The utility of the DSM-5 Z-codes for clinical social work diagnosis

ABSTRACT

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the standard reference text used by social workers for diagnosing mental disorders. The social work profession has always had an uneasy relationship with the DSM, but for 33 years there was an opportunity to note a client’s psychosocial stressors on Axis IV. With the publication of the DSM-5, however, the multiaxial diagnostic system was abandoned, and many social workers are concerned that this change limits their ability to provide comprehensive diagnoses. The purpose of this article is to consider an expanded use of Z-codes as one way to continue including social work’s psychosocial perspective on human functioning in the diagnostic process.     

Jobs,gender, and self‐efficacy in multiple contexts

This paper focuses on the social psychological correlates of being in an occupation that is sex‐typed against one's own gender‐i.e., cross‐sex incumbency in sex‐typed occupations. Male and female high school teachers and university professors are compared in terms of global self‐esteem as well as in three context‐specific dimensions of self‐efficacy. While no differences in global self‐esteem were revealed, a number of significant differences did emerge in comparisons of self‐efficacy in specific contexts. Our data reveal no uniform effects of cross‐sex incumbency. Male high school teachers, however, did exhibit signs of decreased occupational self‐efficacy, perhaps as a result of the previous female domination of that occupation. Female professors, on the other hand, reported high levels of self‐efficacy on all dimensions. The paper concludes with two hypotheses for further empirical examination, and suggests tht self‐esteem be conceptualized as a multidimensional construct.     

Not Necessarily Solidarity

Since the idea of “women's rights as human rights” emerged, there has been a wave of international donors, organizations and transnational feminist activists successfully delivering pressure and resources in the struggle to mitigate violence against women worldwide. Through these transnational networks, decisions regarding which local problems to address and how to manage them are often made at the international level. Most scholarship has rightly celebrated the advances for women's rights that have been made possible due to the impact of international organizations and transnational advocacy networks. However, there are many dilemmas that arise from this North-centric approach to assigning and managing priorities – especially among development aid organizations. Coordination with international donors is often necessary and has been a major source of advances. However, there are still some potentially harmful impacts of having to engage in these networks in order to address violence against women – including a disproportionate focus on short-term results while neglecting long-term goals. This article articulates these dilemmas and explains how international feminist human rights norms can be more successfully translated into a stronger sense of solidarity across borders and more sustainable advances for women. Examples are drawn from the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.     

Population and Upland Crop Production in Nang Rong,Thailand

This paper estimates village-level models of the effects of population variables on the area devoted to upland crop production in Nang Rong district, Thailand. The expansion of upland crops is part of the growth of market agriculture in Nang Rong, and a correlate of deforestation in this setting, The results show that population density (measured as density of village settlement) negatively affects area in upland crops while population growth has a positive effect. Changes in land use associated with population change appear to radiate outward from nuclear village centers. As cash economies are established in rural settings, household formation requires a source of income as well as a subsistence stake. Growth in the population of households is a stronger predictor of the area in upland crops than growth in the number of persons.     

Extralegal Factors in Felony Sentencing: Classes of Behavior or Classes of People?

The radical-conflict perspective of criminology stresses that legal sanctions are applied more against classes of people than classes of behavior. To test this proposition we took a class of behaviors–sex offenses–and a class of people–designated "normal primitives"–in an attempt to determine which of the groups accounted for more of the variance in sentence severity. We found that although sex offenders enjoyed considerably higher social status than did normal primitives, sex offender status accounted for more than eight times the amount of variance in sentence severity than did normal primitive status after controlling for legally relevant variables. These findings cast doubt on class-based models of sentencing.     

Person-Environment Congruence and Coping Strategies

This study explored the differences in coping strategies and styles between students who made congruent, incongruent, and undecided college major choices. The coping strategies were operationally defined by the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ; Folkman & Lazarus, 1988) and the Coping Inventory (CI; Zeitlin, 1985). Congruent, incongruent, and undecided college major choice groups were defined operationally using the Self-Directed Search (SDS; Holland, 1985b) and the College Majors Finder (CMF; Rosen, Holmberg, & Holland, 1989). The Holland codes that resulted from the SDS and the CMF defined the congruent and incongruent students using the Iachan congruence index. The multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant findings for the main effect of gender on the WCQ. On the CI, the multivariate analysis of variance again revealed a main effect for gender. In general, the findings of this study suggest that male and female students report some different coping strategies and styles. Follow-up tests further suggest a few group differences among the congruent, incongruent, and undecided students.