Production Teams and Producing Racial Diversity in Workplace Relationships

Production teams have become a dominant form of work organization as labor markets have become increasingly diverse. This transition likely affects coworker networks—possibly undermining entrenched patterns of workplace segregation. Contact theory suggests that teams can foster network diversity when workers cooperate and share values emphasizing mutual respect. Yet variants of conflict theory, including the critical teams literature, contend that the benefits of teamwork may be eroded by associated factors, including peer discipline, work intensification, and job insecurity. This study uses 2006 General Social Survey data to assess whether and how teamwork affects the racial diversity of worker acquaintance networks, contrasting worker‐ and manager‐directed teams. We find a positive relationship between teams and diversity, but only when teams are worker directed. Despite countervailing tendencies highlighted in the literature, teams foster greater cooperation between workers, which in turn promotes cross‐racial friendships. African Americans tend to receive the greatest diversity payoffs from teams. These findings suggest that teamwork can undermine segregation, though only with certain implementations and with variation across groups.     

The Effects of Evaluating Video Examples of Staffs' Own Versus Others' Performance on Discrete-Trial Training Skills in a Human Service Setting

Many studies have been conducted evaluating the use of feedback in staff training in organizational settings. Central to this literature has been the use of a variety of forms of feedback, including videotaped feedback. A distinction is outlined between video modeling and a variety of possible video feedback procedures. Previous studies have indicated a possible positive training effect on staff skills from simply being exposed to relevant videotaped performances of those skills or as a result of evaluating video modeled performances. This study evaluated the effectiveness for training teaching skills of having staff evaluate videotaped teaching skills as performed by themselves versus others. The current study results replicate earlier research on the effectiveness of evaluating video models as a training method and do not suggest a difference between observing oneself as opposed to observing someone else. Future research suggestions for the general use of video in training are provided.     

Risk Management and the Wisdom of Aldo Leopold

Human demands on nature have increased due to our burgeoning population. The applications of scientific knowledge to the development of increasingly powerful technologies and consumptive lifestyles by more and more people have created a modern category of human‐caused disaster—stealth disasters. Stealth disasters—such as agriculturally‐induced soil erosion and release of unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases into Earth's atmosphere—tend to have protracted, unobvious onsets; do not necessarily have dramatic manifestations; and often do not attract public attention until they reach a stage approaching catastrophic consequences. At this late stage it is difficult or impossible to undo damage. Scientists tend to be among the first to understand the physical causes and notice the developments of stealth disasters and their risks and yet scientific knowledge is not enough to prevent or mitigate them. As we search for ways to deal with stealth disasters, the concept of “land health” assembled by the prominent conservationist and author, Aldo Leopold (1887–1948), can, in normative terms, provide an ecologically grounded example of nature in good condition toward which society can aim. Evidence of the reverse—symptoms of land illness—can provide a checklist for risk analysis and management that helps guide people away from harm‐causing attitudes and activities and toward beneficial outcomes. Leopold's criteria of land health motivated by a land ethic that incorporates the whole of nature may be applied at geographic scales ranging from local to global as a framework for contemporary risk management.     

Incorporating sexual orientation into MFT training programs: infusion and inclusion

Many authors have questioned the preparedness of family therapists to deal with sexual minority clients. Even though the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE) has called for the integration of sexual orientation into the curriculum of marriage and family therapy training programs, the subject continues to be marginalized. The purpose of this article is to encourage trainers to examine their programs' curricula for evidence of heterosexist bias and introduce ways that they might integrate issues related to same-sex affectional and sexual orientations into their programs via the classroom and the clinic.     

Does Family Matter to HIV‐Positive Men Who Have Sex With Men?

Most studies have indicated that friends or families of choice provide more support to HIV‐positive men who have sex with men (MSM) than members of the family of origin. The creation of families of choice by MSM has been viewed as a means of creating a support system in the absence of traditional family. The purpose of this study is to explore if HIV‐positive MSM believe family of origin is important. Data were drawn from a qualitative study of HIV disclosure to family. Responses to the question, “How important is family to you?” are explored. Results suggest that for many HIV‐positive MSM, relationships with family of origin are very important. While not definitive, data to be presented are provocative and challenge notions of the significance of family of origin to marginalized populations.     

Integrating Process Interventions into a School-Based Curriculum Group

ABSTRACT

Manualized approaches are widely used in work with aggressive, impulsive, and oppositional behaviors to improve their peer relations, school behavior, and interactions with adults, including their teachers. When group-work principles and interventions are not applied to the live spontaneous group situations that arise, however, workers miss opportunities to further help members understand, incorporate, and practice the very behaviors being offered in the curriculum. This article describes a curriculum-based group experience and the successes and limitations of the work that was done and identifies areas in which the integration of more traditional group process interventions could have increased the effectiveness of the cognitive-behavioral curriculum-oriented approach.