A Stark Examination of Prison Culture and Prison Ministry

Abstract : This article offers an insightful examination of prison ministry from the inside, from someone who has been involved with this ministry for over forty‐five years. The author discusses four major issues that are particularly costly, both in terms of personal human costs and also financial costs. First, society's misconceptions about prison violence, and the complex, varied ways prisoners experience violence. Second, the false sense of security the current practices of institutionalization create, and the consequences they have on the inmates. Third, the risk factors that can predispose children to ending up in prison, and the lack of care and attention those children often receive. And fourth, the way in which the criminalization of drug abuse has exacerbated many problems with the current prison system. The author concludes his article with some suggestions for reforming the prison system.     

A Feminist Examination of Family Therapy

No abstract available for this article.     

Early Career Boot Camp: A Novel Mechanism for Enhancing Early Career Development for Psychologists in Academic Healthcare

The purpose of this article is to describe a pilot mentoring program for Early Career Psychologists (ECPs) working in Academic Health Centers (AHCs) and synthesize the lessons learned to contribute to future ECP and AHC career development training programs. The authors describe an early career development model, named the Early Career Boot Camp. This intensive experience was conducted as a workshop meant to build a supportive network and to provide mentorship and survival tools for working in AHCs. Four major components were addressed: professional effectiveness, clinical supervision, strategic career planning, and academic research. Nineteen attendees who were currently less than 5 years post completion of doctoral graduate programs in psychology participated in the program. The majority of boot camp components were rated as good to excellent, with no component receiving below average ratings. Of the components offered within the boot camp, mentoring and research activities were rated the strongest, followed by educational activities, challenges in AHCS, and promotion and tenure. The article describes the purpose, development, implementation, and assessment of the program in detail in an effort to provide an established outline for future organizations to utilize when mentoring ECPs.     

Feminist Identity Development: Implications for Feminist Therapy With Women

This article discusses the implications of the Downing and Roush (1985) model of feminist identity development for feminist therapy with women. Following a summary of the model, the potential pitfalls of feminist therapy with the passive-acceptant client are described, as well as potential issues at subsequent stages of the client's identity development. Suggestions are made regarding how to facilitate clients' movement to higher levels of development. Finally, a research agenda is proposed that suggests hypotheses to be tested that arise from applying this model to conducting therapy with women.     

Exercising Research Skills: An Information Literacy Boot Camp for Religious Studies Graduate Assistants

Instructional librarians at the University of Dayton collaborated with a religious studies graduate program to offer a three-day information literacy workshop, or “boot camp,” to the program's graduate research assistants. The graduate program had found that the assistants' research skills did not meet the expectations of their faculty mentors, and the workshop sought to address these deficiencies. With input from the religious studies faculty, the workshop focused on catalog and database searching, Boolean logic, primary sources, and the Chicago citation style. The librarians incorporated active learning exercises into each workshop session. Assessment of the workshop suggested that the assistants gained confidence in these information literacy skills. Feedback from faculty also indicated that the assistants' research skills had improved.     

The Experiences of Women in Prison

Summary

Women in prison represent a neglected population. The facilities and the services offered to female inmates are based primarily on models derived from male inmates. The need for this approach to change is increasingly recognized because the number of women in the correctional system is increasing at an alarming rate, the criminal profile of female inmates is distinct, and independently because the racial and ethnic composition of the female prisoners is shifting. In the present study, the needs of women prisoners were studied from a variety of theoretical perspectives: relational, diversity, and developmental. Focus groups and questionnaires were conducted with 54 women incarcerated in a minimum security correctional facility for men and women in a Northeastern state. The women's developmental histories reflected high-risk conditions and early trauma. From the ease with which these women responded to questions about their main relationships (i.e., closeness and mutuality) with visitors and other inmates, it is clear that they are struggling but maintaining a relational context in their lives despite being incarcerated. Most women had children, and retained custody of their children, which has strong implications for their children's development. The findings suggested a number of important policy and service implications which differed for ethnic/racial groups.     

A History of Women and Feminist Perspectives in Community Psychology

Using an historical framework, we document and assess efforts to include women, women's issues, and feminism in community psychology and in the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA). Initiatives of the SCRA Task Force/Committee on Women are traced from its inception to present. We also chronicle the dilemmas and difficulties of moving toward a feminist community psychology. The history is divided into five phases. Each phase is described in terms of women's involvement in the field and efforts to integrate feminist content into research and practice of the field. Reflections on the qualities of contexts that have both supported and inhibited inclusion are identified. We look to this history to try to understand the observation that while women have been increasingly visible in leadership roles and women's professional development has been encouraged, less progress has been made toward building a feminist community psychology.     

Employment Clothing for Women in Training Programs

Eighty-one women in social service employment programs were surveyed to determine knowledge of employment clothing. They were compared on demographics, and differences were found in possession of business clothing, resources for clothing, education, income, residence, and homelessness. Based on these differences, they were separated into 3 smaller groups. The comparison showed that women who had interview and employment clothing had never been homeless, had higher incomes and educational levels, and used different resources for obtaining their clothing. These responses indicate a need to educate low-income participants on information about employment clothing and resources.     

A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Feminist Beliefs and Feminist Identity Development Among College Women Survivors of Gender-Based Violence

Using a mixed-methods approach, we explored how college women’s lifetime experiences of physical or sexual gender-based violence (GBV) were associated with appraisals of GBV and their feminist beliefs or identity (N = 32). Women commented on their increased awareness of the prevalence of GBV, their desire to help other women, and their beliefs about the trustworthiness of men and the current state of gender equality. Women who perceived no or minimal influence of sexism on GBV attributed their GBV experiences to a flaw in themselves or the perpetrators (i.e., self-blame, poor vigilance) or as a reasonable disciplinary measure for their ‘misbehavior.’ We also found that some women reported agreement with pro-feminist beliefs, yet rejected a feminist identity. Our findings illustrate how feminist stigma and sexism might prevent women who endorse core feminist beliefs from characterizing GBV as a sexist event. Given the potential harmful consequences of GBV and other forms of sexism, connecting women with meaningful resources, such as empowering educational programs, nurturing peer-to-peer women’s support groups, and awareness campaigns, may help to facilitate sisterhood and alleviate distress. Our findings also support the need for clinical assessment of how GBV may have affected beliefs about gender, self, world, and others.     

A Feminist Approach to Treating Alcohol and Drug-Addicted African-American Women

Abstract

African-American women remain a population that is both unlikely to receive adequate treatment and more likely to be punished for behavior associated with alcohol and drug use. These societal responses originate, in part, in the failure of traditional addiction models to take into account the environmental context of addiction. Guided by the medical model in particular, the treatment community continues to identify addiction as a unitary experience and to deny the realities of sexism and racism in the recovery efforts of African-American women. Recommendations for the practice of feminist therapy with these women are explored.     

Loose Women,Lecherous Men: A Feminist Philosophy of Sex

Philosophical Studies -     

Good Women and Bad Men: A Bias in Feminist Research

The variety of feminist thought has produced many fruitful discussions and debates. Liberal, radical, postmodern, psychoanalytic, and other feminists have criticized each others' work and underlying presuppositions. The aim of this paper is to point out a prejudice which has not yet received sufficient attention, although it lies at the base of a fair amount of feminist research: the bias that whereas men are bad and aggressive, women are good and peaceful. Although as an explicit view this contention has been debated, its distortive influence on feminist research has so far remained undiscussed. In what follows I present examples of the effect of this bias on feminist research (sections 1 and 2). Then I suggest why the bias has not yet been discussed (section 3). Finally I argue that feminist research should be as critically received and treated as any other (section 4).     

Women and Therapy: A Survey on Internship Programs

Two hundred and ninety-nine internship programs and selected psychology graduate schools were surveyed by mail regarding their opinions and practices relevant to training in psychotherapy for women. The 94 usable replies included 55% of all APA approved programs. The results indicated that only a minority of training facilities deal in a systematic way with issues of sex bias and sex-role stereotyping in psychological practice. About 20% of the respondents expressed a need to improve their programs. Respondents' answers are detailed and the suggestion is made that egalitarian group supervisory meetings afford more opportunity than individual sessions to deal effectively with issues of sex bias and stereotyping.     

A Lesbian Feminist Subscale for the Feminist Perspectives Scale

In an attempt to increase the breadth offeminist perspectives assessed by the FeministPerspectives Scale (FPS2; Henley, Meng, O'Brien,McCarthy, & Sockloskie, 1998), we developed andpsychometrically evaluated a new subscale that assesses lesbianfeminist attitudes. As do the six other subscales of theFPS2, the Lesbian Feminist subscale includes 10attitudinal and 3 behavioral items. We conducted 3 studies with 287 respondents (58% EuropeanAmerican, 15% Latino, 13% Asian, and 6% AfricanAmerican); 88% were women and most were collegeeducated. Findings from these preliminary psychometricevaluations support the subscale's reliability (Cronbach'salpha = .91) and validity. We offer recommendations forthe scale's use and discuss its potentiallimitations.     

What Makes a Feminist? Predictors and Correlates of Feminist Social Identity in College Women

What factors predict self-identification as a feminist? College women ( N = 233) were given measures of feminist ideology, feminist identity development, evaluation of feminists, collectivism and individualism. Feminist identification was measured both as a dichotomous and a continuous variable. Measured dichotomously, feminist self-identification was predicted by not having conservative beliefs and having a positive general evaluation of feminists. In addition, self-identified feminists were more likely to believe in collective action, to hold liberal, radical, and womanist ideologies, and to endorse items in the Synthesis stage of identity development. They were less likely to believe a feminist is a lesbian, to endorse items in the Passive Acceptance stage, and to believe in the existence of a meritocracy. Measured continuously, degree of feminist identity was predicted by having a positive general evaluation of feminists, not having conservative beliefs, and endorsing items in the Revelation and Embeddedness/Emanation stages of identity development. The two measures of feminist identity were not entirely congruent, underlining the importance of methodological differences in measuring social identity.     

Experiential Marketing and Marketing Experience: An Empirical Study of the Influence of Summer Boot Camp on Military Propensity

The purpose of this study was to examine how experiential marketing may influence military propensity via the Summer Boot Camp (SBC), a 5-day quasi–training camp for high school and college students run by the Taiwan military. A survey of 1,102 participants was conducted using questionnaires. The findings indicate that a satisfactory SBC experience leads to a higher degree of perceived experiential value, which in turn triggers favorable behavioral intentions regarding the military in terms of supporting national defense, recommending the SBC to relatives and friends, and visiting regional recruiting centers. Further, perceived experiential value plays an important mediator role for experiencing a military propensity by exerting a significant indirect influence. However, the influence resulting from a good experience and value is not sufficient to motivate participants to actually go to enlist. Implications for recruiting efforts are discussed in terms of designing effective experience marketing.     

What are the Questions in Psychology of Women? A Feminist Approach to Research

In conclusion, I'll briefly reiterate my major points in the hope that recency effects will overcome my error in trying to say a bit too much in one paper. I've said that psychology of women has already added much to psychology in its recognition and emphasis on the role of values in science. We can add even more with our openness to communal forms of methodology, particularly when they are used in concert with agenie forms of methodology; a combination of wet and hard science it worthy of pursuit. I then discussed three important sources of questions: (1) our own experience in combination with qualitative and observational methodologies, (2) the importance of public policy consequences of our questions, and (3) attention to situational aspects in concert with personological approaches, but in contrast to solely intrapsychic approaches. Finally, I discussed androgyny and sex difference research as examples of good and bad approaches to research in psychology of women. What are the questions in psychology of women? We all need to consider this issue and open ourselves to new research processes at the same time.     

The Ecology of Experiences for African American Women in Clinical Doctoral Programs

African American women must navigate higher education, in particular, clinical doctoral programs, as a gendered racial minority. These women often endure multiple levels of discrimination to obtain their degree. Findings of this study highlight these experiences and suggest the importance of increasing supports for African American women in clinical doctoral programs. Practices and supports should be put in place so that students of color are not marginalized because of their race. Las mujeres afroamericanas tienen que pasar por la educación superior, y particularmente en programas de doctorado clínico, como una minoría racial y de sexo. Estas mujeres sufren con frecuencia múltiples niveles de discriminación para poder obtener su titulación. Los hallazgos de este estudio destacan estas experiencias y sugieren la importancia de incrementar los apoyos para mujeres afroamericanas en programas de doctorado clínico. Deberían implementarse prácticas y apoyos para que las estudiantes de color no sean marginadas por su raza.     

Political Participation and Feminist Consciousness Among Women Activists of the 1960s

This paper examined the hypothesis that women who took part in student movements of the 1960s would be distinguishable from their contemporaries in terms of political ideology, political behavior, and feminism in middle age. Women who had been identified as student activists in public records during the late 1960s and early 1970s were compared to a sample of nonactivist peers. Although the two groups scored similarly on variables related to work and family arrangements, former activists scored higher on measures of leftist political orientation and political efficacy, reported greater political salience and collectivism, and reported greater current political participation. Although both groups reported high levels of feminist consciousness and identity, activists scored significantly higher. The difficulty of politically mobilizing women to combat gender discrimination is discussed in light of the discrepancy between consciousness and activism in the comparison group.