Conflict in the family: A continuing education course produced by the open university

This course, first presented by the Open University in 1980, is designed for independent study by people who, in the course of their working lives, come into contact with families suffering serious internal conflicts which place any members—adult or child—in danger of physical or emotional abuse in their own home. The course has been developed at a level which should make it a serious contribution to in-service training for a wide variety of professionals and experienced voluntary workers. It is unique in that it not only examines constructive and destructive aspects of conflict but also integrates written material (16 units) with an audiovisual component (8 TV programmes and 7 cassette tapes) on prevention, diagnosis and intervention relating to the whole spectrum of family conflict and violence including child abuse, sexual abuse, adolescent abuse, spouse abuse, abuse of and by the elderly and abuse of parents by their children. This paper provides a brief outline of the course aims, objectives and content together with information on its usage in the UK and the availability of certain components for international usage.     

Black Grandmothers in Multigenerational Households: Diversity in Family Structure and Parenting Involvement in the Woodlawn Community

We report here the frequency of black grandmothers' coresidence in households with first-grade children, their patterns of involvement in parenting, and the degree to which family structure and employment affected the grandmothers' parenting involvement in a 1966/1967 community-defined population. Coresidence between grandmothers and their target first-grade grandchildren was found in 10% of the households. The 130 grandmothers' parenting involvement was substantial, second only to mother involvement, and was characterized by 2 parenting activity patterns: control and punishment, and support and punishment. The degree of grandmothers' parenting involvement differed by family structure, with grandmothers in mother-absent homes most likely to be involved. Grandmothers' employment did not moderate their engagement in parenting behaviors. These findings are consistent with previous reports of significant parenting involvement by black extended family members.     

The Development of Gender Stereotype Components

Developmental research has been limited by a narrow concept of stereotypes. A more complex model is presented, and developmental changes in gender stereotypes were investigated using the new model. In 2 studies, children were told about several sex-unspecified children, each described as having 1 masculine or 1 feminine characteristic. The children then predicted the likelihood of each story child having other masculine and feminine characteristics. In Study 1, 56 children (4–6 years) were told about target children who liked either a masculine or feminine toy, and then children predicted the targets' interests in other toys. In Study 2, 76 older children (6, 8, 10 years) were told about target children with a masculine or feminine characteristic from 1 of 4 categories (appearance, personality, occupations, toys), and then they predicted the likelihood of targets having other masculine and feminine characteristics from the same and from different categories as the cue. 2 developmental trends emerged: ( a ) children appear first to learn associations among characteristics relevant to their own sex and, later, to learn them for the other sex, and ( b ) older children's stereotypic judgments are more extreme than those of younger children. The implications of these results for the development of stereotypes, assessing gender knowledge, and understanding social judgments are discussed.     

Temperament, Emotion, and Cognition at Fourteen Months: The MacArthur Longitudinal Twin Study

200 pairs of twins were assessed at 14 months of age in the laboratory and home. Measures were obtained of temperament, emotion, and cognition/language. Comparisons between identical and fraternal twin correlations suggest that individual differences are due in part to heritable influences. For temperament, genetic influence was significant for behavioral observations of inhibition to the unfamiliar, tester ratings of activity, and parental ratings of temperament. For emotion, significant genetic influence was found for empathy and parental ratings of negative emotion. The estimate of heritability for parental report of expression of negative emotions was relatively high, whereas that for expression of positive emotions was low, a finding consistent with previous research. For cognition and language, genetic influence was significant for behavioral indices of spatial memory, categorization, and word comprehension. Shared rearing environment appears influential for parental reports of language and for positive emotions, but not for other measures of emotion or for temperament.     

Educating and training out of poverty? Adult provision and the informal sector in fishing communities,South Africa

This paper looks at access to adult education and vocational education and training (VET) provision in fishing communities in the Western Cape, South Africa. Fishing communities are being disadvantaged due to geographical and socio-political marginalisation, and the predominance of informal sector employment in the context of worldwide marine resource depletion. Neither public nor private provision is adequately serving rural areas or the informal sector in this context. Using the sustainable livelihoods approach as a tool of analysis, this paper argues that a more cross-sectoral approach is needed to tackle equity and poverty concerns in adult education and training provision.     

Contextual Variation and Memory Retrieval at Six Months

In 2 experiments we asked whether training in multiple contexts could eliminate context-dependent memory retrieval at 6 months as it does for adults. We found that 24-hour retention was disrupted when infants were trained in one context and tested in another but not when they were trained in multiple contexts prior to testing in a novel context (Experiment 1). After a long delay, however, training in multiple contexts did not facilitate memory retrieval in a novel context: An otherwise effective retrieval cue (the training mobile) did not alleviate forgetting 3 weeks later when it was presented in a novel context (Experiment 2). These findings demonstrate that multiple learning contexts can override the debilitating effects of an altered context on memory retrieval at 6 months, but only over the short term. The resistance of older memories to retrieval in novel contexts after long periods of disuse may be adaptive, insuring that potentially inappropriate or irrelevant memories will not be expressed.     

Children's Judgments about Psychological Harm in Social Context

72 children, ages 6 to 11 years, were presented with a series of stories involving psychological harm (name-calling) in a game context. Situations were presented in which intentions, consequences, and game context were varied, along with order of story presentation. Comparisons between acts of physical and psychological harm were also conducted. Although responses in some conditions were influenced by order of presentation, age differences were found in children's evaluations of agents' actions and recipients' reactions for psychological harm in game contexts. Younger children were more likely to ignore intentions and consequences or the recipient's perspective and to focus on contextual features (e.g., game rules). Older children were more likely to base their evaluations on intentions, or both intentions and consequences, and to take into account the recipient's perspective. Game context interacted differentially with psychological and physical harm at all ages. Evaluations of acts of physical harm were more likely than acts of psychological harm to be transformed by game context.