Parents: Dilemmas for Professionals

A professional critically examines her practices towards parents whilst an educational psychologist. Aspects of the power relationship are explored, including acting as a friend, the trappings of professionalism, privacy and confidentiality, interprofessional trust, and the provision of services. A tentative conclusion reached is that these create dilemmas which are part of the workings of the system within which the educational psychologist works, and that professional survival is the underlying motive.     

“A Second-Chance at Being a Parent”: Grandparent Caregivers’ Reported Communication and Parenting Practices with Co-Residential Grandchildren

ABSTRACT

Grandfamilies, family structures in which grandparent(s) co-reside with and assume a primary caregiving role for at least one grandchild, are increasingly common in the United States. This qualitative, exploratory study, informed by family communication patterns theory (FCPT), illuminated the reported communication beliefs and practices of grandparents who serve as primary caregiver to at least one grandchild. Hybrid thematic analysis, combining FCTP with inductive analysis, was used to analyze 21 semi-structured interviews with grandparents. Results yielded four themes describing grandparents’ reported communicative practices: creating opportunities for listening and dialogue, talking about emotion, emphasizing openness, and allowing questioning; and three themes describing the impact of second-chance parenting: increased resources, acquired wisdom, and matured emotionally. Implications for grandfamily communication research in light of hybrid analyses and FCPT are discussed.     

Ebola Virus Dose Response Model for Aerosolized Exposures: Insights from Primate Data

This study develops dose–response models for Ebolavirus using previously published data sets from the open literature. Two such articles were identified in which three different species of nonhuman primates were challenged by aerosolized Ebolavirus in order to study pathology and clinical disease progression. Dose groups were combined and pooled across each study in order to facilitate modeling. The endpoint of each experiment was death. The exponential and exact beta-Poisson models were fit to the data using maximum likelihood estimation. The exact beta-Poisson was deemed the recommended model because it more closely approximated the probability of response at low doses though both models provided a good fit. Although transmission is generally considered to be dominated by person-to-person contact, aerosolization is a possible route of exposure. If possible, this route of exposure could be particularly concerning for persons in occupational roles managing contaminated liquid wastes from patients being treated for Ebola infection and the wastewater community responsible for disinfection. Therefore, this study produces a necessary mathematical relationship between exposure dose and risk of death for the inhalation route of exposure that can support quantitative microbial risk assessment aimed at informing risk mitigation strategies including personal protection policies against occupational exposures.     

Liberating the Archive,Emancipating Philanthropy: Philanthropic Archival Layering as a Critical Historical Approach for Researching Voluntary Action in Marginalized Communities

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Historical analysis of philanthropy and civil society is a valuable research method that provides useful assessments of...     

Collecting text messages from college students: Evaluating a novel methodology

Social interaction, particularly in older adolescents, increasingly involves computer‐mediated communication. Although studies of public computer‐mediated communication are increasingly common, studies of private text messaging remain rare. As approaches for obtaining such data evolve with technological advances, developmental scientists need designs in which to use such approaches that reduce sampling biases in both participants and text messages. In this study (n = 854; 46% male; 22% African American, 60% European American), we examined selection biases in the participant sample (i.e., factors associated with actual participation), procedural biases in the participant sample (i.e., factors related to failed data capture due to technological or procedural issues), and selection biases in the sample of text messages (i.e., based on self‐reported reasons for texting). Findings from our study suggest that studying human interaction directly through analysis of text message data is not only feasible, but also may be successfully undertaken with minimal biases regarding sample selection and text message selection among those who are engaged in research and engaged in text messaging outside of the study context. However, biases may occur depending on the type of platform (iPhone vs. Android) used by participants for texting.     

The Gestalt of Organizational Downsizing: Downsizing Strategies as Packages of Change

This paper develops and examines a framework ofdownsizing processes at the organizational level. Itbuilds on previous frameworks and literature byintroducing new variables found to be important in a field study and by bringing empirical evidenceto bear on conceptual underpinnings related toorganizational downsizing and change. The frameworkdeveloped identifies two general approaches thatorganizations use when undergoing downsizing and redesign, aswell as patterns of activities and changes thataccompany them. Downsizing driving redesign involvesincremental and low-level change, and is associated with less communication and systematic analysis,narrow participation in change efforts, and lowermagnitude change in other organizational attributes.Redesign driving downsizing involves more fundamentalorganizational change, and is associated with high-levelchanges that involve restructuring, more communication,broad participation in change efforts, advancesystematic analysis, and the use of interorganizationalrelationships to further downsizing efforts.     

Diagnosing Discrimination: Stress from Perceived Racism and the Mental and Physical Health Effects*

Differences in health between racial groups in the United States are significant and persistent. Many studies have documented these differences as a result of a variety of different social factors. An emerging emphasis is the impact of racism in its various forms on physical and mental health. Social stress theory conceptualizes racism as a social stresssor which can produce negative health consequences for racial minorities. This study uses binary logit and negative binomial regression models of four items from the 2004 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to test social stress theory and examine the relationship between stress symptoms from perceived racism and overall health (N = 32,585). The effect of race on the experience of emotional and physical stress symptoms from racism is substantial. Furthermore, experiencing both emotional and physical stress from perceived racist treatment is an important factor in predicting the number of poor mental and physical health days, indicating that the experience of stress from perceived racism is related to overall poorer health.     

Application cards: A classroom technique for teaching social work practice

This paper describes the use and evaluation of application cards as a teaching tool designed to enhance students' abilities to apply knowledge learned in social work practice classes. Strengths and limitations of this tool as a means for enhancing students' application skills are discussed, based on qualitative and quantitative evaluative data.