Care Leavers in Israel: What Contributes to Better Adjustment to Life After Care?

ABSTRACT

The present study examines the adjustment of youth leaving residential treatment in Israel in three core areas: military service, accommodation, and financial status. A sample of 277 adolescents (aged 17–18 years old) in educational and welfare residential placements were interviewed a few months before leaving care, and 236 of them were interviewed 1 year after. It was hypothesized that optimism, higher perceived sense of readiness to leave care, and higher social support of family, friends, and staff are associated with better outcomes in adjustment to military service, accommodations, and economic status. Findings show that 70% of care leavers were drafted to the (compulsory) military service, a sign of good adjustment in Israel. Yet, they have significant difficulties in the areas of accommodations and financial status. Optimism and perceived readiness for independent living while still in care were positively correlated with adjustment to the military service. Mother's support was positively correlated with care leavers’ economic status and stability in accommodations. These findings highlight the importance of designing programs that include specific attention to needs and challenges while youth are in care and immediately after they leave. Follow-up and longitudinal studies are suggested.     

Cooperation and Conflict within Groups: Bridging Intragroup and Intergroup Processes

Whereas intragroup processes and intergroup relations are often assumed to reflect discrete processes and cooperation and conflict to represent alternative outcomes, the present article focuses on intergroup dynamics within a shared group identity and challenges traditional views of cooperation and conflict primarily as the respective positive and negative outcomes of these dynamics. Drawing on the ideas, theories, and evidence presented in other articles in this volume, we (1) consider the dynamic tension between stability and change that exists within hierarchical groups; (2) discuss the different perspectives that advantaged and disadvantaged subgroups within a larger group have regarding this tension; (3) propose that cooperation and conflict should be viewed as developmental processes in the life of a group; (4) suggest that constructive resolution of conflict depends upon whether subgroups manage to satisfy the different needs of each group, and (5) conclude by discussing the personal, social, and policy implications of this perspective.     

Infant Recognition of Hebrew Vocalic Word Patterns

The ability of infants to recognize phonotactic patterns in their native language is widely acknowledged. However, the specific ability of infants to recognize patterns created by nonadjacent vowels in words has seldom been investigated. In Semitic languages such as Hebrew, groups of multisyllabic words are identical in their nonadjacent vowel sequences and stress position but differ in the consonants interposed between the vowels. The goals of this study were to assess whether infants learning Hebrew show a preference for (1) a nonadjacent vocalic pattern or template, common in Hebrew nouns (CéCeC), over a nonattested nonadjacent vocalic pattern (CóCoC), and (2) a nonadjacent vocalic pattern common in Hebrew words (CaCóC) over an existing but less common pattern (CaCéC). Twenty Hebrew‐learning infants aged 8 to 11 months were presented with lists of nonsense words featuring the first two patterns (Experiment 1), and 20 were presented with nonsense words featuring the second two patterns (Experiment 2). The results showed longer listening to CéCeC than to CóCoC lists and to CaCóC than to CaCéC lists, suggesting that infants recognized the common nonadjacent vocalic patterns in both cases. The study thus demonstrates that Hebrew‐learning infants are able to disregard the intervening consonants within words and generalize their vocalic pattern to previously unheard nonwords, whether this pattern includes identical or different vowels and regardless of the rhythmic pattern of the word (trochaic or iambic). Analysis of the occurrence of the relevant vowel patterns in input speech in three Hebrew corpora (two addressed to children and one to adults) suggests that exposure to these patterns in words underlies the infants' preferences.     

Juggling Models of Masculinity: Russian-Jewish Immigrants in the Israeli Army

The present study addresses the question “What is masculinity?” by exploring how male immigrants interpret local masculinity and the models of masculinity they portray while situating themselves in the male hierarchy of the new society. The study is based on “immigration stories” elicited by in‐depth interviews conducted with 43 university students who immigrated to Israel at the beginning of the 1990s from the former Soviet Union. The analysis of the stories reveals that the immigrants employ four major practices (avoidance, mockery, maneuvering, and provocation) that unfasten the takenfor‐granted link between masculinity and army service in the Israeli society, thereby resisting the hegemonic, military model of masculinity in Israel. The immigrants render meaning to their resistance of the indigenous model (“The Warrior”) via the harnessing of cultural models that they carry with them from their native home—“The Russian Soldier” and “The Jewish Man”—without seeking to alter gender power relations as such. They discursively juggle between the three contesting and competing models of masculinity that together constitute a fluid and elusive “interpretative field” of masculinity. Via their interpretative work, the Russian male immigrants reconstitute their masculine identity, seeking to assert their distinctiveness and to receive social legitimation for their different conception of masculinity.     

Musculoskeletal symptoms among dentists in relation to work posture

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of work posture on musculosketal complaints in Israeli dentists. METHODS: The population included 60 male dentists mean age was 46.0 (+/- SD 8.66), 30 worked in sitting position and 30 were altering positions. Study population completed the standardized Nordic questionnaire and informative form concerning recipient's practice of dentistry, bio-demographic variables and questions about workloads. RESULTS: Musculoskeletal symptoms in the last 12 months were localized primarily in the lower back and in the neck (55% and 38.3% respectively). There was a significant correlation between the time spent sitting and the severity of low back pain (r = 0.41, p = 0.01). On the other hand there was no significant correlation between time spent sitting and other musculoskeletal complaints (r = - 0.16). CONCLUSIONS: Dentists who work in the sitting position have more severe low back pain than do those who alternate between sitting and standing despite the fact that those who sat at least 80% of the time worked less hours and had less of a workload during their working hours. This suggests that altering position should be recommended to dentists. An intervention study, however, is needed to demonstrate that changing posture will decrease the prevalence of low back pain in dentists.     

“Did I just do that?”—Six-month-olds learn the contingency between their vocalizations and a visual reward in 5 minutes

It has been shown that infants can increase or modify a motorically available behavior such as sucking, kicking, arm waving, etc., in response to a positive visual reinforcement (e.g., DeCasper & Fifer, 1980; Millar, 1990; Rochat & Striano, 1999; Rovee-Collier, 1997; Watson & Ramey, 1972). We tested infants to determine if they would also change their vocal behavior in response to contingent feedback, which lacks the social, emotional, and auditory modeling typical of parent-child interaction. Here, we show that in a single five-minute session infants increase the rate of their vocalizations in order to control the appearance of colorful shapes on an iPad screen. This is the first experimental study to demonstrate that infants can rapidly learn to increase their vocalizations, when given positive reinforcement with no social element. This work sets the foundations for future studies into the causal relationship between the number of early vocalizations and the onset of words. In addition, there are potential clinical applications for reinforcing vocal practice in infant populations who are at risk for poor language skills.