Risk and Resilience of Somali Children in the Context of Climate Change, Famine, and Conflict

Climate change is an existential threat to all of humanity. Its impact on the children of Somalia provides insights into the severity of risks posed by climate change to current and future generations. Globally, there has been a continuous increase in mean annual temperatures since 1991 and scientists anticipate an increase of up to 4.3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Concomitantly, Somalia has experienced a decrease in annual rainfall, resulting in recurrent droughts. According to the UN’s emergency aid coordination office, these droughts have grown in frequency and intensity over the past three decades, fueling increased frequency of famine and contributing to internal conflict and civil war. In this article, the impact of climate change on children, exemplified by the plight of Somali children, is viewed through the lens of cumulative adversity and related consequences of poverty on malnutrition, illness, disruptions of family systems, and displacement, with a diaspora around the globe. The paper promotes a multi-systems resilience framework that guides strategies for addressing the complex, cascading crises that accompany climate change, exploring the construct of resilience from the individual/interpersonal level through family systems and communities, including a reframing of the Somali diaspora. The paper concludes with a series of global transnational policy recommendations based on children’s rights, the promotion of resilience, and approaching climate change from a child sensitive perspective, encouraging youth engagement and leadership, along with peace-building

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Parental affect profiles predict child emotion regulation and classroom adjustment in families experiencing homelessness

Parenting shapes the development of emotion regulation skills in early childhood, laying a key foundation for social-emotional adjustment. Unfortunately, high adversity exposure may disrupt parental emotion socialization practices and children\u27s regulatory development. The current study used variable- and person-centered approaches to evaluate links among parental emotion expressiveness, children\u27s observed emotion regulation, and teacher-reported adjustment among 214 4- to 6-year-old children experiencing homelessness, an indicator of high cumulative risk and acute adversity. Structured parent-child interaction tasks were recorded on site in emergency shelters over the summer and micro-socially coded for parent and child expressions of anger, positive affect, and internalizing distress. We anticipated that parental modeling of predominantly negative emotion expression would be associated with more child dysregulation during parent-child interaction and worse adjustment at school, as reported by teachers the following school year. Preliminary analyses indicated that children\u27s observed difficulty downregulating anger was associated robustly with teacher-reported social-behavioral problems. Latent profile analysis was used to identify three patterns of parental emotion expression characterized by above-average expression of positive affect, internalizing distress, and anger. Parents’ likelihood of membership in the elevated anger profile significantly predicted children\u27s observed difficulty down-regulating anger and higher social-behavioral problems at school. In addition to ongoing efforts to reduce poverty-related risk, supporting adaptive anger regulation in parents and young children may be important for enhancing resilience among families experiencing homelessness and similar conditions of high cumulative risk

Children\u27s Behavioral Traits and Risk of Injury: Analyses from a Case-Control Study of Agricultural Households

Problem: Children on family agricultural operations have high risk of injury. The association between children\u27s behavioral traits and their risk of injury is not well understood. Method: Data from the Regional Rural Injury Study-II were used to assess behavioral risk factors for injury to children ages six to \u3c20 years. A total of 379 injury events (cases) and 1,562 randomly selected controls were identified. Adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), calculated using logistic regression, were used to estimate injury risk in reference to behavioral traits. Results: Injury risks were greater for children with high levels of depressive symptoms (OR=1.9, CI=1.0-3.7) and aggression (OR=1.6, CI=0.9-2.7), and low levels of careful/cautious behavior (OR=1.8, CI=1.1-2.9). Children with low levels of self-regulation had reduced risks (OR=0.4, CI=0.2-0.8). Discussion: Results suggest that children\u27s behaviors affect their risk of agricultural injury. Additional research could elucidate mechanisms and inform interventions. Impact on industry: The development of multifaceted, sustainable approaches for prevention is necessary for this unique population. These findings suggest a need for interventions that incorporate specific behavior-related risk factors in the context of family farms and ranches

Resilience and self-efficacy beliefs: A study of immigrant adolescents

Η ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗ ΒΡΙΣΚΕΤΑΙ ΣΤΟ ΑΡΧΕΙΟ PDFThe abstract is available in the PD

Resilience and Effective Learning in First-Year Undergraduate Computer Science

Many factors have been shown to be important for supporting effective learning and teaching — and thus progression and success — in higher education. While factors such as key introductory-level (CS1) knowledge and skills, as well as pre-university learning and qualifications, have been extensively explored, the impact of measures of positive psychology are less well understood for the discipline of computer science. University study can be a period of significant transition for many students; therefore an individual’s positive psychology may have considerable impact upon their response to these challenges. This work investigates the relationships between effective learning and success (first-year performance and attendance) and two measures of positive psychology: Grit and the Nicolson McBride Resilience Quotient (NMRQ).Data was captured by integrating Grit (N=58) and Resilience (N=50) questionnaires and related coaching into the first-year of the undergraduate computer science programme at a single UK university. Analyses demonstrate that NMRQ is significantly linked to attendance and performance for individual subjects and year average marks; however, this was not the case for Grit. This suggests that development of targeted interventions to support students in further developing their resilience could support their learning, as well as progression and retention. Resilience could be used, in concert with other factors such as learning analytics, to augment a range of existing models to predict future student success, allowing targeted academic and pastoral support

Positive Psychology in Sales: Integrating Psychological Capital

As positive psychology moves into the workplace, researchers have been able to demonstrate the desirable impact of positive organizational behavior. Specifically, psychological capital (PsyCap) improves employee attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Advancing PsyCap in sales research is important given the need for a comprehensive positive approach to drive sales performance, offset the high cost of salesperson turnover, improve cross-functional sales interfaces, and enrich customer relationships. The authors provide an integrative review of PsyCap, discuss its application in sales, and advance an agenda for future research. Research prescriptions are organized according to individual-level, intra-organizational, and extra-organizational outcomes pertinent to the sales field

Youth violence: What we know and what we need to know.

School shootings tear the fabric of society. In the wake of a school shooting, parents, pediatricians, policymakers, politicians, and the public search for "the" cause of the shooting. But there is no single cause. The causes of school shootings are extremely complex. After the Sandy Hook Elementary School rampage shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, we wrote a report for the National Science Foundation on what is known and not known about youth violence. This article summarizes and updates that report. After distinguishing violent behavior from aggressive behavior, we describe the prevalence of gun violence in the United States and age-related risks for violence. We delineate important differences between violence in the context of rare rampage school shootings, and much more common urban street violence. Acts of violence are influenced by multiple factors, often acting together. We summarize evidence on some major risk factors and protective factors for youth violence, highlighting individual and contextual factors, which often interact. We consider new quantitative "data mining" procedures that can be used to predict youth violence perpetrated by groups and individuals, recognizing critical issues of privacy and ethical concerns that arise in the prediction of violence. We also discuss implications of the current evidence for reducing youth violence, and we offer suggestions for future research. We conclude by arguing that the prevention of youth violence should be a national priority. (PsycINFO Database Recor