Race,Class, and Gender: A Constellation of Positionalities With Implications for Counseling

Race, class, and gender are social, political, economic, and cultural constructs that describe the positionalities of people. How these constructs are defined depends on the status occupied by individuals and the individual, institutional, and societal status of the individuals who have the power to construct hierarchies. The authors examine the intersection of race, class, and gender and the dimensions of oppression and discrimination in counseling. Historical and contemporary dimensions of racism, misogyny, and classism are presented. La Raza, clase social, y el género son construcciones sociales, políticas, económicas, y culturales que describen las posicionalidades de la gente. La definición de éstas construcciones depende de la posición social ocupada por los individuos e instituciones que tienen el poder de construir estas jerarquías. Los autores examinan el cruce de la raza, la clase, y el género y las dimensiones de la opresión y la discriminación en la consejería. Las dimensiones históricas y contemporáneas del racismo, la misoginia, y el clasismo se presentan.     

Where Have All the Children Gone? Movement from Child to Adult Mental Health Systems

The mental health histories of the 448 children 15 and 16 years of age who were admitted to state-operated children's psychiatric inpatient services in New York during 1982 were reviewed for the 11 year period through April 1993, Thirty-three percent were served as adults (after age 18) in the state-operated adult civil mental health system; 42% of these individuals were still receiving services at the end of the period. 113 of the 146 individuals served as adults were served only in the civil system. Thirteen percent of the cohort received some of their mental health services as adults in the state-operated adult forensic mental health system due to criminal law involvement. This includes nine percent who received mental health services while they were inmates in state prisons. Twenty four of the 57 forensic clients received services as adults only in the forensic system. Diagnostic, demographic, and service history characteristics of the groups were compared to foster an early understanding of policy and programmatic issues related to movement from the child mental health system to the adult system. Baseline (1982) information was used to identify predictors of later service utilization.     

Adult smoking in the home environment and children's IQ

In a sample of 3- and 5-yr.-old children, smoking in the home was found to be significantly and inversely related to IQ. Children of normal birth weight and without neurological impairment had been enrolled in a longitudinal study of child development. Analyses were conducted with sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, educational stimulation in the home, day care, and mother's intelligence controlled. Significant results were obtained for scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised at age three years and on the major Stanford-Binet Fourth Edition scales at ages three and five years. All effects were for the mother, not the father, smoking in the home.     

The Role of Integrative Complexity in Military Leadership: Robert E. Lee and His Opponents1

Paragraphs selected from material written by Gen. Robert E. Lee between 1839 and 1867, and by Union generals who opposed him in six major battles, were scored for integrative complexity. This characteristic is defined by the degree of differentiation and integration that the individual demonstrates in processing information, ranging from low or simple (rigid, all-or-none, egocentric) to high or complex (flexible, information-oriented, integrated) on a 1–7 scale. Gen. Lee showed a high level of complexity as a stable characteristic, with changes downward in periods of particular stress. Lee was able to defeat superior enemy forces in battles where his level of complexity was substantially higher than that of the opposing commander; this was not the case when the levels were closer together or when (as with Grant) he faced an opponent whose complexity was actually higher than his own. These findings support previous research on the effects of stress, and emphasize the nature of information processing complexity as both a “trait” and a “state” variable.