Empowerment in Coalitions Targeting Underage Drinking: Differential Effects of Organizational Characteristics for Volunteers and Staff

Social work has adopted the Grand Challenge to reduce and prevent alcohol misuse and related consequences. This study extends previous research through a macro examination of distinct roles within coalitions implementing prevention strategies targeting underage alcohol use. The purpose was to determine whether hypothesized relationships among organizational characteristics, empowerment variables, and perceived effectiveness differed for 2 subgroups (i.e., volunteers and paid staff). The sample was comprised of 357 survey participants affiliated with a statewide substance abuse initiative. Structural equation modeling was used to examine hypothesized relationships between study variables and found differences among subgroups. Results can inform organizational processes within coalitions that focus on engaging different groups to have a stronger impact on community issues, such as substance use consequences.     

Perceptions of "impingement" and marital satisfaction among wives of retired husbands

Initial pilot interviews with women whose husbands were in the first year of retirement revealed that problems of "impingement"--perceptions of husbands as intruders into their worlds-as-lived--were cited, in response to open-ended items, as the most difficult aspect of husbands' retirement. An impingement index, consisting of items constructed from those responses, was administered to the original panel of 83 women whose husbands were now in the fourth year of retirement, and to a new panel of 61 women whose husbands had been retired for one year. Paired T-tests revealed one significant difference in perceptions of impingement between the two groups of wives, and not in the expected direction. Indeed, wives in year 4 were more often bothered by some impingement conditions than wives in year 1, and these were significantly related to self-assessments of marital satisfaction. Results have implications for "adjustment" to life transitions, including situations that may inhibit initiation of adaptive responses, degree of investment in social roles, and issues of expectation.     

Getting out in the "real world": young men, queer and theories of gay community

A recent opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald expresses a widely held perception that, among young same-sex attracted men in Australia, "queer" has well and truly supplanted "gay" as the language and lens through which self and practice is generated. In this article, I discuss findings from a qualitative research project that studied notions of community among young gay men, and argue that this assumption should not be taken for granted. The article explores participants' understandings of the concept of "gay community," arguing that the young men studied share a common definition of community: one based on a conventional liberal model which prioritizes sameness and the cooperation of individuals to achieve common goals. This is of particular importance in that problems around "fitting in" with these understandings are also raised. In examining the potential place for queer alternatives to these formulations, however, the article finds that queer attracts little support among participants, raising questions about the bind young men may find themselves in if they prioritize sameness as fundamental to community, yet feel themselves to be excluded from community by their own or others' perceived difference.     

Constructing undesirables: A critical discourse analysis of ‘othering’ within the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act

Immigration policy in Canada has recently shifted, reflecting changes in other Western countries. We studied the discursive constructions of forced migrants within Bill C‐31 “Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act” and its associated Backgrounder documents published by the Canadian Government. The documents were analysed using an approach to critical discourse analysis adapted from Bacchi's (2009) methodology and informed by a theoretical framework of “othering”. Particular groups of migrants were represented as posing threats to the economy, the integrity of the refugee system, and national security. The documents offered three solutions: the creation of specific categories of migrants, an emphasis upon efficiency of the system, and expanded powers to the government. The problematization of asylum seekers as posing multiple threats to Canadian society obfuscates governmental responsibilities to this population and reflects common strategies of neoliberal governance.     

Collaborative Partnership in Age-Friendly Cities: Two Case Studies From Quebec,Canada

This article aims to explain the collaborative partnership conditions and factors that foster implementation effectiveness within the age-friendly cities (AFC) in Quebec (AFC-QC), Canada. Based on a community-building approach that emphasizes collaborative partnership, the AFC-QC implementation process is divided into three steps: (1) social diagnostic of older adults' needs; (2) an action plan based on a logic model; and (3) implementation through collaborations. AFC-QC promotes direct involvement of older adults and seniors' associations at each of the three steps of the implementation process, as well as other stakeholders in the community. Based on two contrasting case studies, this article illustrates the importance of collaborative partnership for the success of AFC implementation. Results show that stakeholders, agencies, and organizations are exposed to a new form of governance where coordination and collaborative partnership among members of the steering committee are essential. Furthermore, despite the importance of the senior associations' participation in the process, they encountered significant limits in the capacity of implementing age-friendly environments solely by themselves. In conclusion, we identify the main collaborative partnership conditions and factors in AFC-QC.     

Supporting pupils with special health needs in mainstream schools: policy and practice

Education policy favouring ‘inclusion’, together with medical advances, mean that a growing number of pupils in mainstream schools may have health‐related support needs in respect of a chronic illness or physical disability. Data from an empirical research study investigating these needs and carried out between 1996 and 1998 are used to reflect on the position of this group of pupils within policy guidance on special educational needs (SEN) and medical needs. Evidence of confusion and ambiguity, both in the guidance and its interpretation, suggests that the needs of this group remain somewhat hidden. More recent developments in special needs policy guidance are discussed in terms of the prospect for strengthening support for this group of pupils. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Breaking barriers—provision and participation in an out‐of‐school centre

This paper uses a research and development project – the A Space project in Hackney – as an exemplar for discussion of policy and practice issues arising from the recent expansion of out‐of‐school child care and study support services. In particular, the authors explore children's participation rights and multi‐agency working, two key principles upon which A Space is based. The paper suggests that current government out‐of‐school policy raises key questions about the siting, staffing, coordination and costs of future services; and that underlying these are more fundamental questions about: how children should be spending their time; and whose perspectives on this should be taken into account. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Primer for the Use of Multilevel Models in Couple and Family Therapy Research

This article serves as a primer for understanding how to use multilevel modeling (MLM) techniques in couple and family therapy outcome and process research. It outlines the use of HLM and Mplus—two of many software programs that can perform multilevel modeling—and provides an applied example of using MLM to investigate the use of postsession feedback on couple satisfaction and change, as well as the influence of trauma on the use of postsession feedback. Two graduate students in COAMFTE accredited PhD programs read the primer and provided questions to the first author that arose. Answers to these questions have been incorporated throughout the explanation of this methodological approach in hopes of addressing common stuck points for those using MLM.     

Boosting the input: 9-month-olds’ sensitivity to low-frequency phonotactic patterns in novel wordforms

To learn their first words, infants must attend to a variety of cues that signal word boundaries. One such cue infants might use is the language-specific phonotactics to track legal combinations and positions of segments within a word. Studies have demonstrated that, when tested across statistically high and low phonotactics, infants repeatedly reject the low-frequency wordforms. We explore whether the capacity to access low-frequency phonotactic combinations is available at 9 months when pre-exposed to wordforms containing statistically low combinations of segments. Using a modified head-turn procedure, one group of infants was presented with nonwords with low-frequency complex onsets (dr-), and another group was presented with zero-frequency onset nonwords (dl-). Following pre-exposure and familiarization, infants were then tested on their ability to segment nonwords that contained either the low- or the zero-frequency onsets. Only infants in the low-frequency condition were successful at the task, suggesting some experience with these onsets supports segmentation.     

Women With Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder Versus Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder: An Empirical Test of Raising the Bar

In 2013, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) was published with a major revision to the sexual dysfunction categories, and the diagnosis of female hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) was replaced with female sexual interest/arousal disorder (SIAD). Since being introduced, concern has been expressed that SIAD inappropriately “raises the bar” for diagnosis. To address these concerns, we sought to evaluate the number of women with a diagnosis of HSDD who also met criteria for SIAD. In a sample of 151 women, we found that 73.5% of women with a diagnosis of HSDD met criteria for SIAD. The two groups were compared on the Sexual Interest/Desire Inventory, and women who met criteria for both HSDD and SIAD consistently scored lower on sexual desire frequency and satisfaction, satisfaction with sex, receptivity, positive sexual thoughts, reactions to erotica, arousal frequency, ease, continuation, and orgasm ease/achievement, and higher on distress. In addition, women meeting criteria for HSDD only tended to have mild symptoms across the six SIAD criteria compared to those meeting criteria for both HSDD and SIAD. These findings suggest that the SIAD criteria does not unduly raise the bar for diagnosis.