Incorporating Lesbian and Gay Issues Into Counselor Training: A Resource Guide

In order for counselors to facilitate the growth of their lesbian and gay clients, they must be familiar with and become sensitive to the special needs of this population. However, most counselors and counselor trainees have had little exposure to these needs. One way of increasing their awareness and sensitivity is to incorporate lesbian and gay issues into counselor training programs. The focus of this article is to present a limited list of strategies and resources that can be used to supplement materials in traditional courses in counselor training so as to better prepare counselors for dealing with lesbian and gay clients.     

Easing the Transition: A Career Planning Course for College Students

This article outlines the role a career planning course can play in assisting college students with college-related developmental tasks.     

“We were just fated together”… Chinese love and the concept of yuan in England and Hong Kong

Recent research into cultural variations in personal relationships has stressed the significance of “etic” measures such as individualism-collectivism. This study, however, focuses on a more culture-specific concept, the Chinese notion of yuan, derived from a Buddhist belief in the role of predestiny and fate in relationship development. One hundred Hong Kong Chinese and 100 British respondents completed a specially constructed yuan beliefs scale and then a 24-item version of Hendrick and Hendrick's (1986) Love Attitudes Scale. Although Chinese respondents scored significantly higher lhan did British respondents on the yuan scale, replies in both cultures demonstrated at least a moderate endorsement of yuan beliefs. Belief in yuan was highly correlated with pragmatic and agapic love styles, and was negatively correlated with erotic love. Results are interpreted in the context of the wider relationship beliefs and practices of the two cultures.     

Communication in social networks: Effects of kinship,network size,and emotional closeness

Communication is important in preventing social relationships from decaying over time. This study examined the effects of social network size, emotional closeness, and type of relationship (kinship vs. friendship) on communication patterns in the social networks of 251 women. Participants with large kin networks had longer times to last contact to both kin and friends. Participants with high levels of emotional closeness in their networks had shorter times to last contact. The effect of emotional closeness on time to last contact was greater for kin than for friends. These results demonstrate that time to last contact is closely tied to emotional closeness and suggest that the costs of maintaining kin relationships are lower than the costs of maintaining friendships.     

Autonomy,Universality, and Playing the Guitar: On the Politics and Aesthetics of Contemporary Feminist Deployments of the “Master's Tools”

Some feminists have argued that the “master's tools” cannot be utilized for feminist projects. When read through the lens of non‐ideal theory, Judith Butler's reevaluation of “autonomy” and “universality” and Peaches's engagement with guitar rock are instances in which implements of patriarchy are productively repurposed for feminist ends. These examples evince two criteria whereby one can judge the success of such an attempt: first, accessibility and efficacy; second, that the use is deconstructive of its own conditions.     

THE COMPARABILITY OF JOB EVALUATION METHODS IN SUPPLYING APPROXIMATELY SIMILAR CLASSIFICATIONS IN RATING ONE JOB SERIES

There is a belief that any job evaluation method, when correctly applied to a series of jobs, will result in approximately the same rating classification as that supplied by any other method for the same job series. This study was aimed primarily at a determination of the extent to which a number of job evaluation methods, differing in methodology, and presently in use within South Africa, would in fact supply similar classifications. Correlation coefficients among the sixteen participating organisation job evaluation point ratings for a sample of jobs which were heterogeneous in terms of type and level within the job hierarchy, ranged from .93 to .99 with an average of .98. Coefficients for the same sample of jobs divided into a high prestige category and a low prestige category, ranged from .60 to .99 and .86 to .99 respectively. Correlation coefficients among point ratings for the same organisations but for a second sample of jobs, homogeneous in terms of type and level within the job hierarchy, ranged from .75 to .99 with an average of .90. These results indicate a high degree of agreement among job evaluation methods in assigning point ratings, irrespective of job type and level within the hierarchy.     

Religious Perfectionism Versus Spiritual Growth

This article explores the fundamentalist Christian focus on perfectionism and its possible contribution to an increase in dysfunctional individuals, family systems, and societies. Several Bible verses are analyzed, and the results of their misinterpretation discussed. The need for a program of spiritual growth, as expressed by Alcoholics Anonymous, as opposed to a program of spiritual perfection is proposed.