An Explanatory Model of Dating Violence Risk Factors in Spanish Adolescents

Dating violence is a serious public health issue that needs further understanding in terms of risk factors that may be involved in it. The main goal of this study was to test a mediational model of dating violence risk factors. The sample was composed of 477 secondary and college students from Spain (59% females). A dynamic developmental explanatory model considering aggressiveness, insecure attachment, interparental conflict, and peer dating violence was tested using a multigroup structural equation model. Aggressiveness partially mediated the relation between anxious attachment and dating violence and fully mediated the association between interparental conflict resolution and dating violence. Furthermore, perceived peer dating violence was a direct predictor of dating violence. Implications for prevention and intervention plans are discussed.     

How Moroccan‐Dutch parents learn in communities of practice: Evaluating a bottom‐up parenting programme

Research shows that top‐down‐designed parenting programmes do not always meet the needs of postmigration parents. Bottom‐up programmes by migrant organizations hold a promise to fill this gap; however, research about these programmes and appropriate evaluation methodologies is scarce. Drawing upon Wenger's ( 2010 ) “communities of practice,” this paper explores an alternative perspective on parenting programme evaluation. Findings are presented from a study looking into social learning processes of postmigration parents who participated in a bottom‐up programme about raising teenagers in urban areas. Using an ethnographically inspired method combined with a preprogramme and postprogramme design, 115 Moroccan‐Dutch mothers and fathers from 15 programme groups participated. Results show that the programme provided a social learning space in which parents used themselves as resources to learn collectively about parenting. Moreover, parents consciously engaged in learning interactions across learning spaces stretched into their social networks. These analyses showed how parents' development of “learning citizenship” (Wenger, 2009 ) provides us with insight in collective learning dimensions present in a bottom‐up parenting programme, which is often not included in evaluation studies. Implications for practitioners as facilitators of parents' collective learning are presented.     

Multivariate log-skewed distributions with normal kernel and their applications

We introduce two classes of multivariate log-skewed distributions with normal kernel: the log canonical fundamental skew-normal (log-CFUSN) and the log unified skew-normal. We also discuss some properties of the log-CFUSN family of distributions. These new classes of log-skewed distributions include the log-normal and multivariate log-skew normal families as particular cases. We discuss some issues related to Bayesian inference in the log-CFUSN family of distributions, mainly we focus on how to model the prior uncertainty about the skewing parameter. Based on the stochastic representation of the log-CFUSN family, we propose a data augmentation strategy for sampling from the posterior distributions. This proposed family is used to analyse the US national monthly precipitation data. We conclude that a high-dimensional skewing function lead to a better model fit.     

Relationships of Online Social Comparison and Parenting Satisfaction among New Mothers: The Mediating Roles of Belonging and Emotion

New mothers frequently seek information and community on social networking sites as they seek to establish their parenting practices. As social networking sites for mothers (SNSM) present an environmental influence on the family system, a mother’s experience with social comparison, belonging, and emotion on SNSM can bear significant influence over her satisfaction with her parenting. The present study utilized survey methods to explore mothers’ (n= 336) reported experiences of these variables. We use structural equation modeling to specify a model with good fit, which indicated that greater downward comparison directly related to greater parenting satisfaction, with belonging and negative emotion as mediating indirect relationships. Implications for family communication and mothers’ SNSM practices are discussed.     

Snake parasitism in an urban old-growth forest

Urban-associated changes can have immediate or long-term consequences on animal populations. Such changes may be assessed through parasite prevalence and abundance in wildlife hosts, as urbanization can influence parasitism and disease transmission in wildlife. Snakes are widespread and diverse vertebrates that often persist in urban environments; however, parasitism of snakes in urban environments has yet to be studied, leaving the roles of snakes in parasite transmission uncharacterized. Field ecology, microscopy, molecular techniques, and geographic information science (GIS) were integrated to characterize parasitism of snakes in an urban old-growth forest park. The species, sex, mass, length, location, and prevalence of ecto-, hemo-, and fecal parasites were determined for 34 snakes of 6 species. Ectoparasites (mite), hemoparasites (Hepatozoon spp.), and fecal parasites (Entamoeba spp., Trichomonas spp., Strongloides spp., and an unidentified helminth) were detected in snakes and 64.7?% of snakes were infected by at least one of these parasites. Parasite infections were generally not related to the sex, age, or body condition of snakes. The locations of infected snakes were used to produce risk maps indicating where parasite prevalence is predicted to be greatest. The analysis of these maps indicated that snakes with fecal parasites were closer than non-infected snakes to the edge of the forest. This study confirms that snakes may be important parasite hosts or reservoirs in parasite transmission pathways in urban environments and it provides an integrative multidisciplinary approach that may be used to monitor parasitism dynamics in other urban wildlife areas.     

The Meaning of Trust for Brazilians with Higher Education

The validity of the World Values Survey (WVS) question used to measure trust is disputed over and this article is intended to present the results of an online survey, conducted in Brazil, which tested the meaning of the term trust in the WVS question. The surveyed population is entirely Brazilian and the majority has received some form of higher education. The results of the survey partially corroborate the validity of the WVS and partially deny it. Within the results of this survey there are predominantly two dominant perspectives represented within the surveyed population including: respondents who think in friends and relatives as part of most people have a higher probability of also saying to trust most people which means that different people may be answering slightly different questions. However, respondents who say that trust most people have higher levels of trust in people in general than in family if compared with respondents who say to not trust most people which is in accordance with the expectation that the question adequately measures generalized interpersonal trust.     

Gambling-related problems across life domains: an exploratory study of non-treatment-seeking weekly gamblers

This study uses content analysis to provide a qualitative exploration of how life roles are affected by frequent (i.e. at least weekly) gambling, based on in-depth interviews with a community sample of 161 non-treatment-seeking frequent gamblers. Over half (51.6%) of the participants indicated problems associated with gambling and 131 examples were identified. The majority of problems were relational (50.4%), followed by financial (19.8%), work (13.7%), and school related (8.4%). Slightly less than half of participants (41.7%) reported losses due to gambling and 92 examples were provided. The most frequently reported loss was identity related (54.3%), which included self-esteem/shame (38.0%), estrangement from family (34.0%), estrangement from friends (16.0%), and estrangement from work colleagues (6.0%). Additional losses included health (29.3%) and financial (8.7%). Almost two-thirds of participants (64.6%) reported difficulty concentrating in family (18.4%), work (16.8%), and school (9.6%) activities, whereas general concentration problems comprised an additional 48.8% of the examples provided. Half of participants (49.1%) discussed behavioral withdrawal due to gambling, which included withdrawal from work (44.3%), relationships (24.5%), school (15.1%), and personal (6.6%) activities. These findings paint a complex picture of how gambling interferes with different life roles for some frequent gamblers, identifying important areas for future research and practice.     

Reflective Supervision for Child Protection Practice – Reaching Beneath the Surface

This paper describes a model of reflective supervision for child protection practice that is informed by psychoanalytic theory. Eileen Munro promotes the idea of depth in practice, referring to the skills and knowledge required to undertake the work. Her reports highlight the importance of supervision to provide a thinking space for practitioners where reflection can take place. This paper will explore the importance of supervision in more depth and describe how psychoanalytic ideas can help us understand the complexities of our work with families, anchoring us to a solid theoretical base and helping to make sense of the maelstrom of feelings that are stirred in us as well as in our colleagues and clients.     

At the threshold of retirement: From all-absorbing relations to self-actualization

To investigate the complexities of the retirement process, the present article draws on a case study of Eva, a Swedish woman who “awakened” from all-absorbing relations. It considers the ways in which retirement can enable liberation from patriarchal kinship structures and embodied values of respectability. The aim is to illuminate how deep, embodied values can become conscious and explicit during precarious life situations and transitional phases. The relation between the Swedish welfare state, an I-we balance, and gender equity values are illuminated. These analytical dimensions support the analysis by providing insights into the ways in which individuals embody and use cultural and social structures when they aim to manage unpredictability and to create change toward self-actualization.     

Sport and disability: Pistorius does not fit with the categories

Oscar Pistorius presents a major issue to sports organisations, as exposed in the media. First and foremost, media wrongly perceive him as the first disabled athlete to participate in the Olympic Games. Second, they openly question the legitimacy of his participation mainly based on the inequity introduced by his prosthetic legs. Content analysis, in English and French, of written press, International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) texts, from 2004 to 2012, confirms that Pistorius presents a new puzzle to sports organizations. This is partly because they are not able to determine whether his performances are a result of his body strength or if they are biased by his artificial limbs. Furthermore, when he is competing against able-bodied athletes, sports organizsations put him in a ‘monstrous’ position. Similarly, while categorising him as an ‘athlete’ they do not grant him the characteristic feature of this category: certified comparability of performances to ultimately establish ranks.