Maternal and Paternal Parenting Style Patterns and Adolescent Emotional and Behavioral Outcomes

The purpose of this study was to extend current research to examine the relationship between parenting style combinations and adolescent emotional/behavioral outcomes to further understand affective functioning in adolescents. Previous research solely analyzed mothers, without including fathers and/or both parents. The roles of temperament and adolescent and parent gender were also examined. Participants were 12- to 18-year-old students (n = 195) in 7th to 11th grade in a rural school district in southeast Michigan. Temperament characteristics (i.e., mood, flexibility-rigidity, and eating rhythmicity) explained nearly half of the variance in adolescent outcomes. Parenting styles contributed a smaller but significant role. When both parents were authoritative, it was associated with more optimal outcomes in adolescents' personal adjustment than any other parenting style combination. Having one authoritative parent, which was expected to be a protective factor, was related to high personal adjustment for girls but higher levels of school maladjustment for boys. Mixed associations were found for parenting style combinations and adolescent outcomes. Overall, when both parents were permissive and neglectful, these parenting styles were associated with poorer adolescent outcomes. Study findings confirm that parenting style patterns are important; however, adolescent temperament plays a much larger role, overall, in adolescent affective functioning.     

Dissolving (in)effective partnerships

This paper studies the problem of partnership dissolution in the context of asymmetric information. Past work shows that the initial share allocation, interdependence of partners’ valuations, and asymmetric control all affect the possibility of efficient dissolution. In this paper, I show, in a novel class of “cooperative” partnerships characterized by ex ante interdependence of valuations, that effectiveness is significantly more important than the initial share allocation. Intuitively, as the effectiveness of cooperation between partners (and thus partnership value) increases, the gains from dissolving decrease but the informational rents remain constant, so efficient dissolution is more difficult to achieve. For sufficiently high effectiveness, efficient dissolution is impossible for any initial share allocation. For sufficiently low effectiveness, however, efficient dissolution is possible for all initial share allocations. The possibility of efficient bargaining depends on the initial share allocation only for moderately effective partnerships.     

Practice Learning and the Development of Professional Practice

The development of professional practice is based on practice learning, yet there is no consensus about its definition. The currently evolving use of the term ‘practice learning’ provides us with an opportunity to consider the nature of learning for professional practice at initial entry through to post qualifying stages of development. A number of streams of thought are influencing the understanding of practice learning and we aim to consider some of these and how they inform those involved in supporting and guiding practice learners at different stages of their professional development.

In presenting our conceptualisation of practice learning we argue against oversimplified dualities of classroom‐based academic learning concerned with theory and workplace‐based practice learning concerned with practice. Additionally we make explicit the career‐long nature of practice learning which is as embedded in continuing professional development as it is in the requirements for qualifying programmes.

Having established what we mean by ‘practice learning’ we consider the impact of organisational learning theory on the management of practice learning. The consideration of the characteristics of organisations which learn leads to a brief examination of approaches to teaching and learning which promote knowledge creation in a way which is meaningful to practitioners. We will argue that the development of understandings of organisational learning and knowledge creation should become part of the knowledge base for those supporting and guiding practice learners, in addition to the traditional knowledge base of adult learning theory.

Before exploring the nature of practice learning it would be helpful to consider briefly what we mean by professional practice for which practice learning is preparing people.

Professional practice in social work is a complex set of activities which involve direct work with service users, and their families, as well as work with other professionals and agencies. A range of knowledge and skills are used with a firm value base which recognises diversity and oppression as key elements in UK society.

Such professional practice is learned and developed in a range of ways over time through training, practice, understanding, analysis and reflection. However, the nature of just what practice learning is and where it occurs has become a focus of debate in the UK as a result of recent developments in initial professional education and training for social work.     

BOOK REVIEW

As rates of self-employment and entrepreneurial activity grow in the U.S., sociologists are beginning to consider the causes and consequences of this form of employment more seriously. While the sociological contributions to entrepreneurial research take seriously the social context in which self-employment occurs, few studies focus explicitly on the effects of social and economic contexts on rates of self-employment in particular regions. I fill this gap by examining the effects of a variety of local labor-market, population, and economic characteristics on county-level self-employment rates in three predominantly rural states: Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. I find that counties with higher proportions of their labor forces in extractive industries and that have experienced greater declines in the primary sector had higher rates of poverty and unemployment; however, self-employment is negatively related to county-level poverty rates, indicating that self-employment may provide opportunities for those in rural counties undergoing economic transformations.     

The Manageable Approach to College Health Services Planning Part I

Abstract

College health services must function effectively within two dynamic and complex environments-higher education and health. College health services are also increasingly expected to respond to emerging forces within the fields of adolescent medicine and college health itself and to seize opportunities to improve the health status and lifestyles of college-age adults. Thus, it is essential that college health services be well planned to meet student needs more completely and to ensure a more appropriate role for college health in both the health and higher education fields. This article depicts the strategic and operational planning that is necessary and delineates how such planning can be accomplished within 10 weeks through the application of the “Manageable Approach.” Basic concepts of the Manageable Approach are presented, its six major stages are described, and detailed guides to the success of each stage are included. These guides focus on the purposes and results of each stage, the group maintenance activities necessary, the specific steps to be followed, the special techniques to be employed, and the planning aids to be used in the discussion of substantive issues. In this first part of a two-part series, strategic and operational health planning are described, the Manageable Approach is introduced, and the first two stages—organization and education, and mission and program goals—are delineated.     

Collaboration Between Community Mental Health and Juvenile Justice Systems: Barriers and Facilitators

Recent studies have confirmed a high prevalence of youth with diagnosable mental health disorders within the juvenile justice system, as well as the vulnerability of youth in the mental health system who enter the juvenile justice system. This high prevalence of dual system involvement has spawned challenges of collaboration between the mental health and juvenile justice systems to provide needed services to youth and their families. Seventy-two in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 youth and their parents/guardians, mental health professionals from five different community mental health centers, and juvenile justice professionals in urban and rural communities in a Midwest state in the United States. Professionals, youth and parents identified several important factors that facilitated collaboration, as well as a myriad of barriers that needed to be overcome. Findings suggest ways to improve partnerships between the two systems and the development of supportive policies and procedures.     

Back to the future,disability and the digital divide

The aim of this article is to explore disability and the digital divide using a quantitative methodology. The research investigates what impact digital technologies have had in improving the life-chances for disabled people from deprived neighbourhoods in the northeast of England. The study explores how disabled people engage with digital and assistive technologies in order to overcome disabling barriers and social exclusion. Unfortunately, the analysis found no evidence that digital and assistive technologies had any impact on reducing social exclusion for disabled people. In fact, the research discovered that these technologies seemed to construct new forms of disabling barriers as a consequence of the digital divide.