Managing Children’s Friendships Through Interparental Relationships: Roles of Ethnicity and Friendship Context

Twenty African American and European American mothers of fourth‐grade students reflected on strategies for managing children’s friendships maintained across a variety of contexts. Ethnicity differentially located families within specific social contexts that yielded children’s friendships, then informed social processes as they unfolded within these contexts. Maternal knowledge concerning children’s friendships developed as a function of the types of relationships formed among parents encountered within different settings. Findings suggest that interparental relationships represent a key source of information about children’s friendships. Yet, maternal opportunities to establish such relationships differ on the basis of both ethnicity and the nature of contexts in which children’s friendships are maintained.     

"We are not aliens, we're people, and we have rights." Canadian human rights discourse and high school climate for LGBTQ students

Canadian law protects people from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, but our public schools do not fulfill their ethical and legal obligations where sexual and gender minority youth are concerned. This article reports on a national survey study on homophobia and transphobia in Canadian high schools. Participants (n = 3,607) were questioned about school climate, harassment, school attachment, and institutional interventions. We found that schools were neither safe nor respectful for sexual and gender minority students, and we argue that ongoing exposure to this situation undermines students' respect for the Charter of Rights and their faith in adults.     

A critical survey on the status of multiple criteria decision making theory and practice

This paper seeks to review and to contrast the main streams of thought in Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) theory and practice, without attempting to review all MCDM methods in detail. The main purpose is to identify pitfalls in the usage of various approaches, and to suggest approaches which are most robustly and effectively useable, especially by the non-expert in MCDM methodology. Problem areas in MCDM still requiring further research are also discussed.     

Can new neurons replace memories lost?

It now appears that new neurons are produced not only in the healthy adult brain but also in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although the function of new neurons in the healthy brain is unknown, there is evidence that they are involved in certain types of memory formation and that their survival is enhanced dramatically and persistently by learning experiences. The evidence that neurogenesis, or at least the expression of proteins unique to immature neurons, occurs during the late stages of AD raises the possibility that their production could be enhanced earlier in the disease process before so many neurons and memories are lost.     

Coping with dating violence as a function of violence frequency and solution attribution: a structural modeling approach

This study presents a structural model of coping with dating violence. The model integrates abuse frequency and solution attribution to relate to college women's choices of coping strategies. Three hundred and twenty-four undergraduate women reported being targets of some physical abuse from a boyfriend and responded to questions regarding the abuse, their solution attribution, and their coping behaviors. Solution attribution mediated the relation between frequency of the abuse and coping. Abuse frequency had a positive effect on external solution attribution, and external solution attribution had a positive effect on the level of use of active coping, utilization of social support, denial, and acceptance.     

No one is listening: Members of the Deaf community share their depression narratives

This exploratory case study conducted in Manitoba, Canada examined a unique social justice issue in the field of mental health, namely, how Deaf adults, all American Sign Language first-language users who were diagnosed with Depression, manage their symptoms in a mental health system that is based on spoken, not signed communication. Using in-depth individual interviews, and a hand-drawn Person and Environment Map, this study offers rich in-depth narratives of the experiences and challenges faced by members of the Deaf community seeking mental health assessment and intervention.     

Sluts that Choose Vs Doormat Gypsies

The UK primetime series My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding (Channel 4, 2010, 2011, 2012) offered audiences the opportunity to be armchair matrimonial ethnographers, to reveal the courtship curiosities of “one of the most secretive communities in the UK.” In spite of claims to social realist documentary, however, we argue that this programme has clearer resonances with “sexposé” reality television, producing and circulating a moral, visual economy premised upon the cultural figuration of “the gypsy bride.” The gypsy girl and gypsy bride are marked as victims of male gypsy oppression, of “backwards” and repressive cultural practices, of age-inappropriate sexualisation and “excessive” consumerism, and is thus defined by her failure to be a good aspirational postfeminist subject. In this paper, we explore the intersecting discourses around gender, sexuality, class, and race operative within Gypsy Wedding and analyse online forums responding to the programme. We use psychosocial methodologies and theories of affect to argue that the gypsy bride becomes a figure of abjection, desired and despised, and that the (readily accepted) invitation to be appalled by her “oppression” reveals the strategic potency of postfeminist notions of empowerment and the racist, sexist, and classist agendas it can serve.     

Developing Culturally Responsive Supervision Through Yarn Up Time and the CASE Supervision Model

ABSTRACT

This article explores a culturally focused supervision training program supporting Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal supervisors to provide cross-cultural supervision for Aboriginal staff within mainstream and Aboriginal community and human service organisations. The key features of the training program, Yarn Up Time and the CASE supervision model are a culturally respectful approach to cross-cultural professional supervision practice with the purpose of contributing to the development of culturally responsive supervision with Aboriginal staff and their clients. The article concludes with feedback from participants who attended the training and supports the future advancement of cross-cultural supervision practice and models in Australia.

IMPLICATIONS

• There continues to be a need for more culturally responsive supervision for Aboriginal staff and for non-Aboriginal social work practice with Aboriginal people.

• Yarn Up Time and the CASE model is a culturally appropriate approach for supervising Aboriginal staff and non-Aboriginal social workers’ supervision of social workers’ practice with Aboriginal communities.

• Social work supervisors need to be able to use an effective cultural supervision model to support Aboriginal staff in Yarn Up Time.