The enduring allure of charisma: How Barack Obama won the historic 2008 presidential election

We apply charismatic leadership theory to the historic 2008 United States presidential election, in hopes of inspiring dialogue around how leadership theory can inform the critical process of evaluating and electing public leaders. While numerous leadership theories are relevant to understanding the 2008 election, charismatic leadership theory highlights aspects of the leader, followers, and the unfolding economic crisis that are particularly relevant in helping us to understand how a relatively inexperienced political outsider ascended to the US Presidency. Given the potential perils and challenges newly elected President Barack Obama faces in the months and years ahead, we also suggest four core strategies rooted in charismatic leadership theory that may help him capitalize on his early charismatic appeal, as well as avoid the pitfalls of charisma that have plagued some of his predecessors.     

Examining the Quality of Adolescent–Parent Relationships Among Chilean Families

The purpose of this study was to examine if adolescents’ reports of warm and harsh parenting practices by their mothers and fathers varied as a function of demographic, youth and their mothers or mother figures’ individual and family characteristics. Data are from 707 community-dwelling adolescents (mean age = 14, SD = 1.4) and their mothers or mother figures in Santiago, Chile. Having a warmer relationship with both parents was inversely associated with the adolescents’ age and positively associated with adolescents’ family involvement and parental monitoring. Both mothers’ and fathers’ harsh parenting were positively associated with adolescent externalizing behaviors and being male and inversely associated with youth autonomy and family involvement. These findings suggest that net of adolescent developmental emancipation and adolescent behavioral problems, positive relationships with parents, especially fathers, may be nurtured through parental monitoring and creation of an interactive family environment, and can help to foster positive developmental outcomes.     

Disability advocacy in Kinshasa,Democratic Republic of the Congo

This article frames a discussion of disability advocacy in Kinshasa by arguing the importance of disability rights legislation for the quality of life of people with disabilities and by outlining the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s situation as a nation characterized by conflict. The author provides an overview of the recent positive steps the government has taken to affirm the rights of its citizens with disabilities, discusses the strong disability advocacy movement based in the capital city of Kinshasa, and identifies some of the challenges to Congolese disability rights legislation.     

Development Guidelines from a Study of Suicide Prevention Mobile Applications (Apps)

Every day, Americans are inundated with advertisements and appeals to purchase the latest mobile technology in the form of smart phones, tablets, and their accompanying applications (apps). Human service organizations (HSOs) across the United States have begun to recognize that apps can provide a valuable resource for individuals and communities by addressing social issues. Additionally, forward-thinking HSOs are aware that apps are a fresh and important way of reaching a rapidly changing, tech-savvy population. But just like the marketplace at large yields a variety of apps that range from useful and engaging to poorly contrived and ineffective, HSOs' foray into app development has achieved mixed results. This report analyzes existing mobile applications available for one specific field of HSO service delivery—suicide prevention—in order to describe what is currently available and to generate beginning guidelines for the development, implementation, and evaluation of new suicide prevention apps for underserved populations. Twenty-seven apps were analyzed and recommendations for HSOs and future research are presented.     

Spatial and Temporal Arrangements,Parental Authority,and Young Adults' Postdivorce Experiences

This research examines how the structure of children's time and space impacts parent–child relationship dynamics postdivorce. Our central research question is whether parent–child relationship quality and degree of perceived parental authority are associated with the amount of time spent with a parent and the type and amount of personalized space a child has at parents' homes after a divorce. We analyze the reports of 22 adolescents surveyed and interviewed in the northwestern United States in 2007. Most notably, the quality of personalized space for children, regardless of the amount of private space available, was significantly and positively related to parent–child relationship quality. Amount of time spent with a parent was also significantly and positively associated with parent–child relationship quality. Level of parental authority was partially positively associated with both quality of personalized space and amount of time spent with a parent. Our results confirm that these factors do indeed play a significant role in children's lives postdivorce and deserve more attention by families undergoing divorce and by researchers investigating the divorce experience for children and adolescents.     

Mothering From a Distance

Notions of motherhood have been shaped by a Western ideology that encourages mothers to intensively mother their children, selflessly indulging in their child's every want and need. Failure to adhere to such criteria results in the label of “bad” mother. This understanding of motherhood has been viewed through a White, middle-class, heterosexual lens, limiting our ability to see the diversity of women's lives. In an effort to encourage exploration of women's nuanced experiences, feminist scholars have begun to explore marginalized mothers. This article adds to this research, drawing attention to noncustodial mothers. Because they do not live with their children on a full-time basis, noncustodial mothers deviate from the ideology of the “good mother,” providing an opportunity to explore the navigation of motherhood from a distance. Through qualitative interviews with 16 noncustodial mothers, strategies of resistance and accommodation of the cultural ideal emerge.     

Engaging substance-affected families in child welfare: parent perspectives of a parenting intervention at program initiation and completion

Families affected by substance abuse are at an increased risk of child welfare involvement and poor child welfare outcomes. One strategy to improve outcomes among these families is evidence-based parenting interventions. While these interventions show the potential for advancing the child welfare field, they have not been widely and rigorously evaluated with birth parents, especially those affected by substance abuse, who face marked vulnerability and marginalization. We sought to draw on parents’ expertise and to understand their first and changing impressions throughout involvement in a parenting intervention, as well as overall impressions at program completion. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 10 parents who were involved in child welfare and a family drug treatment court. All parents were affected by parental substance use and had recently completed the Strengthening Families Program. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed for prominent themes. The study’s findings showed that parents described four key themes that influenced their perspectives of the parenting intervention: program reputation as communicated by peers, relevance and applicability of the program, children’s involvement and enjoyment of the program, and program structure issues that pointed to the need for high-quality group facilitation. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Shattering the Myth of Invulnerability: Exploring the Prevention Needs of Sexual Minority Women Living with HIV/AIDS

Developing effective safer-sex programs for women living with HIV/AIDS (WLH/A) is a national HIV prevention priority. Existing programs focus predominantly on heterosexual women's experiences and ignore the needs of sexual minority women (SMW). Thus, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 sexual minority WLH/A to better understand their sexual risk behaviors and corresponding HIV prevention needs. Most of the interviewees were African American (75%) and poor (75%). We used strategies of Grounded Theory to code the interviews for key themes, which included the following: differences between relationships, risk, and protective behaviors in male and female relationships; links between substance abuse and unsafe sex; need for safer-sex or prevention programs to address SMW-specific skills and topics; and the importance of addressing women's resiliency and the social context of women's risk in prevention programs. Conclusions include concrete suggestions to make safer-sex programs more responsive to the needs of SMW.     

Planning Other Families: Negotiating Population and Identity Politics in the Peruvian Amazon

This article examines the ways in which globally driven population policies are experienced by rural, indigenous women in Amazonian communities on the periphery of formal, political power. As with other global development processes, population programs are actively resisted, accepted, and modified by the women who are their intended "targets." Through a nuanced exploration of the interface of indigenous identity with the discourse of empowerment and reproductive rights, this article traces the impact of internationally funded population and development programs on local identity politics in the Peruvian Amazon.