The blame game: news,blame, and young homicide victims

Media have represented blame in homicide cases as attributable to a victim or an offender; we provide a more nuanced category of shared blame. We examine stories covering young homicide victims to demonstrate how shared blame is operationalized in print news, noting stark differences across a victim’s race and gender. We conduct a content analysis of the Orlando Sentinel newspaper and police reports from Seminole County and Sanford, Florida, from 2000 to 2012. Stark racial and gender differences are apparent in the way the content is framed and how the victims are depicted. The newspaper’s representation of young African American males is consistent with existing stereotypes of the “criminal black man.” We discuss the larger implications of our findings and how our results apply to high-profile killings of young homicide victims including Trayvon Martin.     

Perspectives of Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse: An Exploration of the Adjustments to Self-Structure through Meaning-Making in Therapy

This critical literature review explored how adult survivors of child sexual abuse experienced adjustments to their self-structure through meaning-making in therapy. Following extensive searches of academic databases, 15 studies were identified for review. Using thematic analysis, eight themes emerged. The eight identified themes of trust, acknowledgement, evolution, acceptance, integration, congruence, relational, and agency represented distinct but interrelated components of self-structure. The findings also indicated that self-structure components may be both intra- and interrelational in nature and that movement in one theme may facilitate movement in another. While recognizing that the nature of the research captured a composite of experiences, it was found that there was a consistent movement and fluidity as to how participants arrived at an adjusted position for each of the themes. A suggested theoretical framework was developed showing the components of the self-structure impacted by meaning-making and the nature of the adjustments made. Recommendations are made regarding future research.     

Defining Social Listening: Recognizing an Emerging Dimension of Listening

Social listening occurs in a variety of mediated contexts, but it has yet to be clearly defined in the realm of communication and listening studies. This report explores social listening as a developing listening type extending from the existing taxonomy of listening, posits a definition of its meaning, evaluates its role in organizational and interpersonal communication, and discusses its value as an additional listening dimension. Based on a review and synthesis of literature across multiple fields of study, we describe social listening as a dimension of listening comprising a blend of purposes complementary to the existing appreciative, comprehensive, critical, discriminative, and therapeutic listening types discussed in Wolvin and Coakley’s (1993) listening taxonomy. As mediated communication continuously evolves within the communication landscape, the urgency to understand social listening will surely increase. With this in mind, we introduce and define social listening as an emerging type of listening and as a means of attaining interpersonal information and social intelligence that can empower relationships and influence the way we listen to and communicate with one another through increasingly popular mediated channels.     

Infusing Integrated Behavioral Health in an MSW Program: Curricula,Field, and Interprofessional Educational Activities

ABSTRACT

An essential aspect of integrated care is the coordination of medical and behavioral health needs concurrently. This has sparked renewed emphasis on interprofessional (IP) education and practice. The impetus for IP efforts was crystalized in large part because of health care reforms, and federal funding to expand the behavioral health work force. Using an ecological systems perspective, this article describes how one school is preparing a new generation of MSW students to work in integrated behavioral health care using a three-pronged approach involving curricula, field education, and IP activities. Social work education must ensure that new and experienced professionals can (a) understand the profession’s role in IP health care settings, and (b) navigate an evolving and complex health care environment.     

Subjective distress from trauma in older clients with severe mental illness

There is little research on older persons with severe mental illness (SMI) who have experienced trauma. We conducted an exploratory study with 174 community mental health clients with SMI who were 50 years of age or older (range 50–87; mean age 58) to examine the relationship between subjective distress related to six common traumas and post-traumatic stress symptoms while controlling for gender and other key psychiatric symptoms. With regression analysis, we found that of the six common traumas, only distress from unexpected loss of a loved one was significant. That factor accounted for the most variance in post-traumatic stress symptoms than all other factors in the model including gender, psychiatric symptoms of SMI, and other trauma. Gender and symptoms of psychosis were also significant in the model. Unexpected losses, particularly in older persons with SMI, can cause considerable emotional distress and could be related to post-traumatic stress symptoms. Practitioners should be vigilant in regularly screening older people with SMI for recent loss of loved ones and be prepared to address their distress with grief/bereavement counseling.     

Dementia and Guardianship: Challenges in Social Work Practice

Decision-making within the context of dementia can be an uncertain and problematic process. This study critically examined challenges in social work practice in instances where a legal alternative decision-maker through guardianship proceedings was perceived as necessary. Theoretical perspectives from social constructionism underpinned the research. Five qualitative case studies were investigated. A thematic network analysis showed that the situations were constantly evolving and different players participated by bringing their own perspectives. In this process alliances were formed that reflected underlying dynamics of power. Contested issues included varied understandings of dementia and capacity, and differing constructions of risk, protection, and responsibility. The implications for practice are discussed with social work being well placed to make an important contribution through its traditional roles of negotiation, interpretation, and mediation between those who have discursive rights and those who do not. Ethical reasoning as a basis for decision-making was also of significance.     

Is Ethnic Identity a Buffer? Exploring the Relations Between Racial Microaggressions and Depressive Symptoms Among Asian-American Individuals

ABSTRACT

This study explores the moderating role of ethnic identity in the relations between racial microaggressions and depressive symptoms. Using survey data from 353 Asian-American college students, we found that racial microaggressions significantly predicted depressive symptoms and accounted for 24% of the variance in a hierarchical multiple regression analysis. In addition, ethnic identity moderated the relations between racial microaggressions and depressive symptoms. Thus, ethnic identity buffers Asian-Americans against the negative mental health effects of racial microaggressions. Implications for research and practice in the field of social work are discussed.     

Race scholarship “with,by, and for” children: How critical youth studies can inform research on race

Children's perspectives on race and their own racialized experiences are often overlooked in traditional social scientific race scholarship. From psychological and child development studies of racial identity formation, to social psychological survey research on children's racial attitudes, to sociological research conducted on children in order to quantify racially disproportionate child outcomes, the unique perspectives of young people are often marginalized. I explore some of the key themes in existing sociological and psychological research involving race and young people and demonstrate the important contributions of this expansive body of scholarship but also highlight limitations. I argue that when it comes specifically to the sociological study of young people and race, much can be learned from an emerging field known as “critical youth studies.” Further, I argue that more research on race that, as Kate Telleczek (2014, p. 16) describes, is “with, by, and for” young people, grounded in the epistemological and methodological tenants of critical youth studies, can lead to new sociological understandings of race and childhood, serve to inform public policies and practices intended to improve children's lives, and provide a platform for young people to express their own concerns and ideas about the racialized society in which they live.     

Bibliometrics: Understanding Author-, Article- and Journal-Level Metrics

ABSTRACT

Numerous types of metrics are available to assist in the evaluation of scholarship. The focus for this column of In Lay Terms is bibliometrics, the quantitative analysis of publication data using article-, author-, and journal-level data. Citation analysis is the most commonly used bibliometric method. It includes analyzing the number of articles published by an author, the number of citations from those articles, and the ranking of the journals in which those articles were published. This column compares bibliometrics found in Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar and considers the relationship of these metrics to the field of library and information science.