Update on energy drinks and youth

Energy drinks are attractive and readily available in every grocery store and gas station. While most youth verbalize an understanding that too much caffeine is bad for one's health, at an age of multiple demands, an over-the-counter offer of increased energy and alertness is hard to ignore. What makes energy drinks different from regular coffee? Although the heavily caffeinated drinks promise increased energy and stamina and are loaded with healthy natural ingredients, excessive consumption is of concern on many levels. This article will discuss some of the effects of excessive caffeine, as well as risks associated with energy drinks mixed with alcohol.     

Outpatient Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Adolescents Engaged in Deliberate Self-Harm: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations

The current review examines conceptual and methodological issues related to the use of dialectical behavior therapy for adolescents (DBT-A) in treating youth who engage in deliberate self-harm. A comprehensive review of the literature identified six studies appropriate for the review. Results indicated several inconsistencies and limitations across studies including the mixing of various forms of self-harm; variations in diagnostic inclusion/exclusion criteria, insufficient use of standardized self-harm outcome measures, variable lengths and intensity of provided treatment, and inadequate attention paid to DBT adherence. Each of these areas is reviewed along with a discussion of ways to improve the quality of future research.     

Soziologie und Geschlechterforschung in entsicherten Verhältnissen — Plädoyer für eine praxeologische Öffnung

Starting point of the article are the upheavals in post-Fordist societies. The author argues that the sometimes paradoxical social dynamics of these radical changes produce situations of social uncertainty. This is a great challenge for the analytic abilities of sociology and gender studies which are both strongly influenced by the thought patterns of ?organized modernity“. On the (empirical) example of a praxeological sociology of gender, the author tries to show what gender studies and sociology can contribute mutually to an opening of their own terms and categories.     

Bildung und Fremdenfeindlichkeit

The study examines the role of school and family contexts for the explanation of differences in xenophobia in different school tracks. It tries to “enrich” the variable education, which is often used in a “demographic” way with characteristics that describe education contexts in school and family. Five theses were explicated and tested with data of a sample of pupils. Most important factors to explain the differences between the school track were materialistic attitudes of the pupils and the support they got in their families. For all other factors no significant effects were found.     

The Second Generation in Germany: Between School and Labor Market1

The German “mode of integration” after World War II has been to include migrants and their offspring into general societal institutions. This can be stated despite differences between federal states in some aspects of migrant integration (e.g., the educational sector). Migrant children normally attend the same schools and classes as their German age peers, they participate in the dual system of vocational training, and there are only a few limitations in labor market access. The second generation in Germany consists mainly of children of the “guestworkers” recruited in southern and southeastern European countries from the 1950s onwards. It is not easy to obtain information about their numbers and their socioeconomic position, as most statistical data distinguish only between foreigners and Germans. The achieved integration status of the second generation varies between areas: obvious problems in the educational system go along with considerable progress in the vocational training system and in the labor market. Children of Turkish migrants are the most disadvantaged group among the second generation.     

Kompensation oder Konflikt?

Xenophobia is a central element of “modern right wing extremism”. Different approaches try to give reasons for this. In the perspective of an empirical theory comparison the explanatory impact of these different approaches is discussed. An important component of negative attitudes toward immigration are xenophobic motives. Two mechanisms are distinguished as basic processes for the mobilization of these xenophobic attitudes: conflict and compensation. Approaches that are concerned with the impact of competition for resources or status like deprivation or intergroup concepts stress the aspect of conflict. Other mechanisms are addressed by approaches that deal with aspects of anomia or authoritarism — they stress indirect processes and see xenophobia as a consequence of compensation processes. In this context individuals use rassist ideologies to compensate their own feelings of personal or social insecurity, disorientation and disintegration. The impact of both explanatory factors is examined on the basis of a representative population survey (ALLBUS) conducted in Germany in 1996.     

Constituents of healthy workplaces

The aim of the study presented here was to identify and characterize the constituents of a healthy workplace from the viewpoints of employees at four different companies with low rate of absenteeism due to illness. A non-randomized, purposive selection was made of 27 respondents -- four department heads, 16 white-collar workers, and seven blue-collar employees. The respondents were told to describe in writing how they experience factors contributing to good health at their workplace. The data analysis was carried out with a phenomenographic approach. Four main categories of health-related factors emerged: Good Work Environment, Active Keep-Fit Measures, Functional Leadership and Individual Responsibility. The employers fulfil demands for a good physical working environment, but the need for improvements in the psychosocial environment remains. The most promising finding is that the respondents' accept personal responsibility for maintaining their own good health.