Children’s Musical and Emotional Meaning Making: Dialogicality in Instructional Interaction

This study concerns children’s aesthetic meaning making in terms of how it is constituted musically, emotionally, and dialogically. We investigate how two 10-year-old children collaboratively engage in the task of teaching and learning to sing a song. The research questions concern what musical and emotional expressions the participants responsively construct and how these expressions are addressed, both explicitly and implicitly. Adopting a perspective grounded in Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogue philosophy and more recent educational research in this tradition, the study explores how children’s affective reasoning is co-constructed in the process of song sharing that is also a sense-making enterprise. Interactive talk episodes, including facial displays, are transcribed, analyzed, and discussed. We demonstrate, from moment to moment, how emotive expressivity comes into play and how it refers to double dialogicality, both at the interpersonal and activity-specific level. Finally, on the basis of our findings, we discuss conflicting artistic and educational values.     

Happiness and Pathways to Reach It: Dimension-Centred Versus Person-Centred Approach

The purpose of the present study was to explore the ways people achieve their happiness employing two approaches, i.e. a dimension-centred, focusing on the three orientations to happiness (orientation to pleasure, meaning, and engagement), and a person-centred, focusing on patterns of these three orientations within individuals. The predictive validity of individual orientations to happiness and their characteristic patterns for three aspects of subjective well-being was explored. Adult participants (N = 1,142; 33 % male) filled-in the Orientations to Happiness Questionnaire and the Mental Health Continuum-Long Form. Applying the dimension-centred approach, results suggested that all of the orientations represent possible and appropriate ways to achieve happiness. Person-centred analysis yielded four groups of individuals with similar profiles of ways towards happiness and membership of these groups was associated with individual’s well-being. Leading an empty life was associated with the poorest outcomes and full life with the highest well-being, with moderate well-being characterizing individuals pursuing pleasurable and meaningful life. More precisely, pleasurable life and meaningful life had relatively similar predictive value for psychological well-being but demonstrated discriminant validity for emotional and social well-being. This suggests that the profiles are meaningfully different and highlights the importance of the multiplicative influences of the three specific orientations to happiness.     

Doing More with Less? Employee Reactions to Psychological Contract Breach via Target Similarity or Spillover during Public Sector Organizational Change

Many countries are facing the twin pressures of austerity and recession following the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. This paper uses the UK public sector and a major national announcement of budget cuts signalling extensive organizational cutbacks as its setting. We examine (a) whether organizational changes following the national announcement affect public sector employees' psychological contract breach, (b) whether employee reactions to psychological contract breach are consistent with the target similarity model and vary across foci, namely the organization, co‐workers and public service users, and (c) whether some of these relationships are moderated by job insecurity or public sector commitment. We collected longitudinal survey data before and after the announcement of budget cuts, using a sample of 340 employees from a range of public organizations and locations. Results largely confirm the hypotheses. Increases in organizational change predicted psychological contract breach, which in turn predicted decreases in contributions towards the organization; however, contributions towards co‐workers and public service users were unaffected, which can be explained with a target similarity, rather than a spillover, model. Furthermore, the relationship between breach and employee behaviours directed toward the public was moderated by job insecurity and public sector commitment.     

Optimal Detection of a Change Point in a Poisson Process for Different Observation Schemes

Abstract.  Change point problems are considered where at some unobservable time the intensity of a point process ( T_n ), n ∈  N , has a jump. For a given reward functional we detect the change point optimally for different information schemes. These schemes differ in the available information. We consider three information levels, namely sequential observation of ( T_n ), ex post decision after observing the point process up to a fixed time t * and a combination of both observation schemes. In all of these cases the detection problem is viewed as an optimal stopping problem which can be solved by deriving a semimartingale representation of the gain process and applying tools from filtering theory.     

Evaluating the Emergence of Reverse Intraverbals in Children with Autism

Verbal behavior plays a fundamental role in the development of complex social and communication skills. Many children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder exhibit profound deficiencies in intraverbal repertoires and the development of social relationships. Recent studies that investigated the effects of intraverbal training on the emergence of reverse intraverbals produced mixed results (e.g., Perez-Gonzalez et al., Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 40:697–701, 2007)). In the current study, a multiple-probe design across four participants with autism was used to evaluate the effects of intraverbal training on the emergence of reverse intraverbals. Intraverbal training consisted of multiple exemplars taught concurrently, bidirectional stimulus-response teaching formats, general case analysis, reinforcement, and a constant prompt delay (CPD) procedure. Participants were trained on intraverbal targets and probes were conducted to assess emergence of untaught reverse intraverbals. Three participants demonstrated the emergence of reverse intraverbals as a result of the intraverbal training procedures. Social validity and maintenance of target responses and emergent reverse intraverbals were assessed.     

Trauma,World Assumptions,and Coping Resources among Youthful Offenders: Social Work,Mental Health,and Criminal Justice Implications

The purpose of this study was to contribute to the extant literature by examining the relationship of traumatic and stressful life experiences among youthful offenders aged 18–24 years old. The sample included 38 youthful offenders incarcerated in the New Jersey Department of Corrections in 2008. During in-person interviews, youthful offenders completed a survey that gathered information on cumulative trauma, world assumptions, and coping resources using the Stressful Life Experiences Screening Inventory-Long Form, World Assumption Scale, and Coping Resources Inventory. A series of OLS regression analyses revealed partial support for the study hypotheses that cumulative trauma is significantly and negatively associated to youthful offenders’ basic world assumptions about the world having meaning. Opposite of what was expected, it was found that cumulative trauma was significantly and positively associated with spiritual coping resources among youthful offenders. These findings have important implications for developing and improving interdisciplinary and multi-level trauma assessment and intervention strategies with youthful offenders.     

Exploring the Relationship between Exposure to Violence,Perceptions of Neighborhood Safety,and Children's Adaptive Functioning: Clinical and Community Implications

This study explored the relationship of exposure to violence and children's perceptions of neighborhood safety and children's adaptive functioning. It used a cross-sectional quadi-experimental design of 300 inner-city children and a bttery of standardized measures, which included the Child Maltreatment Classification Scheme, Exposure to Community Violence Scale, the Domains of Safety Subscale for Neighborhood, and the Child Behavior Checklist-Teacher's Report form. Hierarchal regression analysis revealed that child maltreatment history and perceptions of neighborhood safety were significantly related to children's overall adaptive functioning. Social workers can help by engaging in efforts to increase neighborhood safety and reinforcing positive adaptive psychosocial functioning of children at risk or exposed to violence.     

Ecological Risks to Fossorial Vertebrates from Volatile Organic Compounds in Soil

The past several years has seen an increased awareness of the need to conduct ecological risk assessments (ERAs) for hazardous waste sites. One technique used in ERAs involves estimating contaminant exposure to individual animals of selected species, which is then compared to a reference dose derived from the literature. Exposure estimates are conducted on those species which are representative of the different trophic levels found at the site. In many terrestrial systems, fossorial (burrowing) vertebrates are found in both lower and upper trophic levels. As part of the ERA conducted for Site 300, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's high-explosive test facility, contaminant exposures were estimated for fossorial and nonfossorial vertebrates spanning two trophic levels. The results of the evaluation revealed that a significant pathway by which fossorial vertebrates could be exposed to trichloroethylene in soil was through the inhalation of contaminated subsurface burrow air. This was the first time that the importance of this ecological exposure pathway has been recognized. The results of this analysis suggest that further research into the ecological significance of subsurface burrow air contaminated with volatile organic compounds is warranted.     

Promoting Creative Practice through Social Work Education

It has been suggested that the essence of professional work lies in the balance between the performance of technical tasks and the exercise of judgement and discretion—the ‘technicality/indeterminacy’ debate. A skilled social worker must be capable of applying a range of knowledge, skills and values in a variety of practice circumstances, the precise nature of which cannot always be predicted. This presents a challenge for social work education, previously governed by a reductive notion of ‘competence’ in its planning and delivery. This paper will explore the nature of judgement and creativity in practice, identifying why such concepts are essential in contemporary social work. Accepting that qualified social workers must be capable of acting independently and autonomously, it will then examine the task that this presents for social work education—the need to prepare students (at both qualifying and post‐qualifying levels) to exercise judgement and discretion in professional practice. The paper will argue that the development of innovative forms of social work will depend upon the existence of forms of education that can foster and enhance students' ability to work creatively, and present ways in which this can be managed within both academic and practice curricula.