Health-Promoting Influences of the Family on Late Adolescent Functioning

This study examined whether potentially modifiable health-promoting family factors during mid-adolescence (age 15) predicted adaptive functioning in late adolescence (age 18) among members of a working-class community cohort. Family factors included feeling valued in the family, cohesion, and social support. Late adolescent outcomes covered developmentally salient areas: academic functioning; mental health; suicidal behavior; and social, psychological, and behavioral functioning. Our findings demonstrate that a positive adolescent family milieu is related to both adaptive outcomes and a reduced likelihood of serious difficulties, including mental and behavior problems. Although each hypothesized health-promoting factor was significantly associated with multiple areas of age 18 functioning, the patterns of association differed by type of family factor. Taken together, results suggest that the family remains an important social context during mid-adolescence and that to be most effective programs designed by practitioners aimed at strengthening families should target multiple features of the family environment.     

Importance of Land,family and culture for a good life: Remote Aboriginal people with disability and carers

Worldwide health and social outcomes of Indigenous people are poorer than those of non-Indigenous. In Australia, the Indigenous population experience disability at more than twice the rate of the non-Indigenous population, and a quarter live in geographically remote areas. The challenges associated with accessing services and supports in remote communities can impact on a good life for Aboriginal people with disability. Interviews were conducted with Aboriginal people (An angu) with disability and family carers from remote Central Australian communities and service workers. Thematic data analysis determined factors An angu viewed as essential to living a good life: connection to their Lands, being with family and engaging in cultural activities. Workers' support for a good life involves “Proper Way” help and an understanding of An angu culture. Three culturally relevant strengths-based concepts are important in supporting An angu with disability to live a good life: being connected to the Lands and family, sharing together and working together.     

Lundestad,G.: East,West, North,South: Major Developments in International Relations since 1945

RJB Review of Journals and Books

Lundestad, G.: East, West, North, South: Major Developments in International Relations since 1945     

Predicting 2-year marital satisfaction from partners' discussion of their marriage checkup

This study tested whether the observed marital interactions of partners following a marriage checkup predicted marital satisfaction 2 years later. In addition, this study examined whether recommendations to pursue therapy predicted subsequent treatment seeking and whether changes in marital distress following the checkup remained stable over 2 years. Results suggest that the affective tone of a couple's interaction predicts later marital satisfaction. Further, receiving a treatment recommendation predicted subsequent treatment seeking for wives. Finally, support was found for the hypothesis that changes in marital distress are self-sustaining.     

Violence and hostility among families of Vietnam veterans with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder

The current study provides a portrait of emotional-behavioral functioning within a small sample of Vietnam veterans with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), their partners, and older adolescent and adult children. Veterans, their partners and children reported moderate-low to moderate-high levels of violent behavior. In addition, partner and veteran hostility scores were elevated relative to gender and age matched norms. Partners also reported heightened levels of psychological maltreatment by veterans. Veterans' combat exposure was positively correlated with hostility and violent behavior among children but unrelated to partner variables. Veterans' reports of PTSD symptoms were positively associated with reports of hostility and violence among children, and hostility and general psychological distress among partners. Veterans' violent behavior was also positively correlated with children's violent behavior, but did not yield significant correlations with other child or partner variables. Findings are discussed in relation to prior work and directions for future research are addressed.     

Availability of emergency contraceptive pills at university and college student health centers

The author used the stages of change model to determine how ready student health centers at surveyed universities and colleges were to make emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) available to students. Of the 358 centers that responded, 52.2% offered ECPs and 47.8% did not. The benefits of offering ECPs were listed as pregnancy prevention, the opportunity to introduce students to traditional contraception methods, and students' appreciation. Barriers to offering ECPs included institutions' religious affiliations, clinic and administrative staff objections, inability to prescribe or dispense medications, fear of liability, concern that ECPs would undermine students' use of traditional contraception methods, and no expressed need. Whether ECPs were available was associated with demographic characteristics of the institutions that responded, including geographic region, type of institution, size of student population, and students' status as commuter or on-campus residents.     

Perceived verbal conflict behaviors associated with physical aggression and sexual coercion in dating relationships: a gender-sensitive analysis

We studied perceived partner verbal behaviors associated with participants' use of dating aggression. Men's reports of their partners' demanding, controlling, and psychologically abusive behaviors during conflicts were expected to predict men's perpetration against partners. In contrast, women's reports of their partners' withdrawal were expected to predict women's perpetration. Data were collected from heterosexual undergraduates (N = 223) in exclusive dating relationships. Participants' reports of partner demands and partner psychological abuse were associated with participants' use of physical aggression and sexual coercion. Reports of partner withdrawal and partner controlling behaviors were associated with participants' sexual coercion only. Significant moderating effects of gender emerged. As expected, partner demands, controlling behaviors, and psychological abuse were associated with physical aggression and sexual coercion in men, but not women. Partner withdrawal was associated with sexual coercion in both women and men. We conclude that gender-sensitive approaches are necessary to understand and prevent verbal conflict patterns associated with physical aggression and sexual coercion in intimate relationships.     

Dilemmas of 'community' in post-emergency Rwanda

This paper examines social relations and social support in communities in Rwanda in the aftermath of genocide. Communities in Rwanda have experienced unprecedented fragmentation and reconstitution as a result of death, exile and the massive repatriation of refugees. A social education methodology was used to examine the feasibility of mobilising communities to support vulnerable children. This prompted questions about what is ‘community’ and the need to describe community rather than working from an aspirational model of what community ‘should be’. In workshops, chronic poverty and reconstituted family structures emerged as significant barriers to collective responsibility. The paper explores fundamental issues of the impact of violence on social identity in communities. Rwandan communities are struggling in their reconstruction efforts where the overwhelming concern is ‘to get on with it’. This paper raises the tension that is experienced in the development of community-based initiatives in which the voicing of ‘difference’ in communities is politically and psychologically threatening yet where such differences are fundamentally embedded in social relations and practice. La présente étude considère les relations sociales et les appuis sociaux au Rwanda parmi les séquelles du génocide. Les communautés du Rwanda ont expérimenté une fragmentation et une reconstitution sans précédent à cause du nombre des morts, du départ en exil et du retour en masse des réfugiés. Une méthodologie puisée dans l'éducation sociale a été employée pour examiner les possibilités de la mobilisation des communautés afin de soutenir des enfants en situation vulnérable. Elle a suscité des débats au sujet de la définition d'une ‘communauté’ et du besoin de la décrire au lieu de partir d'un modèle basé sur des aspirations orientées vers ce que ‘doit être’ une communauté. Pendant les ateliers réunis la pauvreté chronique et les structures familiales reconstituées ont été identifées comme des barrières d'importance contre la responsabilité collective. La présente étude explore les questions de base au sujet de l'influence de la violence sur l'identité sociale dans une communauté. Les communautés rwandaises poursuivent à grand-peine leurs luttes pour achever la reconstruction, et leur préoccupation principale est d'en finir aussi vite que possible. La présente étude souligne les tensions senties quand il s'agit de développer des initiatives basées dans la communauté là où l'expression de ‘différence’ dans les commaunautés constitue une menace sur le plan politique et psychologique, mais dans lesquelles de telles différences se trouvent néanmoins au coeur des relations et des pratiques sociales.