Fragments from a Journal: Reflections on Celibacy and the Role of Women in the Church

This paper argues that priestly abuse is a byproduct of the dissociation of sexuality from spiritual life and religious practice, which developed as a male, authoritarian, ecclesial administrative system evolved within Christianity. The early Church “fathers' interpreted Biblical, Gospel, and Pauline texts through misogynist/antisex lenses that legitimized an all-male, celibate priesthood; the exclusion of women from positions of administrative and sacramental power; and a misogynous view of the sexual body of women. Using the work of feminist theologian/historians, the author deconstructs the origins of what became the Catholic theology of gender and sexuality and proposes the recovery of submerged Christian traditions that see the potential of human erotic love as a spiritual path.     

‘His mam,my dad,my girlfriend,loads of people used to bring him up’: the value of social support for (ex) offender fathers

This research analyses key findings from qualitative research conducted with (ex) offender fathers and their probation officers. This paper focuses on the critical role of family and social support for (ex) offender fathers who seek to build and maintain relationships with their children. The research reported in this paper shows that the men receive social support, both formal and informal from a wide ranging and complex network of family, friends and practitioners, which facilitates and enables their commitment to fathering. Drawing on social support theory, I argue that identification of support networks recognizes the productive possibilities of vulnerable families which constitute a source of strength and connection to be nurtured in contexts of adversity. This strengths‐based paradigm advocates the need to identify and facilitate family, friendship and professional networks in the context of social work with offenders and their families.     

A Bayesian nonparametric estimator of a multivariate survival function

Using reinforced processes related to beta-Stacy process and generalized Pólya urn scheme jointly with a structure assumption about dependence, a Bayesian nonparametric prior and a predictive estimator for a multivariate survival function are provided. This estimator can be computed through an easy implementation of a Gibbs sampler algorithm. Moreover consistency of the estimator is studied.     

Associations Between Friendship,Sympathy, and Prosocial Behavior Toward Friends

The current study examined the associations between multiple aspects of the friend relationship (connection, companionship, psychological control) and global prosocial behavior toward friends. Participants included 467 early adolescents (M age of child = 13.32, SD = 1.05, 49% female, 69% European American), and data were collected at two time points, roughly 1 year apart. Structural equation modeling suggested that friend psychological control was negatively associated with prosocial behavior toward friends, while friend connection was positively associated (via adolescent sympathy). Discussion focuses on the friend relationship as an important influence on adolescent sympathy and prosocial behavior toward friends.     

Rejection,Humiliation, and Parole: A Study of Parolees' Perspectives

Research on status rejection has developed considerably over the past two decades and is applied in a number of different settings to better understand criminal and deviant behavior. Our research contributes to that body of work by examining the ways in which status rejection may create a potentially humiliating dynamic for individuals on parole. Specifically, we use in‐depth interviews with parolees to illustrate how the parolee identity can promote the experience of status rejection and simultaneously foster conditions for humiliation—an emotional state that may impede one's ability to both (re) construct a conventional identity and reintegrate back into one's community.     

An Objective Bayesian Criterion to Determine Model Prior Probabilities

We discuss the problem of selecting among alternative parametric models within the Bayesian framework. For model selection problems, which involve non‐nested models, the common objective choice of a prior on the model space is the uniform distribution. The same applies to situations where the models are nested. It is our contention that assigning equal prior probability to each model is over simplistic. Consequently, we introduce a novel approach to objectively determine model prior probabilities, conditionally, on the choice of priors for the parameters of the models. The idea is based on the notion of the worth of having each model within the selection process. At the heart of the procedure is the measure of this worth using the Kullback–Leibler divergence between densities from different models.     

Dilemmas of youth work: balancing the professional and personal

Being an effective and intentional youth practitioner involves more than planning. It includes being able to react intelligently to the many difficult situations that arise. Practitioners in out-of-school and after-school settings regularly confront complex dilemmas that emerge in their daily work. They face situations where competing objectives, values, and warrants come into conflict, situations that can pit the developmental needs of youth, ethical concerns, administrative requirements, and other considerations against each other. Using examples from their research that weigh professional and personal judgments, the authors illustrate the complexity of these practice dilemmas and the considerations program staff included as they responded to these challenging situations.     

Intentional youth programs: taking theory to practice

Early adolescents benefit most from program opportunities where they can be actively engaged in their own learning and development and where there is a good fit between their developmental needs and the intentional learning opportunities provided by the program. The theoretical framework presented here suggests that the two most important features of an engaging youth program are an intentional ethos of youth development and an intentional strategy to design and implement developmentally appropriate learning experiences. Practical examples from research and community practice are used to illustrate program strategies for early adolescents that emphasize intentional thought, decisions, and actions every step of the way.     

A new approach to investigating spatial variations of disease

Summary.  For rare diseases the observed disease count may exhibit extra Poisson variability, particularly in areas with low or sparse populations. Hence the variance of the estimates of disease risk, the standardized mortality ratios, may be highly unstable. This overdispersion must be taken into account otherwise subsequent maps based on standardized mortality ratios will be misleading and, rather than displaying the true spatial pattern of disease risk, the most extreme values will be highlighted. Neighbouring areas tend to exhibit spatial correlation as they may share more similarities than non-neighbouring areas. The need to address overdispersion and spatial correlation has led to the proposal of Bayesian approaches for smoothing estimates of disease risk. We propose a new model for investigating the spatial variation of disease risks in conjunction with an alternative specification for estimates of disease risk in geographical areas—the multivariate Poisson–gamma model. The main advantages of this new model lie in its simplicity and ability to account naturally for overdispersion and spatial auto-correlation. Exact expressions for important quantities such as expectations, variances and covariances can be easily derived.     

Bivariate prior distributions via branching exchangeable sequences

This paper provides a novel approach to constructing bivariate prior distributions. The idea is based on the notion of partial exchangeability. In particular, in a simple extension of the exchangeable sequence, we create two dependent exchangeable sequences via a branching mechanism. This implies the existence of a bivariate prior distribution.