Child abuse and neglect by parents with disabilities: A tale of two families

Two families, in which the children had been placed in foster care due to abuse and neglect by parents who had disabilities, were studied. In the first case, the mother was instructed in skills that our assessment suggested were important for her child's survival. The mother readily acquired and applied these skills, a fact reflected both in changes in her behavior and in changes in the child's well-being. In the second case, the parent's incremental resumption of child custody was made contingent upon completion of relevant parenting tasks. Initially, improvements in the completion of such tasks were evident, but over time and with the onset of militating factors, no further progress was made and all parental rights were terminated. The implications of these cases for behavior analysis and the effort to reunite and preserve families are discussed.     

Comparing interspersed requests and social comments as antecedents for increasing student compliance

Two students were alternately presented with interspersed high-compliance requests and social comments as antecedents to low-compliance requests. An initial comparison demonstrated similar positive effects on compliance for interspersed requests and social comments. A second analysis indicated that the effectiveness of social comments for increasing compliance was related to the time interval between social comments and low-compliance requests.     

Adolescents' attitudes toward suicide, and a suicidal peer: A comparison between Swedish and Turkish high school students

The present paper first presents the attitudes toward suicide and a suicidal classmate among 98 female and 69 male (N = 167) Swedish high school students. Secondly, the Swedish sample was compared with 167 (89 female and 78 male) Turkish high school students from a previous study. Among Swedish students, more males than females said that people have the right to commit suicide and suicide can be a solution to some problems. More females than males expressed a belief in life after death. Swedish adolescents were found to be holding more liberal attitudes toward suicide than Turkish adolescents. However, Turkish adolescents showed greater acceptance for a suicidal peer than Swedish adolescents. The results are discussed in terms of socio-cultural factors and related literature. The need for educational programs to provide basic knowledge about suicide and, effective ways of dealing with and helping suicidal peers is implicated.     

Occupational conditions and workers' sense of community: Variations by gender and race

The literature is reviewed to define a sense of community in the workplace and to identify factors that may foster it. A model is developed and estimated with survey data from a culturally diverse sample of men and women performing lower-level jobs at a medium-sized manufacturing firm. Results of regression analyses are reported that correct for sample selection bias resulting from the lower response rates of minority workers. Findings suggest that well-designed jobs and supportive workplace relationships and policies are important in explaining workers' sense of community, defined as workers' perceptions of mutual commitment between employee and employer. Informal sources of support play a larger role in explaining men's sense of community, while formal sources of support are more important in explaining women's sense of community. Findings further suggest that African American workers, especially women, have a difficult time experiencing a sense of community at work. The authors thank the employees of Fel-Pro for their participation in this study and Melissa Roderick, Michael Sosin, and anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments. This research was funded by the Fel-Pro/Mecklenberger Foundation and the Lois and Samuel Silberman Fund.     

Woman and the gift of reason

An incidental extension of the central domain of argumentation theory with non-classical ways of constructing arguments seems to automatically raise a question that is otherwise rarely posed, namely whether or not it is useful to consider the sex of the arguer. This question is usually posed with regard to argumentation by women in particular. Do women rely more, or differently than men do on non-canonical modes of reasoning stemming from the realm of the emotional, physical and intuitive, instead of the logical? One may simply refer this question to folk-linguistics. One may also take the question seriously, given the findings on women's linguistic behaviour, and for various other reasons that will be explained below.Section 1 sums up the most frequently quoted differences in language use between women and men. This is followed by a non-exhaustive, interdisciplinary review of studies on male/female differences in verbal and written argumentation.Section 2 discusses the role of language and texts in generating and maintaining ideas on gender. These gender messages not only influence the actual argumentation behaviour of women and men, but also the way such behaviour is valued.Section 3 subsequently shows that our ideas on rationality are gendered, and therefore also our ideas on the proper central domain of argumentation theory.Section 4 briefly reflects on why this kind of wrong question about the reasoning of women should sometimes be addressed seriously anyway.     

Toward culturally sensitive intervention with arab families in Israel

Over the past three decades, Arab society in Israel has been undergoing processes of transition. These processes are manifested by changes in the economy, education, the status of women, family structure, and by socio-cultural changes and transformations in patterns of coping with social problems. There is a serious lack of empirical research on the implications of this process for the value systems of Arab society and families in Israel and a dearth of relevant intervention-oriented literature. This article outlines the basic cultural values in the Arab society in Israel in an attempt to illuminate the relevance of these values for family structure and for direct interventions with Arab families in Israel.     

The matryoshka: The three-generation soviet family in Israel

Among the 200,000 immigrants who entered Israel in 1990 were a considerable number of families headed by single mothers. Their most prominent feature was the fact that a three-generation system—a single Soviet mother, her own mother, and a single child—formed the family unit. Rooted in changes occurring in the Soviet family life cycle over the past 70 years, this configuration is uniquely self-contained. This article is an early inquiry into a new family structure that will become part of the social fabric of the multi-ethnic society in Israel. The challenge will be to help in the absorption process by recognizing, encouraging, and facilitating the strengths this type of family brings with it and to plan support networks to substitute for those left behind.A previous version of this article was presented at the Third World Family Therapy Congress, June 2–6, 1991, Jyvaskyla, Finland.     

Primary health care for women: What is it and who provides it?

Recent federal policy has highlighted historically underrecognized women's health issues. Women comprise the majority of the population, especially the elderly. Women's health care needs, utilization patterns, and outcomes vary from those of men, and often among each other. Primary health care services for women are multidisciplinary and emphasize prevention, education, and early intervention as well as treatment. Psychologists and other primary health care providers can collaborate to provide their services in a cost-effective manner that optimizes quality of care and comprehensive health care.     

New directions for the education of clinical psychologists: The primary care setting,the VA's PRIME program,and the in-depth generalist model

As part of this special issue on psychology in primary care settings, we describe the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA's) new approach to education for practice in the primary care setting and we concurrently address some general issues related to the education of clinical psychologists for practice in this setting. In this article we argue that the primary care psychologist, in parallel with the generalist in medicine, must have a strong generic background in clinical psychology in order to gain the broad range of clinical skills necessary to function effectively as an in-depth generalist (IDG) who is capable of addressing the variety of psychological issues that emerge in the primary care setting. The IDG model of professional practice, which we believe is best suited for primary care/managed care settings, requires extensive training in generic clinical skills and increased time devoted to its implementation at both the predoctoral and the postdoctoral levels.     

The total workload of male and female white collar workers as related to age, occupational level, and number of children

A questionnaire assessing various aspects of paid as well as unpaid forms of productive activity was mailed to stratified samples of male and female white collar workers, approximately matched for educational and occupational level. Data from 501 men and 679 women employed full time revealed traditional gender differences in terms of main responsibility for household duties, child care etc. In keeping with this, women reported higher levels of work overload, stress and conflict than men, which increased significantly with the number of children at home. The various stress indices reached a peak between the ages of 35 and 39. Men reported more autonomy in their paid work whereas women reported more control at home. Men and women at the upper managerial levels reported more control over their total work situation and less conflict between demands.