The Charged Economic Environment: Its Role in Parental Psychological Distress and Development of Children,Adolescents, and Young Adults

The current downward economic spiral has manifested in increased joblessness, unemployment, and new faces in the landscape of American poverty. More Americans are living in poverty, and vulnerable populations are experiencing psychological distress and despair. This paper addresses the psychological impact of the ongoing economic impasse. There is a call for policymakers, and practitioners to collaborate in facilitating youth and families to develop support strategies (of support) for sustaining them through these challenging times. Case examples illustrate how the economy impacts children and families. Relational/cultural theories and the life course perspective are used to understand the impact of the economy on vulnerable populations.     

Reinvestigating Remarriage: Another Decade of Progress

The body of stepfamily research published this decade exceeded the entire output of the previous 90 years of the century. The complexity and quality of the scholarly work in this decade improved as well—better samples were obtained, methods were more sensitive to stepfamily complexity, longitudinal designs were more frequently employed, and other important methodological gains were made. Unfortunately, many unknowns regarding remarriages and stepfamilies remain. We present an overview of trends regarding topics, research methods, and theories; we critique research methods that have not been productive; and we identify scholarly advances. Finally, new conceptual, methodological, and theoretical directions for future scholarship on remarriages and stepfamilies are proposed.     

Utopian thought: Re-visioning gender,family, and community

Utopian ideals are vital to sustained engagement in the struggle to create a better society. However, the problematic aspects of utopian traditions also need to be addressed as part of the work of social movements. This paper offers a framework for exploring the interplay of healthy and pathological forms of idealization in groups and for analyzing the non-rational dimensions of group life. In critiquing communitarian thought, the paper develops a socialist— feminist and psychoanalytic perspective focusing on the connections between family, sexuality, and democratic community. The paper concludes with political strategies for grounding utopian ideals in contemporary struggles for reform. Les visions d'utopie jouent un rôle très important dans les mouvements visant àfaire une transformation sociale. Pourtant, dans ces projets tranformatifs, il faut aussi tenir compte des aspects les plus problématiques des traditions utopiques. Dans cet article, les auteurs proposent une stratégie pour l'exploration de l'effet réciproque des formes d'idéalisation saines et pathologiques et pour analyser les aspects non-raisonnables en la vie des groupes sociales. En critiquant les idées des ‘communitarians’, une perspective socialist—feministe et psychoanalytique est présentée qui met au centre de l'analyse les rapports entre la famille, la sexualité et la communautédemocratique. Pour conclure, on propose quelques stratégies politiques pour intégrer des idéales utopiques dans les luttes actuelles pour la réforme.     

SHOPFLOOR CULTURES: The Idioculture of Production in Operational Meteorology

Each workplace operates within a cultural context in which local features of interaction influence how employees conceptualize their workplace self. Building on small-group research, I argue that understanding these idiocultures as action arenas helps to specify how group knowledge, practices, and beliefs are expressed and affect occupational identity. To demonstrate the power of microcultures, I analyzed local offices of the National Weather Service (NWS) through ethnographic methods. I focused on the Chicago office, demonstrating how its culture, which emphasizes autonomy and resistance to authority, shapes the staff's images of scientific practice and the contours of being a scientist. The culture is revealed in their joking relations as well as in other office traditions. I then compared this culture with that of Flowerland, a spin-up office established in the 1990s. These two offices use their cultures to differentiate themselves, creating distinct work practices. As all work groups have local cultures, giving greater attention to small-group dynamics helps us understand how workers define themselves, how cultures differ, and how the effects of these differences shape the experience of work.     

Homeless families in St. Louis: A report from the field

In May, June, and September of 1998, 169 residents of the largest homeless shelter in Missouri were surveyed in response to the Institute for Children and Poverty's February 1998 request to continue research on homeless families in other areas of the country. Our findings corroborate the New York City data of the Institute for Children and Poverty (ICP), with these notable differences: ” For the women in our study, the experience of childhood violence and abuse was significantly higher than that reported in the ICP study. ” The number of children in homeless single-parent families in which the parent is beyond childbearing years was higher than the ICP-reported average (2.7 children). ” Older respondents were more likely to have graduated from high school than younger respondents. ” Compared to the ICP´ is respondents, fewer of our survey's respondents had previously lived on their own and more had stayed with family and friends. ” Significantly more residents in our study had no medical insurance. In addition, ” We gathered information on how many non-high school graduates had earned their GED and how many had attended or graduated from college. ” Our respondents were asked in what career fields they wanted to work. ” We gathered data on nicotine, alcohol, and drug abuse among our residents. ” We asked respondents if their children had the same father. Based on this survey, we concluded that programs for homeless children aimed at keeping them in school, improving their education, and helping them to form and realize career goals—as well as services such as counseling and mentoring—are necessary to keep homeless children from becoming homeless adults.