Understanding the Challenges to Providing Disabilities Services and Rehabilitation in Rural Alaska: Where Do We Go From Here?

American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/AN) suffer from some of the highest rates of health and mental health-related disabilities. Despite high rates of disabilities experienced among this population, services available to treat the disabilities are extremely limited, especially within the rural Alaska context. Additionally, limited research exists regarding the perceived barriers to receiving disability services, the importance of treating disabilities within one's own community, and individual and community-level strengths that exist to help cope with the lack of services. This article attempts to bring awareness to these issues, as well as propose tangible solutions to help mitigate the barriers.     

Estimating the asymptotic relative efficiency of weighted rankings

Five tests for the hypothesis of no treatment effects in complete blocks designs are compared with respect to asymptotic relative efficiency: the ordinary two-way analysis of variance, the analysis of variance of ranks (Friedman, 1937), the method of ranking after alignment (Hodges and Lehmann, 1962), and a method of weighted rankings proposed by Quade (1972, 1979). This comparison required devising a procedure for estimating the asymptotic relative efficiencies of test statistics with asymp-totic chi-squared distributions.     

Reflections from a Student of Mothering

This reflective article provides a window into one clinical social worker's experience of returning to school after becoming a mother. The convergence of two separate lives, those of mother and student, is explored through a psychodynamically‐informed perspective. Challenges of integrating theories on mothering from an experience‐near position are discussed.     

‘Just because you can get a wheelchair in the building doesn't necessarily mean that you can still participate’: barriers to the career advancement of disabled professionals

Despite governmental efforts and organizational initiatives, the number of disabled professionals in full‐time employment is small, and the number of those occupying leadership positions remains even smaller. Past research into disability and employment has outlined a range of barriers that disabled people face in seeking and maintaining employment. Yet, not enough is known about the challenges they encounter in top ranking appointments. This article extends Ryan's and Haslam's notion of the glass cliff to help explain the precariousness experienced by a group of disabled employees in leadership positions – focusing on the nature of the positions they hold and the difficulties they encounter as they attempt to advance their careers. Using qualitative interview data the analysis draws attention to problems associated with lack of opportunity, lack of resources and lack of support. It also point to ways of making workplace cultures and organizational practices more supportive of diversity.     

Intergenerational Continuities and Their Influences on Children's Social Development

The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive review of the recent efforts by psychologists to explore intergenerational continuities and their influences on children's social development. A primary criterion for inclusion in the review was use of three generations of subjects represented in the research, although two generation studies were included to supplement or expand upon the conclusions drawn from three generation studies. The following domains of research were reviewed: (1) literature regarding the repetition of child abuse across generations, (2) research examining the intergenerational continuity of attachment status, (3) investigations of the continuity of parenting and childrearing behavior parents experienced with their own parents, (4) research examining intergenerational continuities in parenting involving non-human primates, and (5) investigations of intergenerational continuities in both peer and sibling relationships. Across all literatures reviewed, evidence was found for intergenerational continuity with gender of parent affecting results. Two primary mechanisms for transmission appear to be cognitive schemas of relationships and modeling. A paradigm is proposed describing possible means of intergenerational transmission of influence on the social development of children.     

Team science: A qualitative study of benefits,challenges, and lessons learned

This qualitative study includes interviews with 9 team scientists to examine benefits, challenges, and lessons learned from team-based research in the social sciences. Data analyses were conducted using MaxQDA software to identify provisional and emergent themes. Benefits of team science included enhanced insights from multidisciplinary perspectives, increased scholarly productivity and impact, and mentoring of newer faculty by those with greater experience. Challenges of team science included working with individuals who had divergent philosophies and styles, increased time and effort needed to conduct the research, communicating around professional roles and responsibilities, and fit within the academic context. Lessons learned from the research included establishing relationships with potential team members prior to partnering with them, defining and documenting contributions of team members at the outset, examining institutional supports for team-based research and education, and clarifying processes around issues such as authorship and team membership. Implications are discussed as these relate to research, practice, and policy for team-based social science.     

Roma as the Others

While it is common to speak about ‘Roma culture’ as a single entity, the questions posed by Roma culture are more complex. We are speaking about the general issues pertaining to various manifestations of this culture in the context of the Czech Republic. It must be stressed that under ‘Roma,’ we understand a family resemblance social category that consists of overlapping smaller groups and that is not based on features that are universally shared across the whole category; there are similarities and some kind of prototype that keeps the category together. Also, this culture is in no way completely separated from the majority (Czech) culture and it shares many features with it and vice versa. Because of the particular history, there are no language barriers, there are no religious differences and also community values and aims are broadly similar. So when we speak about minority/majority, we must try to avoid thinking in terms of distinctive and separate entities.     

Enriching Social Work Education with Mental Retardation Content

This paper briefly reviews the role that theory plays in organizing and guiding social work practice. Its major focus is on the specification and legitimation of important functions that social work practice assumes in the testing and developing of theory. The theory development functions are identified as theory reformulation, the redirecting of theory and the generation of new theory. Recognition is given to the selective utilization of theory derived from social science contexts but a greater emphasis is placed on developing theory directly from social work practice contexts.     

Illness uncertainty and illness intrusiveness as predictors of depressive and anxious symptomology in college students with chronic illnesses

Objective: To examine predictors of psychological functioning in college students with chronic illnesses. Participants: Participants (N = 1413) included 364 students with self-reported diagnoses of asthma or allergies, 148 students with other chronic illnesses (eg, epilepsy, type 1 diabetes), and 901 healthy students. Data were collected between November 2013 and May 2015. Methods: Participants completed online measures of psychosocial functioning, including illness uncertainty, illness intrusiveness, depression, and anxiety. Results: Students with chronic illnesses other than asthma or allergies evidenced the greatest levels of anxious (p <. 05), but not depressive symptomology. Additionally, this group reported greater illness uncertainty and intrusiveness (p <. 05) compared to their peers. Uncertainty and intrusiveness independently predicted depressive and anxious symptoms for students in both illness groups. Conclusions: Compared to peers with asthma or allergies, college students with other chronic illnesses reported higher levels of anxious symptoms. Illness uncertainty and intrusiveness appear to be predictors of psychological distress, regardless of illness.