Using the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies to Decolonize Counseling Practice: The Important Roles of Theory,Power, and Action

The Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC; Ratts, Singh, Nassar-McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2015) ask counselors to “apply knowledge of multicultural and social justice theories” (p. 8). Counselors who implement the MSJCC in this manner have the opportunity to critically examine traditional counseling theories that were developed within a predominantly White and Western framework, that reproduce North American and European colonist ideology if not contextualized, and that neglect Indigenous approaches to healing (Tuck & Yang, 2012; Watkins & Shulman, 2008). In this article, the authors present 4 key multicultural and social justice theories that can support counselors in adopting a decolonizing paradigm and implementing the MSJCC in their practice with clients: relational-cultural theory (Miller, 1976), critical race theory (Bell, 1995), intersectionality theory (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991), and liberation psychology (Martín-Baró, 1994).     

Making faces: Creating three-dimensional parameterized models of facial expression

Previous studies of the perceptual processing and dynamics of emotional expression in faces have been limited by the lack of realistic yet controlled stimuli. The present work offers researchers a method for creating such stimuli for exploring these phenomena. We describe the creation of the stimuli and a series of experiments testing the validity of these stimuli with respect to emotional expressions in humans. Participants evaluated synthesized facial images and standardized photographs of six basic emotional expressions for intensity and accuracy of perceived emotion. Comparisons of these measures were qualitatively similar for synthesized and photographed faces. A manipulation of the magnitude of the synthesized expressions yielded a significant effect on the perceived intensity of expression. In a subsequent multidimensional scaling study, no systematic differences were uncovered in the derived configurations of the synthesized expressions and the photographs. These results are discussed in the context of possible future research applications.     

Mental representations of attachment in day care providers

Mental representations of attachment of 31 day‐care providers were assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), and compared with established observational measures of their behavior with the children under their care. Contrary to expectation, there was no significant association between the caregivers’ mental representations of attachment and their observed behavior. Teacher‐report ratings of aggressive behavior were obtained for 135 children who had been under the care of these providers. Ten of the 13 children who scored in the clinical range for aggressive behavior were known to have been under the care of a provider with a secure mental representation of attachment for an extended period of time (average 14 months), but the average age of first exposure to such a provider in this study was 16 months. For center‐based day‐care providers, standardized observational assessments of caregiving behavior appear to be unrelated to mental representations of attachment. Children who, during the second year of life, were cared for by providers with secure mental representations of attachment were not necessarily protected from abnormally aggressive behavioral outcome.     

Family-based physical activity interventions and family functioning: A systematic review

Family physical activity (PA) can confer multiple health benefits, yet whether PA interventions affect general family functioning has not been appraised. The purpose of this review was to evaluate studies that have examined the effect of family PA interventions, where child PA was the focus of the intervention, on constructs of family functioning. Literature searches were concluded on January 11, 2022 using seven common databases. Eligible studies were in English, utilized a family PA intervention, and assessed a measure of family functioning as a study outcome. The initial search yielded 8413 hits, which was reduced to 20 independent PA interventions of mixed quality after screening for eligibility criteria. There was mixed evidence for whether family PA interventions affected overall family functioning; however, analyses of subdomains indicated that family cohesion is improved by PA interventions when children are in the early school years (aged 5–12). High-quality studies also showed an impact of family PA interventions on family organization. Targeted interventions at specific family subsystems (e.g., father–son, mother–daughter), characteristics (low-income, clinical populations, girls), and broad multibehavioral interventions may have the most reliable effects. Overall, the findings show that family PA interventions can promote family cohesion and organization, particularly among families with children in the early school years. Higher quality research, employing randomized trial designs and targeting specific intervention and sample characteristics (e.g., different clinical conditions, specific parent–child dyads), is recommended in order to better ascertain the effectiveness of these approaches.     

The Sexual Victimization Experiences of Men Attending College: A Mixed Methods Investigation

Sex Roles - Emerging research supports that men attending college are at elevated sexual assault risk. However, research is limited by assessment issues as well as a lack of examination of how men...