A Methodological Study of Family Cohesion and Adaptability*

In an attempt to locate clinically and empirically useful tools to measure family cohesion and adaptability, a modified multitrait-multimethod analysis was used to assess the validity of four separate instruments. These instruments include SIMFAM, an adaptation of the Bowerman and Bahr Identification Scale, the Moos Family Environment Scale, and the Kvebaek Family Sculpture lest. The data support the Family Sculpture Test as a useful clinical and research tool for the measurement of family cohesion but not of adaptability.     

Contemporary Concerns in Family Therapy*

The literature indicates that recent clinical concerns concentrate on certain problem areas, while neglecting others. Theory building is slow; agreement on definition, indications, selection, evaluation, training programs, and a unifying conceptual schema is still lacking. Intervention and outcome evaluation remain insufficient. A need for broadness, flexibility, and avoidance of dogmatization is underlined. Resistance to a family and community intervention model continues. It is argued that strength rather than pathology needs emphasis. Some strategies to develop family therapy further are suggested and recommendations made to overcome outlined obstacles.     

The health of the clergy: A review of demographic literature

A combination of special studies and official statistics permits an evaluation of the health of the clergy over the past century. The mortality experience of clergymen has been consistently more favorable than that of the general male population. It also has been favorable in comparison with the experience of men in the legal and medical professions although this differential has been diminishing. The initially favorable position of the clergy relative to teachers has been reversed. There is some evidence of mortality differentials within the clerical profession by major faith, denomination, or ministerial specialty. Clergymen have a relatively high mortality rate from cardiovascularrenal diseases and malignancies, but a very low rate for non-degenerative diseases and suicide. Morbidity statistics for the clergy are fragmentary. They may be over-represented among persons hospitalized for conditions that are emotional in origin. The clergy has some special advantages for studies of health, primarily that both membership in the study population and mortality can be determined with comparative ease. Several areas of future research are suggested.     

Reflections on the academic job search in sociology

Although a variety of resources exist to aid social scientists, in general, in their aca-demic job pursuits, almost no resources detail this process specifically for sociolo-gists. This research aims to provide a review of the literature on the academic job market and to provide a sociological analysis of the job searching process in sociology. We report and analyze the experiences of five sociologists as they moved from graduate school, post-doctoral fellowships, an applied research position, and a non-tenure track teaching position to assistant professor positions. We detail the importance of impression management and self-presentation throughout this process (by job candidates, departments, and administrators), the resources provided by the American Sociological Association that exist to aid job candidates, and we suggest implications of the current organization of the sociology job market.     

Attachment to Mothers and Fathers during Middle Childhood: Associations with Child Gender, Grade, and Competence

Attachment relationships of first, third, and fifth graders with their mothers and fathers, and their associations with self‐perceived and teacher‐rated competence, were investigated. Children rated their attachment security with mothers and fathers using the Kerns security scale. Children's perceptions of academic and peer competence were measured using Harter's self‐perception profile, and teachers also rated children's competence. Girls felt greater attachment security to their mothers than to their fathers, and boys felt greater attachment security to their fathers than did girls. Greater attachment security with both mothers and fathers was associated with children's perceptions of greater peer and academic competence, and this association was stronger for older children. A greater sense of attachment security with both parents was associated with greater competence than a sense of attachment security with only one parent. Teacher‐rated competence was significantly related to attachment security with mothers but not fathers.     

执行战略的最佳管理实践

引进新的部门,全力打造战略中心型组织的最佳实践 是什么使平衡计分卡的成功使用者 与众不同?这是人们经常问我们 的问题。平衡计分卡的成功是艺 术还是科学?是运气,抑或仅仅因为平衡 计分卡的使用者如此众多,必定会有一些 成功者?过去的一年里,我们一直致力于     

Courtship at the coroner's court

This article examines the nature and conduct of nineteenth-century courtship through the prism of the largest sample of coronial court records ever assembled. These records deal with unexplained or violent deaths and often involved the extensive gathering of testimony from witnesses and other community stakeholders. A surprising number of cases were either directly connected to courtship, or witness statements provide evidence on courtship practice and custom. Focusing particularly on records for the English Midlands, we offer a new model of typologies of courtship experience running across a spectrum from serene and unproblematic through to the obsessive relationship that ended with murder or violence. Dealing in more detail with individual cases, we illustrate the value of the material for understanding the lived experience of courtship and address three broad questions. What range of actors (family, friends, neighbours, employers, lodgers, etc,) was involved in courtships among the labouring classes? What was the emotional context within which the courtships of ‘ordinary people’ were played out? And how did ordinary people experience the human journey of courtship? We suggest that it was possible for men and women to construct completely different versions of courtships, that relationships were fragile, and that the capacity for individual agency in courtship was much more circumscribed than has often been allowed for this period.     

Self-managed Supervision

The growth of professional supervision in social work has been accompanied by complex attempts to theorise key elements of supervisory practice and highlight the need to further examine what constitutes supervisory support in current regulatory environments. Changes in human service organisations resulting from new public management generate a need to theorise broader patterns of support available to human service workers. This article draws on an electronic, mixed-method self-reporting study of advice and support-seeking behaviours of 193 human service professionals in 3 South Australian organisations. The findings indicate the fluidity of current professional supervision practice, with workers seeking professional wisdom, identifying practice direction, and debriefing with a range of colleagues within and outside their organisation. Accordingly, the article confirms that supervisors should no longer be thought of as the sole providers of professional advice and support for human service workers and conceptualises the workers as active agents shaping their own learning.