Reducing transfers of children in family foster care through onsite mental health interventions

This article describes a successful pilot project in New York City that effectively reduced the number of transfers or replacements of children in family foster care through the placement of mental health clinicians onsite at two foster care agencies.     

Social well-being in pregnant women: intended versus unintended pregnancies

The relationship between pregnancy intention (unintended versus intended pregnancy) and social well-being was examined in a sample of 72 pregnant, mostly low-income women attending Women, Infants, and Children programs and prenatal clinics in a midwestern community. Feelings of happiness about giving birth and the extent to which having a baby would fill a void in one's life were also examined. Pregnancy intention was significantly associated with reduced social support. Feelings of happiness about having the baby positively correlated with all domains of social support and negatively correlated with loneliness and family relationship problems. The belief that having a baby could fill a void in a woman's life was strongly correlated with perceived loneliness. Interventions to increase social support and to address areas of stress for women whose pregnancies are unintended are recommended. Future research in larger random samples is needed to better test these associations and to make recommendations for specific practice interventions to increase social well-being.     

Letter to the Editor: Respecting Multiple Epistemologies in Social Work

This article is an invited response to “Toward a Learning Environment That Supports Diversity and Difference: A Response to Dessel, Bolen, and Shep - ardson,” by David R. Hodge (Journal of Social Work Education, 47(2), pp. 235-251).     

The Making of Vulnerabilities: Indigenous Day Laborers in Mexico's Neoliberal Agriculture

This article explores the linkages between representations of race, culture, and social structure in the San Quint’n Valley, Baja California, an area of northwestern Mexico that produces tomatoes for export to the United States using an indigenous migrant labor force. I focus on a day laborers' riot that took place in 1996. The press debate that followed the event exposed the articulation between local cultural images, social relations, and global political-economic processes. I argue that the modern agro-export sector takes advantage of and reshapes colonial and postcolonial caste-based social relations that are most likely associated with "tradition." The use of indigenous day laborers in segmented labor markets typical of "flexible capitalism" is interpreted locally as a return to the past. Contract farming, an arrangement between Mexican entrepreneurs and transnational corporations, creates some confusion. Some blame Mexican caciques (ruthless landowners), whereas others blame transnational firms for the exploitation of indigenous peasants. Those who blame caciques evoke images of backward Latin American regions that need to be modernized by the revolutionary state. Those who hold global corporations responsible interpret neoliberal agriculture as a return to the nineteenth-century Porfiriato, a period of foreign capital penetration in Mexico. Paradoxically, "modernity" is associated with revolutionary social justice as the ideals and values of the Mexican Revolution are being radically reworked by the introduction of neoliberal policies.     

Britain and Globalization

Many perspectives on globalization see it as differentiated in its effects and reception, culturally driven, either pre-modern or postmodern, best captured by globalist or sceptical perspectives, and an equalizing phenomenon. This article discusses the British experience of globalization in the light of such approaches and argues that looking at this case gives an alternative view. Six themes on globalization are explored across four areas of the British experience of globalization. It is argued that in Britain globalization is, in contrast to the approaches outlined above, differentiated but also generalizing, economically driven, modern, best understood with a mix of globalist and sceptical perspectives and structured by power, inequality, and conflict. It is also argued that the British experience of globalization is a specific one and that Britain is a very globalized and globalizing country, economically, culturally, and politically.     

Comentarios a «accióninvestigación y problemas de las minorias»

Resumen

Hemos realizado un estudio diferencial sobre las interpretaciones causales y sus consecuencias cognitivo- afectivas en un contexto de robo, utilizando como marco teórico el último modelo atribucional de Weiner (1986). Para ello, hemos aplicado cuestionarios de autoinforme a 1.450 sujetos menores de edad. Los resultados, obtenidos mediante análisis de la varianza y técnicas de regresión, indican (1) que existe una taxonomía de las causas claramente diferenciada en función de las dimensiones—locus, estabilidad y controlabilidad—, y de la perspectiva—actor/observador—de los sujetos; (2) que la estabilidad de las causas determina la predicción de reincidencia, y que ésta es mayor en los sujetos que dicen haber cometido más robos, y (3) que el sentimiento de culpa está determinado por la controlabilidad de las causas y varía como función inversa de la experiencia delictiva. Finalmente, señalamos algunas implicaciones teóricas y aplicadas de este trabajo.     

Disclosure of sexual assault experiences among undergraduate women at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)

ABSTRACT

Objective: To document the sexual assault disclosure experiences of historically black college or university (HBCU) students. Participants: A total of 3,951 female, undergraduate students at 4 HBCUs. Methods: All women at the participating schools were recruited in November 2008 to participate in a Web-based survey including both closed- and open-ended questions. Survey data were weighted for nonresponse bias. Results: The majority of sexual assault survivors disclosed their experience to someone close to them, but disclosure to formal supports, particularly law enforcement agencies, was extremely rare. Nonreporters had concerns about the seriousness of the incident and their privacy. On the basis of qualitative data, strategies identified by students to increase reporting included more education and awareness about sexual assault, more survivor services and alternative mechanisms for reporting, and better strategies for protecting the confidentiality of survivors. Conclusions: Official sexual assault victimization data are of limited utility in conveying the extent of sexual assault among HBCU students, and efforts to increase reporting, such as peer education and enhanced confidentiality procedures, are needed.     

On Confidence Intervals for Process Capability Indices in a One-Way Random Model

In this article, we investigated the bootstrap calibrated generalized confidence limits for process capability indices C _pk for the one-way random effect model. Also, we derived Bissell's approximation formula for the lower confidence limit using Satterthwaite's method and calculated its coverage probabilities and expected values. Then we compared it with standard bootstrap (SB) method and generalized confidence interval method. The simulation results indicate that the confidence limit obtained offers satisfactory coverage probabilities. The proposed method is illustrated with the help of simulation studies and data sets.