Is Cass's Model of Homosexual Identity Formation Relevant to Today's Society?

Cass's Homosexual Identity Formation Model (1979) is one of the most well-known and well-referenced models of identity development for gay males and lesbians. This article provides a review of Cass's six steps of the model, as well as research support for and critiques of the model. As the model was developed more than 30 years ago, the applicability of the model for today's youth is explored and implications for practitioners are discussed.     

‘Technological me’: young children’s use of technology across their home and school contexts

Research into children’s learning with digital technologies is represented by a growing body of literature examining the relationship between home–school technological practices. A focus of this work is on the notion of a ‘digital-disconnect’ between home and school. This argument suggests that children are such native users of technologies they struggle to connect with commonly used technologies in school. This paper examines how the ‘digital-disconnect’ is experienced in children’s lives. Drawing on a data set investigating the digital experiences of 12 children aged 2–12 years, we consider the experiences of one family attending the same school. Three siblings aged 5–12 years recorded their home and school technology use for one week. The findings suggested some difference in use across both settings, but also similarities associated with information retrieval, rote learning and entertainment. We use Bulfin and North’s and Dyson’s ideas about the permeability of social boundaries to explain why technology use might be more similar than disconnected in each context. We consider the extent to which each setting influences the other as the basis for moving away from binary conceptualisations of the digital-disconnect informed by generational assumptions about children and technologies.     

Lessons from professional identity development literature: A qualitative content analysis

The development of a professional identity as a counselor is the result of training, practice, and integration into a community of professional counselors and is defined as the synthesis of personal and professional behaviors, values, ethics, and worldview. The research on this topic has been plentiful, but this systemic and systematic review of the research literature provides a comprehensive overview of this important concept for counselor training and supervision.     

Low energy availability in exercising men is associated with reduced leptin and insulin but not with changes in other metabolic hormones

Low energy availability, defined as low caloric intake relative to exercise energy expenditure, has been linked to endocrine alterations frequently observed in chronically energy-deficient exercising women. Our goal was to determine the endocrine effects of low energy availability in exercising men. Six exercising men (VO_2peak: 49.3 ± 2.4 ml · kg^?1 · min^?1) underwent two conditions of low energy availability (15 kcal · kg^?1 fat-free mass [FFM] · day^?1) and two energy-balanced conditions (40 kcal · kg^?1 FFM · day^?1) in randomised order. During one low energy availability and one balanced condition, participants exercised to expend 15 kcal · kg^?1 FFM · day^?1; no exercise was conducted during the other two conditions. Metabolic hormones were assessed before and after each 4-day period. Following both low energy availability conditions, leptin (?53% to ?56%) and insulin (?34% to ?38%) were reduced (P < 0.05). Reductions in leptin and insulin were independent of whether low energy availability was attained with or without exercise (P > 0.80). Low energy availability did not significantly impact ghrelin, triiodothyronine, testosterone and IGF-1 (all P > 0.05). The observed reductions in leptin and insulin were in the same magnitude as changes previously reported in sedentary women. Further research is needed to understand why other metabolic hormones are more robust against low energy availability in exercising men than those in sedentary and exercising women.     

Solidarity through collaborative research

While numerous publications signal the merits of collaborative research, few studies provide interpretive analyses of collaborative‐research practices or collaborative relationships. Through this multiple case study design of collaborative‐research teams, the authors attempt to provide such an analysis by focusing on the collaborative‐research experiences of seven qualitative researchers from two contrasting research teams in Australia and North America. They highlight how solidarity emerged from successful interactions between interdependent members, and how these were both professionally and personally rewarding for individuals and the teams. As well, they identify the opportunities for solidarity afforded to researchers from vertical collaborations (i.e. collaborations involving differential status between team members) that featured evolving and transforming mentoring relationships through the history of the research projects. They propose that solidarity can be stratified within large research teams through sub‐units like dyads. Finally, they suggest that collaborating researchers might benefit from reviewing case studies of collaborative relationships, and engaging in mutual interrogation and subsequent individual reflections of their articulated collaborative practices and relationships.     

Moving Minds

This paper explores and examines a case study based at Ivy Bank Business and Enterprise College, The Imperial War Museum North, and Liverpool John Moores University. This collaboration took place from November 2004 until February 2005 culminating in an exhibition of children's artwork as part of the ‘Moving Minds’ project at the IWM North. This project was built upon a firm foundation of common goals; an investment in educational and curriculum development; learning through an engagement with contemporary art practice; learning within the context of the museum and a belief that working collaboratively can act as an effective antidote to a perceived orthodoxy in art and design education (Steers 2004). Through practitioner enquiry this paper presents three distinct perspectives. The voice of the trainee teacher, the classroom teacher and the university lecturer demonstrate both elements of commonality and difference within the shared experience of this enterprise.     

Feeding ecology and laboratory predatory behavior toward live and artificial moving prey in seven rodent species

The present research related the feeding ecology of seven rodent species to the reactions of laboratory-reared and prey-inexperienced members of each species both to live prey and to an artificial moving stimulus predicting food pellets. Feeding ecology was determined by the degree of carnivory, based on reported stomach contents and observations of feeding. Experiment 1 assessed predatory reactions to a live cricket placed in each animal’s home cage. Killing and latency of eating the cricket were directly related to the degree of reported carnivory on moderately fast-moving arthropods. Experiment 2 examined behavior toward a rolling ball bearing that predicted delivery of food. Average percentages of trials with approach or contact of the bearing, and the conditional probability of a mouth contact were all positively related to the degree of reported carnivory and to cricket predation in Experiment 1. In addition, the topography of ball bearing contact for a species often resembled its topography of cricket contact. We conclude that (1) rodent predatory behavior can be studied in the laboratory using appropriate artificial stimuli and prey-inexperienced subjects, and (2) the predatory behavior of a species is based on underlying appetitive organization related to carnivory, including differential sensitivity to stimulus movement, motor preorganization, and susceptibility to conditioning. This appetitive organization appears to influence responding to both live and artificial prey.