The Youth Public Arts Program: Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Outcomes for At-Risk Youth

This article provides the findings of a program evaluation of the Youth Public Arts Program, a long-standing community-based art program that serves at-risk youth in eastern North Carolina. The program evaluation was undertaken to examine the art skills, social and interpersonal skills, and community involvement of the participants. The study included four focus groups and telephone surveys with a total of 38 stakeholders (program participants, parents of participants, program staff, and referral sources). Results indicated that the at-risk youth had gains in both interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, including family relationships, peer relationships, community interaction, increased art skills, confidence, and self-regulation. This article adds to the very limited literature on community-based art programs for youth.     

Assessment of Differential Rater Functioning in Latent Classes with New Mixture Facets Models

Multifaceted data are very common in the human sciences. For example, test takers' responses to essay items are marked by raters. If multifaceted data are analyzed with standard facets models, it is assumed there is no interaction between facets. In reality, an interaction between facets can occur, referred to as differential facet functioning. A special case of differential facet functioning is the interaction between ratees and raters, referred to as differential rater functioning (DRF). In existing DRF studies, the group membership of ratees is known, such as gender or ethnicity. However, DRF may occur when the group membership is unknown (latent) and thus has to be estimated from data. To solve this problem, in this study, we developed a new mixture facets model to assess DRF when the group membership is latent and we provided two empirical examples to demonstrate its applications. A series of simulations were also conducted to evaluate the performance of the new model in the DRF assessment in the Bayesian framework. Results supported the use of the mixture facets model because all parameters were recovered fairly well, and the more data there were, the better the parameter recovery.     

Positive Loss and Tragic Memory: On the Preservation of Community

Theologies of disaster have to recognize exceptional disasters in the framework of a general human exposure to vulnerability, while engaging in the formation of human and religious resilience. Resilience is about “bouncing back and forward” in and through precautionary and self‐adaptive responses to disasters. Drawing up a distinction between personal tragedies and socially shared disasters, the basic argument is that the reconnection of disrupted communities lies at the center of both tragedy and disaster. This article describes a post‐secular theology of tragedy and disaster that mainly stays in a vernacular language, referring to basic assumptions of the gospel while refraining from using the heavier repertoires of Christian doctrine.     

Childhood Exposure to Community and Domestic Violence: Prevalence,Risk Factors and Posttraumatic Outcomes in a South African Student Sample

The effects of exposure to direct and vicarious community and domestic violence on the posttraumatic adjustment of 323 South African students were examined. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires, with the relationship between exposure to violence and posttraumatic outcomes being explored using binomial logistic regression analyses. Two hundred and sixty-two participants (81 %) reported that they had been exposed to some form of interpersonal violence during childhood. An analysis of risk factors for exposure to violence indicated that males were more than twice as likely as females to have experienced victimization by a community member. Direct exposure to domestic violence was the only form of violence which was found to be associated with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Among participants who had experienced direct domestic violence, clinically significant levels of PTSD were significantly predicted by both gender (being female) and by abuse chronicity.     

Ukuphepha: A Multi-level Community Engagement Model for the Promotion of Safety,Peace and Health

This article aims to describe a theoretically-informed community engagement model which delivers a suite of child safety, peace and health interventions.We provide an overview of critical concepts that inform the community engagement approach that underpins the implementation of the Ukuphepha Child Safety, Peace and Health Programme (UCSPHP), in low-income neighbourhoods just outside Johannesburg, and on the periphery of Cape Town, South Africa. Our analysis is framed within a participatory approach and suggests the importance of six interconnected community engagement pathways: relationship-building; community-centred learning; social justice and contextual congruence; the facilitation of democratic traditions; strengthening the case for community services; and the affirmation of local social economies.     

Conceptualizing ‘social capital’ for health promotion in small local communities: a micro‐qualitative study

This paper reports on a micro‐qualitative case study of peoples' experiences of local community life in a south‐east English town. This material is used as the basis for a critical discussion of the suitability of Putnam's notion of social capital as a conceptual tool for the design and evaluation of ‘community strengthening’ policies and interventions. The study was motivated by a concern that too much debate about social capital has been conducted by academics and policy‐makers in a top‐down manner, with inadequate attention to the realities of life in the local communities that they refer to. Three‐hour semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 37 residents in two less affluent wards in our town of interest. Informants—half men and half women, and spread across the 15–75 age group—were encouraged to talk about their personal experiences of local community life. Interview findings are presented within the ‘norm’ categories of trust, neighbourliness and reciprocal help and support, and the ‘network’ categories of participation in informal networks, voluntary groupings and community activist groupings. Our case study points to a number of ways in which Putnam's concept needs to be refined if it is to inform ‘community strengthening’ policies and interventions in England. Far more notice needs to be taken of the role played by informal networks of friends and neighbours in the construction of local community life. Attention also needs to be given to the complex and shifting geographical spread of peoples' significant social networks. Putnam's conceptualization of cohesive local communities and his unitary notions of trust and local identity may also be unduly essentialist. In our particular communities of interest, they failed to capture the fluidity of local community norms and networks in a rapidly changing society. They also failed to do justice to the extent to which social distinctions—such as age, gender, ethnicity and housing tenure—shape and constrain the way in which people create, sustain and access social capital. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

和谐医患命运共同体建设的思考

医患关系作为医疗诊治活动中最主要的关系,是以医护人员为核心的群体与以患者为核心的群体之间的关系。近来,医患关系在一定程度上的对立以及由此引发的社会公共事件激起了广泛的社会反响。旨在通过构建人类命运共同体对医患关系的启示,结合社会现实和医患关系实际,从医患双方生命至重的理念统一、防病治病的过程统一、平等尊重的人文情怀统一以及权利义务的关系统一等方面,对当前医患关系进行深入分析,对“和谐医患命运共同体”的建设加以阐释,以期对医患关系的深入探讨提出可行性的建议和支持。     

家庭功能对青少年早期外化问题行为的影响：心理韧性的中介作用和性别的调节作用

为探讨家庭功能对青少年早期外化问题行为的影响,以及心理韧性和性别在二者关系中的作用机制,采用家庭功能量表、心理韧性量表和青少年外化问题行为量表对1284名初一学生进行测查。结果显示：（1）家庭功能显著负向预测青少年外化问题行为。（2）心理韧性在家庭功能和青少年外化问题行为中起部分中介作用,即家庭功能可以通过心理韧性间接影响青少年外化问题行为。（3）家庭功能对青少年外化问题行为中介过程的前半条路径和直接路径受到性别调节,具体而言,相比于男生,在女生群体中,家庭功能对心理韧性的影响更大;相比于女生,在男生群体中,家庭功能对外化问题行为的影响更大。     

儿童社交回避行为：成因、测量方式及适应功能

社会退缩行为是指儿童在社会情境中抑制自己参与同伴互动并表现出独处的行为。根据不同的社交动机,社会退缩行为包含多种亚类型,其中社交回避行为这一亚类型指儿童总是表现出主动避免各种社交场合的行为。总体而言,社交回避是目前研究最少的一种,其形成的主要原因可能是由于儿童本身较高的抑郁感所致,而研究者已开始尝试以间接和直接的方式测量其水平。来自以变量为中心和以个体为中心的研究分别表明,社交回避儿童面临着最高的适应风险。鉴于这一研究领域的广泛前景,未来的研究亟需关注社交回避影响儿童适应的过程机制及其年龄发展特点,测量工具的进一步开发,直接的跨文化比较以及社交回避的干预方案开发。     

老年社会功能与主观幸福感

社会功能是健康老龄化的基本要素。本文综述了老年社会功能的定义和评估、与主观幸福感相关的老年社会功能理论,以及社会功能对主观幸福感影响的研究进展。在消极和积极老化观的指引下,该领域的研究存在两种取向：前者片面强调社会支持,追求享乐主义取向主观幸福感;后者则强调社会参与,追求幸福快乐取向主观幸福感。今后的研究应在积极老化观的指引下,强调老年阶段积极主动的社会参与和幸福快乐的幸福感,并开展相关的干预研究。