A community of singers: employing exploratory cluster analysis to reveal profiles of psychosocial characteristics among members of a street choir for homeless and formerly homeless individuals

This exploratory study employed cluster analysis to identify profiles of resilience, social support, stress, and mental health among members of a homeless and formerly homeless street choir; we examined the association between choir attendance and cluster membership, and the interaction of cluster membership and race. Respondents (N?=?111, 66% African American, 84% homeless) had participated in the choir for an average of 12 months (SD?=?12.02). We stratified the analysis according to homelessness status. Among those housed, k-means cluster analysis revealed two profiles: (1) relatively resourced but lower resilience, and (2) high resilience. Three profiles emerged among the homeless: (1) psychologically vulnerable, high stress and mental health concerns; (2) relatively resourced, showing average levels of mental health concerns and social support, minimally elevated stress, and higher resilience; and (3) low resilience. Examining the interaction, non-African American, housed participants in the high resilience cluster reported the most frequent choir attendance (M?=?4.00, SD?=?0.00); among the homeless, non-African Americans in the psychologically vulnerable cluster reported the most frequent attendance (M?=?3.88, SD?=?1.25). Results support the need for programs that address higher order needs concurrently with housing; they also highlight the ongoing need to provide particular outreach to minority populations.     

Mann–Whitney test with empirical likelihood methods for pretest–posttest studies

Pretest–posttest studies are an important and popular method for assessing the effectiveness of a treatment or an intervention in many scientific fields. While the treatment effect, measured as the difference between the two mean responses, is of primary interest, testing the difference of the two distribution functions for the treatment and the control groups is also an important problem. The Mann–Whitney test has been a standard tool for testing the difference of distribution functions with two independent samples. We develop empirical likelihood-based (EL) methods for the Mann–Whitney test to incorporate the two unique features of pretest–posttest studies: (i) the availability of baseline information for both groups; and (ii) the structure of the data with missing by design. Our proposed methods combine the standard Mann–Whitney test with the EL method of Huang, Qin and Follmann [(2008), ‘Empirical Likelihood-Based Estimation of the Treatment Effect in a Pretest–Posttest Study’, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 103(483), 1270–1280], the imputation-based empirical likelihood method of Chen, Wu and Thompson [(2015), ‘An Imputation-Based Empirical Likelihood Approach to Pretest–Posttest Studies’, The Canadian Journal of Statistics accepted for publication], and the jackknife empirical likelihood method of Jing, Yuan and Zhou [(2009), ‘Jackknife Empirical Likelihood’, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 104, 1224–1232]. Theoretical results are presented and finite sample performances of proposed methods are evaluated through simulation studies.     

Detecting the number of components in a finite mixture having normal components

A procedure is described which detects the number of components in a mixture distribution having normal components. The test is based on the behavior of the sample order statistics near the center of the distribution. Numerical results are presented and comparisons with tests proposed by Shapiro and Francia (1972) and Baker (1958) are provided.     

Poverty Among The Elderly: An Application of a Collective Consumption Model in Brazil

Social Indicators Research - The growth of the elderly population and changes in household composition raise important questions regarding the level of well-being of the elderly in developing...     

Building Pedagogical and Activist Relationships

As a white professor who teaches courses that deal primarily with the issue of race, the question of whether pedagogy and activism mix is ever present in my mind. The answer to this question is of course complicated and yet, I answer affirmatively. Drawing upon social movement theory and the central tenets of critical pedagogy, I argue that pedagogy and activism can work very well together in the classroom, but that my allegiance to a critical pedagogy does present some necessary constraints on my classroom activism.     

Child safety in policy: Who is being kept safe and from what?

Keeping children safe from harm is a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive inquiries and reviews have highlighted institutions' persistent failures to respond ethically and appropriately to child abuse and its life-long impacts on survivors. Policy efforts now reflect considerable emphasis on safeguarding children, including through the development of ‘child safe’ organisations. The realisation of these policy aspirations requires close attention to how ‘child safe’ is conceptualised and operationalised in different organisational contexts. Drawing on an analysis of policy in Australia and other international jurisdictions, namely New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Ireland, this article engages critically with the notion of ‘child safe’ in policy, to explore who is to be safe, from what and how, in organisational settings. The findings suggest emergent discourses of ‘child safe’ are bound up with particular constructions of both children and safety, reflect current social and political understandings and agendas, and have implications for organisations' approaches to safety. Ensuring the safety of children in Australia and other jurisdictions requires continuing scrutiny of policy implementation to make sure current policy efforts are not reduced to compliance-based imperatives that protect organisations, but fail to create the cultural conditions that enhance children's wellbeing and safety.     

Examining First Date Goals across Different Types of Date Initiation

Abstract

Individual goals for first dates are examined in the context of requesting the first date, accepting a first date request, going on a blind date, and going on a group date in a sample of 211 college students. Results indicate that first dates are more likely to be group dates than blind dates or requested dates and those individuals on blind dates and group dates are less likely to endorse goals of having sex or investigating romantic potential than those who request or accept the first date. Results are considered using error management theory, cognitive valence theory, and stage models of relationships. The differences that emerge across the type of date initiation indicate the type of date initiation and are important in addressing courtship.     

Generalized Verbal Behavior Increases Following a Speaker Immersion Intervention

A goal of behavior-analytic interventions is to produce behavior that is maintained under naturalistic conditions. In this experiment, we studied the effects of a speaker immersion protocol (SIP) on the number of speaker responses (tacts and mands) emitted by 3 preschool students under naturalistic, not directly targeted, conditions. During the SIP, the researchers provided 100 daily opportunities for the participants to emit mands using the target mand form by contriving establishing operations (EOs) throughout the school day. The effects of the intervention were evaluated using a multiple-probe design by measuring target mands during EO probe sessions and the number of mands and tacts emitted during noninstructional-setting probe sessions. The researchers found that the SIP produced increases in both targeted and generalized verbal behavior.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s40616-020-00133-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.