To be or not to be: an exploration of ethnic identity development in context

This qualitative study focused on the intersection of personal and ethnic identities among forty African American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Chinese American high school students. The patterns in content indicated that for the Puerto Ricans, the intersection of their personal and social identities was a series of accommodations to a positive peer climate and a resistance to being Dominican. For the other ethnic groups, the intersection of their personal and social identities consisted of a process of resistance and accommodation to negative stereotypes projected on them by their peers and, for African Americans, themselves.     

The Medical Humanities and the Perils of Curricular Integration

The advent of integration as a feature of contemporary medical curricula can be seen as an advantage for the medical humanities in that it provides a clear implementation strategy for the inclusion of medical humanities content and/or perspectives, while also making its relevance to medical education more apparent. This paper discusses an example of integration of humanities content into a graduate medical course, raises questions about the desirability of an exclusively integrated approach, and argues for the value of retaining a discrete and coherent disciplinary presence for the medical humanities in medical curricula.     

Predictors of complicated grief

Abstract

This study examined whether process variables predict an outcome of complicated grief. A turbulent and prolonged grief was predicted to occur after the death of a spouse in subjects who had self-blame, used the deceased for an extension of self, had ambivalence toward the deceased, or overcontrolled emotional responses. Ninety subjects were examined at 6, 14, and 25 months after the loss via a self-report battery of process variables and a structured clinical interview designed to assess symptoms. Subjects with complicated grief were compared with those with normative grief. Predictions were supported only in tertiary data analyses; they were not supported well in the primary and secondary statistical analyses. The authors concluded that either self-reports of process variables are inadequate measures or the theory that led to these measures and predictions is in need of revision.     

Psychological Health From the Teens to the 80s: Multiple Developmental Trajectories

Data from the long-term Intergenerational Studies are used to explore men’s and women’s psychological health trajectories from early adolescence to late adulthood, as elucidated by Nagin’s (Group-based modeling of development. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005) finite mixture modeling method. Two separate measures of psychological health, one from the California Q-sort (CQS; Block in The Q-sort method in personality assessment and psychiatric research. Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1961) and one from the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; Gough and Bradley in CPI manual, 3rd edn. Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA, 1996) are used, with a maximum of six pooled points of data collection. Distinct subtypes of developmental trajectory are uncovered, including patterns of nearly life-long trajectories of stability, as well as trajectories of increasing psychological health. For both measures of psychological health, the most common path (53% for CQS data, and 46% for CPI data) is that of relatively high initial psychological health with a subsequent modest linear increase. Results from the two measures neither perfectly replicate nor completely contradict one another. Both indicate the existence of discrete subgroups of change, including stability of psychological health for some and significant increase for others.     

Interpersonal Style, Stress, and Depression: An Examination of Transactional and Diathesis-Stress Models

The present study examines a transactional, interpersonal model of depression in which stress generation (Hammen, 1991) in romantic relationships mediates the association between aspects of interpersonal style (i.e., attachment, dependency, and reassurance seeking) and depressive symptoms. It also examines an alternative, diathesis-stress model in which interpersonal style interacts with romantic stressors in predicting depressive symptoms. These models were tested in a sample of college women, both prospectively over a four-week period, as well as on a day-today basis using a daily diary methodology. Overall, there was strong evidence for a transactional, mediation model in which interpersonal style predicted romantic conflict stress, and in turn depressive symptoms. The alternative diathesis-stress model of depression was not supported. These results are interpreted in relation to previous research, and key limitations that should be addressed by future research are discussed.     

A Compassionate Autonomy Alternative to Speciesism

Many people in the animal welfare communityhave argued that the use of nonhuman animals inmedical research is necessarily based onspeciesism, an unjustified prejudice based onspecies membership. As such it is morally akinto racism and sexism. This is misguided. Thecombined capacities for autonomy and sentiencewith the obligations derived from relationssupport a morally justifiable rationale forusing some nonhuman animals in order to limitthe risk of harm to humans. There may be a fewcases where it is morally better to use a neversentient human than a sentient animal, butthese cases are few and would not fulfill thecurrent need for research subjects. The use ofnonautonomous animals instead of humans inrisky research can be based on solid moralground. It is not necessarily speciesism.     

Transition from School to Adult Life: Empowering Youth Through Community Ownership and Accountability

The evolution of transition services for youth with disabilities illustrates the transformation that has occurred from a systems-driven to a youth-centered support approach. This article documents how this shift has occurred. We review research that has influenced the direction of national policies and practices. A chronology of the policies that best represent the seminal foundation for current transition best practices for youth with emotional disturbance (ED) is presented. The field of special education led the way toward articulating the new vision for providing transition support by defining services as the coordination of multiple systems to address life domains (e.g., post-secondary education, employment, independent living, and community adjustment). Promising practices, within the context of the conversion to an ecological model of support that contributes to youth self-determination, include utilization of a youth-centered, strengths-based approach to transition planning, beginning in the middle school years. There remain significant barriers to adoption of the practices that may best support the successful transition of youth. These include lack of coordinated efforts across systems, socioeconomic, and community factors. Committed actions by government, the business sector, and private citizens are essential to address these challenges.     

Bingo!: Hints of Deviance in the Accounts of Sociability and Profit of Bingo Players

This study investigates the social construction of bingo players and bingo playing. Although gambling has largely maintained its deviant reputation, bingo, as a form of gambling, remains untainted by labels of deviance. We undertook a small ethnographic study of bingo playing in a Southwestern town. Because we had very little knowledge of bingo and bingo playing when we entered the field, our original research questions reflected the central concerns of how to play bingo, who plays bingo, and why people begin and continue playing bingo. We found that the bingo world contains a complex web of assumptions and practices surrounding who should win and how to win. Information from our informal interviews suggests that players begin playing and continue playing for the hope of winning and profit and to maintain friendship networks built through playing bingo. Four preliminary domains of analysis emerged from our data: the protocol of bingo playing; and winning; the culture and superstitions of bingo; fun, profit and bingo playing; and hints of deviance among bingo players. Each domain is critical in answering our question: What is bingo?