The Family Alliance Assessment Scales: Steps Toward Validity and Reliability of an Observational Assessment Tool for Early Family Interactions

We present the first steps in the validation of an observational tool for father-mother-infant interactions: the FAAS (Family Alliance Assessment Scales). Family-level variables are acknowledged as unique contributors to the understanding of the socio-affective development of the child, yet producing reliable assessments of family-level interactions poses a methodological challenge. There is, therefore, a clear need for a validated and clinically relevant tool. This validation study has been carried out on three samples: one non-referred sample, of families taking part in a study on the transition to parenthood (normative sample; n=30), one referred for medically assisted procreation (infertility sample; n=30) and one referred for a psychiatric condition in one parent (clinical sample; n=15). Results show that the FAAS scales have (1) good inter-rater reliability and (2) good validity, as assessed through known-group validity by comparing the three samples and through concurrent validity by checking family interactions against parents' self-reported marital satisfactio

The Family Alliance Model: A Way to Study and Characterize Early Family Interactions

The aim of this paper is to present the family alliance (FA) model, which is designed to conceptualize the relational dynamics in the early family. FA is defined as the coordination a family can reach when fulfilling a task, such as playing a game or having a meal. According to the model, being coordinated as a family depends on four interactive functions: participation (all members are included), organization (members assume differentiated roles), focalization (family shares a common theme of activity), affect sharing (there is empathy between members). The functions are operationalized through the spatiotemporal characteristics of non-verbal interactions: for example, distance between the partners, orientation of their bodies, congruence within body segments, signals of readiness to interact, joint attention, facial expressions. Several standardized observational situations have been designed to assess FA: The Lausanne Trilogue Play (with its different versions), in which mother, father, and baby interact in all possible configurations of a triad, and the PicNic Game for families with several children. Studies in samples of non-referred and referred families (for infant or parental psychopathology) have highlighted different types of FA: disorganized, conflicted, and cooperative. The type of FA in a given family is stable through the first years and is predictive of developmental outcomes in children, such as psychofunctional symptoms, understanding of complex emotions, and Theory of Mind development

L'Épuisement professionnel chez le personnel enseignant : revue de littérature : recherche /

Titre de la couv.Bibliogr.: p. 22-2

Genre et statistiques : est-ce que « l’analyse de grappes » peut nous aider à comprendre la place du genre dans la recherche de meilleures conditions de travail ?

Work-family balancing (WFB), usually associated with women, is affected by scheduling, flexibility of working arrangements, organizational support, and other workplace parameters. Following a request from the women’s committee of a union confederation, we analysed retail work done on unpredictable, variable, extended schedules. Among other procedures such as workplace observations and study of company registers, we performed cluster analysis on the schedule choices of 247 male and 303 female staff.We found that: 4 clusters characterized schedule preferences; men and women were not uniformly distributed across clusters; choices varied within a gender. Diversity of choices was sufficient to allow the employer in principle to match preferences to schedules, but the employer showed little interest in WFB or gender equality. We conclude that cluster analysis lends itself to ergonomic analysis and to strategic intervention. We discuss its advantages and disadvantages for promoting workplace equality

Shared parental care in the first 18 months as a context for sensitivity and coparenting

The present study was aimed at assessing the links between shared parental care and maternal and paternal sensitivity and coparenting over the first 2 years of the child's life. The sample consisted of 69 families who took part in the study when their child was 3, 9, and 18 months old. Sensitivity and coparenting interactions were assessed in our laboratory with situations of observation: a free play and the Lausanne Trilogue Play. The main results are that (a) maternal and paternal sensitivity increases with time but sensitivity is not linked with either maternal or paternal care; (b) coparenting support is higher when the father or the mother is engaged in care at one or two of the time points than when they are engaged at the three time points; and (c) there are interaction effects according to which support is higher in couples where both parents are engaged at the three time points. These results suggest that the interplay of maternal and paternal care has to be taken into account to understand the development of coparenting in the early family