Texting among United States young adults: An exploratory study on texting and its use within families

The current study examines general text messaging tendencies, patterns of and reasons for texting family members, and the impact of texting on familial relationships among a young U.S. adult sample. Participants were recruited through Facebook; they then completed an online questionnaire. Data from 127 young adults (men: 38; women: 87; unidentified: 2) are analyzed and compared by gender. Findings suggest that young adults text at high rates per month. Participants generally report a prompt response to texts and their ability to honestly express feelings within these messages. Results also suggest participants text family members for a variety of reasons, such as to convey information, plan activities, and engage in general conversation. Distinct gender differences, however, are evident regarding who men and women text as well as texting's effects on familial relationships. Overall, these findings expand researchers’ understanding of texting in general and its impact within the family.     

Social work ‘logged on’: contemporary dilemmas in an evolving ‘techno-habitat’

Information and communication technologies have become an integral part of daily life. This article explores the impact of the social networking site, Facebook, e-mail and text messaging for social workers in the Republic of Ireland. The study is small-scale and the findings, derived from a number of research interviews with practitioners and a survey of social work students, cannot be regarded as representative. However, the findings illuminate key dilemmas which are becoming apparent in social work’s evolving ‘techno-habitat’ and these are likely to be replicated, to different degrees, elsewhere in Europe.     

Puerto rican drug users’ experiences of physical and sexual abuse: Comparisons based on sexual identities

This study integrates the results of quantitative and qualitative methods to elucidate the association between sexual identity and physical and sexual abuse among Puerto Rican drug users. A structured questionnaire was administered to 800 subjects in New York and 399 in Puerto Rico. A total of 93 subjects (7.9%) self‐identified as homosexual or bisexual. Gay males were significantly more likely than heterosexual males to report first occurrence of physical abuse by a family member in childhood. Both gay and bisexual males were more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to report first experiencing unwanted sex in childhood and intimate partner physical abuse later in life. Lesbians were more likely than female heterosexuals to report unwanted sex in childhood. Qualitative data were collected through in‐depth life histories with 21 subjects and suggest that gay and lesbian subjects perceive antihomosexual prejudice on the part of family members as one cause of childhood physical and sexual abuse.     

Female Perceptions of Organizational Justice

This study examines women's conceptualization of the pervasive construct of organizational justice. A comprehensive four factor model was used to represent organizational justice while outcome variables were the important employee attitudes of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intentions. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse responses from 301 male and 147 female respondents. Differences were found for procedural, interpersonal and informational justices. It would appear female and male employees have differing responses to perceptions of justice. Justice had a diffuse effect for males, but not for females. For men, interpersonal justice predicted an increase in organizational commitment while procedural justice predicted a decrease in turnover intentions. For female employees, informational justice was found to increase commitment and reduce turnover intentions. The study highlights the need for all justice factors to be considered and for sex differences to be considered in future justice research.     

Exploring Knowledge through Peer Tutoring in a Transitional Learning Community: An Alternative Way of Teaching Counseling Skills to Students in Social Work Education

This article is a critical review of Crossing Bridges, a Department of Health training pack for those working with 'mentally ill' parents and their children. The author argues, on the basis of both personal and professional experience, that although the pack pays lip-service to the significance of structural factors, the training resources are primarily rooted in an individual and family-focused pathology model of mental illness. Three arguments are put forward for the necessity of a wider framework: the significance of shame and stigma to those experiencing mental distress and their families; the predominance of understandings of mental illness that translate social phenomena into individualised problems, notably genetic explanations and attributions of risk and dangerousness; and the contribution of motherhood to the experiencing of mental distress in women. Initiatives within the mental health survivor movement are highlighted as examples promoting positive images of mental distress, and the implications of the issues raised for social work education are considered. The article concludes that efforts to help the children of 'mentally ill' parents, not to mention the parents themselves, must incorporate wider strategies to promote openness, respect, acceptance and ultimately, social inclusion, of those who experience mental distress.     

Problem Gambling Inside and Out: The Assessment of Community and Institutional Problem Gambling in the Canadian Correctional System

This paper reports on the results of a multi-site survey of gambling behaviour and gambling problems amongst offenders in correctional institutions in Ontario, Canada, conducted between 2008 and 2011. A total of 422 (completion rate 61.5 %) incarcerated offenders (381 male and 41 female) took part in the study including 301 federal offenders and 121 provincial offenders. Based on the Problem Gambling Severity Index of the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI/PGSI) the prevalence rate of severe problem gambling was 8.9 prior to incarceration and 4.4 % during incarceration. These numbers are substantially higher than rates found among the general public. Thirty-four percent of the sample reported gambling in prison. Half of those who suffered from gambling problems before incarceration continued to have gambling problems during incarceration. People with problems related to slot machines prior to incarceration reported fewer gambling problems during incarceration compared to other problem gamblers.     

From Affirmative Action to Diversity: Critical Reflections on Graduate Education in Sociology

This article explores the contradictory results of the shift from a race‐conscious affirmative action discourse to a broader “diversity embrace” that advocates tolerance, equality, and respect for cultural differences on university campuses. Drawing on critical race theory and research on the practice of affirmative action in organizations, we argue that the diversity embrace subsumes recognition of racialized histories, social relations, and practices in favor of a “color‐blind” rhetoric that reinforces negative assumptions about the academic merit and worthiness of underrepresented minority students (URM). Our review of the status and condition of URM graduate students in sociology departments reveals that minority inclusion is part of a larger strategy that emphasizes individual and group differences rather than corrective action for past discrimination. We find that access and inclusion in graduate programs in sociology have been uneven with relatively few departments producing a majority of URM sociology doctorates. The diversity embrace obscures their continual low representation in graduate programs, fosters professionalization practices detrimental to these students, and undermines efforts to create a “critical mass” of faculty of color. Such practices constitute a racial project that preserves White privilege at the individual and institutional levels.