Career Education for Persons With Handicaps

Handicapped youth and adults still encounter serious problems assimilating successfully into today's rapidly changing society. After tracing the major events that have increased the momentum of career education for persons with handicaps, Brolin and Gysbers advocate a life-centered curriculum approach, which focuses on 22 skills essential for successful community living and working. They recommend that counselors assume specific responsibilities in this approach and outline competencies necessary to carry out guidance and counseling activities for persons with handicaps at four phases of career education. The article includes examples of successfully operating career education programs and concludes with a challenge to the profession.     

Should Career Education be Founded in the Protestant Ethic?

Much of career education philosophy presupposes the Protestant (Work) Ethic, ignoring the fact that this traditional ethic is being challenged by other viewpoints. This article includes a review of the origin and nature of the Protestant (Work) Ethic and a brief outline of some alternative ethics. Ethical and practical problems arise when career education presumes to advocate a single traditional work ethic; this article suggests a solution to these problems.     

FIELD MEASURES OF STRENGTH AND FITNESS PREDICT FIREFIGHTER PERFORMANCE ON PHYSICALLY DEMANDING TASKS

Recruits from 9 consecutive fire academy classes were assessed on a battery of strength and endurance measures at Weeks 1, 7, and 14 of training. Regression analyses using Week 1 measures indicated that strength variables were the primary predictors of performance on physically demanding firefighting tasks assessed at the completion of training. Incremental validity was obtained with the addition of aerobic capacity, which produced more accurate performance distinctions among recruits with high strength levels. Results showed predictive validity and linearity throughout the upper range of strength and endurance levels, but evidence of an increased drop-off in performance for recruits with strength levels below the male 25th percentile. Structural equation modeling, a more powerful and comprehensive approach to validation than traditional regression, provided strong support for the construct validity of general strength and endurance as predictors of firefighter performance on physically demanding fire suppression and rescue tasks.     

Female‐demand/male‐withdraw communication in Argentinian couples: A mediating factor between economic strain and relationship distress

Based on a dyadic version of R. D. Conger and colleagues' stress model, this study examined whether the demand/withdraw pattern in couples' communication mediates the association between partners' economic strain and their level of relationship distress. Data were from self‐report questionnaires completed by 144 heterosexual couples seeking psychotherapy at a community clinic in Argentina 3 years after a major national economic crisis. As hypothesized, results from a path model analysis suggested that (a) regardless of provider role, females tended to experience more economic strain than males did; (b) the female‐demand/male‐withdraw pattern, but not the male‐demand/female‐withdraw pattern, mediated the positive association between economic strain and relationship distress; and (c) both partners' levels of relationship distress were affected by both patterns of demand/withdraw communication. Gender differences are discussed based on the gender role expectations in Argentina and the stress coping and demand/withdraw communication literatures. Study limitations and implications of the findings for research, programmatic approaches, and therapeutic interventions for couples under economic stress are considered. This study makes important contributions to our understanding of gender differences and the role of demand/withdraw communication in couples' responses to economic strain.     

THE TOUCH OF HUMILITY: AN INVITATION TO CREATURELINESS

Humility has been much maligned and misunderstood in recent thought. An authentic sense of humility, however, is borne out of a deep appreciation for human creatureliness, and is concretely worked out in the grateful acceptance of our interdependent need. The phenomenological studies of Jean‐Louis Chrétien, particularly his analyses of touch and the “call‐response” structure to human life, are enlisted to show our true life as lived in humble reception and responsible engagement with the gifts of God. Far from being a debasement of humanity, humility—which finds its practical patterns in the divine life—is the core of our identity and vocation.