Type and severity of child abuse and college students'' lifetime suicidality

Objective: The present study compared reported histories and severity of child sexual abuse, child physical abuse, and both, in college men and women.Method: Four hundred and eighty-six consenting undergraduates completed measures of suicidality, sexual abuse (SA), and physical abuse (PA). Based on their responses, they were categorized into 12 mutually exclusive groups: no PA/no SA (n = 234), moderate PA/no SA (n = 78), severe PA/no SA (n = 34), no PA/mild SA (n = 21), moderate PA/mild SA (n = 12), severe PA/mild SA (n = 5), no PA/moderate SA (n = 20), moderate PA/moderate SA (n = 15), and severe PA/moderate SA (n = 10).Results: Participants who reported both severe sexual and severe physical abuse reported more lifetime suicidality than participants who reported either mild sexual and/or physical abuse. Those who reported sexual abuse involving invasive sexual acts such as rape, and physical abuse involving behaviors that resulted in physical injury to the child, were more suicidal than those who reported less severe abuse. In addition, although combined sexual and physical abuse correlated with increased suicidality, unexpectedly, there was no interaction. Finally, women students endorsed more reasons for living than men and about the same level of suicidal ideas and global suicidality, despite a greater likelihood of having been abused.Conclusions: The absence of an interaction between sexual and physical abuse suggests that this increased suicidality is additive rather than multiplicative. An implication is that college counseling personnel need to be aware of the suicidal risk of women and men students reporting either sexual or physical abuse.     

Genuine Religious Tolerance: Is It a Thing of the Past in Public Schools?

The so-called Culture Wars have made the issue of religious tolerance in schools more confusing than ever. Where once free speech trumped nearly every concern in these wars in the public schools, there is now great concern about whether messages put out are politically correct. The preoccupation teachers now have with avoiding speech or themes likely to get them into trouble has led to a new form of censorship. The authors explain that free speech in the educational forum requires respect for every earnest attempt to get at a legitimate truth claim. In matters religious, this epistemic openness is no longer respected. The argument below does not encourage teachers to engage in debate among students in matters religious, or even to encourage it. Nor are the arguments below aimed at introducing religious discourse as a means of developing skills of critical thinking as the feminist, moral philosopher Nel Noddings has previously recommended. The argument simply concludes with the modest recommendation that teachers be more conscientious about indirectly censoring or trivializing student religious speculations.     

General population norms about child abuse and neglect and associations with childhood experiences

BACKGROUND: A variety of definitions of child abuse and neglect exist. However, little is known about norms in the general population as to what constitutes child abuse and neglect or how perceived norms may be related to personal experiences. METHODS: We conducted a random-digit-dialed telephone survey of 504 Washington State adults. Respondents were asked whether they believed each of 34 behaviors, identified in focus groups as possibly physically, sexually or emotionally abusive or neglectful, constituted abuse or neglect. Then, they were asked whether they had experienced 33 of the behaviors. RESULTS: Five of the six behaviors with the highest levels of consensus were for sexual abuse, whereas only one emotionally abusive behavior had a high level of consensus (95% agreement). Consensus that spanking constituted abuse increased with severity. Those respondents who reported experiencing a particular behavior were significantly less likely to believe the behavior abusive for 11 of the 33 behaviors and more likely to believe the behavior abusive for two of the behaviors. Where comparisons were possible, there was a high level of consensus that behaviors identified as abusive in Child Protective Service operational definitions constituted abuse. CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported childhood experiences were associated with perceived norms about child abuse. A better understanding of community norms about child abuse and neglect may be helpful in communicating with the public or allow for better targeting of educational messages through the media, parenting education classes, and so forth.     

Including spirituality in counsellor education: Issues for consideration,with illustrative reference to a New Zealand example

The appropriate inclusion of spirituality in professional counsellor education programmes requires a careful definition of spirituality, and clarification of how it affects the programme's content. It also involves determination of how a programme may be structured to address various aspects of spirituality. This article highlights some of the issues involved in these tasks.     

Student engagement: rhetoric and reality

Recently, there has been much interest in higher education literature and policy on the concepts of student engagement and disengagement. While most academic writings recognise the significance of student engagement, they have tended to concentrate on it in relation to academic activities. Increasingly, universities are ‘cascading’ down the need to improve student engagement to schools and ultimately to individual academics. This article asserts that ideas about student engagement in the university context are often fragmented, contradictory and confused. Even the meaning of the term ‘student engagement’ is uncertain. Further, while government and universities urge attention to student engagement, many of their actions, it may be argued, have contributed to greater student disengagement. Relying on the available literature, we argue that the student experience as a whole is the key to engagement and, thus, efforts to re-engage students cannot be successful until a ‘whole-of-university’ approach is adopted.     

An Investigation of the Feeding,Sleeping, Crying,and Social Behavior of Infants

A randomized experiment was performed in seventeen junior high schools in which students in the experimental group received a special six-week library oriented treatment designed to improve students’ understanding of, attitudes toward, and use of the school library. The treatment was found to have a significant effect on library use and library/librarian attitudes but no effect on reading attitudes. Although there were large differences among the librarians, there was no significant interaction between treatments and librarians.