Parent Marital Quality and the Parent–Adolescent Relationship: Effects on Adolescent and Young Adult Health Outcomes

Although a number of studies examined the implications of marital disruption for adolescent well-being, few studied the implications of marital relationship quality on health outcomes for children in married-couple families. The present study examines how parent marital quality among intact families interacts with the quality of parent–adolescent relationships to predict physical health, mental health, and substance use in middle adolescence and early adulthood. The study uses data from the NLSY97 cohort, a nationally representative sample of adolescents who are being followed into adulthood. Predictors include the quality of the parent marital relationship, the quality of the parent–adolescent relationship, marital structure, and a number of contextual covariates and control variables. Combined parent marital quality and parent–adolescent relationship groups were developed using latent class analyses and were used to predict positive and negative health behaviors during the teen and early adult years. Results indicate that adolescents in families experiencing poor marital quality fared worse on physical health, mental health, and substance use outcomes. In addition, adolescents who reported poor relationships with at least one of their parents fared worse on outcomes. Adolescents whose parents have low-quality relationships and also have poor parent–adolescent relationships tended to fare least well across health measures. Adolescents whose parents have a high-quality relationship and who have a good parent–adolescent relationship with both parents consistently had the best outcomes. Overall, poor relationships consistently undermine mental health, physical health, and substance use. Family religious activities also consistently predict better health outcomes.     

Young Adult Daughters' Relationships With Their Fathers: Review of Recent Research

In “Something More”: The Meanings of Marriage for Religious Couples in America, Dollahite, Hawkins and Parr (2012) present a qualitative study that includes interviews with religiously observant married couples to investigate marriage. The current paper reviews the aforementioned study with respect to its trustworthiness, through dependability, credibility, confirmability and transferability, to encourage the elevation of qualitative work in our field. We discuss a number of challenges in the study design, methods, interpretation, and conclusions. In sum, our reading of the study left us wanting “something more” scholarly rigorous for the field of marriage research and qualitative work.     

Bridging the Theory–Practice Gap in Social Work Education: A Reflection on an Action Research in China

This article explores the background to, and issues associated with, the implementation of Personal Development Planning (PDP) within Higher Education (HE). Consideration of issues for social work educators follows as the authors seek to ground policy change in practice and debate issues so that reflection is not ‘little more than a mantra’ but rather a ‘model for practice’ (Kuit et al., 2001, Active Learning in Higher Education, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 128–142, at p. 129). Although educators have arguably always used a variety of strategies to encourage student reflection and evaluation of their learning experiences, implementation of PDPs codifies and institutionalises individual student reflection and the production of associated outputs. This is evidenced by the production of guidelines to promote what is billed as a core educational process by Universities UK, the Standing Conference on Principals, the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and the Learning and Teaching Subject Network (LTSN) Generic Centre. As social work academics consider and respond to the challenges associated with the re‐specification of programmes to meet new award requirements they might usefully reflect on the challenges PDP brings, and integrate responses into programme specifications. Avoiding fragmentation and duplication, for example around the personal tutor system and role of staff in PDP, is important for both social work students and staff within complex and, at times, contradictory organisational contexts such as Institutes of Higher Education (IHE).     

Learning from Our Mistakes: An Autopsy of an Unsuccessful University–Community Collaboration

A challenge facing social work education is how to enhance its connection to local communities. To this end, university and community collaborations have grown in popularity to address community needs and to augment student learning. The research literature indicates that there are many factors—from designs to guidelines—that drive successful collaborations. Building on the lessons from that research, this article provides a case study about a service-learning collaboration between a community organization and a masters-level social work course in the United States that was ultimately unsuccessful. Through stakeholder interviews and reflections, the authors provide several suggestions to improve future collaborations. These suggestions include the following. First, increase accountability for students and agency staff. Second, conduct an orientation session at the agency that includes necessary agency staff. Third, be mindful of cultural differences between organizations. Finally, restrict the number of service-learning options for students.     

Competing demands,competing solutions,differing constructions of the problem of recruitment and retention of frontline rural child protection staff

Abstract

This article reports on a study conducted in rural Victoria. It examines the problem of recruitment and retention of frontline staff in the Victorian Child Protection program. The article delineates those factors identified by managers and supervisors as influencing workers to enter, stay and leave the program. Managers and supervisors have collective responsibility for recruiting and retaining staff. It is for this reason that their viewpoints are considered crucial in responding to the problem. What this study found was that, while managers and supervisors recognise that the problem is complex, they differ in the emphasis placed on facets of the problem, thus their approaches to solving it. As solutions are contested the problem is exacerbated. The argument advanced is that any response should recognise the complexity of the problem and solutions be considered in a coordinated way.     

The Print Media and Aging Policy:

This article examines the role of the print media in covering complex ploicy issues. Two models of journalism are considered. "Pack journalism" predicts that print media coverage will be highly consistent in content due to the reliance by those in the media on the same sources of information. In this article another model - "Beltway journalism" - is proposed. It implies that coverage by the print media indigenous to the Washington, D.C. area (inside the Beltway) will diverge from that of other print media, presenting a potentially distorted view of the world to policymakers in Washington. Using the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as possible indicators of the two models, aging policy is addressed through a case study of newspaper coverage during passage and repeal of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988. Findings suggest that Congress was unduly influenced by the way that Medicare Catastrophic was framed in the Washington Post, lending credence to the Beltway journalism model. By paying insufficient attention to the way MEdicare Catastrophic was being framed by sources of print outside the Beltway area, lawmakers allowed themselves to assume a grassroots-level understanding of the issue and support for the bill, both of which turned out to be illusory.     

ON PUBLIC AND PRIVATE IN J. M. COETZEE

This essay reads J. M. Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year in its historical context (the moment of the US war in Iraq, Abu Graib, Guantanamo and the apparent triumph of neoliberalism), while also probing the problems at stake in the practice of contextual reading and of taking the work as staging the opinions of the biographical Coetzee. The essay teases out not only the question of whether Coetzee should be seen as a public intellectual (the short but not entirely satisfactory answer is ‘no’), but also how the terms ‘public’ and ‘private’ play out in his oeuvre and are helpful in pondering Coetzee's approach to questions of genre, censorship and authorship.     

农村青年对新农村建设主体的认知及实践

农村青年对新农村建设主体的认知和实践是农村青年研究的重要方面。共同的利益驱动使农村青年获得主体认知,农村青年认为自己有一定的社会地位并对主体义务有明确的认知。依据在农村的身份、地位、经济实力等因素,农村青年自觉地分成不同的类型,并展现出惰性与积极性并存、紧张性与闲散性并存、责任性与谋利性并存的行为特点。角色分类是客观反映农村青年主体行为的有效方法,农村社会与农村青年是利益社会与社会利益中的人,中间型农村青年可以成为新农村建设的非正式领导力量。     

阶梯分摊法运用于新型农村合作医疗筹资成本测算研究

以云南省弥渡县红岩镇及样本村的县乡村三级新农合筹资成本发生额为测算对象,采用典型性案例研究的方法,对阶梯分摊法用于新农合筹资成本测算的探讨,论证阶梯分摊法测算筹资成本的可行性和科学性;为该方法运用于新型农村社会养老保险的筹资成本及成本结构的测算提供方法学借鉴。通过研究测得新农合人均筹资成本为人民币4．62元,成本结构为七项。     

Personal Mastery and Psychological Well-Being Among Young Grandmothers

This study examined the association between relationship quality, personal mastery, and psychological well-being among 83 young Black and White American grandmothers in families with teenage mothers. Interviews were conducted during the early stages of adaptation to grandparenthood due to the birth of a baby to a teenage daughter. Findings indicated that the effects of the mother–daughter relationship are mediated through mastery. When grandmothers feel a sense of mastery, the conflict with the teenage mother is not as detrimental to their psychological health. Findings are discussed in the context of developing supportive services for grandmothers in families with teenage mothers.