Mothers’ and Fathers’ Autonomy-Supportive and Controlling Behaviors: An Analysis of Interparental Contributions

Objective. The goal of this study was to examine how mothers and fathers contribute to each other’s autonomy supportive and controlling behaviors toward their child. Design. The participants were heterosexual parental dyads from two prospective studies (Study 1, n = 289; Study 2, n = 202). Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires assessing their autonomy supportive and controlling behaviors toward their adolescent child. Results. In both studies, results from structural equation modeling revealed reciprocal partner effects where mothers’ autonomy support at Time 1 predicted fathers’ autonomy support at Time 2, and fathers’ autonomy support at Time 1 predicted mothers’ autonomy support at Time 2. Reciprocal partner effects were also observed for controlling behaviors. These reciprocal relations were not statistically different across mothers and fathers. Conclusions. These results provide support for interparental contributions regarding autonomy supportive and controlling parenting behaviors. Mothers and fathers should thus be aware that their parenting behaviors can be influenced by each other, including both positive and negative parenting behaviors.     

BOOK REVIEWS

S OVEREIGN R EASON . By Ernest Nagel.
T HE S OCIOLOGY OF E DUCATION AND E DUCATIONAL S OCIOLOGY . A Sociology of Education by Wilbur B. Brookover. New York: American Book Company, 1955; and Applied Principles of Educational Sociology and Educational Sociology, A Resource Book . Edited by Harold R. Bottrell.
W HY J OHNNY C AN ' T R EAD AND W HAT Y OU C AN D O A BOUT I T . By Rudolf Flesch.
T HE F LEXIBLE S CHOOL : A R EPORT OF THE C OMMITTEE FOR THE S TUDY OF F LEXIBILITY IN THE E LEMENTARY S CHOOL .     

Training Counselors to Facilitate the Transitions of Aging Through Group Work

Group counseling for elderly people and their caretakers is an effective, but specialized, treatment modality that should be included in counselor education curricula. Training needs and resources are described.     

Humidity as an aversive stimulus in learning inDrosophila melanogaster

The learned suppression of photopositive tendencies was studied at the individual level in young flies of both sexes. In a T-maze, flies had to choose between an arm leading to a lighted vial associated with an aversive stimulus (i.e., a solution of quinine chlorhydrate deposited on a filter paper in the vial) and another arm leading to a darkened vial free of quinine. The present experiments were carried out to determine the roles of quinine and relative humidity in the maze. The flies avoided the lighted vial containing quinine even if they had no tarsal contact with quinine, and this result was not due to any odor of quinine. Subsequent experiments showed that relative humidity in the lighted vial, and probably in the arm leading to it, was an aversive stimulus, which partly explains why the flies avoided the lighted vial. However, in conditions in which the flies had tarsal contact with water or quinine it was confirmed that flies trained with quinine have higher avoidance scores than those trained with water only. Moreover, individual aversion to humidity was not correlated with the individual avoidance score: At similar levels of motivation (i.e., similar levels of aversion to humidity), some flies learn to avoid the lighted vial containing quinine whereas others do not. All these results show that, in addition to quinine, humidity is an unconditioned aversive stimulus in our paradigm and thus needs to be tightly controlled in experiments of conditioned avoidance.     

The Results of the Implementation of a Professional Supervision Model on Counselor Trainee Behavior

This article presents the results of the application of a professional model for practicum supervision using co-equal supervisors. This study found that beginning practicum students (a) learned to use a counseling theory in a professional manner with clients, (b) were rated by an expert rater as having skills equal to or higher than a comparison group of interns, graduate students, and employed agency counselors, and (c) rated the professional supervision practicum higher than did those under the usual apprenticeship supervision model. The authors suggest that counselor educators and supervisors can train students in less time to respond at a more complex skill level than has been previously reported in the literature.     

Divergent Ontologies with Converging Conclusions: A case study comparison of comparative methodologies

Informed by different ontologies, rival research traditions in comparative education forward divergent epistemological platforms, types of analyses and conclusions for the comparative education community. This article examines two studies of educational designs in socialist states-- Joseph Farrell's study of Allende's Chile and Jonathon Jansen's study of Mugabe's Zimbabwe--both of which share remarkably similar conclusions, despite their disparate geo-cultural contexts, as well as divergent research methodologies. Through a comparative analysis of the religio-political conflicts highlighted in each study's conclusion, as well as the research methodologies utilised by each comparativist, this article suggests that rival research traditions can not only arrive at similar conclusions, but offer one another complementary, though divergent, ontologies, which together offer a more complete and fuller picture of the reality or realities being studied.