Bound-Risk: The Mujeres de Yucatan por la Democracia

The Mujeres de Yucatan por la Democracia(Yucatecan Women for Democracy; MYD) is a reformistcivic association focusing on the politicaltransformation of democracy, organized to confront theMexican state. The MYD, struggling against the status quo andactive in the fight for democratic transformation, hasbecome a means for self-empowering its members. Althoughthe MYD's activism does not, on the surface, appear to threaten gender hierarchy, thedivision of labor, or the politics of women's dailylives, it does affect gender relations. Attitudes ofwomen towards themselves are changing, their home-lives are being transformed, and their work-lives arealso changing. As to the possible long-term effects ofthese changes, we can only conjecture that they have thepotential for introducing new values into daily life in a culture that traditionally hassilenced women's voices. These are transitional times inMexico where the women activists of MYD will not retreatto their way of life before the MYD was founded. The MYD has transformed women's self-definitionand fundamentally affected their view ofsociety.     

Teachers'' ratings of social competence of children with high versus low levels of depressive symptoms

This study examined the relationship between children's self-ratings of depressive symptoms on the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) and teachers' ratings of the situational social competence of these children based on the Taxonomy of Problematic Social Situations (TOPS). Children in the high CDI group showed significantly higher teacher ratings (indicating lower social competence) than children in the low CDI group on four TOPS scales: peer group entry, response to provocation, response to success, and teacher expectations. Of the children in the high CDI group, 85% could be correctly classified with a discriminant analysis on the basis of TOPS ratings; of the children in the low CDI group, 77% were correctly classified. Implications of these findings, as well as limitations of the study, are discussed.     

Putting the feminism into feminism scales: Introduction of a Liberal Feminist Attitude and Ideology Scale (LFAIS)

A Likert-type scale was developed to provide a feminist attitude measure that taps the domains of gender role attitudes, goals of feminism, and feminist ideology. The development and testing of the scale involved two studies. First, a pilot study was conducted to help generate themes and items for the scale. Second, the validity and reliability of the scale was empirically tested. The pilot study was conducted with two samples, an undergraduate sample (N =99; ethnic breakdown unknown) and a group of participants in a women's studies conference (N =54; ethnic breakdown unknown). Subsequent empirical testing was conducted on two samples, an additional group of undergraduates (N =209; 43% Asian American, 37% Caucasian, 12% Hispanic, 4% African American, 2% Native American) and a subsample of the Women's Studies conference participants (N =25; 79% Caucasian, 17% Asian American, and 4% Hispanic). Results demonstrate that the final 60-item form of the Liberal Feminist Attitude and Ideology Scale (LFAIS) scale and each of its domains are highly reliable. Furthermore, the LFAIS has good convergent, divergent, concurrent, and known-groups validity. The scale was not susceptible to social desirability bias. Although tested on samples with fairly narrow demographics, the LFAIS shows promise as a reliable and valid measure of liberal feminist attitudes for use by researchers interested in an overtly sociopolitical measure of feminist attitudes. This research was carried out in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the doctoral degree in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. A paper based on these results was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, San Diego, CA, 1992. I gratefully acknowledge Ellen Greenberger for her invaluable help with every step of this project. I also appreciate the comments of several anonymous reviewers, Thomas Crawford, Jodie Ullman, Maithilee Pathak, and Diana Grant. Finally, I would like to thank Jonathan Gilmore for his help with data collection.     

Fetal relationality in feminist philosophy: an anthropological critique

This essay critiques feminist treatments of maternal-fetal “relationality” that unwittingly replicate features of Western individualism (for example, the Cartesian division between the asocial body and the social-cognitive person, or the conflation of social and biological birth). I argue for a more reflexive perspective on relationality that would acknowledge how we produce persons through our actions and rhetoric. Personhood and relationality can be better analyzed as dynamic, negotiated qualities realized through social practice.     

Pastoral counseling and petitionary prayer

Petitionary prayer is a valid and often-used form of prayer among religious people. Not infrequently, pastoral counselors find themselves praying for clients. This article explores the pastoral counselor's use of petitionary prayer, experientially and theologically, and attempts to locate its meaning within the healing enterprise.     

Assessment of students' behavioral interactions during on-task classroom activities

This study was designed to characterize the quality and quantity of interactions between students and significant others in the processing of new information during classroom activities. I wanted to test the hypothesis that black children, from moderate to low income urban environments, tend to have a more socially active cognitive style than their white peers in the performance of classroom tasks. Five different English classes, all 8th graders in a single junior high school (total of 114 black and white boys and girls), were observed in the same environment at different intervals to identify differences in the number of interactions between boys and girls, by racial groups. Classroom lessons and related activities were videotaped. The recorded activity was tabulated and rated by 3 trained observers. Black children more than white, and boys more than girls, initiated interactions with peers in the classroom in performing assigned tasks. This social interaction also showed that (1) 76% of the observed classroom time, subjects as a group were observed on-task and (2) pupils' interactions with their selected targets (classmates and their teacher) were 87% positive, and (3) relatively few interactions could be classified as disruptive.