From Refrigerator Mothers to Warrior‐Heroes: The Cultural Identity Transformation of Mothers Raising Children with Intellectual Disabilities

This article examines public performances of mothering children with intellectual disabilities through thematic discourse analysis of thirty‐three published memoirs. These data reveal presentations of self that, once consumed and interpreted by public interaction, emerge collectively as a “warrior‐hero” identity, a reformulated archetype in the social construction of a good mother. This archetype places a cultural expectation on mothers to do battle to attain resources and possible cures for their children, ultimately shifting the historical burden on mothers from causing the intellectual disabilities of their children to curing them. The article concludes with a discussion of how this hyperfocus on expert parenting has the potential to leave mothers of children with intellectual disabilities strained and subject to the pitfalls of systems of inequality.     

A competency-based approach to preparing staff as recreation and youth development leaders

Youth development professionals and parks and recreation professionals often are charged with providing services to youth. However, the approach of each can be quite different as recreation is a primary focus for recreation professionals and part of many services offered by youth development specialists. Despite the differences, these two groups of professionals can learn a great deal from each other. This article examines youth development and staff training with examples from the field and suggests how youth development professionals can learn from recreation professionals and vice versa. It suggests that parks and recreation professionals can strengthen degree programs, accreditation, certification, and continuing education by incorporating specific youth development competencies established by the National Collaboration for Youth. For their part, youth development professionals can learn from parks and recreation professionals how to enhance recreation programming as part of their services by gaining an understanding of program design, program and activity leadership, and administrative practices. With much debate over whether more education or more experience is a better path for those working with youth, the authors suggest that a combination of both will adhere to the quality of staff. Staff gain further knowledge and skill from academic preparation at the undergraduate and graduate levels, field-based training through jobs and internships, and continuing education courses specializing in youth development competencies and recreation-based competencies set within a youth development environment.     

New Voters,New Outlook? Predispositions,Social Networks,and the Changing Politics of Gay Civil Rights*

Objectives. This study examines the factors that shape public acceptance of homosexuality and support for same-sex marriage across age cohorts.Methods. We analyzed data from two national surveys. We constructed hierarchical logistic and hierarchical ordinary least squares regressions for relevant age cohorts in order to test our hypotheses and explore our research questions.Results. Our models suggest that personal contact has a greater impact on the attitudes of younger respondents, positively influencing public acceptance of homosexuality. Alternatively, religious and ideological predispositions have a greater impact on the attitudes of older individuals. When examining public support for gay marriage, we find that younger individuals have higher levels of deliberative engagement with the issue debate, while older individuals rely more heavily on their predispositions when determining issue stance. Interestingly, measures of media exposure are not significantly related to either public acceptance of homosexuality or support for same-sex marriage, suggesting that other factors may have a greater impact on public attitudes at this point in time.Conclusion. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the emergence of a new political generation and the continuing struggle for gay civil rights.     

Staffing Call Centers with Uncertain Arrival Rates and Co‐sourcing

In a call center, staffing decisions must be made before the call arrival rate is known with certainty. Once the arrival rate becomes known, the call center may be over‐staffed, in which case staff are being paid to be idle, or under‐staffed, in which case many callers hang‐up in the face of long wait times. Firms that have chosen to keep their call center operations in‐house can mitigate this problem by co‐sourcing; that is, by sometimes outsourcing calls. Then, the required staffing N depends on how the firm chooses which calls to outsource in real time, after the arrival rate realizes and the call center operates as a M/M/N + M queue with an outsourcing option. Our objective is to find a joint policy for staffing and call outsourcing that minimizes the long‐run average cost of this two‐stage stochastic program when there is a linear staffing cost per unit time and linear costs associated with abandonments and outsourcing. We propose a policy that uses a square‐root safety staffing rule, and outsources calls in accordance with a threshold rule that characterizes when the system is “too crowded.” Analytically, we establish that our proposed policy is asymptotically optimal, as the mean arrival rate becomes large, when the level of uncertainty in the arrival rate is of the same order as the inherent system fluctuations in the number of waiting customers for a known arrival rate. Through an extensive numerical study, we establish that our policy is extremely robust. In particular, our policy performs remarkably well over a wide range of parameters, and far beyond where it is proved to be asymptotically optimal.     

Children's Perspectives on Their Relationships With Grandparents Following Parental Separation: A Longitudinal Study

Following parental separation, children's closeness to grandparents has been reported to be linked to their family situation and differences in adjustment. This relationship has not been investigated longitudinally. This study investigated children's relationships with grandparents over time in different family settings, and associations with intergenerational relationships. Data from 385 children, with longitudinal analyses on 140, were collected at two time points over a five‐year period. Associations between closeness of the child–grandparent relationship and adjustment were not found at the later time point. There was a mean drop in frequency of contact over time, but not in closeness. However, there was stability of individual differences in both frequency of contact and closeness; closeness to the maternal grandmother was particularly stable for children living with a single mother. Intergenerational links were found with the mother's own childhood experiences, particularly in single‐mother families. Following parental separation, the matrifocal bias in kinship patterns was accentuated.     

Rethinking Periodical Indices to Expand Art Historical Research: A Case Study of Avalanche Magazine Index

Abstract

Avalanche Magazine, an artist magazine published in the 1970s, is a unique primary source document of the conceptual art scene. Replete with photographs, advertisements, artist interviews, and gossipy personal notices, it is a trove of insight into artistic practice in a highly experimental period. Nevertheless, it was never included in any visual art or humanities database index, leaving its content largely undiscoverable by traditional means. In an effort to remedy this situation, the authors built an open access website, Avalanche Magazine Index (http://avalancheindex.org), which indexes the entire contents of Avalanche. Like a traditional periodical index, Avalanche Magazine Index describes the content of the magazine rather than reproducing it in full text. However, unlike traditional indices, the website encompasses every component of the magazine—from interviews to advertisements—and attempts to identify each named artist, venue, exhibition, curator, and photographer. The exhaustive indexing works in concert with the relational database that underlies the site to reveal a network of relationships between and within the artistic communities of the era. This case study presents the rationale for indexing Avalanche Magazine, provides an overview of workflow, outlines the ways the project diverges from traditional indexes, reflects on the impact of open access on the project’s success, and proposes that the website is capable of generating new knowledge in and of itself.     

Religion and Trends in Euthanasia Attitudes among U.S. Adults, 1977–2004

Though many studies address the role of religion in predicting social attitudes over time, none has examined this relationship specifically for euthanasia. Using a large, nationally representative data source, this study seeks to address this void. Our findings indicate that considerable differences exist among religious denominations regarding the legalization of euthanasia. Specifically, we note a liberalizing trend for all included denominations. We also demonstrate substantial differences in the rates of liberalization, particularly in comparison to conservative Protestants. We conclude with an assessment of our findings relative to previous studies on religion and public opinion.

Getting affairs in order: influences of social support and religious coping on end-of-life planning among open-heart surgery patients

Despite growing interest in end-of-life issues, little research has been done concerning end-of-life plans made by patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD), a disease that constitutes the highest mortality in the United States. Even less information is available on patients who undergo major cardiac surgery, a life-altering procedure with some risk of death, in terms of their engagement in end-of-life planning (EOLP). This prospective study enabled the contributors to explore EOLP among 309 middle-aged and older open-heart surgery patients, using survey data from three sequential interviews. A hierarchical logistic regression model shows that older age, higher education, greater social support, and negative religious coping were positively related to the likelihood of engaging in EOLP. Minority race was inversely related to EOLP. Findings suggest the potential role for social workers in helping cardiac patients to access social spiritual resources, and to consider engagement in EOLP.     

The Future of Nuclear Power: Value Orientations and Risk Perception

Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a revival of interest in nuclear power. Two decades ago, the expansion of nuclear power in the United States was halted by widespread public opposition as well as rising costs and less than projected increases in demand for electricity. Can the renewed enthusiasm for nuclear power overcome its history of public resistance that has persisted for decades? We propose that attitudes toward nuclear power are a function of perceived risk, and that both attitudes and risk perceptions are a function of values, beliefs, and trust in the institutions that influence nuclear policy. Applying structural equation models to data from a U.S. national survey, we find that increased trust in the nuclear governance institutions reduces perceived risk of nuclear power and together higher trust and lower risk perceptions predict positive attitudes toward nuclear power. Trust in environmental institutions and perceived risks from global environmental problems do not predict attitudes toward nuclear power. Values do predict attitudes: individuals with traditional values have greater support for, while those with altruistic values have greater opposition to, nuclear power. Nuclear attitudes do not vary by gender, age, education, income, or political orientation, though nonwhites are more supportive than whites. These findings are consistent with, and provide an explanation for, a long series of public opinion polls showing public ambivalence toward nuclear power that persists even in the face of renewed interest for nuclear power in policy circles.     

Sexual minority youth in romantic relationships: Associations with youth well-being

This study investigated differences in depressive symptoms, loneliness, and self-esteem for monosexual (lesbian, gay) and plurisexual (bisexual, pansexual, queer) sexual minority youth (SMY) by relationship status (single, partnered) and relationship configuration (same-gender partner, different-gender partner). Participants included 338 SMY (M_age = 19.10 years) who reported on their relationship status, partner's gender identity, well-being, and ability to confide in partner about LGBTQ issues. Results indicated that for plurisexual youth, single status was associated with greater loneliness; plurisexual youth with same-gender partners reported fewer depressive symptoms and marginally greater ability to confide in their partner about LGBTQ issues than those with different-gender partners. Findings reveal similarities across SMY while also highlighting some unique challenges among plurisexual youth with different-gender partners.