The Role of Neighborhood Context and School Climate in School‐Level Academic Achievement

In recent years, the quality of education available to children has become increasingly dependent on the social and economic demographics of neighborhoods in which the children live. This study assesses the role of community violence in explaining the relation between socio‐economic status (SES) and academic outcomes and the potential of positive school climate to promote academic achievement. With a sample of 297 Chicago public elementary schools, we examine community‐level and school‐level data and use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping to illustrate how school academic achievement coincides with neighborhood economics and crime statistics. Results support the hypothesized mediation, such that lower SES was associated with lower academic achievement, and violent crime partially mediated this relation. School climate was positively associated with academic achievement, and student safety significantly moderated the relation between SES and academic achievement. Implications for theory, research, and intervention are discussed.     

In the Wake of Violence: Enacting and Witnessing Hope Among People

In the territory of violence and despair, hope is rare. Recent work on hope has shifted attention from hope as a feeling to hope as a practice that people can do together. This case report of a family exposed to domestic violence highlights the role played by a South African police officer in the mother's actions to separate from the context of violence. As a witness to the violence, the police officer acted from an ethic of justice and an ethic of compassion. Outsider witnessing of a counseling session resulted in the recruiting of a community of acknowledgement for the mother, the police officer, and an Assistant Commissioner of Police. Listening carefully and doing hope together gave rise to alliances against practices of violence. As a step of accountability, the authors used reflexive practices to question their responses and to avoid colonizing practices.     

Integrating Multiple Intersecting Identities: A Multicultural Conceptualization of the Power and Control Wheel

For the past three decades intimate partner abuse has received growing attention as a major social problem with its roots in socially structured systemic inequalities. However, much of the intimate partner abuse literature lacks adequate attention to issues of diversity, and more specifically fails to address how structural underpinnings beyond gender shape women's experiences of intimate partner abuse. The primary purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of considering how various systems of oppression (e.g., heterosexism, agism, ableism, racism, spirituality/religion, classism, and sexism) shape the experiences of victims of intimate partner abuse. In particular, we address how these personal, cultural, and structural identities may individually or in combination influence women's experiences of intimate partner abuse. The literature on diverse identities and intimate partner abuse is reviewed, and a revised version of the commonly used Power and Control Wheel is presented, called the Multicultural Power and Control Wheel. Directions for future research and implications for practice are proposed with the hopes of initiating a dialogue among researchers and clinicians as to the most effective ways to serve victims of IPA.     

Psychoanalysis and Social Demand

In a public institution that works with adolescents who have committed infractions and the application of penalties that restrict the freedom of these adolescents, the psychoanalytical concept incompleteness has furnished the basis for an educational project. This same concept of non-wholeness has also been applied in order to explain why certain teenagers adhere to a criminal set of values instead of choosing righteous ones. Psychoanalysis teaches us to work through the demands that are made by our patients so as to bring the unconscious wish to the surface. Our work with these demands conditions the onset of still another demand: the request for clinical treatment. Both social and institutional demands can be treated in a similar way. In this paper, we associate violence with the notion of wholeness, therefore the acknowledgement of vulnerability and lack can actually restrain violence. This is a paradox sustained by psychoanalysis.     

Attitudes toward condoms as AIDS prophylaxis in homosexual men: Dimensions and measurement

Abstract

Increases in condom use among homosexually active men are crucial to containing the spread of AIDS. The present study examined the components of attitudes and beliefs toward condom use in homosexual and bisexual men using a modified version of Brown's Attitude toward condoms scale. Factor analysis revealed five clear dimensions: viewing condoms as unreliable and unerotic; as protection from infection; as unavailable when needed; as interrupting sex; and viewing condoms as a responsibility and being comfortable with condom use. Five subscales constructed from these dimensions differentiated significantly between homosexual men who used condoms frequently and infrequently or never. Four of the subscales (excepting the Protection from Infection subscale) differentiated frequency of oral condom use; only the Responsibility and Comfort with Condom Use subscale differentiated frequency of anal condom use. The Homosexual Attitudes toward Condom Use scale demonstrates that (1) dimensions of beliefs and attitudes toward condom use in homosexually active men differ substantially from those in heterosexual individuals; (2) a reliable and valid scale for measuring such attitudes now exists; (3) factors influencing condom use in this population differ for oral and anal intercourse; (4) this scale enables further research on determinants of condom use, and effects of modifying attitudes toward condom use, in homosexually active men to be carried out.     

Narcissistic Vulnerability in Marriage

Many couples who seek therapy with issues around money, work, sex or children are actually dealing at a deeper level with problems of narcissistic entitlement, vulnerability to emotional injury, or defenses that protect against perceived attacks upon a fragile self. This paper considers the concept of narcissism as it relates to marriage and family issues and suggests some important ingredients in treating a narcissistically vulnerable relationship.     

Consequences of Violence Exposures by Emergency Nurses

Emergency nurses are among the most likely groups of health care professionals to be exposed to violence. Violence exposure is the witnessing or receiving of a violent act with or without the intention to cause physical or psychological harm. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the literature in relation to emergency nurses' exposure to violence and discuss the implications for emergency nursing practice. A review of the literature was conducted using the keywords violence, emergency nursing, health care workers, and productivity. Emergency nurses exhibited anxiety, vulnerability, guilt, anger, sadness, and peer blaming following violence exposures. Violence exposures affect emergency nurses both physically and psychologically. Interventions should be developed to reduce the negative consequences of violence exposures.     

Childhood Sexual Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence in a Clinical Sample of Men: The Mediating Roles of Adult Attachment and Anger Management

This study examined the association between men’s experience of childhood sexual abuse and later perpetration of intimate partner violence, considering the roles of attachment insecurity and poor anger regulation. The sample was 302 Canadian men undergoing counseling for relationship difficulties or aggression. They completed questionnaires assessing childhood sexual abuse, the two dimensions of attachment insecurity (anxiety and avoidance), anger regulation processes, physical and psychological aggression, and social desirability bias. Path analyses showed that men who experienced childhood sexual abuse scored higher on attachment anxiety, which in turn was associated with aggressive behaviors directly and through four anger-related variables (trait anger, anger-in, anger-out, and low anger control). Attachment-related avoidance predicted psychological aggression, but not physical aggression, through men’s trait anger and anger-in.     

Homelessness Is Traumatic: Abuse,Victimization, and Trauma Histories of Homeless Men

Homelessness is traumatic, and trauma-informed care is an emerging best practice. Using structured interviews with day shelter clients (N = 152), this study examined trauma among homeless men. The PTSD Checklist (PCL–C) was used to assess for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Participants’ pattern of PCL–C responses suggested that 23% to 30% screened positive for PTSD. Those with positive PTSD screens had been homeless longer and were more likely to have met time criteria for chronic homelessness. They were significantly more likely to be veterans and to report violent attacks, abuse histories, and mental health problems. Importantly, only 69% of those with positive PTSD screens acknowledged current mental health problems. These individuals were much less likely to report mental health counseling in the prior year.