Extracurricular Participation and Course Performance in the Middle Grades: A Study of Low-Income,Urban Youth

The transition to middle/junior high school is associated with declines in students’ academic performance, especially among low‐income, urban youth. Developmental psychologists posit such declines are due to a poor fit between the needs of early adolescents—industry, identity, and autonomy—and the environment of their new schools. Extracurricular participation during these years may act as a buffer for youth, providing a setting for development outside the classroom. The current study examines participation within and across activity settings among low‐income, urban youth in New York City over this transition. Using the Adolescent Pathways Project data, this study explores how such participation relates to course performance. We find that a large percentage of youth are minimally or uninvolved in extracurricular activities during these years; that participation varies within youth across time; and that the association between participation and course performance varies by activity setting. Youth who participate frequently in community or athletic settings or have high participation in two or more settings are found to have higher GPAs in the year in which they participate and youth who participate frequently in the religious setting are found to have lower GPAs. High participation in more than two settings may be detrimental.     

Patterns of Daily Time Use of Young Adults With or Without First-Episode Psychosis

This study compared patterns of daily activities and satisfaction with time use of young adults with first-episode psychosis and healthy volunteers. Fifty young adults participated in retrospective structured interviews on time use. Young adults with first-episode psychosis spend more time in sleep, passive leisure, and personal care activities, and less in total productive activities and education. No difference appeared for leisure, paid work, and household work, or satisfaction with daily time use. Reasons underlying dissatisfaction with daily time use differed between the groups. Clinical and research implications are discussed.     

Understanding the Lived Experience of Formerly Homeless Adults as They Transition to Supportive Housing

The researchers conducted in-depth interviews with formerly homeless adults who had moved to supportive housing to understand their perceived occupational needs and the factors that affected their transition. A qualitative research design with four participants who had a history of substance abuse and mental illness was used. Participant interviews that addressed categories of daily living and personal satisfaction produced data that were coded for analysis using conventional content analysis. Mega themes emerged that related to factors shaping the housing transition and maintenance experience. Occupational therapists can use these findings to create informed interventions to enhance this population's occupational performance.     

Social aspects of career choice from the perspective of habitus theory

The concept of habitus designates a cognitive structure that is socially embedded and can give valuable insight into the social influences on career choice. A study investigating the relationship of habitus to career choice is presented in a sample of Icelandic youth aged 19–22 (N = 476). Measures of habitus were developed on the basis of reported cultural and leisure activities. The analysis of leisure and cultural items progressed in two steps: factor analysis and cluster analysis. The clusters constitute the four different habitus groups: Pop and fashion, Sports and rock, Music, and Literature. Correspondence factor analysis showed that the habitus groups (clusters) were related to other social variables, such as gender and class; validating habitus theory. Additionally, habitus measures were strongly linked to career variables, such as occupational perception and preferred future occupation. The results support previous research in showing that habitus theory is relevant to career counseling theory and can be a basis of understanding the relationship between social structure and career choice.     

Depression and Spirituality in Australian Aged Care Homes

SUMMARY

A national survey of Australian aged care homes has found that between 40% and 60% of high care residents and 25% to 51 % of low care residents are depressed, depending on the method used to assess depression. While this survey did not specifically include items on spirituality, an analysis based the Geriatric Depression Scale question “Do you feel that your life is empty?” provides some insights into the type of person who may benefit from spiritual help.

The view is expressed that those committed to the provision of spiritual care must be more assertive in making the positive contribution to the reduction in depression that empirical research carried out over the last thirty years suggests is possible. The basic step of identifying those who are ready to talk about spiritual matters and who are depressed is offered as a starting point and some ways of doing this are described.     

The Understanding and Creation of Rituals: Enhancing the Life of Older Adults

ABSTRACT

We live in a rapidly changing culture, often with a loss of identity, community, and meaning. Rituals can give us a foundation, that sense of stability we need as we tackle the challenges and opportunities that confront us on a daily basis. Rituals must be grounded in understanding developed through particular attention to the meaning of the aging process in the context of the life span. The purpose of this article is to discuss the meanings of rituals and to present a simple method for creating rituals that can add meaning to the lives of older adults.     

Exercise after work,psychological mediators,and affect: A day-level study

In this diary study, we tested the recovery potential of exercise activities during leisure time and examined the psychological mechanisms underlying the relation between exercise activities and affect. We hypothesized that spending time on exercise activities after work will be related to subsequent affect in the evening, and that psychological detachment from work, sense of belonging, and physical self-perceptions explain why exercise activities are related to subsequent affect. One-hundred and twenty-six participants from diverse occupations completed a diary twice a day over five consecutive work days. Multilevel analyses showed that exercise activities after work were related to positive, but not to negative affect in the evening. As proposed, psychological detachment, sense of belonging, and physical self-perceptions mediated the relation between exercise activities after work and positive affect in the evening.     

Character strengths and well-being among volunteers and employees: Toward an integrative model

The endorsement and deployment of character strengths in occupational contexts are two promising components for understanding how people create well-being. In this study, a model integrating character strengths, satisfaction with occupational activities, and meaning and well-being was proposed and tested in two samples of volunteers and a sample of working adults. The model fit the data well in all three samples. Results demonstrated that deploying strengths at work provided key links to satisfaction with voluntary and paid occupational activities and to meaning among both young and middle-aged volunteers, and adult working women. Among adult volunteers and paid workers, endorsing strengths was related to meaning, while both endorsing and deploying strengths were related to well-being. Together, these studies provide a model for understanding how strengths may play a role in how both volunteer and paid workers find meaning, well-being, and satisfaction.     

The Therapeutic Community Sing: Music Therapy Inpatient Group Process

Early psychoanalytic authors and music educators in both Europe and the United States pointed to the contemporary use of music therapy as a powerful modality in an inpatient psychiatric unit. The inpatient community sing is discussed in its capacity to address both individual and group goals. A clinical vignette from such a group is presented and discussed.     

Perceptions of Training-Related Factors and Personal Variables as Predictors of Transfer Implementation Intentions

A number of factors influence the outcomes of computer skills training and the likelihood of successful transfer. The first empirical test of a conceptual model of training transfer sought to explain how trainees' perceptions of various in-training transfer-enhancing activities such as overlearning, fidelity, stimulus variability, principles-meaningfulness, self-management activities, relapse prevention, and goal setting would predict the self-efficacy and implementation intentions (rather than actual transfer outcomes) of computer skills trainees. As expected, posttraining self-efficacy and transfer enhancing activities both predicted transfer implementation intentions. Pretraining self-efficacy also significantly predicted posttraining self-efficacy, trainees' level of learning during training and transfer enhancing activities, providing support for the conceptual model of training transfer.