Bar None: Extending Affirmative Action to Higher Education in Prison

Recognizing the intent of Affirmative Action to include historically marginalized citizens into institutions of higher learning, we stretch the limits of Affirmative Action to consider the role of higher education in prison. We present empirical findings of a 4-year, qualitative and quantitative participatory action research study of the impact of college in prison. Evidence is drawn from participant observations; individual and focus group interviews with participants of the college program, former inmates, prison administrators, corrections officers, and children of inmates; faculty surveys; and a quantitative analysis of recidivism rates. We address the psychological, academic, and crime-related impacts of higher education on women in prison, and document the benefits of broad-based access for inmates, prison environments, children of prisoners, and society-at-large.     

Resisting Guilt: Mothers’ Breastfeeding Intentions and Formula Use

Breastfeeding, the topic of numerous government-supported initiatives, is widely considered the optimal mode of infant feeding and is a central component of cultural ideals of good mothering. Prior research has indicated that one outcome of the emphasis placed on breastfeeding is the experience of guilt, regret, shame, or inadequacy that mothers may feel when they do not or cannot breastfeed. Using data from 96 interviews with 22 first-time mothers, the experiences of mothers who wanted to breastfeed but used formula are explored. Mothers engaged in three strategies that helped maintain a positive maternal identity: framing the use of formula as not a choice, recognizing the effort placed into breastfeeding, and focusing on overall health and happiness. Results indicate that the focus on individual choice in breastfeeding promotion highlights resulting guilt or failure, to the exclusion of recognizing women’s agency in using resistance strategies and the broader social context of breastfeeding.     

GAMES AND TRUTHS: Learning To Construct Social Problems In High School Debate

Although social constructionists have taken the process by which people learn to present social problems for granted, these skills are acquired in the course of socialization. Through high school debate, adolescents acquire techniques for making arguments, using evidence, and presenting claims to multiple audiences. In the process, they learn that taking a public position does not necessarily require a deeply held commitment. This model resonates with the institutional structure of politics and law in the United States in which adversaries battle each other in a rule-governed game,'a contest ultimately evaluated by judges assumed to be impartial. To understand the process by which adolescents gain the skills to construct social problems, I conducted an ethnographic study of debate teams at two high schools. The ability to take both sides of an argument, express ideas with which one does not personally agree, and present powerful, if questionable, evidence, constrained by time, teaches teenagers how to engage in social problem discourse and provides a training ground for moral entrepreneurs.     

The political economy of South Africa in the interwar period∗

Economic policy in South Africa in the interwar period is discussed in the context of differences between the economic power and political influence of Afrikaner as opposed to mining capital. Previous analyses have been limited by overgeneralisation, narrowness of scope and analytical methodologies which have overemphasised class agencies at the expense of actual and potential economic linkages. State economic interventions are shown to have differed in influence and in impact by area of application. No coherent policy was followed for the development of industry based on agricultural products. Instead, policies were subordinated to devolving central power to fragmented agricultural interests. Industrial policy is shown to have been confined to protection, other forms of subsidy and the creation of a state sector around heavy industry rather than being linked to a strategy of diversification out of the base provided by the activities associated with mining. Despite this lack of a conducive framework, preliminary research reveals that constrained industrial diversification did occur in isolated cases, including chemical and industrial diamond products, suggesting that other development trajectories were possible.     

Social Constructionism and Supervision: Experiences of AAMFT Supervisors and Supervised Therapists

A phenomenological research process was used to investigate the supervision experience for supervisors and therapists when supervisors use a social constructionist perspective. Participants of the one‐to‐one interviews were six AAMFT Approved Supervisors and six therapists providing counseling to individuals, couples and families. The findings suggest supervisors were committed to their self‐identified supervision philosophy and intentionally sought out congruence between epistemology and practice. The shared experience of therapists indicates they associated desirable supervision experiences with their supervisors’ social constructionist perspective. Our findings also indicated that supervisors’ and therapists’ understanding of social constructionism included the more controversial concepts of agency and extra‐discursiveness. This research has taken an empirical step in the direction of understanding what the social constructionist supervision experience is like for supervisors and therapists. Our findings suggest a linkage between epistemology and supervision practice and a satisfaction with the supervision process.     

Economic Strain and Children's Behavior in the Aftermath of the Great Recession

Families across the income spectrum experienced subjective feelings of economic strain during the Great Recession. Existing evidence suggests that much of that economic strain did not arise from individual‐specific economic shocks, such as unemployment or income loss, as much as it did from worry and uncertainty about the future. The authors tested a model in which a measure of subjective perceptions of economic strain was the key predictor of children's behavior problems and objective indicators of economic experiences were treated as control variables. To do so, they used new data from a population‐based sample of children ages 4–17 (N = 303) living in southeast Michigan during the period 2009–2012. They found that economic strain exhibited a qualitatively large independent association with internalizing behavior problems for White—but not Black—children. This association was statistically significant over and above objective indicators of economic experiences and the family psychosocial context.     

Listening within the Social Contexts of Tutoring: Essential Component of the Mentoring Relationship

This qualitative research study targeted fourth grade at-risk children in a culturally diverse elementary school in a mid-sized city in the southwestern United States. The purpose of the study was to describe the nature of social interactions within the context of tutorial sessions and to describe the role of listening within the mentoring relationship. Major findings were that highly successful tutors were skillful communicators who modeled effective listening skills, used body language effectively, were knowledgeable about students' cultures, and possessed a social conscience.     

Commentary on Sue Grand's Paper

Grand's case study of a young, severely traumatized woman is analyzed through the point of view of the Real, the realm that resists any form of symbolization and encloses those experiences that cannot be spoken about. Grand moves gradually with her patient into the whirlpool of the Real. She lead her patient to step out of the terrors of her internal world by helping her to put her robotically lived existence into the symbolic world of the living.