A Collective Response to Michael White's Passing

The following reflection was written at the Cairns Narrative Therapy Interest Group shortly after Michael White's passing. As a group activity, each individual was interviewed about the effects of Michael White's work on their therapeutic work. Each of the responses were manually recorded and then a member of the group developed the collective document to share back with the whole group. The document was a way to capture the atmosphere that was shared at the interest group that day upon reflection of Michael. The document also enables a way to remember the influence that a collective document can produce for a group of people.     

A 'Countryside Bright with Cosy Homesteads': Irish Nationalism and the Cottage Landscape

The new Irish state, like other nations, invoked 'folk roots', returning to a pre-colonial golden age located in the rural west. Indeed, the state and the Church promoted an 'ideology of the rural' despite limited modernisation. An ancient and authentic west was evoked in travel writing, and especially in paintings of the Irish cottage landscape. National identity was not only embodied in but maintained through cottage landscape imagery by means of what Michael Billig terms banal nationalism, that is, the daily inculcation of nationhood by means of an array of barely-noticed signs. The cottage landscape, constantly reproduced and taken for granted daily recalled citizens to their heritage.     

Religion,Nationalism, and Transnational Civil Society in the Eritrean Diaspora

This article examines the emergence and significance of religion among Eritreans in the United States as a basis for building community in diaspora, reconfiguring nationalist identity, and constituting transnational civil society. It argues three related points: that religious identity and gatherings help mitigate against fractured political identities that have weakened secular diaspora associations; that practicing Eritrean identity through religion challenges the hegemonic power of the Eritrean state to transnationally control diaspora communities and dictate national identity; and that the very incipience of religious bodies as transnational avenues provides Eritreans in diaspora with an autonomous space to resist the state's totalizing demands. Through a critical ethnographic investigation of religious identity and church bodies in Eritrea and one United States diaspora community, the article shows that uneven transnational networks between the United States and Eritrea create new spaces for political action. Specifically, the relative autonomy of churches and the incipience of their transnationalism allow diaspora Eritreans to use religion in the constitution of an emergent transnational civil society.     

Gender matters: constructing a model of adolescent sexual health

This article illustrates the construction of a new model of adolescent sexual health, one that addresses the complex relationships between gender and adolescent sexuality. A review of sexual health models highlights the absence of gender; in contrast, research illuminates the significance of gender. This article describes the process of building a model of sexual health explicitly for girls, guided by feminist research on adolescent girls' sexuality and a "web of theories". It also describes the unanticipated challenges of making a companion model for boys and the ensuing shift from a gender-specific approach to an integrated gendered model of adolescent sexual health. Gender complementarity is defined and forwarded as a way to incorporate gender into a model of adolescent sexual health.     

Proxemic and haptic behavior in three European countries

The influence of culture, gender, and age on proxemic and haptic behavior was investigated in this observational field study. Video recordings of 253 naturally-occurring dyadic interactions in the Netherlands, France, and England were analyzed by trained coders. Contrary to expectations, Hall's hypothesis regarding the proxemic and haptic norms of contact and noncontact cultures was not well supported. Among seated interactants, Dutch dyads maintained greater distances than French and English dyads, but French dyads were less proximate than were English dyads. The body orientation of French dyads was more direct than it was for Dutch or English dyads. In addition, with the exception of limited data on touch, neither the gender-composition of the dyad nor the gender of the individual affected the distances or body orientations of the interactants as would be expected according to traditional sex-role socialization processes. Age, as well, did not influence proxemic or haptic behavior. Results are discussed, primarily with respect to the research methods used in this and in previous investigations.     

Emergence of Selective Social Referencing in Infancy

Seven and 10‐month‐old infants were presented with a remote‐controlled toy dog that intermittently barked at 30‐sec intervals as they faced an experimenter who either attended to them (look toward condition) or looked away (look away condition). Seven‐month‐old infants' looking toward the experimenter was significantly greater after the dog barking events compared to before regardless of experimental condition. In contrast, 10‐month‐old infants' looks were significantly greater after the barking events compared to before only when the experimenter was attending to them. These results suggest that by 10 months infants monitor and refer to people in an ambiguous situation depending on their attention toward them. This development is viewed as indexing the emergence of an intentional stance in social referencing by 10 months of age.     

Sexual transformations and intimate behaviors in romantic relationships

To understand the association between sexual transformations (i.e., changes in sexual behavior for the partner), intimate behaviors, and relationship quality among couples in romantic relationships, this study used Actor Partner Interdependence Models to examine frequency of sexual transformations, feelings about sexual transformations, and intimate behaviors as predictors of relationship satisfaction among 96 couples (N?=?192). Sexual transformations were also examined as a moderator of the association between intimate behavior and relationship satisfaction. Results indicated that relationship satisfaction was positively associated with partners' frequent sexual transformations, actors' positive feelings about sexual transformations, and intimate behavior from the partner. Further, in less intimate relationships, relationship satisfaction was greater when partners reported making more sexual transformations.     

Clergy training for effective response to intimate partner violence disclosure: Immediate and long-term benefits

ABSTRACT

This study reports findings from an intimate partner violence-training project in which 104 Seventh-Day Adventist pastors received a 4-hr training in responding effectively to intimate partner violence (IPV) disclosure. The educational endeavor targeted three areas for improvement in clergy response: (a) increasing pastors’ understanding of the unique dynamics in abusive relationships, (b) providing information on IPV resources and services, and (c) developing pastors’ abilities and motivations to be proactive in addressing IPV. Pretest, posttest and 1-year follow up data indicate that pastors who engaged in IPV training demonstrated immediate and long-term positive changes. Specifically, participants showed improvements in each of the targeted areas. Beyond the gains in knowledge and attitudes about IPV, the study results also indicate that pastors receiving training expanded their activities to positively address IPV in their congregations. Social workers can play a significant role in addressing clergy training needs by strengthening pastors’ abilities to respond appropriately to parishioners’ IPV disclosures.     

“God Just Brought Me Through It”: Spiritual Coping Strategies for Resilience Among Intimate Partner Violence Survivors

This study highlights the spiritual coping processes for surviving and healing used by Christian women in a conservative faith community who experienced intimate partner violence (IPV). Using data from 42 in-depth qualitative interviews of survivors of IPV, the findings reveal a pattern of spiritually-based survival and resilience strategies women used while coping with and eventually escaping their traumatic lives. The analysis notes the central role of spirituality as a means women used to move from coping for survival to resilient self-efficacy and healing. These findings assist clinical social workers with identifying and accessing spiritual strengths as a springboard to wellbeing.     

Couple interaction and child social competence: The role of parenting and attachment

The current study examined the association between positive couple interaction and child social competence as mediated through positive parenting and parent–child attachment security. Prospective, longitudinal data came from 209 mothers, fathers, and their biological child. Information regarding observed positive couple interaction, observed positive parenting, and parent–child attachment security were assessed when the child was 2–4 years old, and child social competence was assessed at 5 years old. Mothers and fathers were analyzed separately in the model. Results indicated that for both mothers and fathers, positive couple interaction was indirectly associated with child social competence through positive parenting and parent–child attachment. These pathways remained statistically significant even after child social competence at age 2–4 was taken into account. Results suggest that couple interaction spills over into parenting which impacts parent–child attachment, which is associated with positive child developmental outcomes.