“The Young Ones are the Condom Generation”: Condom Use amongst Out-of-School Adolescents in Rural Southwest Uganda

This article reports on factors influencing condom use among out-of-school adolescents in rural southwest Uganda. Despite an abundance of negative discourses and myths about condoms in the community, these adolescents believe condoms protect them from sexually transmitted infections, HIV, and premarital pregnancies. Girls want partners to use condoms, but most lack the confidence to insist. Girls aged 13 to 14 reported the least difficulty asking for condoms; older girls attributed this to coming-of-age in the era of AIDS when condom use is the norm. Boys under 16 years want to use condoms, but lack confidence in application skills. Boys over 17 years always use condoms with casual partners, but only occasionally for pregnancy prevention with steady partners. Girls need skills training to improve confidence in negotiating condom use. Younger boys require training to improve confidence in skills with condom application. These findings are compared with studies conducted with in-school adolescents in the same study area. Health promotions that provide this skills training and focus on the need to think of the health of future family would be most effective for out-of-school adolescents. This study shows that it is self-confidence, rather than years of schooling, that has the greatest impact on condom use in this cohort.     

Core Competencies in Social Constructionist Supervision?

Family therapy is moving increasingly toward evidence‐based practice and competency‐based training. This article explores what might seem to be an unlikely link between social constructionist supervision, which is based on dialogic and fluid processes of meaning‐making, and the increasing reliance on discrete core competencies in the education and training of family therapists. We propose an alternate approach to competencies for supervision with therapists in training that, among other things, invites accountability and provides evaluative props. The approach we propose is based on a set of orientations that we hope reflect the dialogic and contextual nature of social constructionist practice and supervision. These orientations consist of reflexivity and attention to power, fostering polyphony and generativity, collaborative stance, and focus on client resourcefulness. Ideas and questions for supervisors and therapists in training to address the orientations are articulated.     

The Impact of Using Personal Learning Audits as a Means of Preparing Students for Practice: A Small‐Scale Evaluation

This paper examines the ‘effectiveness’ of a tool used by students to enable them to reflect upon their skill, knowledge and abilities in order that they can prepare for direct practice. The evaluation of the Personal Learning Audit (PLA) was carried out with a cohort of students on the part‐time BA/DipSW programme at Glasgow Caledonian University and was based on a direct practice placement undertaken between April and August 2005. The research was based on a range of methods that considered both the participants' perception of the PLA and its impact on their written work on placement. The intention of this mixed method approach was to obtain outcomes at a number of levels in relation to the efficacy of the tool. While the findings have to be considered in the context of the small‐scale nature of the research, the evidence of this study suggests that the PLA process is at its most effective when fully integrated into the students' learning structures both within the placement and the university setting.     

Timing of Immigration Effects Asset Change Among Hispanic Caregivers of Older Family Members

Journal of Family and Economic Issues - Given the cultural value of family in Hispanic culture, older Hispanic immigrants are likely to have family caregivers. This study examined the economic...     

Generalized Least Squares Estimation in Contingency Tables Analysis: Asymptotic Properties and Applications

Different sorts of bilinear models (models with bilinear interaction terms) are currently used when analyzing contingency tables: association models, correlation models... All these can be included in a general family of bilinear models: power models. In this framework, Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation is not always possible, as explained in an introductory example. Thus, Generalized Least Squares (GLS) estimation is sometimes needed in order to estimate parameters. A subclass of power models is then considered in this paper: separable reduced-rank (SRR) models. They allow an optimal choice of weights for GLS estimation and simplifications in asymptotic studies concerning GLS estimators. Power 2 models belong to the subclass of SRR models and the asymptotic properties of GLS estimators are established. Similar results are also established for association models which are not SRR models. However, these results are more difficult to prove. Finally, 2 examples are considered to illustrate our results.     

Lesbian landscape

ABSTRACT

In this article about first love, the author discusses her coming of age as a lesbian who is also tribally affiliated.     

The Relationship of Four Types of ‘Broken Home’ to Some Neglected Parameters of Juvenile Delinquency

Using a sample of 1,130 male juvenile offenders, the relationship of four types of ‘broken home’ to the age at onset of delinquency, recidivism, rate of offences, and types of offence was investigated. The number of recidivists was found to be significantly greater among offenders who were living only with fathers than among offenders living with both parents. A trend in this direction was also found among offenders living only with mothers. Offenders living apart from parents were found to be older at the time of their first offence than were offenders living with both parents. The findings were discussed critically, and it was concluded that they support the hypothesis that the ‘broken home’ is not per se a causal factor in juvenile delinquency.     

Family ties in genes and stories: the importance of value and recognition in the narratives people tell of family

Diagnosis in paediatric genetics involves a combination of technologies able to display variation in DNA and clinical discussions with families that concentrate on retrieving family histories. This paper explores the significance of the family tales that genetics brings to the fore. Through discussion of an ESRC‐funded ethnographic study of families referred to a paediatric genetic service, the paper explores how genetics and family history intersect in ‘relations of exchange’ (Latimer, 2013). It draws from sociological work on family that emphasizes the importance of narrative to the formation and maintenance of family ties and the importance of broader social contexts to the kinds of stories that can be told and recognized by others. The paper emphasizes the significance of claims to respectability and value to the narratives people provide of family ties; particularly in contexts where such ties, in the past or the present, are thought of as ‘troubling’. Making reference to research by Skeggs and Loveday (2012), it is argued that an important narrative that is drawn upon, in order to claim respectability, is that of being a good parent who protects their children from socially ‘risky relations’ so that a positive future as a ‘subject of value’ may be possible.