a changing political and social environment once USAID exited Croatia. Drawing on archival data from USAID’s time in Croatia and interviews conducted between 2008 (the year after USAID withdrew) and 2016, this paper shows that the long-term impact USAID had on civil society lay not within the formal institutions and organizations it supported, but in the resilience, creativity, and cooperation it fostered in the civil society sector.     

Homonegativity in the Religious Dress History of the Marist Brothers, 1817–1840

This article presents a historical sociological case study of sexual oppression within the early nineteenth-century foundation period of a French Roman Catholic male religious order, the Marist Brothers, founded in 1817. The different sexualities of two rival founder figures, the priests Jean-Claude Courveille and Marcellin Champagnat, the former homosexual, the latter heterosexual, found expression in radically divergent conceptions of the religious habit. For Courveille, the costume design for the Brothers was ostentatious and stylish; for Champagnat, it was sober and clericalised. This archive-based investigation shows how Courveille's sexual orientation led to his fall from grace within the Church and the suppression of his sartorial self-expression. Champagnat, whose conventional dress rules prevailed, became a canonized saint. In the victory of the orthodox sacred dress code, the ideology of ‘clerical masculinism’ weaves its hegemonic power over the bodies of ‘men of the cloth’.     

The ‘First Generation’ in Historical Perspective: Canadian Students in the 1960s

Over the past few years a number of studies have focused on the disadvantages confronted by students who are the first in their families to attend university. Their liabilities include relatively low levels of preparedness, a lack of involvement in campus activities, and low levels of academic achievement. Rather than accepting the universality of this characterization, in this article, these negative characteristics and experiences were viewed as one ‘ideal type.’ Using this ideal type as a reference point, the current study focused on a period in Canadian history in which first generation students were the norm. In an examination of Glendon College, York University, located in Toronto Canada, in the mid 1960s, it was found that the experiences of the first generation did not fit the ideal type. Those who likely were the first in their families to attend university were prepared for their studies, involved in campus activities, and earned good grades. Possible explanations for this deviation from the ideal type include the buoyancy of the economy in the mid-sixties, an expanding university sector, the size and relative intimacy of the College, the way in which high schools prepared students for university, and stringent admission requirements.