Disability,Performance, and Discrimination in the Service to Humanity

In an age when the church is called upon to be an inclusive community, persons with disabilities in Nigeria are still grappling with exclusion. Disability is associated with multiple challenges. The challenges include degrading treatment, marginalization, and exclusion from recruitment opportunities, as well as discrimination in churches. Some people believe that disability has negative connotations and that persons with disabilities are hopeless, helpless burdens and passive “objects” meant to receive charity as well as physical and spiritual deliverance. Persons with disabilities are stereotypically seen as incapable of being productive. It is assumed that because people live with disabilities, they are not meant to occupy leadership positions or fully partake in church activities. The expectation that persons with disabilities be wholly embraced into the Christian fold is yet to be met. This article shares information on the context in which some of the challenges facing persons with disabilities are rooted. It examines the involvement and experiences of persons with disabilities in the activities of the church, church institutions, and church‐affiliated organizations in Nigeria while acknowledging the church’s mandate of inclusion. It finds that stereotyping and discrimination are challenges for persons with disabilities – individuals who are also made in the image of God. In the future, more research needs to be carried out on issues around the isolation of persons with disabilities in the body of Christ. The findings would help interested groups recognize the predicaments of persons with disabilities and find realistic strategies for a progressive inclusive church community – in this way assisting the efforts of the World Council of Churches’ programme on disability.     

Environmental representations of local communities' spokespersons in protected areas

Despite the popularization of the environmental discourse, rural environmental belief‐systems should not be viewed as homogenous. Focusing on the largest protected area in Greece, we examined heterogeneity in local environmental views. Local spokespersons elicited word associations to two stimulus terms, namely, ‘environmentalists’ and ‘protected area’. Based on association categories for both terms, we identified two sample segments. ‘Naturalists’ appealed to a naturalistic image, which shaped the core compartment of their representations. On the other hand, ‘skeptics’ provided both environmentalist claims and critical accounts. Our findings revealed that the environmental discourse was widely diffused among local spokespersons. Issues of power and participation in decision‐making processes within protected areas are discussed. For instance, dimensions of power and legitimacy were reflected in the frequency of association categories and their allocation among sample segments. Specifically, environmentalist accounts were overtly expressed by both ‘naturalists’ and skeptics, while a more socially, politically and critically inclined view was revealed by a small percentage of associations that were all elicited by ‘skeptics’. We conclude that appreciating the heterogeneity of rural environmental views can reinforce the democratic mandate in environmental policy‐making. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Statistical inference for multiple choice tests

Finite sample inference procedures are considered for analyzing the observed scores on a multiple choice test with several items, where, for example, the items are dissimilar, or the item responses are correlated. A discrete p-parameter exponential family model leads to a generalized linear model framework and, in a special case, a convenient regression of true score upon observed score. Techniques based upon the likelihood function, Akaike's information criteria (AIC), an approximate Bayesian marginalization procedure based on conditional maximization (BCM), and simulations for exact posterior densities (importance sampling) are used to facilitate finite sample investigations of the average true score, individual true scores, and various probabilities of interest. A simulation study suggests that, when the examinees come from two different populations, the exponential family can adequately generalize Duncan's beta-binomial model. Extensions to regression models, the classical test theory model, and empirical Bayes estimation problems are mentioned. The Duncan, Keats, and Matsumura data sets are used to illustrate potential advantages and flexibility of the exponential family model, and the BCM technique.The authors wish to thank Ella Mae Matsumura for her data set and helpful comments, Frank Baker for his advice on item response theory, Hirotugu Akaike and Taskin Atilgan, for helpful discussions regarding AIC, Graham Wood for his advice concerning the class of all binomial mixture models, Yiu Ming Chiu for providing useful references and information on tetrachoric models, and the Editor and two referees for suggesting several references and alternative approaches.     

Selecting the number of classes under latent class regression: a factor analytic analogue

Recently, the regression extension of latent class analysis (RLCA) model has received much attention in the field of medical research. The basic RLCA model summarizes shared features of measured multiple indicators as an underlying categorical variable and incorporates the covariate information in modeling both latent class membership and multiple indicators themselves. To reduce complexity and enhance interpretability, one usually fixes the number of classes in a given RLCA. Often, goodness of fit methods comparing various estimated models are used as a criterion to select the number of classes. In this paper, we propose a new method that is based on an analogous method used in factor analysis and does not require repeated fitting. Two ideas with application to many settings other than ours are synthesized in deriving the method: a connection between latent class models and factor analysis, and techniques of covariate marginalization and elimination. A Monte Carlo simulation study is presented to evaluate the behavior of the selection procedure and compare to alternative approaches. Data from a study of how measured visual impairments affect older persons’ functioning are used for illustration.This work was supported by National Institute on Aging (NIA) Program Project P01-AG-10184-03. The author wishes to thank Dr. Karen Bandeen-Roche for her stimulating comments and helpful discussions, and Drs. Gary Rubin and Sheila West for kindly making the Salisbury Eye Evaluation data available.     

The Head,the Heart,and the Community: Piloting a Brief Home-Based Mindfulness Intervention for Couples With Low Income

Although mindfulness is documented to reduce both individual and relationship stress and has the flexibility to be taught anywhere (e.g., at home, clinic setting, etc.), research examining mindfulness interventions among individuals with low income and economic marginalization (LIEM; APA, 2019), or persons whose economic position negatively impacts their health or well-being due to factors such as access to healthcare, is limited. To address this gap, the author and colleagues used Community Based Participatory Research methods to develop a brief, couple-based, mindfulness intervention tailored for communities with LIEM (see Lenger et al., 2022). The present study tested this newly developed brief, couple-based, mindfulness intervention's effectiveness in improving individual and relationship health through 1- and 2-months post-intervention. The intervention was piloted on a sample of 39 couples with an overrepresentation of couples with LIEM. To improve access to care, couples could participate in their home or a variety of local clinics. Thirty-nine couples received the intervention and completed assessments on mindfulness, depression, anxiety, stress, relationship satisfaction, and communication at baseline, 1-month, and 2-months post-intervention. Results revealed that mindfulness, depression, and relationship satisfaction improved from baseline to 1-month post-intervention. Mindfulness improved at a greater rate for couples with LIEM relative to couples with higher incomes. From baseline to 2-months post-intervention, depression and stress significantly improved at similar rates for couples with higher income and couples with LIEM. Thus, this study indicates that mindfulness can be taught in a brief, two-session format, and can have favorable outcomes on individual and relationship functioning.     

Human resilience in a degrading environment: A case study in China

Psychological aspects of environmental degradation were studied among 753 Chinese farmers. A good fit was found for a structural equation model postulating a relationship between various input variables (i.e. environmental degradation, socio-economic status, education, coping, and locus of control), a latent variable (called resilience), and three output variables (i.e. stress, marginalization, and depression). Higher scores on internal locus of control, problem solving, socioeconomic status, and modernity and lower scores on environmental degradation, avoidance, and support seeking were associated with more resilience.     

Intersectional Consciousness in Collective Victim Beliefs: Perceived Intragroup Differences Among Disadvantaged Groups

Although our experiences are shaped by multiple social identities such as race, class, and gender, most research has focused on single‐identity groups (e.g., race). This includes research on collective victimization, which assumes that violence impacts group members uniformly. Conversely, work on intersectional consciousness examines awareness of how multiple social identities intersect and create within‐group differences. Integrating and expanding the research on intersectional consciousness and on collective victimhood, this article investigates perceived intragroup differences in experiences of victimization stemming from intersecting identities of gender and class among two disadvantaged groups in the understudied context of India. We conducted individual interviews (N = 33) and focus groups (K = 12; N = 66) among Muslims and Dalits (lower‐caste Hindus). Thematic analysis revealed that—even though ingroup cohesion (i.e., intragroup similarity) is often enhanced by external threat— people expressed awareness of intragroup differences in experiences of victimization in three distinct ways: highlighting relative privilege, engaging in competitive victimhood, or describing qualitative differences. We discuss the implications for conflict and solidarity within minority groups in the context of political developments in India, where there have been attempts to polarize intragroup divisions.     

边缘人群社会医学：值得关注的新领域

从边缘化的概念入手,对边缘人群的内涵及范畴进行了明确界定,引出边缘人群社会医学的概念。对当前我们开展边缘人群社会医学研究的必要性进行了初步分析,就我国当前边缘人群存在的主要社会医学问题进行了深入的探讨。     

基于IPO模型的团队多样性-冲突-绩效权变模型的元分析

本文建立基于IPO模型的团队多样性-冲突-绩效的权变模型。通过对国内外的112篇实证文章（n=9263）进行元分析,本文定量地梳理近年来团队多样性-团队冲突-团队绩效之间关系的研究文献,并重点考察团队冲突与团队绩效之间的调节变量。元分析结果发现：团队深层多样性是引起团队冲突的重要因素,表层多样性并不会显著增加团队冲突;与美国的研究不同,中国情境下任务冲突将显著降低团队绩效;被试类型、回收率、团队规模和团队冲突的不对称感知等变量调节团队冲突与团队绩效之间的关系。