A Church-Based Sampling Design for Research with Latina Immigrant Women

The U.S. is experiencing its highest immigration rate since the 1930s. The largest proportion of immigrants comes from Latin America, and women constitute a large and growing fraction of this group. Although our knowledge of the relationship between migration and women’s health is increasing, research in this area is still needed, particularly in areas experiencing rapid changes in their Latino populations. Yet research is impeded by the absence of an adequate sampling frame: Latina immigrants remain a largely hidden population. This study tests in four North Carolina counties a church-based sampling frame for Latina immigrant women in their reproductive years. In the study area, on an average week, 20% of the Spanish-speaking population attends church (two-thirds are Catholic). Compared against Census data for the study area, the study sample (n = 706) provided a comparable representation of different national origins. New entrants to the U.S. and married women were overrepresented in the church-based sample. The young (under age 30), and women at the lowest and highest extremes of educational attainment were underrepresented in churches. While a church-based sample is not entirely comparable to the Census, churches can provide timely and cost-effective access to a rapidly changing population of new immigrants. Church-based research should be complemented with research in other settings, adjusting sampling weights for overlap between sampling frames.     

Development and validation of a scale measuring modern prejudice toward gay men and lesbian women

This paper describes the psychometric properties of the Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS), which measures contemporary negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians (i.e., attitudes not based on traditional or moral objections to homosexuality). In Study 1 (N = 353), a preliminary version of the MHS was developed, and its psychometric properties were examined. Participants in Studies 2 and 3 (Ns = 308 and 233, respectively) completed the MHS and other attitudinal measures. The relationships among these variables were investigated to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the scale's construct validity. In Study 4 (N = 36), a behavioural expression of modern homonegativity was examined using the attributional ambiguity paradigm. The results of these studies indicate that the MHS is unidimensional, possesses a high degree of internal consistency, and is factorially distinct from a measure of old-fashioned homonegativity. As hypothesized, scores on the MHS correlated positively with political conservatism, religious behaviour, religious self-schema and modern sexism, but did not correlate significantly with social desirability bias. In addition, the MHS appears to be less susceptible to floor effects than a commonly used measure of old-fashioned homonegativity. Finally, the experimental study revealed that participants obtaining high scores on the MHS were less likely to sit beside individuals wearing T-shirts with pro-gay or pro-lesbian slogans when they could justify their seating choice on nonprejudicial grounds.     

“A Girl Alone in a man's World”

War films were one of British cinema's mainstays throughout the 1950s, and one of the most iconic of the cycle is Ice Cold in Alex (1958). This particular film overturned some of the already familiar conventions of the genre, not least by allowing a female character, the nursing sister Diana Murdoch (played by Sylvia Syms), to play a more important role than women were usually granted. This article deploys close textual analysis to examine the representation of Diana, and suggests how this character not only reflects various competing and often self-contradictory discourses of 1950s femininity but also offers a rare depiction of women's contribution to the war effort from the decade following it.     

Evaluating Training to Promote Critical Thinking Skills for Determining Children’s Safety

This study examined changes in training participants’ satisfaction with the instruction, knowledge gain, transfer of new skills, and beliefs about family involvement and engagement in working with families to help ensure children have safety. One hundred and forty-five practitioners participated in the training. Findings revealed shifts in knowledge and use of certain kinds of safety and risk assessment. Qualitative training feedback revealed that caseworkers and supervisors are now talking more about their practice and how they are trying new strategies to help children and families rather than how they complete a list of procedural tasks. The combination of workshop-based training followed by agency-based coaching appears to be a promising approach to professional learning in this practice area of child welfare.     

The Role of Humor Styles and Shared Laughter in the Postdivorce Recovery Process

ABSTRACT

Humorous communication has the potential to bolster resilient outcomes in individuals, and this could be especially true postdivorce. Framed by the resilience model and the stress buffering hypothesis, this study examined humor styles and shared laughter as coping mechanisms following divorce. Results indicate that participants (N = 89) who used self-defeating humor experienced physical stress, the time since the divorce was finalized influenced stress and rumination, and physical stress symptoms are suppressed by shared laughter with a source of social support. The implications of humor as an individual resource and shared laughter as a social resource in postdivorce resiliency are discussed.     

Inuit Elderly: A Systematic Review of Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Over the last century, Inuit have experienced rapid social changes that have greatly impacted their way of life, health, and intergenerational traditions. Although there is a growing body of research concerning Inuit youth, relatively little is known about elderly Inuit. In an effort to bridge this knowledge gap, a systematic review of peer-reviewed journal articles was conducted. This review identified a dearth of research on older Inuit, and highlighted limitations in service provision to this primarily rural and isolated population. Implications for policy and practice and recommendations for future research are also discussed.     

Spiritual development with marginalized youth: a status report

Efforts to clarify the appropriate uses of spirituality programming with marginalized youth are under way. Some researchers suggest that such programs should consider spiritual exploration and growth as a core part of treatment, involve youth voluntarily and as decision makers, and align programming with youth's cultural experiences.     

Ambulatory Assessment of Adolescent Coping: It's a Complicated Process

Scholars have long‐called for researchers to treat coping as a process that is measured over an arc of time. Ambulatory assessment (AA) offers an appealing tool for capturing the dynamic process of adolescent coping. However, challenges in capturing the coping process are not altogether circumvented with AA designs. We conducted a scoping review of the AA literature on adolescent coping and draw from 60 studies to provide an overview of the field. We provide critiques of different AA approaches and highlight benefits and costs associated with various types of measurement within AA. We also speak to considerations of participant burden and compliance. We conclude with recommendations for developmental scholars seeking to deploy AA to capture this quintessential process among adolescents.     

Is Working with Your Spouse Good for Business? The Effect of Working with Your Spouse on Profit for Rural Businesses

The goal of this article is to uncover more precise and unbiased estimates of the relationships between relationship satisfaction, a copreneurial business structure, and profit. Because of the suspected simultaneity between profit levels, the choice to be copreneurial and relationship satisfaction, a multivariate recursive probit is used to test for endogeneity between these variables. The results of the empirical analysis suggest that spouses self-select into a copreneurial business structure depending on the level of satisfaction they feel in their interpersonal relationships. Additionally, copreneurial businesses with high relationship satisfaction are more likely to have higher profit than if they were non-copreneurial.     

Biographies and the doubleness of inclusion and exclusion

Integration is often considered to be comprised of different dimensions which can influence each other in a linear fashion. For instance, if one becomes more proficient in the host country’s language, one’s labor market participation should also increase. In the Netherlands, this assumption has led to a plethora of policies (like mandatory integration courses) having targeted especially ‘Muslim’ women of Moroccan and Turkish descent, who are perceived as most isolated in society. Obliging them to learn Dutch was believed to increase their economic integration and their sense of home, the latter being considered pivotal for overall successful integration. However, the question is whether dimensions of integration really influence each other in this linear fashion – under all circumstances. With the help of biographical research conducted with first- and second-generation women of Moroccan and Turkish descent in the Netherlands and focusing on both linguistic and economic integration and their effects on sense of belonging, this study shows that mastering the new language and increasing labor market participation can actually have paradoxical non-linear, even curvilinear effects, leading to a decrease in sense of belonging. We try to capture this paradoxical phenomenon with the term doubleness of inclusion and exclusion.