Economic Recession and Mental Health: Some Conceptual Issues

The greatest burden of economic recession falls on the unemployed. Research in this area has resulted in a general consensus that the large majority of the unemployed are psychologically impaired. From the voluminous relevant literature, three conceptual issues are singled out for discussion: the research style—that is, the dominant questions investigated and the corresponding research procedures; explanations for the mental state of the unemployed and the role of theory; and the concept of mental health as involving more than the absence of mental illness.     

Women in Religion: A Sociological Perspective*

Religious ministry, theology, and even the study of religion in history and sociology have been done for so long from a male point of view that the burgeoning activity and reflection of women scholars and activists are not yet researched or deliberated when male scholars define the parameters for interpretation and name the problems as they perceive them. Current scholarship is sadly lacking in its address of modern problems in religious perspective, especially as attempts are made to understand the new pressures on population and institutions.     

Clive's Kids: An Employment Scheme for Unemployable Youth

In eighteen months, one man with a second-hand utility, two worn lawn mowers, community and employer support, resulted in over sixty-eight ‘unemployable’ youth entering the workforce on a permanent basis. Clive's program is unique to Australia. (It was considered that anonymity should be maintained because adverse publicity resulted in youth programs in the area being closely scrutinized regarding participants ‘working’ and earning money.—Ed.)     

Professionalism and the Public*

To explore the factor of public opinion as a component of professionalism, the prestige ratings of rehabilitation occupations, as given by a representative national sample replicating the North-Hatt technique, are analyzed. Visibility of an occupation does not necessarily increase prestige. Segmental visibility varies by exposure to the needs served by an occupation and by familiarity arising from work experiences. Stereotyping in terms of broad occupational categories, however, appears more likely to form lay opinion than specific job knowledge. Attitudes of particular segments, rather than general public views, are considered critical in professionalism.     

Development and evaluation of the abortion attributes questionnaire

This paper describes the development and evaluation of the Abortion Attributes Questionnaire (AAQ), an instrument designed to assess the perceived importance of specific characteristics of abortion methods. Women receiving medical abortions ( n = 186) and women who chose surgical procedures ( n = 118) completed the AAQ. Participants were asked to rate how important each of 21 characteristics would be "when choosing between surgical and medical abortion." Factor analyses revealed that the AAQ consists of four factors and, as subscales, the factors have good internal reliability. The validity of the AAQ was established through discriminant function analysis and results indicated that three of the four factors predicted choice. Taken together, these findings provide empirical support for the constructs measured by the AAQ .     

Ethical and psychosocial issues raised by the practice in cases of mistreatment of older adults

Intervention regarding older adult mistreatment raises many questions for practitioners. They have to interact with the victim, the abuser, and, in many cases, with both of them at the same time. In such cases, five themes emerge from the literature review on psycho-social and ethical issues in practice: practitioners' pre-construction and axiological frameworks, victims' capacity, confidentiality versus collaboration between practitioners or between agencies, social and family responsibilities and the balance between competing values in practice. Practitioners are well placed to offer a critical reflection on their practice and on ways of improving it. The goal of our qualitative study is to identify issues and ethical dilemmas in elderly mistreatment situations as represented in the discourses of practitioners in reference to interventions in their psychosocial practice. Sixteen practitioners from the public and community (non-profit organization) sectors were interviewed using a practice history approach. This paper presents the main ethical and psychosocial issues raised by practitioners and some ideas to improve the practice. It is motivated by the crucial question haunting the practitioners' minds: "How far should we go?"     

Darling–Erdős limit results for change-point detection in panel data

We wish to test the null hypothesis if the means of N panels remain the same during the observation period of length T. A quasi-likelihood argument leads to self-normalized statistics whose limit distribution under the null hypothesis is double exponential. The main results are derived assuming that the each panel is based on independent observations and then extended to linear processes. The proofs are based on an approximation of the sum of squared CUSUM processes using the Skorokhod embedding scheme. A simulation study illustrates that our results can be used in case of small and moderate N and T. We apply our results to detect change in the “corruption index”.     

Deviant Peers and Adolescent Risky Behaviors: The Protective Effect of Nonverbal Display of Parental Warmth

This study examines whether nonverbal displays of parents’ warmth during an in‐lab conflict discussion mitigate the links between affiliation with deviant peers and risky behaviors. A sample of 107 youth and their parents participated in a study spanning from mid‐adolescence (T1) to late adolescence (T2). At T1, family members discussed a contentious issue, which was coded for parents’ nonverbal warmth. At T1 and T2, youth reported on their friends’ and their own risky behaviors. Fathers’ warmth moderated each prospective association between deviant peers and risky behaviors. Mothers’ warmth did not emerge as a significant moderator. Girls, in particular, benefitted from fathers’ warmth as a buffer in the trajectory from T1 risky behaviors to T2 risky behaviors and deviant peers.