Building the STEM pipeline: Findings of a 9-year longitudinal research project

This research addresses the call for identifying the human capital for the U.S.'s future STEM workforce. Using a national dataset tracking 34,744 middle school students up to six years after their first enrollment in a four-year college, we investigated the developments of two individual difference predictors of STEM success based on the Person-Environment fit (P-E fit) model, quantitative ability and STEM interest fit, from adolescence to early adulthood. Results show that these individual difference factors are reciprocally related and thus mutually develop over time. They are relatively stable at adolescence and meaningfully predict the probability that the students obtained a college degree in STEM approximately nine years later. This finding has important theoretical implication as it helps resolve conflicting perspectives regarding the causal relationships between interests and abilities. Finally, we also found that the development and prediction of quantitative ability and interest fit are similar for both men and women, suggesting that they can be useful to identify future STEM participants at early age.     

Reflections under the lens: observations of a systemic therapist on the experience of participation and scrutiny in a research project

The London Depression Intervention Trial (LDIT) was set up in the early 1990s by Professor Julian Leff ( Leff et al., 2000 , and in this issue) to compare the relative efficacy and costs, in work with depressed adults, of systemic couple therapy, drug treatment and individual cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). The research found that systemic therapy compared favourably with the other modalities in respect of fewer drop‐outs, improvement in measured depression at the end of therapy and on follow‐up after a second year without therapy, and was not – contrary to the usual assumptions – more expensive. I was one of the two therapists, together with Eia Asen ( Jones and Asen, 2000 , and Asen in this issue) practising systemic therapy with diagnosed depressed patients and their partners. In this paper I will discuss the experience of being the object of research scrutiny, and the reflections that have come to me during and subsequent to the research period. To put it more challengingly: What are the consequences for systemic psychotherapists of co‐operation with researchers? Can a circular epistemology survive being scrutinized through a lineal grid?     

Ten principles of counselling: Grounded theory in a mixed methods research project

This grounded theory (GT) study is part of an extensive mixed methods research project to develop general principles for counselling. Nine hundred counselling protocols were examined. The material is characterised by a quantitative amount of data with a qualitative character. The research is based on the systemic-constructivist research paradigm. The variety of perspectives is an important aspect of the work. Therefore, it is important that the entire research process with GT takes place in exchange with other research settings in order to minimise the limitations caused by the perspective of the researchers. During the research process, there was an intensive examination of GT in order to adapt it to the research project. By using the GT to analyse the extensive qualitative material, the actions of the counsellors were observed and 10 counselling principles were developed. This article presents the research process and the findings.     

Exploring the meaning of participation in a community art project: A case study on the Seeming project

In Australia, community art has drawn significant research attention in regard to its potential as a community development strategy. Despite the fact that researchers have presented evidence for the positive developmental outcomes of participation in community art projects, a gap remains in understanding how and why people's participation in a community art project can lead to those positive outcomes. This research explored the meaning of participation in a community art project from the vantage point of the people who experience it. Ten participants were interviewed about their participation in a community art project (The Seeming) held in Bendigo, Australia. Following thematic analyses we identified three themes of how participants viewed their participation in a community arts project. These themes included giving voice to the silenced, creation of social connections and challenging and reproducing stereotypes. Participation means coming together and the findings highlight the potential of community arts projects for promoting the creation of new relationships and new stories about community. However, there are also problematic stories about self and others that were not deconstructed. It is argued that the settings in which different groups join can be meaningfully extended if there is an explicit concern with consciousness raising and deconstruction of normative stories. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Practice on the margins: reflections from the disability services sector

People labelled with disabilities are frequently positioned on the margins of society. Their positioning points to discursive practices underpinned by ableism which place and keep them there. In this article, a scenario based on actual events is used to reflect upon professional practice. The story is situated in a disability service, an area of practice located at the margins of the broader Human Services sector. The scenario raises important questions about how to establish respectful and productive relationships with people, develop person-centred practices which contribute to personal knowing and transformation, balance rights and risk, equitably manage relations of power and fulfil societal expectations on the provision of care. In this article, the author explores how reflection can negotiate meaning, challenge ableism and expose disablist practices. She seeks to open spaces where one might begin to re-story professional practices by centring the lived experiences of those who inhabit the margins.     

Hiring family therapists for a research project via videotaped interviews: A brief report

The authors describe an interview procedure devised for use in hiring therapists for a research and demonstration project in which the employers viewed videotaped interviews of applicants responding to a standard set of questions posed by an on-site researcher/interviewer. The approach is considered potentially useful for agencies to use in hiring therapists with a systemic orientation.     

From religious association to ethnic community: a research project on identity formation among the Syrian orthodox under muslim rule

At the Universityof Leiden, a research group is investigating the formation of a communal identity among West Syrian (or Syrian Orthodox) Christians after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. Of the anti-Chalcedonians, the Syrian Orthodox were probably least likely to form a national or ethnic community. Yet a group emerged with its own distinctive literature and art, its own network and historical consciousness. In a process of adoption and rejection, the West Syrians selected elements from the cultures to which they were heirs and from those with which they came into contact, thus defining a position of their own. In order to study this phenomenon, scholars from various disciplines and affiliated to two different faculties are working together. This paper discusses their research programme and its basic hypothesis.     

Inside a religious education research project: the influence of theological and educational considerations on the treatment of religious content within a prescribed pedagogic framework

This article describes the underlying theological and educational issues which were addressed when incorporating an item of religious content within the ‘Gift Approach’ to Primary Religious Education. It suggests that the significance of laying bare this process is in demonstrating how theological concerns (whatever the religion) will always be a contributing influence in determining how religious content is treated and incorporated within learning experiences in RE.     

Understanding suicidal behaviour in young people referred to specialist CAMHS: a qualitative psychoanalytic clinical research project

A qualitative psychoanalytic clinical research project using a post-Kleinian contemporary approach was undertaken by a team of seven qualified and experienced child psychotherapists working in community Tier 3 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). A number of referred young people who deliberately harmed themselves or attempted suicide, who fulfilled the inclusion criteria and consented to participate, were offered an extended individual and family assessment. Grounded Theory analysis of the qualitative data led to the formulation of the Truth Danger Theory. Typical situations in which suicidal behaviour occurred were identified, including intergenerational confusion, neglect, physical and/or sexual abuse within the family, Oedipal conflict, maternal depression and families in which there was a chronically ill sibling. We found that there was a marked disparity between the young person's experience of relationships in the family and the family's own account of their situation, a fractured reality. This can be reflected in an incongruence in the young person's presentation, which may be misleading when assessing risk. The young person feels him/herself to be in a dead end from which there seems to be no escape. Self-harm, for some, contains this impossible dilemma (albeit pathologically) but when it does not, suicide may seem the only option. The Truth Danger Theory provides explanations and predictions for suicidal behaviour and has implications for clinical practice.     

Some remarks on a research project of the centre D'Etudes des solidarites sociales (CESOL) integration: A challenge for business

The solidarity of business towards marginalized people can be expressed by insertion projects. Giving a job to someone who really needs it can also be a way of improving one's corporate image at the same time as doing something to solve a serious social problem.     

CHC theory and the human cognitive abilities project: Standing on the shoulders of the giants of psychometric intelligence research

During the past decade the Cattell–Horn Gf–Gc and Carroll Three-Stratum models have emerged as the consensus psychometric-based models for understanding the structure of human intelligence. Although the two models differ in a number of ways, the strong correspondence between the two models has resulted in the increased use of a broad umbrella term for a synthesis of the two models (Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory of cognitive abilities—CHC theory).The purpose of this editorial is three-fold. First, I will describe the CHC framework and recommend that intelligence researchers begin using the CHC taxonomy as a common nomenclature for describing research findings and a theoretical framework from which to test hypotheses regarding various aspects of human cognitive abilities. Second, I argue that the emergence of the CHC framework should not be viewed as the capstone to the psychometric era of factor analytic research. Rather, I recommend the CHC framework serve as the stepping stone to reinvigorate the investigation of the structure of human intelligence.Finally, the Woodcock-Muñoz Foundation Human Cognitive Abilities (HCA) project, which is an evolving, free, on-line electronic archive of the majority of datasets analyzed in Carroll's (1993) seminal treatise on factor analysis of human cognitive abilities, is introduced and described. Intelligence scholars are urged to access the Carroll HCA datasets to test and evaluate structural models of human intelligence with contemporary methods (confirmatory factor analysis). In addition, suggestions are offered for linking the analysis of contemporary data sets with the seminal work of Carroll. The emergence of a consensus CHC taxonomy and access to the original datasets analyzed by Carroll provides an unprecedented opportunity to extend and refine our understanding of human intelligence.