Real or imagined - Black women's experiences in the Academy

This is a reflective and reflexive account of the individual and shared work experiences of three Black female Senior Lecturers working in higher education. Through the process of sharing our common experiences we not only make visible the details of the race and gender oppression we face, but also the acts of resistance we engage in within the academic community. We draw on our understanding of Black feminist principles and ideas to explore and analyse our experiences as Black professional women; this exploration is central to the development of the strategies that we propose. These strategies, we believe will enable Black women and others engaged in the process of change to continually challenge and resist the oppressive power relations that characterise academic environments. Ici nous donnons un compte rendu réflexif qui s'agit des expériences non seulement collectives entre trois conférencières Noires universitaires, mais aussi des expériences plutôt privées de cettes chercheuses. Par le processus de partager de cette façon nos expériences nous faisons visible l'oppression raciste et sexiste qui se presente dans la vie quotidienne. En meme temps on essaye de souligner la résistance dans laquelle on s'engage dans la communauté scolaire. Par notre compréhension des principes et des idées féministes nous sommes capables d'explorer et d'analyser nos expériences en tant que femmes Noires professionelles. En plus, cette exploration est centrale au développement des stratégies que nous proposons. Nous croyons que par cettes stratégies les Noires (et les femmes en général qui sont engagées dans les efforts d'effectuer le changement) auront le pouvoir de lancer un défi continuel et de résister l'abus de pouvoir accablant qui existe àchaque moment dans les environnements scolaires.     

Meeting the Service Needs of Young Fathers

Until the early 1980s, the needs of young fathers went largely unnoticed by policy makers and social service providers. Many programs for adolescent fathers originally started in order to benefit teenage mothers and their children (Leitch et al., 1993). It was later recognized that young fathers also need assistance to successfully become productive and responsible adults (Robinson, 1988; Leitch et al., 1993; Kiselica, 1995). Program designs have been based on a set of implicit assumptions: 1) if programs are offered, young fathers will enroll; 2) the services will meet the needs of participants; 3) once young men enroll in a program, they will use the services that are available; and 4) the services will be beneficial for recipients and will produce positive outcomes (Kiselica, 1995; Children and Youth Funding Report, 1998; Smith, 1997; DeParle, 1998). However, only limited research has been conducted to explore whether these assumptions are appropriate or to document programmatic successes and difficulties (Achatz and MacAllum, 1994; Marsh and Wirick, 1991; Sander, 1993). This paper adds to the literature by reviewing each of the assumptions within the context of one program's experience. It considers issues associated with outreach and enrollment, service delivery, and achieving desired outcomes for program participants.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FORGIVENESS SCALE

This paper reports on the development, validity, and reliability of a self-report instrument designed to assess a respondent's perspective of pain resulting from relational violations and work toward relational forgiveness based on framework proposed by Hargrave (1994a). Presented here is the five-stage procedure used in the development of the Interpersonal Relationship Resolution Scale. Construct validity and reliability were determined from an initial sample of 164 subjects. Concurrent validity of the scal was supported by another sample of 35 respondents who took the Interpersonal Relationship Resolution Scal, the Personal Authority in the Family System Questonnaire, the Relational Ethics Scale, the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior scale, and the Burns Depression Checklist. Finally, a predictive validity study of the scale was performed with a clinical and nonclinical sample of 98 volunteers. Data are presented that support the validity and reliability of the instrument, as will as the final version of the scale.     

APPROPRIABLE RENTS FROM YELLOWSTONE PARK: A CASE OF INCOMPLETE CONTRACTING

The history of Yellowstone Park is best understood in the context of the theory of the firm as developed by Armen Alchian. In the late nineteenth century, the Northern Pacific Railroad recognized the potential amenity rents from Yellowstone and captured them by vertically integrating its monopoly on transportation to the region with the supply of tourist facilities in the park. This gave the railroad de facto ownership of the park that lasted until automobiles were allowed to enter in 1915. Thereafter the tragedy of the commons ensued and rents were dissipated instead of maximized.     

An Unfinished Reflexive Journey: Social Work Students' Reflection on their Placement Experiences

The fieldwork placement is recognized as one of the major componentsof social work education and a major determinant of its quality.A key aspect of the learning process in the fieldwork placementis the exposition of practice encounters to the students’critical reflection. Given the importance of the process of‘reflection’ or ‘reflective learning’,a qualitative study based on the reflective logs of social workstudents was conducted to explore the meaning of social workfield education and the learning experiences of social workstudents during their placement. The study findings revealedthat disturbing events experienced by students in their fieldworkwere a catalyst to their reflective process. Meanwhile, theirundue concern with knowledge and skills application within acircumscribed knowledge frame suggests the dominant influenceof scientism and competence-based practice in social work, inwhich learning outcomes and instrumental and technical reasoningare highly emphasized. Discovery of ‘self’ was alsothe major premise in the students’ reflection logs, inwhich a majority of them took their prevailing self-identityas a constant state to be verified in interaction with othersin the fieldwork placement. Reflexivity is manifested in askingfundamental questions about assumptions generated by formaland practice theories; it addresses the multiple interrelationsbetween power and knowledge, and acknowledges the inclusionof self in the process of knowledge creation in social workpractice. Its realization in social work education requiresthe social work educators’ reflexive examination of thedynamics that influence the construction of curriculum, whichin turn construct our prospective social workers.     

Supervisor ideology and organizational response: HIV/AIDS prevention in outpatient substance abuse treatment units

Distinct practice ideologies or ideologies of care are deemed to influence greatly the selection of intervention methods and the mix of services adopted by the providers. Examined here is the relation between clinical supervisor ideology and variation among human service organizations in their provision of HIV/AIDS prevention services. Data were drawn from a 1990 national, representative sample of outpatient substance abuse treatment (OSAT) units. The study affirms that ideology is central to both means and ends in HSOs, helping to define the organization's mission and goals, and establishing guidelines for practice and procedures. Future research on the relationship between ideology and HIV/AIDS education can benefit from efforts to develop alternative strategies for measuring ideologies of care among both managers and staff in substance abuse settings.     

Semiparametric multiparameter regression survival modeling

We consider a log-linear model for survival data, where both the location and scale parameters depend on covariates, and the baseline hazard function is completely unspecified. This model provides the flexibility needed to capture many interesting features of survival data at a relatively low cost in model complexity. Estimation procedures are developed, and asymptotic properties of the resulting estimators are derived using empirical process theory. Finally, a resampling procedure is developed to estimate the limiting variances of the estimators. The finite sample properties of the estimators are investigated by way of a simulation study, and a practical application to lung cancer data is illustrated.