Pubertal Timing and Adolescent Substance Initiation

We tested 3 competing hypotheses regarding the relation between pubertal timing and substance initiation in adolescence: the early timing, off-time, and stressful change hypotheses. We used longitudinal data from the Developmental Pathways Project (N = 521). Youth reported whether they had ever tried alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana at baseline, and then again at 6-, 12-, 18-, 24-, 36-, and 72-month follow-up interviews. We estimated interval censored parametric survival models and tested interactions between pubertal timing and gender and race variables. We found robust support for the early timing hypothesis, but no support for the off-time and the stressful change hypotheses.     

State of the science on prevention of elder abuse and lessons learned from child abuse and domestic violence prevention: Toward a conceptual framework for research

ABSTRACT

The goal of this review is to discuss the state of the science in elder abuse prevention. Findings from evidence-based programs to reduce elder abuse are discussed, drawing from findings and insights from evidence-based programs for child maltreatment and domestic/intimate partner violence. A conceptual measurement model for the study of elder abuse is presented and linked to possible measures of risk factors and outcomes. Advances in neuroscience in child maltreatment and novel measurement strategies for outcome assessment are presented.     

Civil Society Organizations in the Informal Settlements of Buenos Aires: Service Providers and Forces for Change

The objective of this paper is to analyze the historical roots and contribution to human development of civil society organizations in marginalized communities based on fieldwork undertaken in seven informal settlements of the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The paper provides evidence of a dense network of organizations whose principal function is the provision of social services, especially food assistance, through a complementary relationship with the state. The current effectiveness of the settlements’ representative organizations—the principal vehicles through which community members voice their collective demands—is limited by a mix of factors intimately related to civil society–state relations, including irregularities in election processes, conflicts between organizations, and lack of transparency in the allocation of public resources. The paper concludes that true empowerment of these communities to act as a unified force for change requires the strengthening of neighborhood organizations and greater government openness to civil society participation in public decision-making processes.     

Coping with Hobgoblins: Rethinking Journals Processing in the E-Journals Environment at the University of South Florida

Many libraries grapple with how to develop new skills for processing electronic journals, while still handling the print format. Journals in a print format have always been complex, and adding the electronic component has made them more so. Few libraries are increasing staff to handle this workload. The University of South Florida Tampa Library has tried a number of workflow changes - not always successfully - to handle this transition. This paper will explore these changes, explain why some were not successful and why others have resulted in efficiencies, and will conclude with lessons learned that could benefit others.     

Choosing race: Multiracial ancestry and identification

Social scientists have become increasingly interested in the racial identification choices of multiracial individuals, partly as a result of the federal government’s new “check all that apply” method of racial identification. However, the majority of work to date has narrowly defined the population of multiracial individuals as the “biracial” children of single-race parents. In this article, we use the open-ended ancestry questions on the 1990 and 2000 5% samples of the US Census to identify a multiracial population that is potentially broader in its understanding of multiraciality. Relative to other studies, we find stronger historical continuity in the patterns of hypodescent and hyperdescent for part-black and part-American Indian ancestry individuals respectively, while we find that multiple-race identification is the modal category for those of part-Asian ancestry. We interpret this as evidence of a new, more flexible classification regime for groups rooted in more recent immigration. Our results suggest that future work on multiracial identification must pay closer attention to the varied histories of specific multiracial ancestry groups.     

Influences of patient, service program, and clinician characteristics on judgments of functioning and treatment recommendations

The study examines the interactions among (a) type of service program (inpatient, partial hospital, and outpatient) (b) patient characteristics (social support, cooperativeness with treatment, and whether the symptoms of aggression are directed externally toward others or internally toward self), and (c) the type of level of functioning scale used (grossly versus behaviorally anchored scales) on two sets of dependent measures: (1) clinicians' judgments of patient level of functioning and (2) the clinicians' recommendations for initial treatment modality (inpatient, partial hospitalization, or outpatient individual or group therapy). Seventy-eight clinicians made judgments on 16 analogue cases systematically varied on the three patient variables. Forty-six clinicians worked in programs regularly using a behaviorally anchored functioning scale; of these, 27 made their level of functioning ratings with the nine point scale used by their programs, 19 used a grossly anchored scale (from “extreme dysfunction” to “no dysfunction”). The remaining 32 clinicians, from programs using structured scales, used the grossly anchored scale. Clinicians who used the behaviorally anchored scale gave higher level of functioning ratings overall and were less influenced by differences in the patient variables manipulated in the case vignettes. Male and female clinicians showed different effects of the patient social support variable. Treatment recommendations were influenced by the patient variables and by the type of service setting in which the clinician was working.     

A Dedicated Diversity Course or an Infusion Model? Exploring Which Strategy Is More Effective in Social Work Pedagogy

The Council on Social Work Education requires schools of social work to meet diversity and social justice competencies. Many MSW programs meet these standards by having either a dedicated diversity and social justice course, or by using some form of diversity and social justice curricular infusion. The current study explored which of these strategies is more effective. Two-hundred and eighty-six MSW students participated in this quasi-experimental design (diversity-83; infusion-97; no diversity/no infusion-106), and were assessed on multiple indices of cultural responsiveness and social justice awareness. Our findings were mixed, but indicated that a dedicated diversity and social justice course is effective at increasing students' cultural responsiveness and social justice awareness. Implications for social work pedagogy are discussed.     

Narratives of fathering young children in Britain: linking quantitative and qualitative analyses

The paper examines how in Britain the time fathers and couples spend in employment shifts in the first years of children’s lives, the conditions under which this happens and how fathers feel about and experience time with their families and time in paid work. In order to achieve these aims new longitudinal analysis of the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is carried out together with secondary analysis of narrative case studies drawn from a qualitative study of Fatherhood across the Generations. By linking these datasets the paper examines the potential for corroboration and complementarity between different types of data. Further, it seeks to show how qualitative cases corroborate, elaborate and expand on the main employment trajectories in the MCS population of fathers and how these extend understandings of fathers’ experience of time within families.     

An Insider View: Knowledge and Opinions of Welfare From African American Girls in Poverty

This article presents African American adolescent girls' views of welfare and welfare reform at the cusp of welfare legislation in 1996. Interview data from a random sample of poor and low-income families indicate that adolescents have a limited knowledge of basic welfare rules. Low-income girls see welfare as an important safety net, yet they also have negative views of welfare recipients and the effects of welfare on recipients. The vast majority express agreement with work requirements, and about half believe that a discontinuation of welfare would change adolescent sexual and childbearingbehaviors. These results raise the possibility that adolescents are responding to the rhetoric and "signals" of welfare reform; alternatively, they may simply be expressing typical adolescent egocentrism and optimism.