Demographic,Clinical, and Geographic Predictors of Placement Disruption among Foster Care Youth Receiving Wraparound Services

The effective delivery of wraparound depends upon the availability of a wide range of community-based services. This study seeks to determine the impact of proximity to resources on the effectiveness of a wraparound program for stabilizing foster care placements among a sample of youth. We present a methodology for deriving proximity scores for individual clients using Geographic Information Systems technology, and incorporate this score into a model for predicting placement disruption among youth in foster care receiving services within a wraparound model aimed at preventing placement disruptions. Cox Regression is used to predict length of time until placement disruption using clinical, demographic, and service proximity measures. Risk of placement disruption is predicted by trauma experiences, risk behaviors, and age, and is reduced by the presence of child strengths and proximity to resources. The impact of proximity to resources on placement disruption varies by land use type, suggesting that proximity exerts a greater impact on youth in rural and suburban areas than in urban areas where wraparound service delivery models may be able to overcome distance and other barriers. Implications for the implementation of wraparound programs as well as service system planning are discussed.     

Co-Rumination in the Workplace: Adjustment Trade-offs for Men and Women Who Engage in Excessive Discussions of Workplace Problems

Purpose  

Developmental psychology research finds that when children and adolescents engage in excessive discussion of problems with friends, a phenomenon termed “co-rumination,” they experience trade-offs between negative adjustment outcomes (e.g., depression), but better friendship quality. This study examines the possibility that adults in the workplace engage in co-rumination about workplace problems, and that co-rumination, gender, and the presence of abusive supervision influence both positive and negative individual outcomes.     

Gender differences in motivational pathways to college for middle class African American youths

Using a sample of predominantly middle-class African American adolescents and parents (N = 424), the authors tested a path model linking parental expectations for children's future educational attainment, youths' motivation during Grade 11, and youths' subsequent on-time postsecondary educational progress. Parents' expectations were positively related to adolescents' educational attainment aspirations, attainment expectations, utility values (i.e., beliefs about the usefulness of education), and perceptions of racial barriers to upward mobility. Relationships between parents' expectations and youths' aspirations and expectations were mediated by youths' perceptions of parents' expectations. For boys, but not girls, Grade 11 educational expectations and utility values each uniquely predicted college attendance 1 year after high school graduation. In addition, boys' perceptions of racial barriers were negatively related to subsequent postsecondary progress through their influence on values. Findings underscore the importance of academic achievement motivation as a developmental resource for African American boys and suggest that boys are especially likely to benefit from interventions promoting positive motivational beliefs.     

Situations matter: teaching the Lewinian link between social psychology and rehabilitation psychology

A little-recognized fact is that social psychology and rehabilitation psychology share a common theoretical ancestry in the situation perspective of Kurt Lewin. Theory and research in both fields assumes that situational influences often override the impact of personal factors, including dispositions. Situational analyses led to the development of a variety of cognitive explanations capturing people's phenomenal accounts for the causes of behavior and concomitant interpretation of social problems. Teachers can explore reasons why, despite the fields' having a shared theoretical perspective and topics of common interest (e.g., attitudes, prejudice, discrimination), little scholarly intradisciplinary contact currently occurs between them.     

Do I belong?: it depends on when you ask

A feeling of belonging to an academic context is a critical determinant of academic achievement and persistence, particularly for students of color. Despite the fact that students of color are generally more susceptible to fluctuations in belonging uncertainty than White students, survey design can unintentionally mask this reality. We investigated whether context effects undermine the accurate assessment of belonging uncertainty in junior high and high school students (Study 1) and college students (Study 2). Considering one's ethnic identification (Study 1) and personal experiences with discrimination (Study 2) threatens sense of belonging in students of color, but not White students. Researchers should consider question order within surveys so as not to artificially mask belonging uncertainty in students of color.     

Evidence for a shared mechanism used in multiple-object tracking and subitizing

It has been proposed that the mechanism that supports the ability to keep track of multiple moving objects also supports subitizing--the ability to quickly and accurately enumerate a small set of objects. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the effects on subitizing when human observers were required to perform a multiple object tracking task and an enumeration task simultaneously. In three experiments, participants (Exp. 1, N = 24; Exp. 2, N = 11; Exp. 3, N = 37) enumerated sets of zero to nine squares that were flashed while they tracked zero, two, or four moving discs. The results indicated that the number of items participants could subitize decreased by one for each item they tracked. No such pattern was seen when the enumeration task was paired with an equally difficult, but nonvisual, working memory task. These results suggest that a shared visual mechanism supports multiple object tracking and subitizing.     

Peer Tutoring for Reading Fluency as a Feasible and Effective Alternative in Response to Intervention Systems

Peer tutoring is an evidence-based procedure for improving academic performance for a variety of skill areas. The current study evaluated the feasibility and impact of a peer tutoring package for reading fluency with 4 middle school students receiving Tier II remedial supports. This study used a multiple baseline design across participants to evaluate impact of the peer tutoring procedure on students’ oral reading rate on instructional passages. Results indicated that students’ oral reading rate on instructional probes increased following implementation of the peer tutoring procedure. Moreover, peer tutors implemented most steps of the procedure with a high degree of integrity. Results are discussed in terms of contributions to the peer tutoring and Response to Intervention literatures, as well as application to applied practice.     

All gifts large and small: toward an understanding of the ethics of pharmaceutical industry gift-giving

Much attention has been focused in recent years on the ethical acceptability of physicians receiving gifts from drug companies. Professional guidelines recognize industry gifts as a conflict of interest and establish thresholds prohibiting the exchange of large gifts while expressly allowing for the exchange of small gifts such as pens, note pads, and coffee. Considerable evidence from the social sciences suggests that gifts of negligible value can influence the behavior of the recipient in ways the recipient does not always realize. Policies and guidelines that rely on arbitrary value limits for gift-giving or receipt should be reevaluated.     

Belonging Without Belonging: Utilizing Evangelical Self-Identification to Analyze Political Attitudes and Preferences

Research typically defines evangelical belonging as affiliation with an evangelical denomination, but this approach excludes many self-identified evangelicals, even though previous studies of religious groups find that self-identification is a powerful predictor of political preferences. Using data from the National Survey of Religion and Politics, we investigate the usefulness of self-identification for classifying evangelicals. The effects of three types of evangelical belonging (religious tradition-only, self-identification-only, and a combination of religious tradition and self-identification) on respondents' political attitudes, party identification, and vote choice suggest that religious tradition is a good predictor of political attitudes while self-identification is a good predictor of party identification. We conclude that self-identification and tradition are both important to understanding evangelicalism and politics in America.