Facilities and HIV prevention in bathhouse and sex club environments

This project evaluated the extent to which businesses with a primary purpose of providing opportunities for sexual encounters between men (e.g., bathhouses and sex clubs) have implemented strategies that target their customers with important HIV and STD prevention messages. Between October 1996 and February 1997, we conducted structured telephone interviews with 63 businesses throughout the United States in order to describe their facilities and their HIV education and prevention efforts. Types of facilities offered were related to what businesses called themselves and the kinds of sex space they provided. All of the businesses reported that they provided condoms and lubricant on site; 95% provided educational materials such as posters and flyers about HIV/AIDS; and 40% provided HIV testing on site, with half of these also providing some type of STD testing. Although some level of HIV prevention and educational efforts by these businesses are described, further investigation into their efficacy is required.     

Applicability of the Social Development Model to Urban Ethnic Minority Youth: Examining the Relationship between External Constraints,Family Socialization,and Problem Behaviors

The development of preventive interventions targeting adolescent problem behaviors requires a thorough understanding of risk and protective factors for such behaviors. However, few studies examine whether different cultural and ethnic groups share these factors. This study is an attempt to fill a gap in research by examining similarities and differences in risk factors across racial and ethnic groups. The social development model has shown promise in organizing predictors of problem behaviors. This article investigates whether a version of that model can be generalized to youth in different racial and ethnic groups (N=2,055, age range from 11 to 15), including African American (n=478), Asian Pacific Islander (API) American (n=491), multiracial (n=442), and European American (n=644) youth. The results demonstrate that common risk factors can be applied to adolescents, regardless of their race and ethnicity. The findings also demonstrate that there are racial and ethnic differences in the magnitudes of relationships among factors that affect problem behaviors. Further study is warranted to develop a better understanding of these differential magnitudes.     

Concepts of Real and Imaginary Friendships in Early Childhood

This investigation focused on the friendship concepts of pre‐school‐aged children. Eighty‐four 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children responded to questions about social provisions, or benefits of relationships, available from reciprocal friends (both children in a pair nominate each other as friends), unilateral friends (one child nominates the other), non‐friends (neither child of a pair nominates the other), and imaginary friends (for those who had them). Results indicated that reciprocal and imaginary friends were the best sources of social provisions, followed by unilateral friends and non‐friends. Major implications are that children draw distinctions between reciprocal and unilateral friends based on the levels of social provisions available in these relationships, and that relationship schemas underlying relationships with imaginary companions may be akin to those for reciprocal friends. Children's friendship schemata may also differ by gender, as girls discriminated more than boys between reciprocal and unilateral friends for the social provision of companionship.     

Losing Selves: Dementia Care as Disruption and Transformation

Caregiving is a process of transformed identities and reconstructed relations. The disruption of Alzheimer's disease affects both the individual with dementia and the person providing care. One becomes enselfed in dementia, the other transformed into a caregiver. Using data from twenty qualitative interviews with family caregivers, this article traces the transformative process by which the previous relational selves of both participants become casualties of the disease. Findings suggest that the ill person in this dyad is silenced through dementia, leaving the caregiver narratives to become the morality tales of transformation from disorder to order, from havoc to meaningful interaction. By becoming caregivers, family members construct value in their struggles to negotiate the disorder of illness and recreate meaningful and affirming selves and relationships.     

An analysis of variables affecting length of stay in foster care

The purpose of this paper was to find out whether the relationship between type of contact with agency and/or child in foster care and average number of contacts over time makes any difference in length of stay in foster care. Four types of contacts were examined: Family—Agency, Family Initiated—Agency, Social Worker—Initiated, and Family—Child. Results indicated that there were critical numbers for each contact type found to be statistically significant that would tend to reduce the length of the child's stay in foster care. The importance of contact during the first month of placement was emphasized.     

Extending Product Method of Estimation to Positive Correlation Case in Surveys

The product method of estimation (Murthy, 1964) complements the ratio method when the study variate, y, and an auxiliary variate, x, have negative correlation. However, such cases are not frequent in survey practice. This paper suggests a simple transformation of x in the more common situation of positive correlation between y and x, to permit a product method of estimation rather than a ratio method. This leads to the advantage that the bias and mean square error have exact expressions. The technique developed by Quenouille (1956) and applied by Shukla (1976) is used for making the estimator unbiased. The minimum variance situation is investigated. Two numerical examples are included. The case of negative correlation is also examined.     

Playing with conflict: a longitudinal study of varieties of spontaneous verbal conflict during mother-child interaction at home

Although conflict is central to major developmental theories, relatively little is known about the ways in which young children and caregivers argue at home. The existing psychological research focuses narrowly on serious, ‘problem-solving’ conflicts. In contrast, this in-depth longitudinal study describes varieties of spontaneous conflict talk occurring at home between nine middle-class Caucasian American mothers and their 2- to 4-year-old children. All dyads produced conflicts with nonse-rious, imaginary and/or ritual markings for a mean of 31% (± 2.8%) of all mother-child conflicts. Overall, most mother-child marked conflicts were nonserious, but the percentage of marked conflicts that were imaginary increased with age. Mothers used marked conflicts to manage ongoing problematic interactions with their children, while children apparently introduced marked conflicts primarily during play. Available data on child-child conflicts showed that some of these conflicts also were marked and were introduced primarily during play. Implications for how varieties of conflict may contribute to social competence within the family and peer group are discussed.     

Domestic violence beliefs and perceptions among college students

This study builds on current research, investigating the relationships between sociodemographic variables and domestic violence attitudes and beliefs among college students. Data from the Relationship Characteristics Study conducted in 2001, which includes a sample of 1,938 college students, are used to replicate and extend the research of Carlson and Worden (2001, 2005), the developers of the attitudes and beliefs items. In addition, the research portends to analyze factors associated with domestic violence causation endorsement, physical and sexual abuse, stalking, and verbal abuse beliefs, including gender, race and ethnicity, university year, parents' education, family income, parents' marital status, and relationship status. Results are consistent with the rates reported by the item developers. Further, results demonstrate that sociodemographic variables are correlated with physical and sexual abuse and verbal abuse beliefs and causation endorsement.