Infants and young children living in youth‐headed households in Rwanda: Implications of emerging data

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has already produced millions of orphans in Africa and the peak of the orphan epidemic has not yet been reached. One emerging social trend associated with premature parental death is the formation of households headed by youth aged 13–24. In Rwanda, specific sociocultural factors have supported the formation of youth‐headed households (YHH) in the wake of both the 1994 genocide and the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic. There is no published data on the health and socioemotional functioning of children under 5 living in YHH. Survey data from 692 YHH in one region of Rwanda yielded a subsample of 89 homes which contained one or more children under 5 (n=104) . These data reveal that a majority of young children living in YHH's is in fair or poor health. Heads of household themselves report high levels of depressive symptoms and social isolation; reports of emotional distress among the youngest children in the homes are associated with reports of higher symptomatology among heads of household. Findings are interpreted in light of the sociocultural context of Rwanda and the implications of the data for intervention are considered.     

Counselors and the noncollege-bound student

Students in vocational curriculums, along with other noncollege-bound students, have long been the stepchildren of the American educational system. There are numerous factors that suggest why this pattern has developed and why it has generally been accepted by educators. Contemporary forces and movements, such as the career education thrust, reveal major shifts for all educational personnel in this respect. The focus of this article is on the obligations and roles of guidance personnel in this process of change. Stress is placed on four major types of changes: structural changes, preparation changes, programmatic changes, and directional changes.     

TURNING POINTS IN DEVELOPING ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

The 80 partners from 40 romantic relationships were independently interviewed using the RIT procedure with regard to the turning points of their respective relationships; 26 types of turning points were found, which reduced to 14 supra-types. These supra-types differed in their association with relational commitment, with some events strongly positive, some strongly negative, and others relatively modest in reported change in commitment. About half of the turning points involved explicit metacommunication between the relationship parties, but the likelihood of relationship talk varied by turning point type. About half of the 759 identified turning points were agreed upon by relationship partners, but agreement differed depending on turning point type. Neither partner agreement nor the presence of explicit metacommunication was related to the respondent's current satisfaction with the relationship. However, the proportion of total turning points that were negative correlated negatively with current satisfaction. Two turning point events, Exclusivity and Disengagement, individually differentiated more from less satisfied relationship parties.     

SELF-DISCLOSURE AS A RELATIONSHIP DISENGAGEMENT STRATEGY: AN EXPLORATORY INVESTIGATION

Interactants are strategic goal seekers in their interpersonal communication. However, to date, research has concentrated almost exclusively on the communicative strategies by which actors achieve a goal of relationship initiation. Relationship disengagement occupies an important motivational force, as well. This study initiated exploration of the communicative strategies by which actors disengage their relationships, focusing in particular on the verbal strategy of self-disclosure. Undergraduate volunteers were exposed to one of four hypothetical scenarios: Respondent Intent (Maintain or Disengage) and Other's Intent (Maintain or Disengage). Twenty Likert-type items of willingness to self-disclose on a variety of topics constituted the dependent measures and were clustered into three primary factors. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that respondents were less willing to self-disclose when they desired to disengage the relationship.     

Forms and Functions of Intimate Play in Personal Relationships

Two studies are reported on intimate play in same-sex friendships and in opposite-sex romantic relationships. In Study 1, a typology of eight play forms was derived: private verbal coding, role-playing, teasing, prosocial physical play, antisocial physical play, games, gossiping, and public performances. Study 1 also modified the Betcher PQII paper-and-pencil measure of perceived playfulness for use in nonmarital relationships, finding playfulness a strong correlate of relationship closeness. Study 2 examined the multidimensional structure of the play typology, finding three underlying dimensions for the play forms: verbal versus nonverbal, antisocial versus prosocial, and assumed-identity versus self-identity. Study 2 also examined perceptions of the functions performed by the types of play, finding differences among the eight play forms on the functions of indexing intimacy, lessening interpersonal risk, distancing self from the interaction, and conflict management.     

Gender and Institutional Affiliation as Determinants of Publishing in Human Communication Research

Women in academia generally publish fewer articles than do men; also, many women traditionally have not been attracted to quantitative methodologies. Therefore, this study investigated whether female authors have been underrepresented in Human Communication Research (HCR) as compared to their representation in the communication field and as compared to a more qualitative communication journal that publishes articles employing different methods. The results indicated that the difference between the percentage of female authors in HCR and the percentage of women in the field was not significant for 4 of 6 sample years. The difference between the percentages of female authors in HCR and Quarterly Journal of Speech was not significant for any of the 6 years; however, there was a significant difference in the number of female sole or lead (first) authors in 3 of the 6 sample years. Institutional affiliation was also examined because, in most fields, a small percentage of scholars produce a majority of research. The 10 highest ranking programs in Communication Theory and Research (as determined by a survey conducted by the National Communication Association) contributed more than one third of all HCR articles. Overall, the journal seems to have represented the work of a relatively diverse group of scholars during the past 25 years.