Child sexual abuse: Case handling through public social agencies in the Southeast of the USA

This paper reports data from a regionwide survey of child sexual abuse case handling in the Southeast. Public social agency workers do not generally provide nor view the provision of treatment services as being primarily their responsibility. While about 70% of the workers (N = 1,045) had performed initial intervention and diagnostic tasks, only 46.1% had performed treatment tasks. Ten percent of the workers felt initial intervention tasks were more appropriate to some other professional community resource; 16.3% made this judgment for diagnostic tasks. On the other hand, 55.1% delegated the responsibility for the provision of treatment services. More importantly, the workers' perception of task performance responsibility was not appreciably influenced by the notion of being provided adequate training to perform treatment services.     

Locus of control and self-concept in achieving and underachieving bright elementary students

This study examined a group of academically bright fourth-grade children for positive relationships of academic achievement with locus of control and self-concept. Twenty achievers and nine underachievers received the Interllectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire (IAR) and the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale. Two-factor ANOVAs were used to examine the self-concept and locus of control scores, with sex and achievement serving as the two independent factors. The results showed that achievers had significantly higher self-concepts than underachievers on the intellectual and school status subscale. In addition, achievers had significantly higher internal locus of control scores than underachievers for the IAR total score and the IAR positive score. No sex differences were revealed for either self-concept or locus of control. Implications of these results are discussed briefly.     

Stress, coping, and adjustment in female adolescent incest victims

Although previous literature on incest has dealt extensively with the nature, parameters, and effects of such abuse, it has not focused on the role of coping in the psychological adjustment of victims. Forty-five female adolescent incest victims in treatment completed questionnaires regarding their current adjustment, characteristics of their molest, their perceptions of the stressful aspects of the molestations, how they appraised the molestations, and how they coped with the fact that it occurred. The majority of the girls in this study had been sexually abused by a father figure (82%). The coping strategies of wishful thinking and tension reduction, the lack of maternal support at the time of reporting, and appraisals of threat and "holding self back" accounted for 70% of the variance in self-reported distress. The coping strategies of detachment, seeking social support and appraisal of hold self back accounted for 38% of the variance in adolescent's global psychopathology as rated by their therapists. In light of these findings, the implications of the need to address appraisals and coping efforts in research and therapy with incest victims was emphasized.     

Teacher identity in the context of literacy teaching: Three explorations of classroom positioning and interaction in secondary schools

This article presents the results of three separate studies of literacy teaching and learning in the U.S. that explore the social functions of language, specifically focused on the identity development of literacy learners and teachers. Each study offers a detailed account of how literate identities are constructed and enacted and the positive and negative consequences that occur for teachers and students when they are enacted. Taken together, these three studies demonstrate how teachers' and students' understandings of identity can promote or inhibit literacy teaching and learning.