Understanding the mediating role of corporal punishment in the association between maternal stress,efficacy, co-parenting and children's adjustment difficulties among Arab mothers

This study, guided by the Family Systems Theory, examines the direct effect of maternal use of corporal punishment on children's adjustment difficulties. Also, it explores whether corporal punishment serves as a mediating factor in the relationship between several maternal characteristics, marital relationships, and children's adjustment difficulties. A total of 2,447 Arab mothers completed anonymous, structured, self-report questionnaires. The use of corporal punishment was generally strongly supported by the Arab mothers in our sample. A greater likelihood of using corporal punishment was found among mothers of boys rather than girls, among mothers with lower perceived self-efficacy to discipline children, and among mothers with a lower perception of their husbands’ participation in child-related labor. In addition, the higher a mother's reports on disagreement with her husband about discipline methods and the stronger her level of maternal stress, the more likely she was to use corporal punishment. Corporal punishment also mediated the association between the above mentioned factors and child adjustment difficulties. Furthermore, a husband's emotional support and family socioeconomic status were directly associated to children's adjustment difficulties. The results of the current study emphasize the need to observe children's development within the context of their family systems and to consider the mutual influences of different subsystems such as marital relationships and mother–child interactions. Prevention and intervention programs should raise parents’ awareness concerning the harmful effects of corporal punishment and take into account the impact of dynamic transactions of parental conflicts and disagreements regarding discipline methods on child outcomes.     

Four-year longitudinal impact evaluation of the Action for Children UK Neglect Project: Outcomes for the children,families, Action for Children,and the UK

Neglect has a devastating impact on children and is the most pervasive form of child maltreatment in the United Kingdom. The study purpose was to establish outcomes for neglected children following structured assessment and intervention to ascertain what worked and why it worked.     

房价波动对贫富差距影响的作用机理

房地产市场的发展给中国经济带来了活力,然而房地产市场快速发展,也为中国经济催生出各种难题,稳定房价是解决中国经济和诸多社会问题的一把钥匙。房价上涨会通过财富分配效应、信贷效应和产业替代效应等多种途径扩大贫富差距,因而应想方设法稳定房地产市场的发展,缩小贫富差距。     

Feeling Caught: Adult Children's Experiences with Parental Infidelity

The purpose of this study was to understand what, if any, messages adult children recalled receiving from family members following the discovery of their parents’ infidelity that either discouraged or encouraged feeling caught. Thirty-eight individuals were interviewed. Findings suggested that adult children received messages about parental conflict being between their parents, no one being the good/bad guy, and speaking favorably about change, all of which discouraged feeling caught. Messages that encouraged feeling caught involved urging the child to uncover information, serve as a mediator, and field other family members’ opinions. These findings are compared to previous research.     

Bereaved Parents' Negotiation of Identity Following the Death of a Child

This study examines changes in bereaved parents' identities following the death of a child. The bereaved parents in this study experienced two dialectical contradictions of identity, which are: (a) a parent without a child to parent and (b) I'm an outsider-I'm an insider. Results describe how parents used communication to negotiate these contradictions of identity. Implications for the study of parental bereavement, communication, and identity are discussed.     

A Therapeutic Conceptualization of Adult Children of Alcoholics

This study revealed that problem drinking and an elevated need to control hinder college student ACoAs more than their non-ACoA peers. A multivariate analysis, using the Michigan Alcohol Screening Test (MAST) and Ego Grasping Orientation (EGO) as measures of the dependent variables of problem drinking and control, was used with a college freshman sample. Based on the results, routine problem drinking assessment of ACoAs by student services personnel was suggested. The manifestation of an elevated need to control was thought to range from the popular ACoA styles to the personality disorders. A method for determining an ACoA's place in this range, as well as the implications for psychotherapy, was outlined.     

Parental involvement and Chinese elementary students’ achievement goals: the moderating role of parenting style

Past research has revealed direct effects of parental involvement and parenting style on children’s achievement goals separately, however, it is necessary to investigate the interactive mechanism in an integrated way. This study examined the relations between children’s perception of different dimensions of parental involvement (i.e. home-based involvement, school-based involvement and academic socialisation) and their achievement goals, and the moderating role of parenting style (i.e. parental autonomy support vs. psychological control). Participants were 614 Chinese fourth and fifth grades students. Results showed that home-based involvement was positively associated with performance-approach goals, school-based involvement was positively associated with mastery goals, and academic socialisation was positively associated with both mastery and performance-approach goals. Parental psychological control moderated the relationships between performance-approach goals and two types of parental involvement: Academic socialisation and home-based involvement. These findings underscored the need of taking a multidimensional approach in conceptualising parental involvement, and that parental involvement should be expressed in an appropriate context of parenting style.     

The cultural shaping of parental involvement: theoretical insights from Israeli Jewish parents’ involvement in the primary schooling of their children

This paper presents a theoretical argument regarding the power of school to shape parental involvement in culturally informed ways. The paper emerges out of preliminary fieldwork among Jewish middle-class parents in a town in northern Israel, during which our attention was drawn to the intense activity in and around their children’s transition to primary school. This activity became a lens for the exploration and articulation of a theoretical claim, according to which parental involvement is not just a matter of the fit or lack of fit between the cultural capital imported from home into school, as posited by much of the relevant literature. Rather, the cultural shaping of parental involvement takes place within and through encounters between school and family: by means of the school’s cultivation of ‘proper’ disposition and comportment for parents, the power of emotional community and the recruitment of a key cultural symbol.     

Taking Stock and Moving Forward: Lessons From Two Plus Decades of Research on the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program

In this article we review the substantial literature on the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the U.S.’s oldest and largest urban school voucher program, and use the review to propose an agenda for second generation school voucher research. We review research on student-level impacts, public school response, parental decision-making, fiscal impacts, organizational churn, and the larger public policy issues resulting from Milwaukee’s voucher policy. We conclude that the balance of literature on the MPCP shows limited positive effects for voucher users, positive fiscal impacts for taxpayers, substantial numbers of school closures, and various externalities that need to be better understood given the program’s size and prominence. Given this, we suggest a future research agenda focused on the question of how to make voucher policies as successful as possible.