Experiencing the Other as the Self: Cultural Diversity Courses as Liberating Praxis

Abstract. In response to our increasingly global and multicultural world, undergraduate degree plans have come to include courses, which meet the Diversity requirement. While diversity may have a variety of definitions, clearly the educational institution believes that all students earning a degree should complete course work that exposes them to cultures not their own. Courses that fulfill Diversity requirements often include “Introduction to World Religions,” among others. Even a traditional‐style teaching of such a course will accomplish a certain degree of broadening of students’ perspectives. The risk, however, is that at the end of the course the students are simply better informed about sets of people whom they would still objectify as the other. This article describes an experiential method of teaching which enables students to begin to change their consciousness, as well as their body of information, by learning to experience the other as self. The author calls this the identification/participation method.     

Response to commentary on the multimodal treatment study of ADHD (MTA): mining the meaning of the MTA

In the December 2000 issue of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, we published a set of papers presenting secondary analyses of the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD (MTA), and R. A. Barkley (2000) provided a commentary. A critique of the design of the study (MTA Cooperative Group, 1999) was presented based on a theoretical perspective of a behavioral inhibition deficit that has been hypothesized as the core deficit of ADHD (R. A. Barkley, 1997). The commentary questioned the design and analysis of the MTA in terms of (1) the empirical criteria for selection of components of behavioral (Beh) intervention, (2) the effectiveness of the Beh intervention, (3) the methods for analyses at the group and individual level, (4) implications of the MTA findings for clinical practice, (5) the role of genetics in response to treatment, and (6) the lack of a nontreatment control group. In this response, we relate the content of the papers to the commentary, (1) by reviewing the selection criteria for the Beh treatment, as outlined by K. C. Wells, W. E. Pelham, et al. (2000), (2) by addressing the myth that the MTA Beh treatment was ineffective (Pelham, 1999), (3) by describing the use of analyses at the level of the individual participant, as presented by J. S. March et al. (2000) and W. E. Pelham et al. (2000) as well as elsewhere by J. M. Swanson et al. (2001) and C. K. Conners et al. (2001), (4) by relating some of the suggestions from the secondary analyses about clinically relevant factors such as comorbidity (as presented by J. S. March et al., 2000) and family and parental characteristics (as presented by B. Hoza et al., 2000, S. P. Hinshaw et al., 2000, and K. C. Wells, J. N. Epstein, et al., 2000), (5) by discussing the statistical concept of heritability and the lack of a significant difference in the presence of ADHD symptoms in parents of the MTA families compared to parents in the classmate-control families (as presented by J. N. Epstein, et al., 2000), and (6) by acknowledging that an ethically necessary weakness of the MTA design is that it did not include a no-treatment control group. We discuss the use of secondary analyses to suggest how, when, and for what subgroups effectiveness of the Beh treatment may have been manifested. Finally, we invite others to use the large and rich data set that will soon be available in the public domain, to perform secondary analyses to mine the meaning of the MTA and to evaluate theories of ADHD and response to treatments.     

A Longitudinal Study of Interparental Conflict, Emotional and Behavioral Reactivity, and Preschoolers' Adjustment Problems among Low-Income Families

Researchers have begun to develop models that explain the processes by which interparental conflict impacts children's adjustment. The present study tested a model based on emotional security theory. The longitudinal relations among interparental conflict, boys' reactions to conflict, and internalizing and externalizing problems were examined in a sample of 129 mother–son dyads from low-income, 2-parent families from the time sons were age 2 to 5. Results indicated that children exposed to interparental conflict were more likely to have concurrent and later behavior problems and that patterns of interparental conflict across time made unique contributions in predicting later problems. Children's emotional reactivity in response to conflict had no direct relation to interparental conflict and only modest relations to behavior problems. However, interparental conflict and reactivity factors interacted to predict behavior problems at ages 3 1/2 and 5. Thus, some support was demonstrated for emotional reactivity as a moderator in the development of young children's behavior problems.     

Relations between infant irritability and maternal responsiveness in low-income families

Relations between infant irritability and maternal responsiveness at 12 and18 months were investigated in low-income mother-infant dyads. Emphasis was placed on whether results varied according to measurement strategies, infant gender, or level of maternal social support and satisfaction with that support. Irritability was measured separately through observation and maternal report, responsiveness was measured observationally, and maternal social support and satisfaction were self-reported via questionnaire. Concurrent relations between irritability and responsiveness were, in general, negative and were larger when irritability was measured observationally rather than by maternal report. Correlations were similar across gender. No longitudinal relations were found between irritability and responsiveness. Amount of maternal social support was weakly related to responsiveness and to responses to infant irritability, and the nature of these relations was unexpected. Irritability-responsiveness relations varied as a function of measurement strategies, which may in part explain mixed findings in the empirical literature.     

The Development of Early Externalizing Problems Among Children from Low-Income Families: A Transformational Perspective

The present study examined pathways leading to early externalizing problems from age 1 to 31/2 in a design that took advantage of our knowledge of normative progression and normative socialization as well as findings from research on risk. A sample of 130 low-income participants was followed longitudinally from 12 to 42 months using observational measures of developmentally salient parenting and child disruptive behavior to predict early externalizing problems. Results are best accommodated by concepts such as transformation and transaction from developmental psychology. For boys, both child and parent variables predicted later externalizing. For girls and boys, the interaction between child noncompliance and maternal rejection was significant.     

Word-to-word variation in ERP component latencies: spoken words

Data were collected shedding light on the brain electrical activity underlying word recognition. Subjects listened to a list of 48 spoken words in six random orders under two instructional sets: first to "think about the meanings of the words," and second, to learn the list. The scalp EEG associated with hearing and identifying the words was recorded at F3, F4, Cz, P3, P4, Pz, and Oz. Standard within-subjects time-locked averaging across words showed a late negative-positive complex with N2-P3 topography, the negative component peaking around 480 msec, the positive component peaking around 830 msec. Averaging within words across subjects uncovered considerable latency variability in both components. Within-word N2 and P3 component latencies covaried with word durations and with the "recognition points" predicted for the words by the "cohort theory" of word recognition. N2 latencies corresponded closely to the "N400" effect elicited with semantically incongruous sentence-final spoken words. Implications for ERP investigations of language processing are discussed.     

High School Girls’ Experience of Victimization by Boys: Where Sexual Harassment Meets Aggression

School-based research into sexual harassment, on the one hand, and aggression (including bullying) on the other, originate from different disciplinary traditions, but are beginning to connect. We examined whether the sexual harassment of high school girls by boys can be regarded as a form of aggression. Year 8 to 10 girls from 5 coeducational high schools (N = 679) responded to a 24-item version of the Direct and Indirect Aggression Scale, including 6 new sexually toned items; participants indicated how often they experienced each behavior. Principal components analysis identified 4 components: direct aggression, psychological aggression, cyberbullying, and sexual harassment. The latter included the more intrusive sexually toned behaviors, whereas verbal sexualized insults were a component of psychological aggression—the component that most strongly undermined girls’ sense of safety at school. Research and policies on school peer victimization need to explicitly include sexual aspects, in recognition of the harmfulness of such “everyday” psychological aggression.     

Childhood Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Predicts Intimate Partner Victimization in Young Women

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with interpersonal dysfunction during childhood and adolescence, yet little is known about the romantic relationships of young women with childhood ADHD. In the present study, we draw from a longitudinal sample of girls followed prospectively into young adulthood, comparing those with (n?=?114) and without (n?=?79; comparisons) childhood ADHD in terms of their risk for physical victimization by an intimate partner (physical IPV; e.g., slapping, punching) by 17–24 years of age. We examined ADHD both diagnostically and dimensionally, at the same time establishing reliable indicators of young adult physical IPV. Externalizing and internalizing problems, and academic achievement during adolescence, were tested as potential mediators. Overall, participants with a childhood diagnosis of ADHD experienced more physical IPV than did comparisons (30.7 % vs. 6.3 %). In parallel, IPV was associated with higher levels of childhood ADHD symptomatology (d?=?0.73). Young women with persistent ADHD stood the highest risk of experiencing IPV (37.3 %), followed by those with transient ADHD (19.0 %) and those never-diagnosed (5.9 %). Academic achievement measured during adolescence was a significant partial mediator of the childhood ADHD symptomatology-young adult IPV relationship, even with control of sociodemographic, psychiatric, and cognitive factors, including childhood reading and math disorders. Findings indicate that in young women, childhood ADHD is a specific and important predictor of physically violent victimization in their intimate relationships. This vulnerable population requires IPV prevention and intervention, with academic empowerment as a key target.