回顾与展望:美国和平学的起源和发展

和平学是一个相对新兴和发展中的学科。从研究角度而言,和平学主要起源于欧洲国家,但大部分和平学课程却首先出现在美国。冷战后期,美国的和平学课程主要关注结构性、家庭和社会内部暴力问题。和平学的研究范围包括人际关系、组织关系和社会关系,超越了民族国家的界限,其价值基础和行动目的就是替代暴力。和平学的研究面临各种挑战,主要包括:关于和平的定义过分模糊;行政方面的支持不够;和平学还遭到政治偏见的批评。和平学有助于政治和经济政策的变化,为了促进这样的一个长时期的根本变化,需要营造一种和平的文化。     

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.     

Living in the city: school friendships,diversity and the middle classes

Much of the literature on the urban middle classes describes processes of both affiliation (often to the localities) and disaffiliation (often from some of the non‐middle‐class residents). In this paper, we consider this situation from a different position, drawing on research exploring whether and how children and adults living in diverse localities develop friendships with those different to themselves in terms of social class and ethnicity. This paper focuses on the interviews with the ethnically diverse, but predominantly white British, middle‐class parent participants, considering their attitudes towards social and cultural difference. We emphasize the importance of highlighting inequalities that arise from social class and its intersection with ethnicity in analyses of complex urban populations. The paper's contribution is, first, to examine processes of clustering amongst the white British middle‐class parents, particularly in relation to social class. Second, we contrast this process, and its moments of reflection and unease, with the more deliberate and purposeful efforts of one middle‐class, Bangladeshi‐origin mother who engages in active labour to facilitate relationships across social and ethnic difference.     

The Clinical Relevance of Divergence in Adolescent–Parent Reports of Adolescent Depression and Anxiety

This study examines associations between adolescent problem behaviors and adolescent–parent disagreement in ratings of adolescent depression and anxiety symptoms. Adolescent–parent dyads (N?=?463; mean age?=?12.68 years; 48.5% female; 78.2% White and 21.8% non-White) reported on adolescent depression and anxiety using parallel scales from the Youth Self Report (Achenbach et al., J Emot Behav Disord 10:194–203, 2002) and the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach and Rescorla, The manual for the ASEBA school-age forms & profiles, University of Vermont, Research Center for Children, Youth, and Families, Burlington, 2001) across four waves. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine the relationship between discrepancy scores and adolescent behavioral outcomes: incidence of adolescent past-year substance use (alcohol use, binge drinking, marijuana use, and nonmedical use of controlled medications), delinquency, self-harm behavior, and aggression. Findings showed that larger adolescent–parent divergence scores of depression were associated with higher odds of marijuana use, non-medical use of controlled medications, alcohol use, binge drinking, in-school delinquency, illegal behavior, self-harm behavior, and clinically significant levels of aggressive behavior. Results further revealed that larger divergence scores on anxiety were associated with higher odds of in-school delinquency, illegal behavior, self-harm behavior, and clinically significant levels of aggressive behavior. Adolescent–parent reporting discrepancy on adolescent’s depression and anxiety symptoms may be indicative of adolescent’s social, emotional, and behavioral problems, and the disagreement may signal further need for assessment of the adolescent.     

Evaluation of an Online Group Intervention to Improve Test-Taking Self-Efficacy and Reduce Licensure Test Anxiety

We evaluated whether a synchronous online group intervention, using the Association for Social Work Boards Group Review Practice Test© items, increased students’ LMSW licensure test-taking confidence and decreased their test anxiety. A non-equivalent comparison group study was used to measure change in 59 graduate students’ confidence in test-taking and test anxiety. Almost 45% of students reported test anxiety in the clinical range at pretest. Using a repeated measures GLM, we found that students in the intervention group experienced a significant increase in confidence from pretest posttest. For overall anxiety, impairment anxiety, and worry anxiety, students in the intervention group experienced less anxiety over time, and students in the comparison group experienced more anxiety over time. Implications for programs are discussed.     

Resilience in Non-Offending Mothers of Children Who Have Reported Experiencing Sexual Abuse

Growing evidence shows that non-offending mothers experience significant loss and trauma following their child reporting experiencing sexual abuse. Maternal support offered to sexually abused children following disclosure can be a crucial factor in children’s recovery. Although mothers are often seen as playing a central role in facilitating the recovery of their sexually abused child, there has been little focus on their own needs and profiles. This present study aimed to increase our understanding of the diversity of profiles of non-offending mothers of sexually abused children by exploring the differences in psychosocial traits of non-offending mothers (N = 68; age range 28–67 years) reporting higher and lower resilience.

The mediating role of these psychosocial factors on the relationship between resilience and psychological distress will also be explored. Results found that non-offending mothers in the higher resilience group reported higher levels of positive reappraisal, self-compassion, social support, and significantly lower levels of psychological distress compared to non-offending mothers in the lower resilience group. Additionally, multiple mediation analysis indicated positive reappraisal, self-compassion, and social support to be significant mediators of the relationship between resilience and psychological distress. Increased levels of self-compassion and social support were found to be predictive of lowered psychological distress, while increased positive reappraisal predicted increased psychological distress. The findings of the present study provide support for the targeting of the psychosocial factors such as self-compassion, social support, and positive reappraisal in interventions for non-offending mothers in an effort to promote resilience.     

Exploratory study of the use of community treatment orders with clients of an Ontario ACT team

ABSTRACT

Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) have raised questions about coercion, lack of autonomy, and effectiveness in reducing hospitalizations and improving service users’ quality of life. This study examined the experiences of clients and clinicians when CTOs are used in combination with Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) in a recovery oriented approach. Eleven clients who were or had previously been on a CTO and eight ACT clinicians were interviewed. Although most clients had negative feelings about CTOs, some acknowledged their lives had improved. Clinicians reported that the decision to employ a CTO is sometimes debated within the team but they agreed that combining CTOs and ACT resulted in regular access to mental health supports, fewer hospitalizations and overall improvement of quality of life for their clients.     

Sex Ratio and Family Structure in the Nonmetropolitan United States

The sex ratio hypothesis maintains that the ratio of marriageable men to marriageable women can have major implications for family formation and structure. Despite extensive research attention, the sex ratio hypothesis has yet to be tested on general nonmetropolitan populations. This study of nonmetropolitan counties in the United States found strong support for the sex ratio hypothesis. Counties with low sex ratios (shortage of men) had lower proportions of married couple households and a corresponding higher proportion of female-headed households. These low sex ratio counties also had fewer adults married, and a lower proportion of their children living in married couple households with a higher proportion of children living in female-headed households.