Pictures in the classroom: can teachers and mental health professionals identify maltreated children's drawings?

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether teachers and mental health professionals are able to identify drawings produced by maltreated children, at a level greater than chance, when these drawings are presented to them at the same time as drawings created by non‐maltreated matched control children. In a relatively small study, a group of 33 mental health practitioners (MHPs) and a group of 10 teachers were shown sets of drawings and asked whether they could identify the maltreated children's drawings. It was found that there was no significant difference between mental health practitioner and teacher groups in identifying child maltreatment from Favourite Kind of Day Drawings (FKDs) (Manning, 1987) and Kinetic Family Drawings (KFD) (Burns and Kaufman, 1970). The results also point to the KFD as a more reliable drawing technique, but only when it is known that maltreatment is definitely present, and in a situation with no a priori knowledge it should not be used for the identification of maltreatment. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Familial Influences on Poverty Among Young Children in Black Immigrant,U.S.-born Black,and Nonblack Immigrant Families

This study examines how familial contexts affect poverty disparities between the children of immigrant and U.S.-born blacks, and among black and nonblack children of immigrants. Despite lower gross child poverty rates in immigrant than in U.S.-born black families, accounting for differences in family structure reveals that child poverty risks among blacks are highest in single-parent black immigrant families. In addition, within two-parent immigrant families, child poverty declines associated with increasing assimilation are greater than the respective declines in single-parent families. The heads of black immigrant households have more schooling than those of native-black households. However, increased schooling has a weaker negative association with child poverty among the former than among the latter. In terms of racial disparities among the children of immigrants, poverty rates are higher among black than nonblack children. This black disadvantage is, however, driven by the outcomes of first-generation children of African and Hispanic-black immigrants. The results also show that although children in refugee families face elevated poverty risks, these risks are higher among black than among nonblack children of refugees. In addition, the poverty-reducing impact associated with having an English-proficient household head is about three times lower among black children of immigrants than among non-Hispanic white children of immigrants.     

A Longitudinal Analysis of the Relationship Between Fertility Timing and Schooling

This article quantifies the contribution of pre-treatment dynamic selection to the relationship between fertility timing and postsecondary attainment, after controlling for a rich set of predetermined characteristics. Eventual mothers and nonmothers are matched using their predicted birth hazard rate, which shares the desirable properties of a propensity score but in a multivalued treatment setting. I find that eventual mothers and matched nonmothers enter college at the same rate, but their educational paths diverge well before the former become pregnant. This pre-pregnancy divergence creates substantial differences in ultimate educational attainment that cannot possibly be due to the childbirth itself. Controls for predetermined characteristics and fixed effects do not address this form of dynamic selection bias. A dynamic model of the simultaneous childbirth-education sequencing decision is necessary to address it.     

Evaluating community-based treatment programmes for men who sexually abuse children

The currently dominant multi-factorial explanations of sex offending have been reflected in the widespread adoption of cognitive-behavioural groupwork methods where treatment foci are those attitudes, beliefs, cognitions and behaviours believed to contribute towards the maintenance of sexually abusive practices. Community-based programmes have mushroomed during this decade, with 97% of regional probation services now having provision for sex offender treatment. However, these relatively recent and dramatic developments of practice have to a large extent occurred outside of a framework of rigorous planning and evaluation. This article begins by outlining a rationale for both the treatment of sex offenders and evaluating programmes. This is followed by a framework for evaluation within which treatment providers can consider the issues involved (including the methodological difficulties) in setting up research designed to evaluate treatment effectiveness. It is suggested that, while small-scale (in-house) research may tell us something about the success or otherwise of individual programmes, it is the larger-scale projects carried out by independent researchers that will inform us as to the impact of cognitive-behavioural group work on recidivism and offence-related psychological variables. Such research has the potential to assist policy-makers and to aid managers and practitioners in the development of effective treatment programmes. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Street children and crime in the UK: a case of abuse and neglect

It is claimed that many incidences of children running away from home and residential care involve issues around violence, bullying and child abuse and neglect. Surveys show that between 14 and 20% of children run away from home for at least one night and that 2% run away 10 times or more from home or a care setting. The potential reasons for running away are discussed together with the increased possibility for further victimization, delinquency and criminal behaviour. Four ‘streetwork projects’ that provide information and support to young runaways in the UK are described and their limitations discussed. It is proposed that counselling should be a part of intervention with street children and that trained counsellors/psychotherapists should be available free to these young people with social and emotional difficulties outside the usual health/social service provision. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adolescents' attention to traditional and graphic tobacco warning labels: an eye-tracking approach

The objective of this study was determine if the inclusion of Canadian-style graphic images would improve the degree to which adolescents attend to, and subsequently are able to recall, novel warning messages in tobacco magazine advertising. Specifically, our goal was to determine if the inclusion of graphic images would (1) increase visual attention, as measured by eye movement patterns and fixation density, and (2) improve memory for tobacco advertisements among a group of 12 to 14 year olds in the western United States. Data were collected from 32 middle school students using a head-mounted eye-tracking device that recorded viewing time, scan path patterns, fixation locations, and dwell time. Participants viewed a series of 20 magazine advertisements that included five U.S. tobacco ads with traditional Surgeon General warning messages and five U.S. tobacco ads that had been modified to include non-traditional messages and Canadian-style graphic images. Following eye tracking, participants completed unaided- and aided-recall exercises. Overall, the participants spent equal amounts of time viewing the advertisements regardless of the type of warning message. However, the warning messages that included the graphic images generated higher levels of visual attention directed specifically toward the message, based on average dwell time and fixation frequency, and were more likely to be accurately recalled than the traditional warning messages.     

Migration Processes,Familial Characteristics,and Schooling Dropout Among Black Youths

This study uses data from the 2000 U.S. census to examine whether the schooling advantage of black immigrants’ children found in previous studies is robust. According to the results, the advantage associated with having migrant parents is not restricted to the children of immigrants. Black migrant parents, regardless of foreign-born status, have children with favorable schooling outcomes. Such parental-level influences, however, seem stronger among some immigrant groups than among native internal migrants. The study also suggests that the collective advantage of the children of immigrants is driven by positive migrant selectivity. Accordingly, comparisons between the children of native migrants and children in various immigrant groups reveal that the immigrant advantage is not robust. In fact, the results suggest that when immigrant ethnicity is considered, some children of immigrants may be disadvantaged relative to the children of native migrants. Among recent migrants, the children of native internal migrants also have more favorable outcomes than the children of immigrants, although these differences disappear after background factors are controlled. Further, internal-migrant and immigrant households are less likely to have characteristics that adversely affect schooling than nonmigrant households. Unsurprisingly, the children of nonmigrants have the worst outcomes among black youths.