Violence Exposure Among Children of Incarcerated Mothers

Social workers are becoming increasingly aware of the unique experiences faced by children of incarcerated parents. Little is known, however, about their experiences prior to their parents being incarcerated. Using data from a broader study of incarcerated women, we examined women’s accounts of their children’s exposure to violence prior to maternal incarceration. Open-ended interviews addressed family and relationship history, physical and psychological victimization, lifetime delinquency and crime, and interactions with service and justice systems. Interviews were analyzed using ATLAS/ti software and a grounded-theory approach. The emergent themes revealed a myriad of consequences experienced by the children, including child witnessing of violence, emotional sequelae, bodily harm from abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, and birth defects from prenatal violence. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Caregiver Emotional Expressiveness,Child Emotion Regulation,and Child Behavior Problems among Head Start Families

The present study examined the relationships between caregivers' self‐reported positive and negative emotional expressiveness, observer assessments of children's emotion regulation, and teachers' reports of children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors in a sample of 97 primarily African American and Hispanic Head Start families. Results indicated that higher caregiver negativity and lower child emotion regulation independently predicted more internalizing behavior problems in children. Additionally, children's externalizing behavior problems were negatively predicted by caregivers' self‐reports of positive emotional expressiveness. Importantly, results also suggested that caregivers' emotional expressiveness and children's behavioral problems may be non‐linearly related, and that child gender may play an important moderating role. These results emphasize the importance of family emotional climate and child emotion regulation in the behavioral development of preschool‐age children, and highlight the need for improved theoretical and practical understanding of socioemotional development in diverse populations.     

Evidence-based treatments for trauma among culturally diverse foster care youth: Treatment retention and outcomes

This study describes the implementation of three evidence-based treatments addressing traumatic stress symptoms within a wraparound foster care program in Illinois. Child–Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), and Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS) were implemented with a racially diverse sample of youth ages 3–18 at six agencies. Culturally sensitive adaptations were made to treatment approaches to improve client retention and outcomes. Data analyses revealed no racial differences in retention in the program and no differences in outcomes between minority youth exposed to the intervention and other participants. All three evidence-based treatments were effective in reducing symptoms and improving functioning among minority youth. Implementation issues, including challenges and culturally competent accommodations, are discussed.     

THE "ALIENATED" PARTNER: RESPONSES TO TRADITIONAL THERAPIES FOR ADULT SEX ABUSE SURVIVORS

Childhood sexual abuse affects both survivors and partners; however, the common therapy modalities for survivors (individual and individual group therapy exclude their partners. In-depth interviews with the husbands of survivors were used to examine partner issues around the survivor's therapy. Several thems, both positive and negative, emerged from the qualitative analysis of the in-depth interviews. The authors suggest that therapists should consider integration conjoint couple therapy as an adjunct to, not a replacement for the traditional modalities of individual and individual group therapy for adult survivors.     

The incorporation of gender scholarship into sociology

The prospects of an intellectual revolution in sociology informed in part by a feminist perspective loomed large in the early 1970s. Following Ward and Grant's (1985) empirical examination of gender and feminist scholarship in sociology journals between 1974 and 1983, our research provides an empirical assessment of the “second ten years” after the feminist critique of the discipline, 1984–1993. Specifically, we examine the incorporation of gender-content scholarship into mainstream sociology journals. Our research also assesses the extent to which gender-content scholarship published in these journals is feminist-oriented or not and the extent to which this is influenced by the sex of authors, the type of journal, and the sex composition of editorships and editorial boards. Our findings indicate that although there were more gender- and feminist-oriented articles published in the recent ten-year period, proportionally there were fewer feminist-oriented articles than in the previous ten-year period. Our findings suggest that a feminist revolution in sociology is not likely to occur anytime soon, although the assimilation of feminist scholarship into sociology is occurring along the lines of other critical intellectual movements in recent decades. David V. Waller current research focuses on intellectual and social changes in the social sciences including the impact of electronic journals on communication among scientists, and on the geopolitical and economic determinants of change in the contemporary world system. Dana Dunn has authored articles on gender stratification, sex-based earnings inequality, and women in political office, and is editor of Workplace/Women's Place, a textbook addressing women's experiences in the workplace. Please direct all correspondence to David V. Waller, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Box 19599, University of Texas, Arlington, TX 76019 or to Waller@uta.edu.     

Gendered Organizations: Progress and Prospects

In this paper, we explore the context for the emergence of a theory of gendered organizations and define the basic features of the approach, noting the explosion of scholarship in the area and the now firmly established trend toward understanding gender, race, class, and sexuality as aspects of social structures. We focus on three of the most important emerging areas in research on gendered organizations: the study of intersectionality, the increasing emphasis on the importance of organizational context, and the exploration of mechanisms for organizational change. We conclude by briefly noting prospects for the further development of research on gendered organizations.     

‘Subjects,Participants, Collaborators’

Existing accounts of new war have not actively engaged with feminist analysis. Protest masculinity is suggested as an alternative explanatory framework to conventional explanations of violence in new war. To explore the intersection between masculinity and new wars the example of Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front has been investigated. The article concludes that masculinity is an essential cause to the creation of new war and to the form that new war takes once it has originated.