Child and Interviewer Race in Forensic Interviewing

The purpose of this study was to examine the potential effect of child race and interviewer race on forensic interviewing outcomes. The results of the regression analysis indicated that child race and interviewer race had a significant effect on interview outcome category (no findings, inconclusive, or findings consistent with sexual abuse). Furthermore, the results indicate that the interaction of child and interviewer race had predictive value for rates of findings consistent with sexual abuse but not in the direction predicted. Cross-race dyads had significantly higher rates of interview outcomes consistent with sexual abuse. These findings suggest that more research into the effect of race on disclosure of child sexual abuse is needed.     

Medusa: Sexuality,Power, Mastery,and Some Psychoanalytic Observations

The imaginative narratives that myths provide have a significant place in mental life. Myths continue to be handed down from one generation to the next because they resonate with our unconscious hopes, desires, fantasies, and fears. This paper discusses the Medusa myth. The discourse deals with the cultural context of its time, which implicates the political, social, and especially the gender differences that existed in classical Greece. This myth had an emotional impact on men and women but undoubtedly each group responded in their own particular way. The emphasis in this paper is on the possible effect of this myth on the sexes in ancient times and especially the meanings it may have had for women then and now. Although destructive rage and vengefulness is part of the story, in addition, I focus on the importance of sexuality, power, mastery, and freedom that the myth may offer to oppressed women.     

Exploring environmental perceptions,behaviors and awareness: water and water pollution in South Africa

Understanding the relationships among perceptions, behaviors and awareness of environmental initiatives is important for both policy makers and social scientists. There is, however, limited consensus among scholars as to the reasons for differences and similarities among ethnic and socio-economic groups in their environmentally related attitudes and behaviors. South Africa, which has established a constitutional right to a safe environment, together with the presence of parallel first and third world populations, offers an unusual setting in which to examine these issues. Using the 2004 South African General Household Survey, the similarities and differences between African and non-African households with respect to the perceptions, behaviors and awareness of programs related to water and water pollution are examined. Africans and those with lower socio-economic status are more likely to perceive water pollution as a community problem; educational attainment is unrelated to this perception. In combination with perception of water pollution as a problem, education is positively related to taking action to treat water for drinking and food preparation. Awareness of a highly touted program to clear waterways of alien vegetation is strongly positively related to socio-economic status, and is much more common among non-Africans than Africans.     

Breeders for Australia: A National Identity for Women?

Most commentaries on Australian racism assume that men and women are affected equally by racist behaviour. Yet, the evidence points to a close interconnection between white racism and sexism. In the male rhetoric of race, the oppression of women is an associated element that requires investigation. This paper explores that association and its relation to some of our ‘national priorities’.     

Intergenerational families in child welfare: Assessing needs and estimating permanency

Much of the empirical literature on intergenerational child maltreatment focuses on the mechanisms that explain how maltreatment is transmitted across generations. Few studies have examined child protective service outcomes associated with intergenerational families. The current study addresses this gap in the literature. This study compares 1196 caregivers, most of whom are single African American females, and 2143 children from first and second generation child welfare-involved families. All families have a history of substance abuse. We sought to understand how first and second generation families differ with regard to social and economic status indicators, as well as whether intergenerational child welfare involvement is associated with permanency outcomes. Our findings indicate that second generation families experience significantly more risk factors at the time of case opening, and are two-thirds as likely to be reunified as compared with first generation families. The singular effects of generation status disappeared, however, once the interaction between mental health diagnosis and second generation status was entered into the model, suggesting that it is not just being intergenerationally involved in the child welfare system that reduces the chance of reunification, but rather second generation caregivers have more mental health problems that are associated with a lower likelihood of reunification.     

Finding the Homosexual in Women’s Rights

In recent years, organizations on the American Christian Right (CR) have become established actors at the United Nations, working to limit international agreement on developments seen as ‘anti-family’, such as women’s rights, population policy and abortion. At the same time, the Vatican has established itself as a strong voice opposing international law and policy on women’s rights. For both actors, women’s rights represent a direct challenge to the ‘natural family’ and hence a particular world vision premised on a sexual division of labour. While women’s rights is a central preoccupation for both actors, ‘homosexuality’ and the prospect of lesbian and gay rights and ‘gay marriage’ is also a recurrent theme, intricately connected to women’s rights. This article explores the relationship between women’s rights and homosexuality as drawn by these two actors. It asks why, in an international arena that offers little concrete recognition of, or protection for, lesbian and gay identities both the CR and Vatican are concerned about a presumed homosexual agenda. It also explores what role the debate about women’s rights plays in facilitating this ‘homosexual agenda’. In addressing these questions, this article seeks to explore, and raise further questions about international women’s rights as a language for international discussion about social relations.     

New Child–Caregiver Attachment Relationships: Entering Childcare When the Caregiver Is and Is Not an Ethnic Match

The goal of the research reported in this article was to examine the process of forming attachment to caregivers in children new to childcare. We examined child and adult behaviors and the adult's perception of the child at entry, and the ethnic/racial match between the child and caregiver as predictors of attachment relationship quality measured six months later. Adult perceptions of the child did not predict attachment security. Children who did not share an ethnic heritage with their caregiver and had conflictual interactions with her at entry or at Time 2 had the lowest attachment security at Time 2. Children who shared an ethnic heritage with their caregivers and either did or did not engage in conflictual interaction and children who did not share an ethnic heritage and had low conflict at entry and at Time 2 were similar in security.     

Because I'm Worth It? Understanding Inequality in a Performance‐Based Pay System*

How do workers understand pay inequality? Every organizational field has a taken‐for‐granted compensation system that shapes understandings of rewards. Using data from 76 Wall Street professionals, I analyze how individuals interpret, understand, and justify inequality in a performance‐based reward system where pay is supposed to be based on merit. A majority of securities workers believed that the performance‐based pay system produced equitable rewards. But a substantial minority challenged the procedural and/or distributive justice of this pay system, producing counterinstitutional accounts. These accounts took three general forms: accounts of arbitrariness, accounts of misinformation, and accounts of discrimination. All of these counterinstitutional accounts pointed to nonmerit influences on bonuses. I argue that these challenges might undermine the legitimacy of the pay system, but most men and women who challenged the system exited their firms or the industry, so that their challenges did little to destabilize Wall Street's pay practices. Wall Street appears to maintain its legitimacy in part through the self‐selection of dissenters out of the system.