Speaking truth to power: Empowerment ideology as social intervention and policy

The popularity, and subsequent ambiguity, in the use of the term “empowerment” has created an even greater need for reassessment in the applied context than in the theory and research literatures. This paper outlines some of the areas of community, organizational, and societal level social intervention and policy ostensibly based on the concept of empowerment. These include neighborhood voluntary associations (for environmental protection, community crime prevention, etc.), self-help groups, competence-building primary prevention, organizational management, health care and educational reforms, and national and international community service and community development policies. Issues in applying social research to community organizations and to legislative and administrative policy making are reviewed. Ten recommendations are offered, including the value of a dialectical analysis, for helping researchers and policy makers/administrators make more effective use of empowerment theory and research. Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor less.” King of Hearts: “If there's no meaning in it, that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any.”—Lewis Carroll Portions of this paper were first presented in the program “Empowerment Theory, Research and policy” at the Biennial Conference on Community Research and Action, Williamsburg, Virginia, June 18, 1993. The author thanks Barbara B. Brown, Jo Ann Lippe, Ken Maton and his students, David V. Perkins, Marc A. Zimmerman, and the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

Impact of the JOBS intervention on unemployed workers varying in risk for depression

Reports the results of the JOBS II randomized field experiment that included a sample of 1,801 recent job losers, 671 of which participated in a modified version of the JOBS I intervention for unemployed workers (Caplan, Vinokur, Price, & van Ryn, 1989). The intervention focused on enhancing the sense of mastery through the acquisition of job-search and problem-solving skills, and on inoculation against setbacks. JOBS II was intended to prevent poor mental health and to promote high quality reemployment. The study tested whether the efficacy of the intervention could be increased by screening and oversampling respondents who were at higher risk for a significant increase in depressive symptoms. Results demonstrated that the intervention primarily benefited the reemployment and mental health outcomes of the high-risk respondents. This suggests the feasibility of enhancing the efficacy of this preventive intervention by targeting, it for high-risk unemployed workers who could be identified prospectively. This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant No. P50MH38330 to the Michigan Prevention Research Center (Richard H. Price, Principal Investigator).     

书写字体的性别差异研究

从珠海市中小学一年级至初中三年级随机选出５４０名学生,要求他们每个人抄一段４００字左右的短文,收回抄写卷５４０份。４０名有经验的教师,对书写者的性别做出判断,并回答一份关于判断男女笔迹的依据的问卷。结果表明：１．小学低年级男女生的字体没有明显的性别差异,到中高年级以后,性别差异才明显地表现出来。二、三年级之间,五、六年级之间是差异形成的两个加速期。２．判断者对小学低年级书写者的性别的判断不准确,主要是由于将女生的字体误判为男生的字体而造成的。３．男女生字体的差异主要表现在五个方面,即字体大小程度,字的力度、字体的刚劲度、字的工整度和字的棱角度。     

在中文阅读中字音、字形的作用及其发展转换

采用接近正常阅读的校对任务,探讨字音,字形在中文阅读中的作用及其发展变化,结果表彰词识别能力随着年级,语文能力的提高而增强。（２）在中文的字词识别过程中,确实存在着发展转换,初学阅读者在阅读中主要依靠的是字音;而成人熟练读者则主要依靠的是字形,在同一年级内,能力高的儿童首先向下一阶段转换。     

Reading practices,reading skills,and cognitive growth in adulthood

Reading is assumed to play an important role in the development of literate persons in that it is consciousness-altering activity. The manner by which reading contributes to development is unclear, however, and has been debated by social scientists for some years. Despite the importance of reading in adult life, only recently have researchers devoted significant attention to what and how well adults read. Less scrutiny has been directed toward understanding what sorts of benefits may be gained from reading in adult life and how reading contributes to adult development. This paper describes adults' reading practices across a variety of social contexts, the types of skills employed in these practices, and how reading may contribute to adult cognitive development. Implications deriving from a better understanding of adult reading practices and skills across the life span are discussed.     

Nonabsolute/relativistic thinking: A common factor underlying models of postformal reasoning?

Strong empirical evidence was obtained in support of the proposition that nonabsolute/relativistic (N/R) thinking is a unifying commonality underlying four postformal models of higher-order thinking, namely, problem finding, dialectical reasoning, relativistic operations, and reflective judgment. Within the construct of N/R thinking, two dimensions—the basic form and the epistemic view—and two levels—the formal form and the postformal form—were differentiated as hypothesized. The findings clarify logical relationships among the models as well as provide a common link unifying their diversity. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Systematic reasoning: Formal or postformal cognition?

The focus of this study was to investigate the relationship between formal and postformal systematic metasystematic reasoning. Shayer's (1978) chemicals task and a modified version of Kuhn and Brannock's (1977) plant task were used to measure formal thinking and Commons, Richard, and Kuhn's (1982) multisystem task and balance-beam task to detect postformal reasoning. Subjects were university students from the humanities and social sciences (N=35). For each subject, a composite score was defined by taking into account the highest score in the tasks measuring the same developmental stage. Findings indicated that composite scores of formal and postformal reasoning were significantly correlated. Results also indicated that full formal operations are not a necessary condition for systematic thinking. The developmental status of systematic reasoning should be defined more strictly than has so far been the case. Further studies should focus on metasystematic reasoning as a possible postformal mode of reasoning. Longitudinal designs are also required to assess whether metasystematic reasoning develops in adulthood.     

Adolescent AIDS Prevention in Context: The Impact of Peer Educator Qualities and Classroom Environments on Intervention Efficacy

Peer-led, school-based interventions show promise for preventing AIDS among adolescents, but little is known about the processes underlying effective peer education or the conditions that promote its efficacy. This study examined the implementation in one school of an effective, peer-led AIDS prevention program for inner-city 7th-grade participants (n = 123) and identified the qualities of peer educators (n = 15) and classroom environments (n = 5) that contributed to improvement in participants' postintervention AIDS-related attitudes. The Peer Educator Rating Scale was developed to assess two dimensions of participants' perceptions of peer educators: positive regard and perceived similarity. Participants reported greater positive regard for more highly individuated and less shy peer educators, and participants' positive regard for peer educators in turn was associated with lowered AIDS risk as measured by perceptions of peer norms regarding sexual activity and self-efficacy for peer communication regarding sexual topics and condoms. Participants' perceived similarity was not associated with any postintervention improvements in AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes. Participants' classroom membership was associated with improvements in all 5 knowledge and attitude scales, and exploratory classroom-level findings indicated that classroom intervention environments perceived as more organized by participants showed slightly greater overall improvements across AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes scales. Consistent with individual-level findings regarding participants' positive regard for peer educators, the two classrooms with the greatest positive regard for their peer educator teams showed the most student improvement. Implications for further research and the design of future prevention and promotion programs for adolescents are discussed.     

School-Based Secondary Prevention for Children with Disruptive Behavior: Initial Outcomes

First through fourth graders from 22 suburban elementary schools were screened for cross-setting disruptive behavior as eligibility criteria for participation in a longitudinal secondary prevention study aimed at reducing the risk for serious externalizing behavioral disorders. Three hundred nine subjects participated in either a multicomponent competence enhancement intervention (MCEI) or an information/attention control (IAC) condition over a 2-year period. Following baseline measurements, initial intervention effects were assessed at the end of intervention Year 1, at the beginning of intervention Year 2 (fall of the next school year), and at the end of intervention Year 2. Multisource assessments were not supportive of the efficacy of the MCEI over the IAC condition. Children in both groups rated themselves as improved over time in terms of increased adaptive skills and decreased school problems and internalizing symptoms. Teacher and parent ratings of externalizing behavior did not yield evidence of positive change, but teachers noted improved problem solving and observers noted a decrease in behavioral interference in both groups over time, possibly as a result of maturation.