Wiley’s Contribution to Symbolic Interactionist Theory

History of symbolic interactionism is reviewed from its pragmatist precursors (Peirce, Dewey), through the Idealist philosophical context of George Herbert Mead, to Blumer’s creation of a sociological interactionism. Wiley models interaction among parts of the self to account for both successes and failures of reflexive self-direction. Wiley thus provides a mechanism for agency or will, making these empirical topics via the study of internal dialogue.     

Young-onset dementia: a review of the literature and what it means for clinicians

It is estimated that more than a half million people in the United States are living with young-onset dementia and another half million with mild cognitive impairment, a precursor of dementia. Relatively little has been written about the psychosocial needs of these people, but information can be extrapolated from the literature on dementia in older adults and the developmental tasks and roles of middle age. This article synthesizes this literature and provides information to help psychiatric nurses and other health care professionals better understand individuals living with young-onset dementia.     

College Based Placement Co-ordinators in the United Kingdom: Their Perceptions of Stress

Placement co-ordinators on college-based social work courseshave a demanding task, liaising with students, tutors and agencytraining sections in order to provide appropriate practice learningopportunities. They cope with long established limitations onthe quantity and quality of placements. Therefore, the rolewould appear to be a stressful one. This research examines jobsatisfaction, pressure and constraints, psychological well-being,the impact of the host institution, and some changes that mightalleviate stress. A postal questionnaire was sent to all placementco-ordinators on college-based social work courses in the UK.The findings indicated that small numbers of placement co-ordinatorsexperienced high levels of stress to the point of sufferingfrom ‘borderline’ anxiety and depression. Stressscores for placement co-ordinators as a whole, however, werelower than those of the general UK population. The co-ordinatorsenjoyed considerable autonomy and a reasonable amount of support.Generally, they had positive attitudes towards the institutionswhere they worked. Males tended to emphasize the importanceof the institutional context rather than females. However, aroundhalf of the placement co-ordinators had considered giving uptheir posts; only about a quarter liked their work. Respondentsenjoyed only limited job satisfaction, felt pressurized, subjectto excessive demands and were ambivalent in attitudes aboutmanagers, colleagues, students and practice teachers.     

Establishing Positive Youth Development Approaches in Group Home Settings: Training Implementation and Evaluation

This article reports on a training program for group home supervisors that was designed to utilize positive youth development principles in work with youth transitioning from care to independent living. Over a period of 5 months, eight one-day training sessions took place across one state in the U.S. (Massachusetts) with a total of 186 group care staff in attendance. The evaluation consisted of three components: observation of participant feedback during training, training day post-test, and follow-up with participants 2–3 months after training. Implications of the data, particularly barriers to implementation of training programs, are discussed.     

A Risk Assessment for Occupational Acrylonitrile Exposure Using Epidemiology Data

The extensive data from the Blair et al.((1)) epidemiology study of occupational acrylonitrile exposure among 25460 workers in eight plants in the United States provide an excellent opportunity to update quantitative risk assessments for this widely used commodity chemical. We employ the semiparametric Cox relative risk (RR) regression model with a cumulative exposure metric to model cause-specific mortality from lung cancer and all other causes. The separately estimated cause-specific cumulative hazards are then combined to provide an overall estimate of age-specific mortality risk. Age-specific estimates of the additional risk of lung cancer mortality associated with several plausible occupational exposure scenarios are obtained. For age 70, these estimates are all markedly lower than those generated with the cancer potency estimate provided in the USEPA acrylonitrile risk assessment.((2)) This result is consistent with the failure of recent occupational studies to confirm elevated lung cancer mortality among acrylonitrile-exposed workers as was originally reported by O'Berg,((3)) and it calls attention to the importance of using high-quality epidemiology data in the risk assessment process.     

Context-Sensitive Linking: It's a Small World After All

Linking services that provide seamless access to a library's e-journal collections are becoming increasingly prominent. This article outlines some of the hurdles to seamless linking and discusses the technologies that make linking services possible. These include the Digital Object Identifier, the CrossRef initiative, the development of emerging standards like the OpenURL, resolution servers, and an examination of how these are incorporated into a linking service. The authors interviewed representatives from four companies providing linking services—Ex Libris, Sirsi, Endeavor, and Openly Informatics—and describes features of their systems. Serials Review 2002; 28:267–282.     

Redistributive Policy and Devolution: Is State Administration a Road Block (Grant) to Equitable Access to Federal Funds?

Over the last several decades, block grants have been a keyinstrument by which policy authority is devolved from federalto state governments. Whether the block grant approach producesmore effective redistributive policy management (on equity orefficiency grounds) is an open and central question. We focuson the equity dimension by positing an explanatory frameworkthat links access to federal block grant funding to the transactioncosts associated with intergovernmental grant contracting. Weargue that grant access is a function of both state-level institutionalchoices and the administrative capacity of local governments—whichcombine to influence the salient transaction costs associatedwith grant contracting. We apply our theoretic framework tothe non-entitlement portion of the Community Development BlockGrant (CDBG) program and analyze granting data across distinctinstitutional settings. We find that local administrative capacityis a key to access, indicating that some localities most inneed are least equipped to capture grants, which raises equityconcerns. However, the specific way in which states structurearenas of grant competition can make access more equitable.In short, we show that state-level institutional arrangementscritically affect access to federal block grant funds when thosefunds are allocated through competitive grant contracting tolocal governments.     

Changing College Students’ Financial Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior through Seminar Participation

This pilot study examined the influence of Credit Wise Cats, a financial education seminar presented by Students in Free Enterprise, on the attitudes, knowledge, and intentions toward financial responsibility of college students (N = 93). Findings suggest that the seminar effectively increased students’ financial knowledge, increased responsible attitudes toward credit and decreased avoidant attitudes towards credit from pre-test to post-test. At post-test, students reported intending to engage in significantly more effective financial behaviors and fewer risky financial behaviors. Finally, demographic factors (e.g., gender and employment status) predicted students’ financial knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. These results suggest that a seminar format may be useful in reaching a wider audience of college students and, thus, warrants future longitudinal evaluation.