Naming and claiming workplace sexual harassment in Australia

The persistence of sexual harassment in the workplace and the fact such behaviour remains significantly unreported suggest that legal definitions of sexual harassment may not be well understood. In this paper we explore the naming and claiming of sexual harassment in Australian workplaces, drawing on a unique dataset from a national sexual harassment prevalence survey. We compare a group of individuals who stated they had been sexually harassed according to a legal definition with a group who denied having experienced sexual harassment according to this definition but who went on to report sexually harassing behaviours. The study offers important insights into how workplace sexual harassment comes to be defined and understood in the Australian community, as well as some possible explanations for persistently low rates of formal complaints.     

Weight Prejudice and Medical Policy: Support for an Ambiguously Discriminatory Policy Is Influenced by Prejudice-Colored Glasses

This study examined the influence of affectively-based weight prejudice versus weight control beliefs on perceptions of and support for an ambiguously discriminatory medical policy: denying surgery to overweight patients. Participants read a news article describing a new policy in the United Kingdom of denying surgery to overweight patients, and reported their reactions to the policy. Results revealed that participants who scored higher on an affectively-based measure of weight prejudice that was completed 3–4 weeks before the main session were less likely to perceive the medical policy as discriminatory, more likely to agree with the policy and to support adoption of a similar policy in their own country, and recommended lower body mass index (BMI) cutoff values for denying surgery to overweight patients, whereas weight control beliefs had less of a role to play. In addition, perceptions of the policy as (non)discriminatory mediated the effects of weight prejudice on policy agreement, support, and recommended BMI cutoff. These results indicate that affective prejudice influences individuals' support for an ambiguously discriminatory medical policy, which has important implications for policy makers and researchers.     

The Parent Concerns Questionnaire and Parenting Stress Index: comparison of two Common Assessment Framework‐compatible assessment instruments

There is a long‐standing interest in finding ways to develop systematic and consistent means for conducting assessments. Behind this lies a concern with issues such as adequate responses to need, prevention, early intervention and evidence‐based practice. The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) has been developed for wide use for families with additional needs, for various contexts, including children's centres. This, however, has been subject to some criticism. Two instruments with considerable potential relevance to areas consistently important in child and family assessment, focusing on parents (and hence likely to be of generic use with CAF), are the Parent Concerns Questionnaire (PCQ), developed specifically in relation to children's social care populations, and Parenting Stress Index (PSI). The way forward is to investigate empirically what they offer to practice. This paper examines their potential for practice in children's centres through a comparative methodology, an approach particularly suitable to identifying the distinctive qualities and contribution of each. The findings demonstrate both have considerable potential relevance for practice, outlines what each offers, with the detailed individual assessments and its ecological framework characteristic of the PCQ providing benefits additional to the PSI.     

Child Labor Supply on US Family Farms: An Interdisciplinary Conceptualization

The conceptual model developed in this paper presents a unique way of understanding child labor on US family farms. It incorporates non-economic factors into an economic framework creating models that are different from the standard economic approaches to adult labor supply and/or child labor in developing countries. The paper argues for the importance of a balance between economic factors and non-economic factors such as social development, health and safety risks, and education in understanding child labor supply.This research is part of the first authors dissertation research. The research was supported by a Hatch grant to the second author from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the Univerrsity of Wisconsin-Madison. Gratitude is expressed by the second author to the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center at the Univerrsity of Washington Friday Harbor Marine Lab for facilitating the completion of this article. Authorship is jointly shared.     

College Women's Career Self-Efficacy and Educational Environments

This study examined the relationship between the composition by sex of women's high school and college environments as well as the sex of their selected influential teachers in each of these settings and their reported self-efficacy in careers judged traditional or nontraditional for women. Two hundred and seventy-four junior and senior female students from both single-sex and coeducational private liberal arts colleges served as participants. Results indicated no main effects for composition by sex of an institution, or the sex of influential teachers, nor were there any significant two-way interactions. Two significant (p > .05) three-way interactions did emerge, however. One indicated that nontraditional career self-efficacy was predicted by a single-sex high school and college environment with either no high school influential teacher or the choice of a male one. The second predicted three-way interaction indicated increased nontraditional career self-efficacy by students attending single-sex high schools and colleges and choosing a male college influential teacher.     

Educating adolescents on the dangers of premature childbearing and drug use: A focus on prevention

This article addresses the prevention of two social problems—premature parenthood and drug use among adolescents. A review of the salient literature on these problems as well as the literature on prevention suggests that a generic response is called for. Theories and perspectives such as social learning, cognitive behavioral, and ecological approaches, and knowledge of adolescent development are drawn upon to guide preventive efforts.     

The Impact of Self-advocacy on Families

The impact of self-advocacy on families of people with learning difficulties has rarely been instigated. A participatory research project is currently studying this question. This paper argues that adulthood is central. The meanings attached to self-advocacy by people with learning difficulties are examined to support this, and the family context explored to discover the likely experiences and influences which will condition the reception for self-advocacy. The early findings of the research-from discussions with self-advocacy groups-are presented. We should expect self-advocacy to impact on families and for this impact to exhibit itself in a variety of ways, but because of the experiences and conditioning of families, and of people with learning difficulties, the impact will be complicated. It is this real experience of self-advocacy and families which the research is investigating.