When Stereotypes Become ‘Scientific’ Statements: Dealing with Gender Issues

The theoretical analysis by Watzlawik (Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science 2009) demonstrates the scientific fragility of the constructs of masculinity and femininity based on the oversimplification and overlapping between three levels of analysis: group differences, inter-individual differences and intra-individual differences. Watzlawik presents fresh and relevant contributions in terms of methodological issues, especially about the construction of scientific generalizations. Here I focus on issues related to the transformation of stereotypes in statements about gender differences that claim to be ‘scientific’—outlining the socio-political agendas of such statements.

Multicultural training practices in community psychology programs

Surveyed the directors of 56 community psychology graduate programs to assess multicultural training practices and attitudes. Although most program directors agreed that multicultural training is important in their mission to educate students, less than half the programs (48%) required their students to take any relevant course work and only half of the programs surveyed had any faculty who were members of an ethnic minority group and one third had only one such faculty member. Furthermore, less than half the programs had a combination of training opportunities in place to integrate classroom, research, and field experiences relevant to multicultural issues. Finally, only 23% of program directors believed their training programs were successful for most students, suggesting the need to improve training.     

Recent and emerging trends in marital and family therapy regulation

The number of states in the United States that formally credential marital and family therapists has tripled to 31 during the last decade. This paper reviews and compares the basic licensure and certification requirements in these states, and explores a number of broad issues currently confronting the field of marital and family therapy regulation. Several recommendations for improving the quality of MFT regulation are also provided.president of the Association of Marital and Family Therapy Regulatory Boards.     

Establishing Clinical Neuropsychology in Germany Scientific,Professional, Political,and Legal Issues

German psychologists may have been first to establish a university curriculum in psychology with the expressed purpose to provide—after its successful completion—a certificate of professional qualification. This Diplom-Prüfungsordnung (Diploma Examination Regulation) was accepted nationwide in 1941. However, it took over fifty more years before some progress toward the political and legal acceptance of autonomous clinical activities of psychologists was made. Legislation to secure these advances is still pending. In this context the efforts to establish the profession of clinical neuropsychology are described and discussed within the historical development of professional psychology in Germany with special emphasis on the problems of compromises within the force fields of science and professional politics. Finally, the postgraduate training as well as the certification and accreditation procedures developed by the Gesellschaft für Neuropsychologie, the Society of German-speaking neuropsychologists, are presented.     

FIELD REPLICATION OF CLASSWIDE PEER TUTORING

We conducted a large-scale field replication study of classwide peer tutoring applied to spelling instruction (Greenwood, Delquadri, & Hall, 1984). Two hundred and eleven inner-city students in four schools participated during their first- and second-grade school years. The effects of classwide peer tutoring were compared to teacher instructional procedures and pretest probes using a group replication design (Barlow, Hayes, & Nelson, 1984). Analysis of group and individual results indicated that (a) both teacher instructional procedures and classwide peer tutoring were effective in increasing spelling performance above pretest levels, (b) peer tutoring produced statistically greater gains relative to the teachers' procedures for both low and high student groups formed on pretest levels, (c) these outcomes were representative of groups, classes, individuals, and years during the project, and (d) participant satisfaction with the program was generally high. A separate analysis of the social importance of treatment outcome revealed differential findings for low and high groups related to pretest levels. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Interdivisional Healthcare Committee: Speaking with One Voice on Cross-Cutting Issues in Health Care Psychology

One of the greatest challenges facing psychology in health settings today is the need for unification on critical issues of client access, workforce oversupply, education and training, and outcomes evalutions. Health care psychology specialty areas can no longer afford to operate in parallel. A unified vision is needed to overcome threats to the viability of the profession and to maximize the potential for achieving common goals. The current paper describes the formation of the Interdivisional Healthcare Committee (IHC), whose purpose is to establish a common agenda for promoting the professional, educational, and scientific goals of health care psychology. The IHC's initiative to develop new CPT codes for increasing access to psychologists' services in health care settings is outlined.     

A rose by any other name: Maintaining the name and highlighting the uniqueness of psychology as a health care profession

In this article, we reply to the comments made by Holden and Levant (preceding articles). While we agree with their goals of expanding the scope of practice of psychology, standardizing training, and educating the public and other health care professionals about the field of clinical psychology, we do not agree that changing the discipline's name to psychological physician is a necessary or sufficient means to these ends. We outline the bases for our disagreement with the name change proposal and provide other proposals for reaching the goals set forth by Holden and Levant.     

Physical Abuse and Childhood Disability

SUMMARY

Several authors have hypothesized that children with disabilities are at increased risk for physical abuse. Such a finding would be consistent with current ecological models, which posit that certain child characteristics (e.g., behavior problems) in combination with other risk factors can lead to abuse. The paucity of research in this area makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions at this time. However, the few studies conducted suggest that child characteristics play a minor role in the etiology of abuse. Despite the lack of evidence indicating that children with disabilities are at significantly greater risk for abuse than their nondisabled peers, the presence of a disability raises some unique issues in the identification, assessment, and treatment of special needs children. This article reviews the literature linking abuse and disability as a risk factor. In addition, impediments encountered in the assessment and treatment of abused children with disabilities and their families are discussed and guidelines for practice are presented.