Public perceptions of the ideal number of children for contemporary families

Demographic and family dynamics have been influenced by the recent downturn in average family size. This research examines perceptions of the ideal size for contemporary families and beliefs regarding factors which have contributed to families' decisions to have fewer children. Findings reveal that the two child family is the overwhelming standard chosen by respondents, and that this preference holds for virtually all demographic categories. Three of five reasons offered for smaller families today (expense of children, wives working and better birth control) were viewed as important by over 85% of those sampled.A previous version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the Southern Demographic Group, Austin, Texas, October, 1985. Support for computer analyses was provided by the Office of Computer and Information Services, University of Maryland Baltimore County.     

PartyIntents: a portal survey to assess gay and bisexual men's risk behaviors at weekend parties

PartyIntents examines whether portal survey methods could be used to anonymously survey gay and bisexual men about HIV-risk behaviors before and after a weekend party-oriented vacation. The study recruited 97% of eligible men and of these 489 participants 47% completed the follow-up assessment. Approximately one half of the men intended to use illegal drugs over the weekend, and almost 20% thought that they might have anal intercourse and not use a condom. The methodology can be applied and provides useful information about HIV risk at these events, though refinements may be needed to increase the follow-up rates.     

Gender differences in poverty among single people in Denmark

This study — based on data from the Danish Welfare Survey of 1986, covering 461 single women and 319 single men — showns that single women have a potential higher risk than single men of becoming poor even when the sexes are categorized by household status, age and relationship to the labour market. These results suggest that the most important reason for higher risk of poverty among women than among single men is not — as often supposed — whether women are single, with or without children, but that gender as such discriminates as to poverty via the different ways men and women are linked to the labour market, This would apparently confirm that which, indirectly, was indicated by previous research on poverty.     

Authorship and publication practices: evaluation of the effect of responsible conduct of research instruction to postdoctoral trainees

We have studied postdoctoral trainees funded by NIH F32 fellowship awards in order to test the effectiveness of responsible conduct of research (RCR) education in the areas of authorship and publication practices. We used a 3-wave telephone and on-line survey design, conducted over a period of two years, in order to test for individual change before and after completing RCR education. Overall the responses of the subjects suggested a clear awareness of standards and practices in publication. However, our results failed to suggest that RCR education in this group significantly increased the level of ethically appropriate behavioral responses measured in the study. Similarly we saw no significant effect on increasing awareness of or attention to ethical guidelines about authorship and publication practices. Our interpretation of these null findings was influenced by the significant publication experience of our cohort of subjects. We forward possible explanations for these null findings in this context. Most importantly, we do not suggest that our results argue against continued instruction in RCR education. Instead, we believe our data reinforce the importance of careful articulation of course goals and objectives with attention to the background and experience of the student audience when developing RCR curricula.     

Cultivating a Research Tool Kit for Social Work Doctoral Education

ABSTRACT

Social work doctoral education can prepare students to become research scholars whose work has impact by providing and promoting the development of an appropriately sophisticated and diverse research methods tool kit. Students can cultivate their tool kits through course work, mentored research experience, and specialized workshops. The tool kit is best grounded in guided reading of methodological texts—that is, reading methodological texts while conferring with advanced peers, faculty, and research supervisors—which provides essential teaching and experiences to enhance understanding and use. This article lays out a rationale for guided reading and provides an example of primer text and recommended readings to support guided reading for one set of related research methods: randomized experimentation and finite mixture modeling.     

Child Sexual Abuse and Psychological Impairment in Victims: Results of an Online Study Initiated by Victims

Sexual abuse of children has been a topic of scientific investigation for the past few decades. Research in this area, however, is rarely initiated, conceptualized, and conducted by victims themselves. Apart from possibly having painted a one-sided picture of sexual abuse, this presumed dominance of nonvictims might also have marginalized victims in a research area central to their lives. This study was conducted by a victims interest group as an effort to meet the need to add victims' perspectives to our current understanding of this topic. The online survey focused on investigating victims' psychosocial impairment, which was found to be extensive. Results indicated that an intact social support system facilitates better health, especially when offered early on.     

Gibt es „interkulturelles Coaching“?

The definition of intercultural coaching depends as well on expectations and objectives of the clients as on underlying concepts of culture. To detect the required competencies of the coach we differentiate between coaching as intercultural learning, coaching in inter- and multicultural contexts and transcultural coaching. Taken these perspectives in mind, culture is and cultures are immanent dimensions in all coaching processes. Hence, in a globalized world of hybrid cultures and individuals the coach needs to use culture(s) as reflexive resource for any kind of coaching process and session.     

Self-tracking as communication

Self-tracking has attracted a lot of attention from researchers and public opinion makers owing to its potential for improving life conditions through preemptive action on health, and as a tool of user empowerment vis-à-vis health-care professionals and private and public institutions. Nevertheless, the ‘stuff’ that is typically tracked – exercise and diet being the dominant tracking activities – refers to cultural and social practices that, for the individual user, are utterly mundane and reside in an experiential realm of everyday life. Self-tracking has to be understood in relation to behavior that is predominantly about getting things done in ways that are possible, suitable and meaningful for the individual. To account for this, we propose to conceptualize self-tracking as a communicative phenomenon along three dimensions: communication with the system, the self and social networks of peers. We develop the theoretical framework, drawing upon empirical findings from a qualitative study on how self-tracking is practiced and experienced in the context of exercise by different categories of empirical users. We demonstrate that the meanings of self-tracking practices are, at once, shaped by the motivation of an individual user who is situated in a broader web of everyday activities, and stimulated and augmented by communicative features provided by the technology.