A mixed-method exploratory study of interprofessional education in social work at historically Black colleges and universities: A faculty perspective

ABSTRACT

A mixed-method approach was used to capture social work faculty experiences in integrating interprofessional education (IPE) in the social work curriculum at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Questions measured attitudes, needs, preparation, and readiness of HBCU faculty to participate in preprofessional and graduate IPE courses. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used. The 23 participants indicated that there was strong interest and endorsement for participation in IPE as an educational tool to improve interdisciplinary team work and social care outcomes. However, faculty had limited previous involvement with IPE courses. Many partners were identified for IPE courses with almost all endorsing alcohol and substance abuse counseling, mental health counseling, public health, early childhood education, nursing, rehabilitation counseling, school of divinity, and school of psychology. The following IPE teaching methods were endorsed by almost all of the faculty: seminars, IPE common tools, case analysis, collaborative assessment, role playing, and experiential activities. Qualitative analysis of the open-ended questions yielded five themes: designing/evaluating IPE programs, embedding IPE courses in the social work curriculum, facilitating trust among faculty, removing negative IPE stereotypes, and IPE courses sustainability. The study contributes vital information about an important group of stakeholders whose participation in IPE, heretofore not mentioned in the IPE literature, needs to be integrated. We recommend that the IPE higher education community work with HBCUs to implement IPE.     

The Brief Accessibility,Responsiveness, and Engagement Scale: A Tool for Measuring Attachment Behaviors in Clinical Couples

Measuring attachment behaviors is relevant to creating secure couple relationships. This article seeks to test and examine the reliability and validity of the Brief Accessibility, Responsiveness, and Engagement (BARE) Scale—a practical measure of couple attachment–in a clinical sample. Couples took the BARE and other assessments measuring relationship functioning (self and partner reports of relationship satisfaction, relationship stability, positive and negative communication, and attachment styles). Results suggest that the BARE appears to be a reliable and valid tool for assessing couple attachment and can accurately predict and classify whether the couples belong in the clinical or nonclinical group, as well as their level of relationship satisfaction. Results also indicate attachment behaviors are related to relationship outcomes.     

Dovzhenko Studio in the 1960s: Between the Politics of the Auteur and the Politics of Nationality

Abstract

This article examines the aesthetics and politics of filmmaking in Soviet Ukraine in the 1960s as a lens through which to view the mechanisms of defining and representing national difference in Thaw-era Soviet culture. Management at Dovzhenko Studio in Kyiv during this time gave a green light to young filmmakers to explore a modernist and ethnographic poetic by reasoning that such a style was rooted in the traditions of Ukrainian national cinema, the founder of which was the studio’s namesake, Oleksandr Dovzhenko. While always controversial, director-auteurs such as Sergei Paradzhanov, Iurii Illienko, and Leonid Osyka consistently justified their works of “poetic cinema” on the basis of fulfilling the studio’s explicit goal to represent Ukraine through “traditional” means. Kyiv filmmakers, however, found their freedom curtailed not solely by central authorities concerned with ideological problems, but also by a film industry increasingly concerned with its ability to make a profit. Today in Ukraine, the legacy of so-called poetic cinema is fraught with accusations of elitism as the purveyors of cultural memory try to uncover a more popular history of Ukrainian cinema.     

Rule of law: Sharia panic and the US Constitution in the House of Representatives

In spring of 2011, Peter King (R-NY) convened a hearing titled ‘The Extent of Radicalization among American Muslims’ in the US House of Representatives. Democratic participants critiqued the hearings and contextualized the proceedings within the long history of institutionalized racism in the USA. They argued that the hearings were a threat to the Constitution itself, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause and the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion. Republican participants shared concerns about threats to the Constitution but suggested that the hearings were part of a strategy to combat this threat. Numerous Republican participants identified forms of Islamic law, or sharia law, as the primary threat to the integrity of the rule of law (ROL). Despite opposing positions, all actors agreed that the ‘ROL’ is that which will save the nation from threats posed from both outside and inside the nation and, as such, it is the ROL itself that must be protected. In this sense, the ‘ROL’ ensured by the Constitution inadvertently became the primary object of the hearings. In this essay, we bring analytical approaches from performance studies and anthropology to argue that the hearings impel a re-examination of the concept of ‘ROL’ itself. Rather than simply addressing the legislative effects of the hearings, we are interested in what they reveal about the performative and cultural dimensions of the law and the lawmaking process. While critics of the hearings derisively referred to them as ‘political theater’, we suggest that it is the nature of the King Hearings as staged public spectacle that imbue them with a politically performative power. We also identify the specific effects of sharia panic in contemporary US American political and legal discourse.     

Experience,Knowledge, and Concerns About Long-Term Services and Supports: Implications for Financing Reform

Using the 2014 Survey of Long-Term Care Awareness and Planning, this article examines Americans’ experiences, knowledge, and concerns about long-term services and supports (LTSS) and actions they are willing to take if they become disabled. The survey included 15,298 non-institutionalized respondents aged 40 to 70 years drawn from a nationally representative sample. Although many reported some experience with LTSS, knowledge of how LTSS worked was low. Respondents reported widespread concerns about becoming disabled. They preferred informal care over paid care, with a strong desire to remain in their homes. These results can be used to design reform initiatives and to motivate political support.     

The intersection of extreme poverty and familial mental health in the United States

Approximately 22% of children in the United States live in poverty, with high rates of caregiver depression and child disruptive behavior disorders (DBD). The current study aims to explore the relationships between living in extreme poverty and both child and parent mental health. Data are comprised of findings from the first effectiveness study of the 4Rs and 2Ss intervention, in addition to preliminary data from an implementation study currently underway (n = 484). Families with an annual income of less than $9,999 reported significantly greater child DBD scores and prevalence of clinically significant levels of caregiver depressive symptoms compared to income levels over $10,000. Findings support the recommendation for parental mental health to be attended to within the context of child mental health services.     

How Parents Communicate Right and Wrong: A Study of Memorable Moral Messages Recalled by Emerging Adults

The family communication process through which emerging adults form their moral outlook is examined through the lenses of Negotiated Morality Theory and Vygotskian Developmental Theory. Analyses were performed on the context, content, and type of 470 memorable messages reported by 303 emerging adults. Results indicated that messages were spontaneously delivered rather than planned, communicated at home, and received at around 16 years of age. Messages most often concerned relational ethics, self-honoring, honesty/fraudulence, careless/harmful acts, and personal qualities. Eleven distinct forms of communication were used by parents, including forecasting the future, empathy-enhancing, virtue-prioritizing, commanding, and identity-making. As expected, the nature of the messages varied by the gender of the parent and the age of the child at the time of the message. Parental messages appear to be influential as young adults negotiate cultural, religious, and peer sources of morality. Implications for parents and moral educators are explored.     

School co-ethnicity and Hispanic parental involvement

Scholars of immigration disagree about the role ethnic communities play in immigrant families’ engagement in educational institutions. While some researchers argue that the concentration of disadvantaged ethnic groups may prevent meaningful engagement with schools, others argue that ethnic communities can possess resources that help immigrant families be involved in their children’s schooling. In this study we use a nationally representative dataset of Hispanic children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) to determine if the relative size of the Hispanic population in the school affects levels of their parents’ involvement in their education, as well as parents’ perceptions of barriers to their involvement. Our results suggest that a large Hispanic presence in a child’s school can help increase immigrant Hispanic parents’ involvement in their children’s schooling, but there are no benefits for US-born Hispanic parents, indicating that ethnic communities help immigrant families acculturate to American institutions.     

Feasibility as a mechanism for model identification and validation

As new technologies permit the generation of hitherto unprecedented volumes of data (e.g. genome-wide association study data), researchers struggle to keep up with the added complexity and time commitment required for its analysis. For this reason, model selection commonly relies on machine learning and data-reduction techniques, which tend to afford models with obscure interpretations. Even in cases with straightforward explanatory variables, the so-called ‘best’ model produced by a given model-selection technique may fail to capture information of vital importance to the domain-specific questions at hand. Herein we propose a new concept for model selection, feasibility, for use in identifying multiple models that are in some sense optimal and may unite to provide a wider range of information relevant to the topic of interest, including (but not limited to) interaction terms. We further provide an R package and associated Shiny Applications for use in identifying or validating feasible models, the performance of which we demonstrate on both simulated and real-life data.