Questionnaires and personality scales were used to study the effect of generational status on stress and personality measures among 247 immigrants. The late immigrant group--immigration after age 14--experienced highest stress, lowest self-esteem, and most external locus of control. A wide discrepancy existed between late and early immigrants on…

Explores forces of tradition and community and pressures to find work and succeed in "modern" world on lives of rural youth. Examines data on 46 youth (aged 17-24) from Sawyer, Maine. Suggests lessons for social service professionals as they help youth, their families, and their communities build constructive future lives. (NEC)

Interviews with 15 gifted/talented adolescents indicated that many of them experienced giftedness as a social handicap. Some students coped with this by managing information about themselves to minimize their visibility as gifted students to others. (Author/JDD)

Explored patterns of coping and adaptation in families which adapted well to birth of a child with developmental disabilities. Found positive adaptation unrelated to degree of disability or soothability, or to family income. Positive family adaptation related to well-functioning parental subsystems, with two-parent families at an advantage, and…

Contrasted parents whose adolescent had left home for college, with those whose child commuted to college from home. Found parent role stress for both groups significantly related to the quality of parent-adolescent communication (for mothers and fathers), and the degree of emotional connectedness (for fathers) in the family prior to the…

Although preservice teachers may be prepared for the uncertainty of teaching by what is implicit in the curriculum, that uncertainty is rarely explicated in journals. This article introduces the issue for discussion and explores what it would mean for teacher education programs to confront uncertainty head on. (JL)

Examines topics related to delivery of terminal care services: ability of various hospice programs to survive financially, contributions of various models of hospice care, impact of Medicare legislation on hospice movement, demonstration of unique hospice intervention, integration of spiritual care into hospice, and role of hospice in care of…

Examined stressors and coping strategies of two-generation farm families. Results identified four key factors creating stressors for family members and four strategies that family members used to cope with stressors. Significant differences in stressors and coping strategies were found between generations and among fathers, mothers, sons, and…

Interviews with 489 runaway and homeless youth (often victims of abuse and neglect) identified two groups: (1) "runners," who leave home intending not to return and (2) "in and outers," who run away as an impulsive temporary coping mechanism. Risk of engaging in illegal activity increased with distance and time away. (Author/VW)

The education and health of students are at risk due to a rise in drug and tobacco use in schools. Social workers can help schools and students by designing, executing, and evaluating prevention interventions. Empirical data from two controlled studies are presented. (VM)

Intermediate grade children (N=24) nominated by teachers for aggressive or hostile behavior were assigned to experimental or control groups, with experimental group receiving a group counseling intervention focusing on cognitive behavior techniques, modeling, role playing, and positive reinforcement. Results suggest that, compared to controls,…

Two experiments investigate how attributes of peer models influenced achievement behaviors among children who had experienced difficulties learning mathematical skills in school. Children in the single-coping-model, multiple-coping-model, and multiple-mastery-model conditions demonstrated higher self-efficacy, skill, and training performance,…

The impact of stress burnout and on the educational organization is discussed. Observations include the need for clarity on the part of special educators concerning expectations of self and others. (JW)

Examination of dynamics of families with a handicapped child should include consideration of: quality of professional support; parents' reactions to transitions in the handicapped child's life; parents' individual differences in resisting stress; extent and nature of the child's disability; and community attitudes toward the particular disability.…

Details the author's experiences in helping her adopted four-year-old daughter from Bangladesh cope with the loss of her biological family and her adjustment to a new culture, and offers suggestions for professionals and parents helping young children make similar adjustments. (HOD)