Gender, nation, landscape and identity in narratives of exile and return

This article is concerned with issues of nation, landscape, and identity in narratives of exile and return. It is based on the oral testimonies and written narratives of German Jewish Marxist women who were driven out of their homeland by German fascism, yet returned after the end of World War II, dedicated to the building of socialism, or more precisely to realising the dream of a society free of prejudice and discrimination. What interests me here is to elicit a sense of the complex ways in which people construct their sense of identity in relation to notions of nation and belonging. In particular, I am fascinated by what impelled this largish group of refugees from Hitler's Germany to return, and how they felt about Germany as “their” country (Vaterland), their “homeland” (Heimat), or at the very least their country of origin. Nor was this relationship static. This is a group of women who have “migrated” twice in one lifetime: the first time fleeing their homeland in a forced migration to escape persecution and death; the return a voluntary “re-migration” in the name of an ideological commitment. Their narratives present both exile and return in retrospect. Thus, their subjective identifications with notions of nation are also retrospective, relating to Germany first from the perspective of involuntary exile, or second, towards the end of their lives, from the vantage point of a united Germany, achieved at the expense of the death of the socialist dream in whose service they returned. This means that they have been forced—through moments of historical crisis—to renegotiate both their own identities and their relationship to Germany multiple times during a single lifetime. The intimate inter-relationship of the personal and the political in these women's lives, and the retrospective reworking of their historically driven life decisions makes these women's narratives on the issues of landscape and homeland particularly rich sources on the subject of identity and belonging.     

The Tangled Web: Delinquency, Deception, and Parental Attachment

Delinquent youth display weaker attachment to their parents than do other youth, but the reasons for this remain unclear. One explanation is that delinquent youth poison their relations with parents by lying to them about their friends, behavior, whereabouts, and more. Analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health reveals that lying to parents is an exceptionally strong and robust correlate of delinquent behavior, and is associated with a variety of surreptitious behaviors – late bedtimes, hanging with friends, concealing whereabouts. Lying to parents appears to have a progressively negative impact on the parent-child bond, meaning that the well-established attachment/delinquency association is not solely a parent effect. Youth who lie to their parents do not appear to do so blithely, however. Compared to other youth, they hold themselves in lower regard and are more often depressed. Although parents are often angered by and distrustful of deceitful children, their children's fabrications may say less about their regard for their parents than about the strength of other loyalties.

Developmental Interplay between Ethnic,National, and Personal Identity in Immigrant Adolescents

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Developing a personal identity is a core developmental task for all adolescents. Immigrant adolescents need to integrate the meaning that their belonging to their...     

Maternal employment and adolescents' relations with parents,siblings, and peers

The association between maternal employment status and the relations that adolescents have with their parents, siblings, and peers was investigated. Three daily reports of conflicts with family members and time spent with parents, peers, and alone were obtained from 64 tenth-grade adolescents using a telephone interviewing technique. Males, but not females, had more arguments, which were of longer duration and greater intensity, with their mothers and siblings when their mothers worked than when they did not. Female conflict behavior was unrelated to the work status of the mother. Adolescents of both sexes spent less time with their parents when their mothers worked, especially when they worked full-time, than when they were nonemployed. Adolescents with employed mothers generally spent less free time with their parents than those with nonemployed mothers. Time spent with parents in the performance of household tasks was not affected by maternal employment status. The need to take a family system perspective in order to understand fully the relationship between maternal employment and adolescent development was emphasized.Received Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1974. Major research interests are in parent and peer relations during adolescence.     

Adolescents' perceptions of their attachment relationships with their mothers,fathers, and friends

This study explored changes in New Zealand adolescents' perceptions of their attachment relationships with their mothers, fathers, and friends. The main findings revealed that from early to late adolescence: Males and females remained stable in their quality of affect toward their mothers. With increasing age, females utilized their mothers for support and proximity more, whereas males utilized their mothers for support and proximity less. With increasing age, males and females rated their quality of affect toward their fathers as lower and utilized their fathers for support and proximity less. Females had a higher quality of affect toward friends than males regardless of age, but both males and females increased their utilization of friends for support and proximity over age. Further analyses revealed that Pacific Island adolescents utilized their mothers less for support and proximity than European/Pakeha adolescents. Adolescents from one-parent families utilized their fathers less for support and proximity and had a lower quality of affect toward him than adolescents from two-parent families. These findings suggested that substantial changes take place in attachment relationships from early to late adolescence and highlighted the need for research to differentiate between the sex of adolescent and sex of parent dyads in order to examine adolescents' affective relationships effectively.This research is based on the first author's doctoral dissertation at the University of Auckland.Received Ph.D. from the University of Auckland. Research interests are in life span developmental psychology and in the parenting of children and adolescents.Received Ph.D. from the Australian National University. Research interests lie within life span developmental psychology and early cognitive development.Received Ph.D. from the University of Canterbury. Her main interests are in life span developmental psychology and the development of low birth weight babies.     

Interpersonal Competence Configurations,Attachment to Community,and Residential Aspirations of Rural Adolescents

Adolescents who grow-up in rural areas often experience a tension between their attachment to the rural lifestyle afforded by their home community and a competing desire to gain educational, social, and occupational experiences that are only available in metropolitan areas. While these diverging pressures are well-documented, there is little information about linkages between rural high school students’ views of their communities, their postsecondary aspirations, and their school adjustment. To address this issue, this study examined perceptions of community and residential aspirations in an ethnically diverse sample of 8,754 rural adolescents (51.5% female) in relationship to their competence and risk status in high school. Participants were from 73 rural high schools across 34 states. In addition, ratings on participants’ school adjustment were provided by teachers (n = 667). High competence students (i.e., those in configurations of high positive and low negative teacher-rated characteristics) expressed positive perceptions of their rural lifestyle and many, particularly girls, indicated an interest in staying in or returning to their home community. Low competence youth (i.e., those in configurations of low positive and high negative teacher-rated characteristics) appeared to be less connected to their community and were more likely to express their intent to leave and not return. These results appear to qualify current concerns about “rural brain drain” and also suggest that the lack of attachment to the community may be a compounding risk factor for rural adolescents who have significant school adjustment problems.     

Adolescents' Achievement Strategies, School Adjustment, and Externalizing and Internalizing Problem Behaviors

The present study investigated the relationships between the achievement strategies adolescents deploy in a school context, and their self-esteem, school adjustment, and internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. A total of 1185 14-to-15-year-old adolescents filled in the Strategy and Attribution Questionnaire (SAQ), Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale, and scales measuring school adjustment, depression and externalizing problem behavior. The adolescents' parents were also asked to evaluate their children's achievement strategies, school adjustment and, externalizing problem behavior. The results revealed that low self-esteem was associated with adolescents' use of maladaptive achievement strategies which, in turn, was associated with their maladjustment at school, and internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Moreover, the association between adolescents' maladaptive strategies and their externalizing problem behavior was partly mediated via their school adjustment. The results suggest that the achievement strategies adolescents deploy are reflected not only in their school adjustment but also in their overall problem behavior.     

Open admissions,orality,aand literacy

Open admissions students tend to be highly oral. Their modes of thinking are different from the modes of thinking demanded in the highly literate (i.e., detached, objective, and scientific) world of college. They can learn the more literate modes of thinking, however, but this requires special awareness and effort on the part of their teachers. Some assumptions and instructional approaches made with traditional students cannot be made with highly oral students in a community college. Moreover, the effort to move the students into the more literate modes of thought cannot be limited to a couple of remedial courses in reading and writing. The promise of the open door can be realized for highly oral students only as more and more teachers change their assumptions about student learning and modify their instructional practices accordingly.He received an M.A. in English and a Ph.D. in higher education from Saint Louis University.     

Center Stage: Humiliation,Being Found Out,and the Myth of Supercompetence

Youth workers operate within a professional climate in which competence is perceived to be linked to a worker's ability to respond quickly and effectively to whatever situations clients may present. Many youth workers perceive their own inability to respond in moments of stuckness as indicative of their own failing and lack of professional skill. They often view their colleagues as more equipped and competent than themselves and fear having their own struggles exposed. This chapter describes the third of five themes associated with youth workers' experiences of not-knowing what to do: humiliation and the fear of being found out. In addition to presenting the dominant theme, this chapter discusses the two variations on the theme, as described by youth worker participants: (a) The worst public humiliation and (b) They'll know I'm a fraud. Implicit in both variations is the weight of youth workers' attempts to measure up to the field's myth of supercompetence in their practice.     

Rewriting fertilization: Trust, pain, and exit points

Feminists debate the nature of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and women's choice in relation to it. In this article, we focus on the process of becoming and being an IVF user without questioning women's choices. This process is empirically examined within a feminist body approach. Based on interviews with 22 Israeli Jewish women who went through IVF treatments in two infertility clinics where one of the authors has herself undergone IVF treatment, the article focuses on women's pain. We ask how IVF users learn about, and manage pain, and whether the pain they experience drove them to abandon the treatment. The analysis we present reveals a process, based and shaped by the women's trust in IVF and by an inner struggle. Attempting to cope with pain, the women relied on an image of their bodies as detached from their souls, and they initiated exit points from IVF treatment once their emotional experience became powerful to the extent that such detachment could no longer be sustained.     

Midlife,adolescence, and parental employment in family systems

Parents' midlife concerns and the resolution of those concerns were examined as a function of their children's adolescence and their involvement in employment via analyses acknowledging the interdependence of mothers and fathers. Multivariate analyses of variance results demonstrated that fathers' and mothers' midlife concerns were similar and modestly related to their children's pubertal development. There were significant differences between families of sons and of daughters. Mothers' and fathers' temporal and emotional involvement in paid work were differentially related to their own and to one another's midlife concerns. Finally, the relationships among parents' midlife concerns, work involvement, and children's pubertal status depended in part on the degree to which spouses felt supported by one another.Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the National Council on Family Relations, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 1989.Received Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. Research interests: work-family relationships, men's and women's development during midlife, and work-family issues in small businesses.Received Ph.D. from Cornell University. Research interests: relationships between work and family life in families with school-aged and adolescent children.     

‘That splendid body of women’: nursing,professional registration,and suffragette militancy

ABSTRACT

In the decades before World War One, a group of women fought for their right to control their own futures, claiming that their governance was in the hands of men whose interests lay in keeping women subservient. Initially articulated by an educated, middle-class few, the women's demands were embraced by widening numbers of both women and men. They saw their hopes dashed on several occasions by political manoeuvring, and only after WWI did their demands begin to be met. This is not an account of the women’s suffrage movement, but rather of the fight for the registration of trained nurses. Both movements claimed the right of women to be actors in their public lives and both faced public condemnation for transgressing social boundaries. The two movements interacted, with nurses connecting their struggle to the wider call for women's rights, and with the suffrage movement foregrounding nurses as disenfranchised women professionals.     

Church attendance,meaningfulness of religion,and depressive symptomatology among adolescents

Self-administered questionnaires were completed by 451 adolescents at a public high school in Texas during the spring semester 1989. The instrument used contained the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and items to determine participants' gender, frequency of church attendance, and meaningfulness of one's religion. Based on social support research and the writings of Carl Jung and Viktor Frankl, it was predicted that those who attended church frequently and those who viewed their religions as providing meaning for their lives would have lower BDI scores than their classmates. The findings supported these predictions. Implications and a discussion of the results are included.Received Ed.D. in educational psychology from University of Illinois. Main research interests are substance abuse in adolescents, drug use prevention strategies, and suicidal ideation in adolescents.Received Ph.D. in general psychology from Boston University. Main research interest is psychology in interdisciplinary perspective, with a specialization in the psychology of religion.Pursuing a M.Ed, in school psychology at Southwest Texas State University. Main research interests are psychological testing and assessment.     

Cognitive development,egocentrism, self-esteem,and adolescent contraceptive knowledge,attitudes, and behavior

The relationship of cognitive development, egocentrism, and self-esteem to adolescent contraceptive knowledge, attitudes, and behavior was investigated in 300 high school and college students (101 males and 199 females) 14-19 years old. There was general support for the study's hypothesis that students with higher levels of cognitive development and self-esteem and lower egocentrism would be more knowledgeable about contraception, be more likely to use birth control, and have more positive attitudes about contraception. Cognitive development was positively associated with all of the knowledge variables and with self-reported condom use. Self-esteem was linked to two of the four knowledge variables, self-reported condom use, and positive attitudes toward contraception. There was an inverse relationship between egocentrism and contraceptive use, but, contrary to expectations, a positive association between egocentrism and knowledge of contraceptive effectiveness. Gender-specific analyses revealed that male students had significantly higher scores than females on the cognitive development and self-esteem measures, while female students scored higher on items measuring knowledge of contraceptive methods and attitudes toward their use. The association of cognitive development with knowledge variables suggests that the ability of adolescents to retain information is related to their capacity to reason and generate alternatives. Overall, these findings suggest a need for attention to the goodness of fit between sex education curricula and the level of cognitive development of the intended audience.     

Women in the world of work: Past,present, and future

Women have not been usually credited with much Utopian writing, but in fact a number of women writers have projected societies which seek to improve the condition of their sex. This paper examines three eighteenth century English women writers's ideas of feminist utopias: Mary Astell's A Serious Proposal, Sarah Robinson Scott's Millenium Hall, and Clara Reeve's Plans of Education. It discusses their ideas on the rationale and organization of communities of women and how these communities could extend their benefits to society as a whole. It will also discuss the limitations of the thinking of these women for the reform of society especially in regard to woman's place.     

Love,literacy, and laments: themes of women writers in late imperial China

In late imperial China (roughly the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century), the expanding literacy of women helped to popularize ideals of romantic love, and to raise women's expectations regarding marriage and their active participation in creative cultural activities. As a result, literate women easily experienced hopes and aspirations that conflicted directly with the demands of the patriarchal family system. As seen through a sampling of courtesan and gentry women's writings, some women responded to these conflicts by questioning the value of literacy itself, some expressed despair over their fate, while others began to raise questions regarding their society's constraints on women.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Perceptions of Their Adolescent Daughters' Shape, Weight, and Body Esteem: Are They Accurate?

This study examined parents' awareness of their daughters' attitudes, beliefs, and feelings about their bodies. Sixty-six daughters aged 12–15 years completed the Stirling Eating Disorder Scale, a body figure rating scale, and made ratings of their shape and weight. They also completed a more comprehensive measure of body satisfaction, the Body Esteem Scale (BES). Mothers and fathers estimated their daughters' shape and weight, and completed the BES with instructions to complete the measure from their daughters' perspective. While there were few differences between mothers' and fathers' reports, parent–daughter congruence scores varied according to methodology and attribute measured. That is, parents' ratings of objective daughter characteristics on single-item rating scales were more congruent with daughters' self-reports than parents' estimates of daughters' feelings about their bodies using a more comprehensive measure. Greater discrepancies between parents' estimates of daughters' body esteem and daughters' self-reported body esteem were associated with greater body dissatisfaction in daughters.     

Physical attractiveness,body attitudes,and self-concept in late adolescents

Seventy male and 119 female late adolescents, enrolled in a college introductory psychology course, rated 24 body characteristics in terms of (1) how important each part was in determining their own physical attractiveness and (2) how physically attractive they assumed each of these parts of their own bodies were. In addition, all subjects responded to a short self-concept scale. Results indicated that males and females rated the importance of the body characteristics for their own physical attractiveness in a markedly similar manner and that mean physical attractiveness ratings were significantly related to the self-concepts of females but not of males. Moreover, the attractiveness ratings of a larger number of individual body parts were significantly related to self-concept for females than for males. Finally, a visual inspection technique for determining physique type was found related to self-concept in males, while this was not the case with a traditional anthropometric index of physique type. Sex differences in the role of physical attractiveness in personality and interpersonal behavior development are discussed.Received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the City University of New York. Current research interests include the relation of organismic variables to personality/social development.Received his Ph.D. in personality and developmental psychology from the University of Michigan. Current research interests include the psychology of women and physical attractiveness.     

Maternal aspirations,socialization, and achievement of boys and girls in the white working class

Analysis of the scholastic achievement of 150 white pre-teen-age boys and girls in relation to their mothers' aspirations for them, selected socialization practices, and their social origins helps explain disparities in scholastic achievement between working class and middle class children as well as disparities in achievement within the working class. Mothers in this stratum, as a rule, do not articulate high educational and occupational aspirations for their children, especially for girls. Yet, girls exhibit significantly higher achievement than boys and their achievement is conditioned more by maternal aspirations than that of boys. Girls' greater responsiveness to their mothers' aspirations and their higher scholastic ability are due to the fact that white working class mothers engage in more early interaction and employ less coercive discipline with daughters than with sons. Boys' achievement is more responsive to variations in maternal practices than to maternal aspirations. Although not typical, mothers who interact much with their sons early in life and who do not employ coercive discipline produce high-achieving sons. Otherwise, they do not, whatever aspirations they hold for their sons. For girls, maternal aspiration is the more critical determinant of achievement. Downwardly mobile women, those working class women with middle class origins, differ from the stable women in their stratum in that they have equally high aspirations for daughters and sons. As a result of their mothers' high aspirations and more enlightened practices, the daughters of downwardly mobile women are the highest achievers in the white working class. Their sons, however, are underachievers, mainly because downward mobiles adopt the prevailing pattern of their class of destination and rely more on coercive discipline in socializing boys.This research is supported by Welfare Administration, HEW, under grants CRD-371-C2-9 and 10-P-56018/5-4.A revised and extended version of a paper given at the Society for the Study of Social Problems, August 1970, under the title, White Working Class Women and Their Families.Received Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University, New York, New York. Major present research interests are structural determinants of variations in patterns of socializing children, intergenerational changes in socialization practices and beliefs, and the effects of family structure and socialization on children in different structural contexts.