Teaching Children with Autism to Mand for Information Using “Why?” as a Function of Denied Access

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - The current study evaluated a procedure used to teach two children with autism to ask “why” questions maintained by causal information about an event....     

Monitoring Perceptions of the Causes of Poverty in South Africa

This study explored how people perceive the causes of poverty. Literature revealed that there are three broad theoretical explanations of perceptions of the causes of poverty, namely individualistic explanations, where blame is placed squarely on the poor themselves; structural explanations, where poverty is blamed on external social and economic forces; and fatalistic explanations, which attribute poverty to factors such as bad luck or illness. To examine South Africans perceptions according to these dimensions secondary analysis was employed on one of the Human Sciences Research Council’s (HSRC) national representative client surveys. Approximately 3,498 respondents across South Africa were surveyed between 18 April and 30 May 2006. The bivariate analysis revealed that South Africans in general attribute poverty to structural over individualistic and fatalistic dimensions of poverty. Ordinary least square regressions revealed that these perceptions of poverty interacted with a host of socio-demographic and economic variables such as race and peoples’ lived experiences of poverty. In this regard, all three ordinary least square regressions showed that lived poverty had a significant impact in predicting respectively structural, individualistic and fatalistic perceptions of the causes of poverty. The second regression predicted individualistic perceptions and showed that being white was the most significant predictor. The third regression predicted fatalistic perceptions and established that being coloured was the most significant predictor.     

Examining Foundations of Qualitative Research: A Review of Social Work Dissertations, 2008–2010

This study examined the treatment of epistemology and methodological rigor in qualitative social work dissertations. Template-based review was conducted on a random sample of 75 dissertations completed between 2008 and 2010. For each dissertation, we noted the presence or absence of four markers of epistemology: theory, paradigm, reflexivity, and power. We also examined methods choices and the strategies used for ensuring rigor. Results suggested that most (96%) doctoral students completing qualitative dissertations address theory, but fewer refer to reflexivity (45%), paradigm (13%), or power dynamics (8%). Students typically used multiple strategies for ensuring rigor. Grounded theory and phenomenology were the most popular methods choices, followed by case studies, ethnography, or narrative methods. Implications for doctoral education are offered.     

Associations of Mothers' Friendship Quality with Adolescents' Friendship Quality and Emotional Adjustment

Little research has examined the association of parents' friendships with adolescent's well‐being, perhaps because the association was considered too distal. However, developmental theories suggest that contexts in which parents, but not their children, are situated may be related to child development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979 , 1986 ). The current work examined associations between the quality of mothers' own friendships and their adolescent children's friendship quality and emotional adjustment. Fifth‐, eighth‐, and eleventh‐graders (N = 172) whose mothers' friendships were characterized by conflict and antagonism reported having friendships that were high in negative friendship qualities as well as elevated internalizing symptoms. These associations held after controlling for mother–child relationship quality, suggesting that mothers' friendships may have a unique association with adolescents' adjustment.     

A Framework for Use with Racially and Culturally Integrated Families: The Cultural-Racial Identity Model as Applied to Transracial Adoption

A new model for understanding and depicting the unique identity experiences of those reared in racially and/or culturally integrated families is presented. The model accountsfor heterogeneity within groups defined by their racially integrated families. For the purpose of describing and presenting the model, it was applied to the unique experiences of transracial adoptees. The model allows distinctions to be made between racial identity and cultural identity. These distinctions comprise 16 proposed identities of transracial adoptees and are made up of the degrees to which they have knowledge of, awareness of, competence within, and comfort with their own racial group’s culture, their parents’ racial group’s culture, and multiple cultures as well as the degree to which they are comfortable with their racial group membership and with those belonging to their own racial group, their parents’ racial group, and multiple racial groups. A modelfor understanding the role of parents, extended families, and social and environmental contexts was also presented as a guide for demonstrating the factors impacting the culturalracial identities of transracial adoptees or others from racially and/or culturally integrated families.     

Reproductions of global security: accounting for the private security household

ABSTRACT

This article shows how private security households exist at the nexus of two foundational logics of contemporary warfare—militarism and neoliberalism. The celebration of neoliberalism and normalization of militarism allow the private security industry to draw upon the labor of eager contractors and their supportive spouses. This article develops a feminist analysis of the role of the private security household in global security assemblages. In what ways are households connected to the outsourcing of security work to Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs), and how are these connections gendered? Through interviews with female spouses of former UK Special Air Services soldiers, now private security contractors, we demonstrate how the household is both silenced and yet indispensable to how PMSCs operate and how liberal states conduct war. These spouses supported the transition from military service to private security work, managed the household, and planned their careers or sacrificed them to accommodate their husband’s security work. Their gendered labor was conditioned by former military life but animated by neoliberal market logics. For the most part, the women we interviewed normalized the militarized values of their husband’s work and celebrated the freedom and financial rewards this type of security work brought.     

Introduction

This research, a secondary analysis of data obtained from the North Carolina Study of Environmental Preferences, explored the interrelationships between personal/demographic variables (age, income, health, educational level, marital status) and family interaction, friendship interaction, and level of community involvement. The relationship of these variables to life satisfaction was then explored through regression analysis. Findings indicated rhe importance of friendship and the relative unimportance of family and community involvement as predictors of life satisfaction. These findings are of particular theoretical import in that they address unresolved questions concerning the roles of these social factors in the lives of the elderly. The implications for social research, social policy, and social work practice are discussed.