Mother-daughter dyads view the family: Associations between divergent perceptions and daughter well-being

Divergent perceptions (or disagreements) within the mother-daughter dyad and the association of such divergence with daughter's affective and behavioral well-being were examined in the current study. One hundred sixty-one mother-daughter dyads (daughters aged 14–18 years; mothers aged 37–59 years) completed paper- and-pencil measures assessing their perceptions of family cohesion and family conflict; daughters also rated their own depressive affect and dieting behavior. While the means for groups of mothers and daughters on family cohesion and conflict were similar, dyads varied substantially in their level of agreement. Disagreements on family cohesion were associated with daughter dieting behavior; maternal employment status was more highly associated with daughter depressive affect than either family conflict or cohesion. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for studying the divergent perceptions of family members, and for family systems and relationship approaches to understanding the family.The research presented in this paper was supported by the W. T. Grant Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Portions of this paper were presented at the 3rd biennial meetings of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Atlanta, Georgia.Received Ph.D. in Child Psychology from the University of Minnesota. Research interests include the interplay among developmental processes during transitions into and out of adolescence.Received Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota. Research interests include familial adaptation to chronic illness and the role of family processes in self-image and depression during adolescence.Received Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include girls' psychological adaptation to pubertal change, biosocial aspects of female reproductive events, and development of biologically and socially at risk children and adolescents.     

Sixth Graders’ Conflict Resolution in Role Plays with a Peer,Parent, and Teacher

This study used conflict resolution role play vignettes and self-report surveys of 450 New York City 6th graders to examine associations between adolescents’ conflict resolution efficacy and social skills. Vignettes covered 3 social contexts, conflict with a peer (disagreement over activities), with a parent (raise in allowance), and with a teacher (low grade on report). Effective and ineffective strategies for resolving these conflicts were coded from the videotaped interactions. Adolescents were more often effective in resolving conflict with peers than with parents (χ²(1) = 7.10, p < .01). Strong communication skills cut across interpersonal context as associated with effective resolution. Assertiveness and absence of aggression were associated with effective conflict resolution in vignettes with peers. Assertiveness was also associated with effective conflict resolution in vignettes with parents, however nervousness was unexpectedly found to facilitate conflict resolution in vignettes with parents. Only skills observed within a particular context were associated with effective resolution in that context; self-report skills and cross-context observed skills were not associated with efficacy. Implications for implementation and evaluation of social skills curricula and conflict resolution process are discussed.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the meetings of the Society for Research on Adolescence, New Orleans, LA, April 2002Received Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2004. Research interests include adolescent social competence and youth development programs.Received Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Pennsylvania State University in 1991. Research interests include the psychosocial correlates of puberty, stress reactivity, and health compromising behaviors and adjustment.Received Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2002. Research interests include social competence, prevention research, and women’s health.Received Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2002. Research interests include social competence, prevention research, and women’s health.Received Ph.D. in 1975 from University of Pennsylvania in Human Learning and Development. Research focus centers around designing and evaluating interventions aimed at enhancing the wellbeing of children living in poverty and associated conditions. Conducts research on transitional periods during childhood and adolescence, focusing on school, family and biological transitions in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Specific interests are in the factors that contribute to positive and negative outcomes, and changes inwell-being over these years.Received Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University in 1977. Research interests include tobacco, alcohol, and drug abuse prevention, violence prevention, AIDS risk reduction among adolescents, health promotion and disease prevention, smoking cessation.     

MAKING IT WORK

With the prevalence of divorce in our country, there is a serious need of services for divorcing families to be readily available and offered in a manner to increase the use of the services. Early intervention with the divorcing family is critical to help alleviate levels of parental conflict and decrease potential litigation. This article is an evaluation of the first year of court-mandated parenting psychoeducational workshops. The results demonstrate the positive effects of the workshops for most divorcing parents in terms of levels of ongoing conflict between parents, children's adjustment as observed by the parents, parents' adjustment, and parents' ability to settle the legal issues of the divorce and keep the children out of the middle of the conflict.     

Overcoming barriers to adolescent research on pubertal and reproductive development

Perhaps the greatest barriers to conducting adolescent research on pubertal and reproductive behavior involve obtaining permission from schools and parents to conduct the study in the first place. This article addresses these barriers, focusing on (a) possible reasons why such research has languished, with a focus on the discomfort of adults and on negative societal messages; (b) design of reproductively oriented adolescent studies; (c) strategies for recruiting schools and families; (d) procedures for testing in the schools; and (e) methodological considerations of such barriers.This article was prepared while the author was a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. The foundation's support and the generous assistance of the National Institutes of Health (NICHD), and the W. T. Grant Foundation, are appreciated.Received PLD from University of Pennsylvania. Research interests are girl's psychological adaptation to pubertal change, biosocial aspects of female reproductive events, development of biological and socially at risk children and adolescents.     

School-based child sexual abuse prevention programs

Early prevention education training has been advocated by scholars and practitioners to intervene with children and youth who have been or are being sexually abused as well as to prevent sexual abuse from occurring. This study identified and surveyed major school-based child sexual abuse prevention programs in the country. Results obtained from 126 prevention programs indicated that most programs are conducted at a local level; that together they reach hundreds of thousands of students, parents, teachers, and other school staff; and that they offer a prescribed curriculum and resource materials. Nearly two-thirds receive state funding assistance, with less than a third charging the schools. Most were established in the early and mid 1980s and have well-educated staff. Further, most work to meet the needs of disabled students and provide means for disclosure of sexual abuse. Training format, duration, and materials vary.This study was supported by Grant #5083B80014, Womens Educational Equity Act Program, U.S. Department of Education.     

Child care quality in different state policy contexts

Using data from the Child Care Supplement to the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we test associations between the quality of child care and state child care policies. These data, which include observations of child care and interviews with care providers and mothers for 777 children across 14 states, allow for comparisons across a broader range of policy regimes and care settings than earlier research on this topic. Using multilevel linear and logistic models, we found that more generous subsidy policies (that is, greater investment, higher income eligibility) were positively associated with the quality of care in nonprofit child care centers, as well as with the use of center care. The stringency of regulations (that is, teacher education requirements, teacher‐child ratios/thresholds) was also associated with both quality and type of care, but in more complex ways. Higher teacher training requirements were positively associated with the quality of both family child care and nonprofit centers, while more stringent regulations decreased the number of children attending center care. No links were found between state policies and the quality of for‐profit center care. The implications for policy makers, advocates, and policy analysts are discussed. © 2007 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

How to build a better future? Kyrgyzstani development workers and the ‘knowledge transfer’ strategy

The development industry has moved from concepts of aid and technical assistance to the idea that closing ‘gaps’ in people's knowledge is the most effective way of alleviating poverty and injustice. My data show the means through which this ‘knowledge transfer’ is actually supposed to happen. I examine the micro-politics of development: the role and agency of development workers, who are so frequently employed to conduct ‘training’ on a wide range of topics affecting citizens' well-being, such as conflict prevention or sustainable agricultural practices. This paper draws on ethnographic research between 2010 and 2012 with Kyrgyzstani NGO workers to analyse the ‘side-effects’ of development, such as the creation of a new social class and softening age hierarchies. I examine the widespread conviction among trainers that education can solve most social ills, and their concepts of how knowledge, sometimes in the guise of ideologiya, shapes people. I argue that this faith in knowledge reflects both the life course of NGO workers themselves and what they can offer from within the ‘knowledge transfer’ paradigm. An understanding of the friction between different expectations of knowledge content, teaching relationships and aims in creating well-being is not only essential to a critical reflection on these development efforts but also illuminates wider political and social processes and relationships, such as expectations of the state and international community.     

News constructs of customary identity versus democratic practice: the case of Lindiwe Dlamini and Mswati III of Swaziland

Abstract

If colonial Africa was governed through ‘indirect rule’ or ‘decentralised despotism’ (Mamdani 1996:8), its legacy remains surprisingly intact post independence. If the notion of the tribe lay at the heart of indirect rule and was effected by institutional segregation, such identities were discursively produced and sustained by being constantly flagged through a range of institutional structures in order to produce ‘willing subjects’ (Foucault 1977). The media has increasingly played a central role in flagging such identities as well as those that contest them, notably a civil identity.

This article examines how ethnic identity continues to be discursively deployed in opposition to democratic governance by focusing on one incident, namely the choice of the Swazi monarch‘s twelfth bride at the annual Reed Dance and its contestation by the bride's mother. The Times of Swaziland covered this dispute and provides an interesting case study. The analysis identifies how the contestations between customary and human rights discourses in this one African location are variously deployed and negotiated by the social actors in this instance, and it teases out the contradictions and tensions between them.