Development of a pleasure in parenting scale

Two major components of parenting have been identified: warmth and control. There has been a great deal of work on the measurement of control, but there are not many measures of parental warmth. As part of an attempt to develop better measures of warmth, we developed a scale measuring parents' pleasure in carrying out routine caretaking acts with their children. This measure was then related to other measures of positive support such as observation, observer ratings and questionnaires. As there is evidence in the literature that quality of the environment interacts with parenting, we related the measure to measures of stress, observer ratings of quality of the home, marital interaction and parental mood. Finally, we examined the relation of child variables (attachment classification, temperament rating and observed behaviours) to the parents' ratings of pleasure in the child.     

The influence of parent-child relationship on young adolescents' use of safety equipment. The Norwegian Longitudinal Health Behavior Study

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the extent to which the parent-child relationship, as perceived by young adolescents at age 13, may account for the use of various types of safety equipment at age 13 and 14 in terms of seat belts, bicycle helmets, motorcycle helmets when passenger, reflectors on the clothing when outside in the dark, and lifejackets when on board small boats. Parental influence was assessed in terms of three scales: Parental support, parental monitoring of the youngsters, and opposition towards the parents, with satisfactory internal consistencies (alphas >0.78). The results showed that each of the three constructs significantly accounted for an independent portion of the variance in the use of safety equipment measures. In sum they accounted for 20% of the variance in the use of safety equipment at age 13, and about 10% at age 14. The findings are discussed with regard to the implications for accident prevention measures aimed at young people.     

Mental Health and Incarcerated Youth. II: Service Utilization

The incarceration of mentally ill youth is a serious problem not receiving the same attention as in adults. In this study, we examine the level of prior service utilization in incarcerated youth versus youth receiving community mental health services. We randomly recruited youth from middle South Carolina served by a local community mental health center (CMHC; n = 60), hospitalized in the state adolescent inpatient program (n = 50), and incarcerated in the S.C. Dept. of Juvenile Justice facilities (n = 75). We used a Services History to evaluate episodes of prior utilization of mental health, social service, educational, residential, and volunteer services, as well as the DISC-PC 2.3 to evaluate DSM-III-R diagnoses and symptoms and the CBCL and YSR to evaluate behavioral symptomatology. Incarcerated, hospitalized, and CMHC youth utilized similar levels of educational services and social services. Incarcerated youth had a significantly lower lifetime utilization of outpatient and acute mental health services and significantly higher utilization of out-of-home residential services than the other groups. These services utilization variables, along with gender and age, significantly distinguish incarcerated youth from the clinical groups, with clinical variables not serving to significantly distinguish them. Our results indicate the need to develop programs to prevent the entry of mentally ill/emotionally disturbed youth into the juvenile justice system. Youth who are at risk for incarcenation may benefit from intensive mental health services to prevent out-of-home placement and later incarceration.     

Body elimination attitude family resemblance in Kuwait

The purpose of the present study was to determine the family resemblance of attitude toward body elimination in Kuwaiti participants. This study was conceptualized in the context of the theories of moral development, importance of cleanliness in the Muslim religion, cross-cultural differences in personal hygiene practices, previous research reporting an association between family attitudes and body elimination attitude, and health implications. The 24-item Likert-type format Body Elimination Attitude Scale-Revised was administered to 277 Kuwaiti high school students and 437 of their parents. Females scored higher, indicating greater disgust, than the males. Moreover, sons' body elimination attitude correlated more strongly with fathers' attitude (r = .85) than with that of the mothers (r = .64). Daughters' attitude was similarly associated with the fathers' (r = .89) and the mothers' attitude (r = .86). The high correlations were discussed within the context of Kuwait having a collectivistic culture with authoritarian parenting style. The higher adolescent correlations, and in particular the boys' correlation with fathers than with mothers, was explained in terms of the more dominant role of the Muslim father in the family. Public health and future research implications were suggested. A theoretical formulation was advanced in which "ideal" body elimination attitude is relative rather than absolute, and is a function of one's life circumstances, one's occupation, one's culture and subculture, and the society that one lives in.     

Parental and school influences upon the career development of poor youth of color

Critical career development tasks for adolescents include developing vocational expectations and a connection to the world of work. Given the sociopolitical barriers to the career development of poor Youth of Color, it is vital to identify contextual resources facilitative of their career development. The present study examines the impact of relational and instrumental parental support and instrumental school support upon vocational expectations and work salience among poor Youth of Color. Participants from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) were examined longitudinally from 12th grade to two years after they had finished high school. The obtained structural models suggested that relational and instrumental parental support had a direct effect upon work salience and instrumental parental support a significant indirect effect two years later. Instrumental school support and relational parental support had direct effects upon vocational expectations and nonsignificant indirect effects two years later. These findings illuminate contextual factors facilitative of vocational expectations and work salience, provide support for school-based career development programs, and suggest that incorporating relational and instrumental parental support could augment intervention programs for poor Youth of Color.     

Harm and Uncertainty In Newborn Intensive Care

There is a broadly held view that neonatologists are ethically obligated to act to override parental nontreatment decisions for imperiled premature newborns when there is a reasonable chance of a good outcome. It is argued here that three types of uncertainty undercut any such general obligation: (1) the vagueness of the boundary at which an infant’s deficits become so intolerable that death could be reasonably preferred; (2) the uncertainty about whether aggressive treatment will result in the survival of a reasonably healthy child or, alternatively, the survival of a child with intolerable deficits; and (3) the inability to determine an acceptable ratio between the likelihoods of those two outcomes. It is argued that the broadly held view accords insufficient weight to the fact that newborn intensive care increases the likelihood of harm to the child by effecting survival with intolerable deficits. Though treatment may offer a reasonable chance of a good outcome, it is argued that there are situations in which neonatologists should nonetheless defer to parental nontreatment decisions.     

父母冲突、青少年的认知评价及其与青少年社会适应的关系

以446名小学五年级至初中二年级的学生为被试,采用问卷法,让被试报告父母冲突形式、内容,对父母冲突的认知评价,以及抑郁、焦虑、自尊、学习问题和不良行为,以探讨父母冲突形式和内容、青少年对冲突的评价与其社会适应的关系,并检验认知评价在父母冲突与青少年适应间的中介作用。结果发现：（1）男女生除在父母情绪冲突和自尊方面的报告有显著差异外,其余各个方面都没有显著差异;随年级升高,儿童知觉的父母冲突内容显著增多,抑郁情绪、学习问题显著增多,而自尊水平显著下降;（2）父母冲突的不同形式和内容,以及青少年对父母冲突的不同认知评价可以预测青少年不同方面的社会适应;（3）认知评价在父母冲突与青少年的内部适应中起中介作用,但在父母冲突与青少年的外部适应中不起中介作用。     

家庭社会经济地位、父母教养行为与大学生职业生涯探索的关系

该研究以676名大学生为被试,采用问卷法考察了家庭社会经济地位、父母教养行为与大学生职业生涯探索的关系。结果表明:(1)家庭社会经济地位与自我探索、环境探索、自我-环境匹配度探索、探索意向间显著正相关;(2)父母教养行为显著预测大学生的职业生涯探索。其中,父亲和母亲情感温暖和理解、母亲监控与保护、父亲监控维度为正向预测,而父亲惩罚严厉维度是负向预测;(3)家庭社会经济地位不仅对大学生的职业生涯探索有独立的预测作用,还通过母亲情感温暖和理解、母亲监控与保护的中介作用正向预测这一变量。     

Religion and Religions in Prisons: Observations from the United States and Europe

Despite manifest differences and internal variety, this article attempts to integrate the histories and present landscapes of religious practice in prison in the United States and in Western Europe. We identify, among incarcerated people in the United States, Italy, and Germany, discernible drifts toward religious pluralization, privatization, and individualization. Over the past half‐century, the administration of religion in prison has been loosened to allow for a wider variety of religious beliefs and practices. Meanwhile, as subsidized by outside volunteers, religion, especially of a socially “useful,” capitalism‐friendly sort, remains a cost‐effective means for prison administrators to efficiently subcontract their mandate to rehabilitate. Due to the decentralization and diversification of religion in contemporary prisons on both sides of the northern Atlantic, this article concludes by encouraging would‐be ethnographers of the prison interested in religion to venture beyond the expressly delineated religious space and into what we call “religious gray zones.”