Attitudes Toward Divorce and Their Relationship With Psychosocial Factors Among Social Work Students

This study aimed to explore attitudes toward divorce and their relationship with general satisfaction with life, spiritual beliefs, parental bonding, and depressive symptomatology among a sample of 210 social work students from two different universities in Florida. Results indicated that the majority of students had favorable attitudes toward divorce overall, perceiving divorce as a solution to unhappy marriage. Participants also reported strong feelings regarding marital obligation and the effect of divorce on children and society. Attitudes toward divorce were associated with spiritual beliefs and parental bonding.     

Abused Latina Women's Perceptions of Their Postdivorce Adjustment

This qualitative study explores the postdivorce adjustment of battered Latina immigrants. Three focus groups were conducted. Data were analyzed utilizing a grounded theory approach. Five conceptual themes were unearthed including: (a) intimate partner violence (IPV) as the precipitator for divorce; (b) motivations for leaving; (c) the impact of the Latino culture on marriage, separation, and postdivorce; (d) immigration and other legal and social issues; and (e) postdivorce/post-IPV experiences. Implications for practice are drawn.     

What Do You Mean My Child Is in Custody? A Qualitative Study of Parental Response to the Detention of Their Child

This qualitative study involved in-depth interviews with 11 parents whose children had been taken into custody. The initial reactions and responses of the parents to the detention of their children were examined, as well as these parents' thoughts and feelings about theprocess and their involvement in the juvenile justice system. The following major themes emerged from the data analysis: (a) feeling frustrated and confused, (b) a perception of the system as being fair, (c) the juvenile system assuming a parental role, and (d) the influence of detention on family dynamics. Findings highlight the personal experiences of the parents as they attempted to navigate the juvenile justice system.     

WHY BLACK PEOPLE TEND TO SHOUT! AN EARNEST ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE SOCIOLOGICAL NEGATION OF THE ATLANTA SOCIOLOGICAL LABORATORY DESPITE ITS POSSIBLE UNPLEASANTNESS

The Atlanta Sociological Laboratory, 1895-1924, comprised the first American school of sociology (Wright 2002). Despite this fact, the sociological accomplishments of this group of scholars are relatively absent from the existing sociological literature. Data collected for this investigation indicate that the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory has been rendered sociologically invisible because of race prejudice, the perception that the school's findings were ungeneralizable, that their methods of research unsophisticated and of low quality, and that they omitted theory from their analyses. The findings of this investigation indicate that the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory utilized a sophisticated methodology to produce generalizable findings that included theory despite the race prejudice that existed during that period in American history.     

Explaining the Causes and Effects of Dynamic Capabilities Generation: A Multiple‐Indicator Multiple‐Cause Modelling Approach

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multiple‐indicator multiple‐cause model to explain dynamic capabilities generation. We use one of the main common effects of dynamic capabilities (operational, structural and strategic flexibility) to design a measurement tool for dynamic capabilities generation. Based on this measurement tool, we test the influence of several factors identified in the specialized literature as potential causes that trigger and promote dynamic capabilities generation. We use data from a survey of 200 CEOs of Spanish firms to test the model. The results show that only organizations whose managers have perceived a high degree of environmental dynamism have generated dynamic capabilities. The results also show that knowledge codification and technical innovation are significantly related to dynamic capabilities generation. We attempt to shed light on current theoretical debates about dynamic capabilities generation and provide a practical guide to explain the origin and results of dynamic capabilities that have been tested empirically.     

Deprivation using satisfaction measures in Spain: An evaluation of unemployment benefits

The evaluation of social programs constitutes an important aspect in the modeling of economic policies. On the basis that the measurement of well being through subjective measures provides a broader perspective than through objective economic variables, this paper first identifies the determinants of deprivation in Spain, in monetary terms, and in non-monetary terms using satisfaction variables. In addition to establishing that the more unequal the income distribution within a group, the less income-satisfied is the individual, we find that unemployment is one of the main determinants of deprivation and satisfaction. Accordingly, we propose a reform of unemployment benefit policy that maintains individuals at the same utility level as when employed, rather than applying the current benefit system. Our policy conclusions reveal that the public budget dedicated to paying benefits to restore satisfaction levels, during the period 1994-1999, would have increased by €2,536,165.13 thousand on an average annually. It could be a desirable policy in good times but, since it increases public spending and thus public deficit, economic policy makers should decide whether it is adequate in rainy days.     

Black Movements Need Black Theorizing: Exposing Implicit Whiteness in Political Process Theory

The history of racism in the United States has produced a paradox in social movement literature: blackness shaped the character and substance of black antiracist mobilization, but whiteness shapes most analysis of their efforts. Despite frequently using the black Civil Rights Movement for theory development and testing, leading theorists have yet to identify a specific theory of race undergirding their analysis or explaining how racism impacts the trajectory of antiracist social movements. Instead, theorists rely on common white-privileging notions of race that hinder analyses of black movements. I critically analyze political process theory (PPT) from a racial perspective, showing that the dominant critiques of PPT stem from PPT creators’ failure to critically theorize race while analyzing the Civil Rights Movement. Theorists implicitly adopted white-centered perspectives that ultimately undermined PPT’s development. I conclude with a call to simultaneously theorize collective action and the system of inequality with which a movement is engaged.     

What Do We Do When We Discuss? A Micro‐genetic Analysis of Couples’ Conflict

This article focuses on dialogic discursive dynamics present in couples’ conversations about unresolved conflicts. The phenomenon of conflict is addressed as a semiotically mediated process of co‐construction of the self and the relationship. The purpose of this article is to report on patterns of meaning construction in couples’ conflict, with the identification of strategies that promote or hinder resolution. A qualitative exploratory approach was used to focus on the interactional process at the micro‐processing level. Eight married couples participated in the study. The procedure considered asking the couple to discuss unresolved conflict. Recorded data of couples’ dialogues were transcribed to text and assessed through semiotic analysis using a microgenetic protocol (Molina, Del Río, & Tapia, 2015). The results document the use of strategies for conflict regulation such as psychological distancing, opposition, and generalisation on the border between protecting the bond and regulating tension. The dynamics of non‐resolution manifested in polarisation and rigid patterns with increased tension. The ‘in‐motion’ nature of dialogue about conflict is pushed by the semiotic tension that induces variations in subjective positions manifested in speech and actions.     

Bayesian inference for bisexual galton-watson processes

In this work, an approach to the Bayesian estimation in a bisexual Galton-Watson process is considered. First we study an important parametric case assuming offspring distribution belonging to the bivariate series power family of distributions and then, we continue to investigate the nonparametric case. In both situations, Bayes estimators under weighted squared error loss function, for means, variances and covariance of the off spring distribution are obtained. For the superadditive case, the Bayes estimation of the asymptotic growth rate is also considered. Illustrative examples are given.