Sexual Messages in Black and White: A discourse analysis of Essence and Cosmo

The research presented employed critical discourse analysis to examine advice columns on sex and women's sexual freedom as expressed in two popular women's magazines, Essence and Cosmopolitan, over a three-year period. Essence has a Black female audience, Cosmo a predominantly White female audience. Critical discourse analysis is concerned with language as a primary force for the production and reproduction of ideology and belief systems that come to be accepted as common sense. The study asked whether and to what extent sex talk in these two magazines mirrored tenets of sexual liberation as set forth by “second-wave feminism.” Findings showed that while both magazines reinforced women's right to sexual pleasure and to ask for what they wanted, Essence came closest to mirroring the tenets of women's liberation by advocating women's right to say no to men's bad behavior and to be their own persons. By contrast, Cosmo advised women to be innovative in exciting and keeping their men and to be more flexible in managing men's less than desirable behavior.     

Relational and Overt Aggression in Childhood and Adolescence: Clarifying Mean‐level Gender Differences and Associations with Peer Acceptance

Research on relational aggression has drawn attention to how girls may be likely to aggress, but the role of gender is not fully understood. There are opposing views regarding whether relational aggression is most common among girls. Current findings demonstrate that when gender differences in relational aggression are assessed with peer nominations, gender differences favoring girls are more likely: (1) in adolescence than childhood; and (2) when statistical overlap with overt aggression is controlled. Results also indicated that associations of relational aggression with peer acceptance depend on the aggressor's gender, the peer rater's gender, and whether overlap with overt aggression is controlled. Associations of relational aggression with lower acceptance became non‐significant when overt aggression was controlled, suggesting that relational aggression displayed in isolation may not damage acceptance. In fact, in mid‐adolescence, girls’ relational aggression predicted greater liking by boys. Reducing relational aggression among adolescent girls may be especially challenging if the behavior is linked with acceptance by boys.     

Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models and Frailty Models with Bayesian Nonparametric Mixing

This paper proposes Bayesian nonparametric mixing for some well-known and popular models. The distribution of the observations is assumed to contain an unknown mixed effects term which includes a fixed effects term, a function of the observed covariates, and an additive or multiplicative random effects term. Typically these random effects are assumed to be independent of the observed covariates and independent and identically distributed from a distribution from some known parametric family. This assumption may be suspect if either there is interaction between observed covariates and unobserved covariates or the fixed effects predictor of observed covariates is misspecified. Another cause for concern might be simply that the covariates affect more than just the location of the mixed effects distribution. As a consequence the distribution of the random effects could be highly irregular in modality and skewness leaving parametric families unable to model the distribution adequately. This paper therefore proposes a Bayesian nonparametric prior for the random effects to capture possible deviances in modality and skewness and to explore the observed covariates' effect on the distribution of the mixed effects.     

Clinical observations on interferences of early father absence in the achievement of femininity

In clinical work, we have observed that the loss of the father through divorce has a significant effect on the young girl's developing sense of feminity. This paper briefly reviews the research findings from sex-role development theory and psychoanalytic theory, and presents clinical discussions of latency aged girls whose parents divorced during their daughter's early and oedipal years. The most common defensive or coping patterns seen in these child patients during latency are identified, with clinical material presented to illustrate both the existence of these patterns and implications for treatment.     

Invasion. A hospital in transition following the 1983 Grenadian intervention

Stress, confusion, and a sense of loss were inevitable during the hospital relocation, especially given the large number of clients, ward communities, and staff needed to move and adjust to change. Despite the fact that the change was perceived as a positive and progressive step in psychiatric-mental health care in Grenada, there were many obstacles and much resistance to overcome. As expected, staff's and clients' fears centered around themes of impending loss and abandonment. An understanding of the transition process, along with the availability of experienced hospital staff for support and guidance, greatly aided the relocation process. Relocation still presented problems and Mt. Gay Hospital continues to struggle to carry out the lasting and beneficial changes that will best promote a therapeutic and culturally sensitive client/staff environment. Despite the fact that the hospital relocation was not entirely self-determined, but partially imposed by political circumstances, a positive resolution of the crisis occurred. The crisis brought about the change that, in this circumstance, is seen as synonymous with growth. It acted as a catalyst to bring about help from unexpected and much needed sources (U.S.A.I.D./Project Hope), which may not have otherwise been available to facilitate such a change. Richmond Hill Mental Hospital took control and advantage of a crisis situation and made it serve its immediate and pressing need for a new psychiatric hospital.     

Autonomy,diversity, and dissent: Conceptions of power and sources of action in the Sejarah Melayu (Raffles MS 18)

This study is concerned with exploring pre-colonial Malay ideas about power— about relationships between people and those who sought authority over them — and about the sources of social action and identity in pre-colonial Malay political culture. It examines, as its principal source for information about these issues, the Sejarah Melayu (Raffles MS 18), identifying significant instances in the text of dissent and of pluralism in Malay political culture.