How the Future Orientation of Traditional Israeli Palestinian Girls Links Beliefs About Women's Roles and Academic Achievement

A model in which future orientation links perceived fathers' and girls' beliefs about traditional women's roles and academic achievement was tested on data collected from traditional Israeli Palestinian girls  ( N = 295)  attending a Moslem all-girl senior high school. LISREL analyses estimated two empirical models pertaining to educational and family future orientation. The estimated models showed that fathers' perceived beliefs were directly linked to academic achievement and future orientation partially mediated the relationships between girls' beliefs about women's roles and academic achievement. Girls' beliefs were negatively linked to the educational future orientation and positively linked to the family future orientation, and the educational model explained a larger percent of the variance of academic achievement than did the family model.     

The Role of Family and Teacher Support in Post-traumatic Stress Symptoms Among Palestinian Adolescents Exposed to Community Violence

Extensive research has been conducted in recent decades on the mental health consequences of Palestinians’ exposure to military and political violence. Despite the alarming rates of Palestinian youth exposure to community violence (ECV), there is a serious dearth of research on the effects of this pattern of exposure. The current study focused on the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among Palestinian adolescents as a result of their ECV. The study also examines the ability of perceived support from family and teachers to moderate the relationship between ECV and PTSD symptoms, and the involvement of demographic and socioeconomic variables in explaining this development. A sample of 1930 Palestinian secondary school students, aged 12–19, from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, answered questionnaires. Data analysis used univariate, bivariate, and multivariate methods, including SEM. The prevalence of PTSD symptoms was predicted by past year ECV, family support, teacher support, residential density, parents’ education, age, and gender. SEM analysis validated additional relationship paths between variables. Results are discussed, suggesting future research with theoretical and practical implications.     

Readiness for Change: Involving the Family with Adolescents in Residential Settings

Adolescence is a pivotal time in human development and can be a challenging time for individuals to learn to regulate emotions, while also balancing biopsychosocial changes. The family plays a key role in an adolescent’s development. Thus, it is imperative for families to remain involved when adolescents are in residential treatment for emotional or behavioral issues. In this paper, we explore the benefits of, and methods for, increasing the identified patient’s (i.e., the adolescent’s) and the family’s readiness for change. The process of increasing family engagement in residential treatment is considered through the lens of the Stages of Change model. Barriers practitioners may face with adolescents and their families are also addressed.     

Ambiguous Roles in a Stepfamily: Using Maps of Narrative Practices to Develop a New Family Story with Adolescents and Parents

Stepfamilies are increasing in number in Canada and around the world. Adults and children, specifically adolescents, can be challenged by the ambiguous roles that may happen in new family dynamics. Stepfamily members need to discover and discuss the perceptions and expectations of the individuals within the stepfamily to avoid distressful feelings and behaviours. Understanding how society can influence the perceptions of a family, and the effects of this influence, is explored. Family therapists can map the use of narrative techniques of re-membering, and re-authoring as described in Michael White’s Maps of Narrative Practice to help bring a stepfamily to new understandings about each other and the family unit.     

Gender Roles in the Arab World: Development and Psychometric Properties of the Arab Adolescents Gender Roles Attitude Scale

Scant research has been conducted on gender in the Arab world; one explanation is due to a lack of Arabic measures on gender-related issues. To advance scientific work on gender in the Arab world, we developed the Arab Adolescents Gender Roles Attitude Scale (AAGRAS), the first known reliable and valid Arabic measure of gender-role attitudes. To develop this measure, we conducted two studies based on data collected from 776 high school students 15–19 years-old from the state of Qatar. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis produced 12 items divided equally into two subscales. One subscale assesses traditional gender-role attitudes, whereas the other measures egalitarian gender-role attitudes. Our findings indicate that young men are more likely to resist gender equality than young women are. Moreover, those who hold traditional attitudes are more likely to disapprove of women occupying positions of authority. The AAGRAS is a useful assessment tool that policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and educators can use to study gender-role attitudes in the Arab world and to develop educational and intervention programs that encourage adolescents to identify, confront, and avoid prejudice and discrimination against women and ultimately adopt more egalitarian gender roles.     

Stages in the Family Therapy of Adolescents

Family therapy is considered from the systems point of view as a process with a series of stages including definitive beginning and end points. The stages are identified as crisis points in family therapy - i.e., moments in the therapy process when the equilibrium of the family is upset and when stress reactions among family members are most likely to be intense. Since times of crisis also provide special opportunities for growth and change, they can be utilized therapeutically provided the therapist is knowledgeable about the kinds of upheavals that a family may experience and the time sequence in which they may occur. Eight such crisis points and their relation to therapeutic intervention are presented. The purpose of this paper is to outline the role of the crisis as therapeutic opportunity in the course of family therapy.     

Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Adolescents: Addressing the Function and the Family From the Perspective of Systemic Family Therapies

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescence has been increasing steadily over the past several decades. Mental health professionals frequently address NSSI solely within an individual context. Behaviorally focused therapy is the norm for treating NSSI in adolescents, but existence of the behavior as a larger manifestation of structural family problems is missing from this modality of therapy. Although short-term outcomes display a reduction or cessation of NSSI, long-term efficacy is still not proven for behaviorally focused therapies. Addressing the function of NSSI in a family context will help shift the perspective of clinicians from behavioral, individual therapy to structural family therapy.     

Cumulative Risk Across Family Stressors: Short- and Long-Term Effects for Adolescents

This study examined the relationship between number of family risk factors during adolescence and three areas of psychosocial adjustment (internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and academic achievement) in adolescence and 6 years later in young adulthood. Risk factors examined included parental divorce, interparental conflict, maternal physical health problems, maternal depressive mood, and mother-adolescent relationship difficulties. The findings indicated both concurrent and long-term associations between number of family risk factors and psychosocial adjustment; however, the results differed based on area of adjustment examined and whether concurrent or longitudinal data were considered. Furthermore, a steep increase in adjustment difficulties occurred when number of risk factors increased from three to four. The results are discussed in the framework of four hypotheses which were tested, and clinical implications are delineated.     

Personal Construction of Family Relationships: The Relation of Commonality and Sociality to Family Satisfaction for Parents and Adolescents

This study tested the hypothesis that family members showing greater commonality (similarity) and sociality (predictive accuracy) in their construing of family relationships would display greater satisfaction with those relationships than would individuals in families whose relational construing was more discrepant and unpredictable. Forty-seven family triads participated in the study, including a mother, father, and adolescent from each family. Measures of commonality and sociality in the construction of family relationships derived from a family relationships grid were compared to measures of family structure, including the Family Cohesion and Adaptability Evaluation Scale (FACES-II) (Olson, Portner, & Bell, 1982) and the Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale (PACS) (Barnes & Olson, 1982). The findings suggest that members' perceptions of the family as emotionally close, flexible, and communicative may not represent independent aspects of the family structure, at least within the present nonclinical sample. Comparison of the family relationship grids with the FACES-H and PACS demonstrated that commonality and sociality among family members was highly related to mothers' and adolescents' family satisfaction, but was much less predictive of that of the father.     

Expectations in Romantic Relations and Psychological Well-Being of Adolescents in Pakistan: Moderating Role of Parental Support

The objective of the current study was to investigate the role of perceived parental support as a moderator in the association between adolescents’ expectations in romantic relations and their psychological well-being. The sample consisted of 647 adolescents (boys = 285, girls = 362). Their age ranged from 16 to 18 years (M = 17.19 years, SD = .77) and they were regular students in different colleges of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They completed the Perceived Parental Support Scale, the Well-being Questionnaire-W-BQ12 and the Romantic Relations Scale for Adolescents. The results showed that there were significant gender differences on expectations in romantic relations and psychological well-being with girls scoring higher than boys on expectations in romantic relations while boys scoring higher than girls on psychological well-being. The results also indicated that there was a significant negative association between expectations in romantic relations and psychological well-being. Findings of the moderation analysis showed that perceived parental support moderated the association. Simple slope analysis indicated that there was a significant negative slope for low and medium levels of perceived parental support while the slope was non-significant for high levels of perceived parental support. These results indicated that perceived parental support counters the negative effect of expectations in romantic relations on psychological well-being during adolescence. It is suggested that perceived parental support is important in planning interventions to improve the well-being of adolescents.     

Autonomy and Relatedness in Family Interactions with Depressed Adolescents

This study investigated family interaction patterns associated with adolescent depression. Twenty adolescent–mother dyads with clinically depressed adolescents participated in the study. Twenty dyads with externalizing youths and 20 nonclinic dyads were included as controls. Dimensions of autonomy and relatedness were rated during a videotaped mother–adolescent problem-solving task. Adolescent perceptions of parent attachment were also evaluated. Results indicated that depressed adolescents and their mothers did not differ in their behavior compared with nonclinic adolescents. Dyads with externalizing adolescents showed the highest impairment in autonomy and relatedness. Depressed adolescents perceived the quality of their relationships with their parents to be impaired relative to nonclinic dyads, as did externalizing adolescents.     

Gender Roles: An Examination of the Hopes and Expectations of the Next Generation of Managers in Canada and China

Through a survey of 214 Canadian and 160 Chinese business students, we investigated students hopes and expectations regarding their future spouses employment and family roles relative to their own. The results of this exploratory study show that a large proportion of the students from both countries hope for equality between spouses, especially in the distribution of domestic tasks. However, significant discrepancies exist between their ideal hopes and their expectations of what will actually happen in reality. Many men and women of both countries expect that the wives will do more of the domestic work and have less prestigious jobs and lower earnings than their husbands. The between-sex and cross-national differences in gender role hopes and expectations were also explored.     

Friendship,the Family and Liturgy: A Rite for Blessing Friendship in Traditional Christianity

Abstract

In this paper Alan Bray takes us back to the work of John Boswell on the liturgical marking of friendship in the Greek Church during the Middle Ages. He begins by noting the work that has also been undertaken on the equivalent rite in the Latin west. Much of this work, however, leaves open the question of the purpose of the rite and its use within mediaeval society. Alan Bray looks at a number of theories which have been put forward and then suggests that we cannot read back into the historical situation our own contemporary concerns. He ends the paper by proposing that we need to look at the theological context of the rite and by doing this, he shows that a theological reading allows us to work around the ethical issues. Finally, he proposes this theological approach as a way of linking the mediaeval past with the contemporary situation.     

Family crisis intervention in war contexts: a case study of a traumatised Palestinian family

The aim of this study was to analyse the phases of an innovative in vivo exposure intervention in which all family members were present at the scene of a traumatic incident. Clinical practice has borne out the efficacy of family intervention and its benefits for traumatised individuals and family groups. The intervention discussed here was conducted with a Palestinian family that had suffered trauma in a missile attack during the Israeli–Lebanese war of summer 2006. Narrative and meaning-reconstruction methods were combined with cognitive-behavioural techniques. The study highlights the limitations of the intervention as well as suggesting future directions for integrated models of crisis intervention; development of an evidence-based model is recommended.     

Expression of Anger in Depressed Adolescents: The Role of the Family Environment

The expression of anger is considered to be abnormal in depression, yet its role is only poorly understood. In the present study we sought to clarify this role by examining the moderating influence of the family environment on overall levels of anger expression and anger reactivity in depressed and non-depressed adolescents during conflictual interactions with their parents. One hundred and forty one depressed and non-depressed adolescent participants engaged in a problem-solving task with their parents during which their behavioral expression of anger and heart rate were recorded. The results demonstrate that general levels of parental anger in the family environment (as indicated by the overall level of expressed anger by the parents during the interactions) strongly moderates how depressed differ from non-depressed adolescents in terms of their anger, heart rate and reactivity. Overall, the findings suggest that in depressed adolescents anger is much less adaptively attuned to the environment, consistent with models that predict dysfunction in the regulation of anger that prevents depressed individuals responding adaptively to their social environment.     

Career,Marriage, and Family: Values in Adult Roles and Guidance

Use of occupational, marriage, and parenthood values may help young women to distinguish values that can be satisfied in major adult roles and assist in the earlier formation of a vocational identity.