Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Appreciating And Promoting Resilience In Families, John W. Eagle, Susan M. Sheridan

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Families comprise the primary context for a child’s development. As the composition of the family system continues to change, the adult caregivers’ role has become increasingly important in fostering healthy developmental trajectories for their children. Family relationships and interaction styles are central to developing competence and promoting adaptive educational, social, emotional, and behavioral functioning. Families give children an informal education (Turnbull et al., 2015), which is a prerequisite to successful experiences in the classroom (Adams & Christenson, 2000). Whereas the school environment sets up developmental tasks for students, the family serves as an important resource for the acquisition of these …

Concern, Conflict, And Chaos: Nebraska Educator Experiences During The Pandemic, Amanda Witte, Amanda Prokasky, Courtney Boise, Renata T.M. Gomes, Gwen Nugent, Susan Sheridan

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

During the spring of 2020, Nebraska’s 983 public schools sat vacant, and Nebraska’s 329,290 Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12 students were learning in environments other than school. Educators were expected to pivot quickly from traditional classroom instruction to remote experiences. Understanding the effects of the pandemic on educators is necessary to effectively meet their needs and the needs of students. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the experiences of Nebraska’s urban and rural PreK–Grade 12 educators during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In surveys collected in July 2020, participants (i.e., superintendents, principals, and teachers) completed …

Communication With Families: Understanding The Perspectives Of Early Childhood Teachers, Pearl Avari, Erin Hamel, Rachel E. Schachter, Holly Hatton-Bowers

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Communication between teachers and families in early childhood is a key aspect of successful teacher-family engagement. The goal of this exploratory study was to investigate how teachers communicated with families in early childhood classrooms and what they communicated about. This study of 31 teachers working with children birth to age five, primarily in the Midwestern U.S. examined how they described communication with families using semi-structured interviews. Findings indicated that teachers used multiple formats to communicate with families about children’s daily routines, developmental progress, and other relevant information. Teachers preferred in-person communication although challenges occurred due to classroom dynamics and the …

Prospective Attitude About The Importance Of Planning Pregnancies Is Associated With Retrospective Attitude Toward A Specific Pregnancy, Arthur L. Greil, Karina M. Shreffler, Stacy M. Tiemeyer, Julia Mcquillan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Several theories of fertility behavior assume that planning is important to women. Is this a reasonable assumption? To answer this question, the authors used the National Survey of Fertility Barriers. Among women with unsure or positive fertility intentions at wave 1, most (75 percent) agreed with the statement “It is important to plan my pregnancies.” Logistic regression, adjusted for control variables, indicated that fertility intentions are a distinct construct from pregnancy planning attitudes. Multinomial regression of retrospective pregnancy attitude three years later among a subsample of women who had pregnancies during that period indicated that women who felt that it …

Lg But Not T: Opposition To Transgender Rights Amidst Gay And Lesbian Acceptance, Kelsy Burke, Emily Kazyak, Marissa Oliver

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This article draws on sociological theories of affect and ambivalence to empirically examine individuals who express support for the rights of gays and lesbians but not transgender people. Using a representative survey of Nebraska residents and quantitative and qualitative analysis of close-ended and open-ended responses, we find that the group we call “inconsistents” are more similar demographically to consistent opponents, they outnumber consistent opponents, and that they rely on two types of logics to justify their views. For nearly all who oppose employment nondiscrimination and bathroom protections for transgender people, they use an identity logic to express skepticism, and often …

Syrian Refugee Women’S Maternal Mental Health Perceptions, Coping Strategies, And Help-Seeking Practices In Lebanon, Nada A. Alnaji, Julie A. Tippens, Wael Elrayes

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Introduction: Globally, 27 million female refugees of reproductive age are subjected to numerous socio-ecological factors that increase their risks of mental health issues, especially during the postpartum period. This study seeks to explore Syrian refugee mothers’ experiences and perceptions of postpartum depression.

Methods: We used a qualitative phenomenological approach to interview purposively sampled typical postpartum Syrian mothers living in informal camps in Lebanon to evaluate their maternal mental health perceptions, coping strategies, and help-seeking practices.

Results: Results revealed three major themes: conceptualizing maternal depression as extraordinary and ordinary, cultural perceptions of mental health help-seeking, and coping with negative emotions.

Discussions: …

Nebraskans Attitudes Towards Innovations In Food Production And Processing 2019 And 2020 – Methodology Report, Julia Mcquillan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

SURVEY QUESTIONS

Religious Exemption, Lgbt Rights, And The Social Construction Of Harm And Freedom, Emily Kazyak, Kelsy Burke, Maia Behrendt, Marissa Oliver

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

In this article, we examine how courts make decisions in religious exemption cases that implicate LGBT rights in a wide range of contexts including education, employment, and medical care. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis of 50 federal cases decided between 1990 and 2020, we demonstrate a shift in how anti-LGBT sentiment is expressed by parties bringing religion-based claims—from a broad condemnation of LGBT identity to a narrow condemnation of same-sex marriage—and find that courts are more likely to rule in favor of the latter. We show how courts construct competing understandings of harm and religious freedom depending on the context …

Living Alone During Old Age And The Risk Of Dementia: Assessing The Cumulative Risk Of Living Alone, Benjamin A. Shaw, Tse-Chuan Yang, Seulki Kim

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Objectives: This study examines the association between living alone during old age and dementia. Whereas most previous studies on this topic utilize measures of living alone status that were obtained at a single point in time, we compare this typical approach to one that measures long-term exposure to living alone among older adults and assesses whether dementia is more likely to occur within individuals with more accumulated time living alone. Methods: Data come from the Health and Retirement Study, with a follow-up period of 2000–2018. A total of 18,171 older adults were followed during this period, resulting in 78,490 person-waves …

Making The Case: Examining Outcomes Of Religious‑Based Claims In Federal Litigation Involving Lgbt Rights, Emily Kazyak, Kelsy Burke, Marissa Oliver, Maia Behrendt

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Introduction In this manuscript, we analyze 62 US federal cases from 1990 to 2020 that implicate the issue of religious freedom and LGBT rights. Popular and scholarly commentary on the advancement of LGBT rights in the twenty-first century has speculated a rise in religious exemption litigation as a strategy to oppose such rights. Yet, we lack empirical data to confirm or reject this assumption and to understand patterns and trends within such cases.

Methods We perform bivariate analyses to examine trends with regard to how the court rules on these cases.

Results Our findings show that religious litigants are not …

Social Vulnerability And The Prevalence Of Opioid Use Disorder Among Older Medicare Beneficiaries In U.S. Counties, Tse-Chuan Yang, Seulki Kim, Stephen A. Matthews, Carla Shoff

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Objectives: Recent research has investigated the factors associated with the prevalence of opioid use disorder (OUD) among older adults (65+), which has rapidly increased in the past decade. However, little is known about the relationship between social vulnerability and the prevalence of OUD, and even less about whether the correlates of the prevalence of OUD vary across the social vulnerability spectrum. This study aims to fill these gaps. Methods: We assemble a county-level data set in the contiguous United States (U.S.) by merging 2021 Medicare claims with the CDC’s social vulnerability index and other covariates. Using the total number of …

Accuracy Of Covid-19 Relevant Knowledge Among Youth: Number Of Information Sources Matters, Patricia Wonch Hill, Judy Diamond, Amy N. Spiegel, Elizabeth Vanwormer, Meghan Leadabrand, Julia Mcquillan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Can comics effectively convey scientific knowledge about COVID-19 to youth? What types and how many sources of information did youth have about COVID-19 during the pandemic? How are sources of information associated with accurate COVID-19 knowledge? To answer these questions, we surveyed youth in grades 5–9 in a Midwestern United States school district in the winter of 2020–2021. The online survey used measures of COVID-19 knowledge and sources, with an embedded experiment on COVID-19 relevant comics. Guided by an integrated science capital and just-in-time health and science information acquisition model, we also measured level of science capital, science identity, and …

The Creation Of The Global Scales For Early Development (Gsed) For Children Aged 0–3 Years: Combining Subject Matter Expert Judgements With Big Data, Gareth Mccray, Dana Mccoy, Patricia Kariger, Magdalena Janus, Maureen M. Black, Susan M. Chang, Fahmida Tofail, Iris Eekhout, Marcus Waldman, Stef Van Buuren, Rasheda Khanam, Sunil Sazawal, Ambreen Nizar, Yvonne Schönbeck, Arsène Zongo, Alexandra Brentani, Yunting Zhang, Tarun Dua, Vanessa Cavallera, Abbie Raikes, Ann M. Weber, Kieran Bromley, Abdullah Baqui, Arunangshu Dutta, Imran Nisar, Symone B. Detmar, Romuald Anago, Pacifico Mercadante, Fan Jiang, Raghbir Kaur, Katelyn Hepworth, Marta Rubio-Codina, Samuel N. Kembou, Salahuddin Ahmed, Gill A. Lancaster, Melissa Gladstone

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Introduction With the ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals, there is an increased emphasis on early childhood development (ECD) and well-being. The WHO led Global Scales for Early Development (GSED) project aims to provide population and programmatic level measures of ECD for 0–3 years that are valid, reliable and have psychometrically stable performance across geographical, cultural and language contexts. This paper reports on the creation of two measures: (1) the GSED Short Form (GSED-SF)— a caregiver reported measure for population-evaluation— self-administered with no training required and (2) the GSED Long Form (GSED-LF)— a directly administered/observed measure for programmatic evaluation—administered by …

Food Waste, Preference, And Cost: Perceived Barriers And Self-Reported Food Service Best Practices In Family Child Care Homes, Divya Patel, Daisy Butzer, Bethany D. Williams, Dipti Dev, Diane Horm, Denise Finneran, Bryce Lowery, Janis E. Campbell, Susan B. Sisson

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Background: Family Child Care Homes (FCCHs) are a setting where providers care for children at their own residence. FCCHs face unique challenges, and children may not always receive optimal nutrition and have higher risk of obesity compared to other programs. The objective of this study was to determine differences in food service best practices scores between FCCHs who did/did not perceive barriers to serving healthy meals. Methods: FCCHs (n = 167) self-reported demographics and perceived barriers to serving healthy foods. Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care was used to assess food served with 1 (indicating poor practice) …

Importance Of Good Communications For Generational Ag Business Transfers, Allan Vyhnalek

Cornhusker Economics

Adapted from Right Risk, volume 10, Issue 10, October 2022.

Effective communication within a farm or ranch family, especially when multiple generations are operating and managing the business, is the underpinning of all other decisions made in a family business. It is critical that farm and ranch families identify areas of contention and develop communication skills that will allow them to negotiate satisfying outcomes. This may involve basic skills training, including communication, problem solving, and decision making.

Approaches Mainline Protestant Pastors Use To Work With Lgb People And Their Families: Implications For Family Therapists, Christi R. Mcgeorge, Katelyn O. Coburn

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

When a loved one comes out as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB), families often seek the assistance of a trusted professional. For many families that involves seeking the consultation of a religious leader. This queer theory informed qualitative study sought to explore how Christian pastors work with LGB individuals and their families. Additionally, this study explored how pastors’ approaches to working with LGB individuals and their families varied based on the degree to which families were accepting or rejecting of their LGB family members. Twenty-one mainline Protestant Christian pastors were interviewed. Thematic analysis identified three themes and a number of …

Disagreements And Proper Respect In Farm/Ranch Succession, Allan Vyhnalek

Cornhusker Economics

Adapted from "Does Disrespect Have a Place in Your Ag Legacy?" Volume 6, Issue 1, February 2021, Ag Legacy, by Caleb Carter, consultant to the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics in the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Briefly covers disagreements and proper respect in farm/ranch succession.

An Exploratory Study Of Early Childhood Coaches’ Practices And Professional Learning Needs, Rachel E. Schachter, Holly Hatton-Bowers, Hayley Jackson, Lisa Knoche

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Coaching is increasingly being used as a mechanism to improve the quality of early childhood education. Yet, for coaching outside of researcher-controlled interventions, limited information details coaches’ reports of their practices’ professional learning needs. We addressed this gap via an exploratory study utilizing online questionnaires of 91 coaches working with educators in a Midwestern US state across 12 coaching initiatives. Most participants had less than 5 years of experience working as an early childhood coach. Almost a third coached for multiple initiatives. Coaching occurred via multiple formats and often addressed behavior management and social emotional development regardless of the coaching …

Sexual Activity Between Victims And Perpetrators Following A Sexual Assault: A Systematic Literature Review And Critical Feminist Analysis, Katie M. Edwards, Christina M. Dardis

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Rarely are perpetrators found guilty of sexual assault when the victim engaged in sex with the perpetrator following the sexual assault. Although the recent trial of Harvey Weinstein is an exception, the fact that his accusers engaged in consensual sex with him following the alleged assaults ignited debate that garnered international attention. The purpose of this paper was to conduct a systematic review to (1) document the extent to which victims engage in sex with the perpetrator following a sexual assault and (2) examine theoretical explanations for this phenomenon. Five peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1988 and 2016 were identified. …

What Aspects Of Religiosity Are Associated With Values?, Philip Schwadel, Sam A. Hardy

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

A large body of research shows that religiosity in general is associated with values. Yet, we know little about the specific aspects of religiosity that drive this association. Using nationally representative data from a sample of young adults in the United States, we examined how various aspects of religiosity—religious tradition, service attendance, frequency of prayer, religious salience, belief in God, closeness to God, and number of religious friends—are associated with the 10 values that compose Schwartz’s circle of values. Bivariate results indicate that most measures of religiosity are correlated with Schwartz’s circle of values. Multivariate regression results, however, show that …

Training Packages For The Use Of Child Development Tools In Low/Middle-Income Countries: A Review, Maria Neocleous, Katelyn Hepworth, Vanessa Cavallera, Melissa Gladstone

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Background We are now moving beyond the focus of ’child survival’ to an era which promotes children thriving and developing rather than simply ’surviving’. In doing so, we are becoming more aware of the large variation of child development screening tools available globally, but in particular, those in low/middle-income countries (LMICs).

Methods This narrative review identifies 24 child development tools used in LMICs. We aimed to identify information on training accessibility and training design, assessment methods and cost of training. For those tools with no training information identified or for any tools identified as providing online training, the tool author …

County Social Isolation And Opioid Use Disorder Among Older Adults: A Longitudinal Analysis Of Medicare Data, 2013–2018, Tse-Chuan Yang, Carla Shoff, Seulki Kim, Benjamin A. Shaw

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This study aims to fill three knowledge gaps: (1) unclear role of ecological factors in shaping older adults’ risk of opioid use disorder (OUD), (2) a lack of longitudinal perspective in OUD research among older adults, and (3) underexplored racial/ethnic differences in the determinants of OUD in older populations. This study estimates the effects of county-level social isolation, concentrated disadvantage, and income inequality on older adults’ risk of OUD using longitudinal data analysis. We merged the 2013–2018 Medicare population (aged 65+) data to the American Community Survey 5-year county-level estimates to create a person-year dataset (N = 47,291,217 person-years) and …

Two Mothers, One Grandmother: Intergenerational Ambivalence In Heterosexual Mother‑Lbq Daughter Relationships, Emily Kazyak, Rosalind D. Kichler, Jess Morrow, Eliza Thor

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Using the theoretical framing of structural ambivalence, which points to how competing cultural norms can cause conflict in family relationships, this paper asks: how does the transition to parenthood affect the intergenerational family relationship between LBQ adult women and their heterosexual mothers? Analyzing qualitative data from interviews with three adult child-parent dyads, we discuss how two cultural norms manifest in these relationships: pronatalism, or the privileging of procreation and heteronormativity, or the privileging of heterosexuality. In some ways, the intergenerational family relationship is strengthened as both LGB daughters and their heterosexual mothers express that the grandchild resulted in their becoming …

What Knowledge Do Early Childhood Teachers Use During Literacy Instruction? Using Stimulated Recall To Investigate An Unexplored Phenomenon, Rachel E. Schachter

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

This study utilized a novel phenomenological approach with a stimulated recall procedure to understand the pedagogical reasoning of eight early child teachers during the enactment of literacy instruction in whole-group meeting and language arts activities. This approach to investigating knowledge—in contrast to more tra­ditional conceptualizations of knowledge—focused on knowledge use as a process and prioritized teachers’ perspectives on knowledge used to enact literacy instruc­tion in their own classrooms. Additionally, it allowed for a more nuanced investi­gation of the role of setting and teacher characteristics that are often examined in association with literacy instruction (e.g., degree attainment, years of experience, curriculum, …

The False Dichotomy Of Sex And Religion In America, Kelsy Burke

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Religion and sexuality are polysemic categories. While conservative religion often fights against progressive sexual politics in contemporary America, this “usual story” is fractured and destabilized by people navigating the relationship between religion and sexuality as complex social creatures, not pundits or caricatures. Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship, I examine salient issues of sexual politics—including abortion and reproductive rights, LGBT rights, and pornography—to show how religious actors have been on both sides of these debates. Because of this polysemic complexity, scholars of religion must not only tend to the dynamic interaction between religion and other categories, we must also recognize and study …

Risk And Protective Factors For Sexual Aggression Across The Ecosystem: An Overview, Emily A. Waterman, Katie M. Edwards

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Prevention of sexual aggression (which ranges from perpetration of unwanted sexual contact to attempted/completed rape) is a complex public health and safety issue that requires attention to multiple levels of social ecology (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2004). The social ecological model provides a framework for understanding how risk and protective factors for sexual aggression exist at multiple levels, with some factors being more proximal such as the individual attitudes, and other factors being more distal such as the broader culture (e.g., laws and policies) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013). Indeed, research indicates a variety of risk …

Informal And Formal Mentoring Of Sexual And Gender Minority Youth: A Systematic Review, Katie Edwards, Jillian R. Scheer, Victoria Mauer

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Research demonstrates that mentoring relationships can promote positive outcomes for youth across numerous domains, a topic of importance to school social workers. Whereas most mentoring research to date has been conducted with heterosexual cisgender youth, there is a growing body of literature that examines mentoring experiences among sexual and gender minority youth (SGMY). The purpose of this article is to conduct a systematic literature review of informal and formal mentoring experiences among SGMY. Results from twelve studies that met inclusion criteria suggested that (1) the majority of SGMY report having a mentor/role model; (2) demographics are generally unrelated to having …

Searching For Mental Health Services: Search Strings And Information Acquisition, Antover Tuliao, Natira D. Mullet, Lindsey G. Hawkins, Derek Holyoak, Marisa Weerts, Anthony Inyang

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Based on decision sciences and information processing theories, how information is acquired is the foundation of decisions and choices subsequently made. Adapting the Active Information Search methodology, the aim for this study is to examine what information potential mental health clients look for in a service provider through their use of search strings. College students (N = 519) from a large public university from the southwest USA (data collection from August to December 2018) were asked in an online survey to imagine themselves needing mental health services and list down the search string they would use in a search engine …

Who Owns This? Ways That Property Can Be Owned And Transferred In Nebraska, Jessica Groskopf, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

Discusses ways that property can be owned and transferred in Nebraska in the context of farm management in Nebraska, United States.

Promising Findings That The Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators’ Program (Chime) Strengthens Early Childhood Teachers’ Emotional Resources: An Iterative Study, Holly Hatton-Bowers, Caron Clark, Gilbert R. Parra, Jessica L. Calvi, Michael Yellow Bird, Pearl Avari, Jaclynn Foged, John Smith

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Findings suggest that an eight-week mindfulness compassion-based program, Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators (CHIME), is a feasible professional development intervention for early childhood (EC) teachers to support their emotion regulation and psychological and workplace well-being. We offer preliminary evidence that learning about mindfulness, self-compassion, and social-emotional learning supports EC teachers in strengthening their knowledge and application of practices to be more mindful and less emotionally reactive and emotionally exhausted at work. In analyzing both EC teacher feedback and survey data from two pilot studies, there was promising evidence that participating in CHIME enhanced awareness of emotions and the development of …