Women, Language and Identity

This paper explores the ways in which women and men use language to mark gender boundaries, and to convey femininity and masculinity in the construction of a gendered identity. The first section of the paper examines evidence that language serves as a gender identity marker not only in the particular phonological variants used more by women than by men, but also in the wider stylistic range evident in women's discourse in some communities. The gender distribution and social meanings associated with particular pragmatic particles and interactional devices provide another indication of the ways in which women and men construct and express femininity and masculinity in interaction. The final section analyses the construction of stereotypical gender identities through conversational interaction, firstly by means of a narrative and secondly through the carefully crafted dialogue of an advertisement. The paper demonstrates the complementary nature of macro-level quantitative studies and qualitative ethnographic analysis in gender research.     

THE QUESTION CUBE: A MODEL FOR DEVELOPING QUESTION REPERTOIRE IN TRAINING COUPLE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS

This paper presents a three-dimensional model for teaching questioning to those wishing to develop skills in couple and family therapy. The model breaks questions into their component parts of format (the style of the question: open, closed, forced choice, rating, or ranking); orientation (the person who is being inquired about: self or other), and subject (the content of the question: behavior, feelings, beliefs, meaning, or relationship). The model is presented in the context of our post-Milan version of couple and family therapy training. The model is useful in that it allows students gradually to increase their repertoire of questions in a way that offers step-wise learning and integrates with their existing skills.     

Placing Clinical Social Workers “Between a Legal Rock and a Practice Hard Place”: Reactions to Madden and Parody

The debate about the veracity of incest memories uncovered in therapy is often impassioned and acrimonious. Recent statements by various professional organizations, advising that corroboration of recovered memories is the only method for determining their accuracy, have not decreased the intensity of this debate. This response to Madden and Parody's paper discusses the importance of corroboration of recovered memories of sexual abuse and details the clinical, scientific, and legal foundations for this approach. A point of confusion in Madden and Parody's paper and an important aspect of this response is the difference between clients who uncover completely new memories of childhood sexual abuse and clients who enter therapy with a history of sexual abuse. Those clients with new memories are the focus of this debate and the standard of care proposed in this paper.     

Mythologies and panics: twentieth century constructions of child prostitution

This paper examines twentieth century social constructions of child prostitutes and child prostitution, the origins of these representations and the extent to which they have been used as metaphors for other perceived social, economic and political problems. It is important to recognise that these children have been sexually abused and that discourses that have portrayed them as either assertive and blameworthy seducers or as abducted and coerced innocents are constructed myths which detracted from recognition of the actual problems these children have faced.     

Multiple forms of violence and other criminal activities as an indicator of severe child maltreatment

Child protection practice still appears to view child maltreatment as an event largely isolated from other family violence and criminal activities. Research undertaken by the authors suggests that children who have been subjected to the more severe forms of abuse are likely to have come from families who engage in several forms of criminal activity, inside and outside the family, which is often severe in nature. The child who has been maltreated may also become a participant in these activities. The authors recommend that these factors should be investigated in families who have maltreated a child, as the presence or absence of several forms of concurrent violence and other criminal activity may provide an important clue about the welfare of the child. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Agency practices in successful adoption of developmentally disabled children

The authors discuss the variables associated with success in placing developmentally disabled children for adoption by public and private agencies. They also describe the results of their national study of 199 agencies.