Kenneth I Maton
Biographic Data
| ID | 298169 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kenneth I Maton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kenneth I |
| FAMILY NAME | Maton |
| SIGNATURE | MATON K I |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Maryland, Baltimore County |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 820 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 41 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 16 |
Baseline Characteristics of the 2015-2019 First Year Student Cohorts of the NIH Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (Build ) Program
The DPC national evaluation has identified a large, longitudinal cohort of students with many from groups historically underrepresented in the biomedical sciences that will inform institutional/national policy level initiatives to help diversify the biomedical workforce
Bridging the research–policy divide
Researchers generally engage in few interactions with policymakers, which limits the extent to which empirical evidence is used to guide public policy and, consequently, the potential effectiveness of public policies in improving societal wellbeing. Although many researchers wish to see their work used for social impact, several factors contribute to researchers' limited policy engagement, including a lack of opportunities for developing policy c…
Perceptions and experiences in higher education
Demographic trends suggest increasing numbers of multiple racial heritage students attending U.S. campuses and universities, a change reflected within psychology. However, there is little empirical investigation into the educational experiences and needs of multiracials. The current study (the second in a series of studies to use data from a national survey of psychology graduate and undergraduate students) compared 2 multiracial groups, Asian Am…
Seymour Sarason in Memorial
Seymour Sarason passed away on January 10, 2010 at the age of 91. He was the author of more than 40 books, including The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change (1971), The Creation of Settings and the Future Societies (1972), and The Psychological Sense of Community: Prospects for a Community Psychology (1974). His groundbreaking ideas were major influences in the .elds of education, community psychology, mental retardation, and care of …
Experiences and perspectives of African American, Latina/o, Asian American, and European American psychology graduate students
A national, Web-based survey of 1,219 African American, Latina/o, Asian American, and European American psychology graduate students revealed both similarities and differences in experiences and perspectives. Mentoring was found to be the strongest predictor of satisfaction across groups. Academic supports and barriers, along with perceptions of diversity within the academic environment, were also important predictors of satisfaction. Students of…
A Community Psychology of Men and Masculinity
This paper introduces the special section by presenting a historical and conceptual review of theory and research on the psychology of men and masculinity and then introducing the section's papers. Men have power because of their gender, but differ in access to power based on other individual characteristics such as social class, income, education, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or physical strength. Men typically have been studied as generic rat…
Healing Men and Community
Men have poorer health and declining social outcomes when compared to women, and research suggests that behaviors related to restrictive and traditional male gender roles contribute to this disparity. This study is an examination of The ManKind Project International (MKPI), a community‐based organization that provides alternative male gender norms and a community support system to help reinforce them. The MKPI runs an intensive, experiential “Tra…
Empowering Community Settings and Community Mobilization
Empowering community settings exist in many community domains. One domain includes groups and organizations that empower oppressed citizens to challenge societal culture and institutions, and take action to change them. To be considered empowering, a community setting must have both an empowering process, and lead to an empowered outcome. Our study tried to answer the following question: Does the empowering community setting model provide a poten…
Empowering Community Settings
The pathways and processes through which empowering community settings influence their members, the surrounding community and the larger society are examined. To generate the proposed pathways and processes, a broad range of studies of community settings were reviewed, in the domains of adult well-being, positive youth development, locality development, and social change. A set of organizational characteristics and associated processes leading to…
Community-Based Interdisciplinary Research
This special issue on community-based interdisciplinary research grew out of the work of the SCRA Interdisciplinary Task Force and an Interdisciplinary Working Conference held at Vanderbilt University in May, 2004. In this introduction to the special issue, the historical context for interdisciplinary underpinnings for community psychology theory, research, action and training is first depicted. This is followed by a brief description of the miss…
Community Psychology at the Crossroads
Effective engagement in interdisciplinary work is critical if community psychology is to achieve its promise as a field of ecological inquiry and social action. The purpose of this paper and special issue is to help make the benefits of interdisciplinary community research clearer and to identify and begin to address its challenges. Although some areas of psychology (e.g., biological, cognitive and health) have made substantial interdisciplinary …
Community contexts for mentoring
Mentoring programs attempt to foster a relationship that is too often missing from the lives of disadvantaged children and youth. However, in view of both the power and the limitations of mentoring programs, it is important to understand how mentoring occurs naturally. Assuming an ecological perspective, we examine mentoring in four contexts: classrooms, youth development organizations, work and service‐learning, and faith‐ based organizations. A…
Minority students of color and the psychology graduate pipeline
Trends since 1989 in the minority graduate pipeline in psychology are examined, with special focus on trends in recent years. Encouraging trends generally outweigh troubling ones at lower levels of the pipeline. However, in recent years disquieting trends dominate at the higher pipeline levels. Promising trends include a rise in the percentage (to nearly 25%) of minority psychology students receiving the bachelor's degree and a rise to more than …
Faith-Based Organizations
Religion as a Meaning System
The development of social policy related to religion has received increasing focus in recent years, yet psychology continues to play a relatively minor role in this important domain. In the current article, religion's positive and negative influences as a meaning system on individual, community, and societal well‐being are delineated. The challenges facing psychology in contributing to public policy development in the religious arena are examined…
Increasing the Number of African American PhDs in the Sciences and Engineering A Strengths-Based Approach
Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, the percentage of African American students who receive PhDs in natural science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields remains disappointingly low. A multifaceted, strengths-based approach to intervention and research that holds great promise for increasing the number of African American students who achieve at the highest levels academically is described. This work began in 1988 with…
Investing in Children, Youth, Families, and Communities
Psychosocial Outcomes of Urban African American Adolescents Born to Teenage Mothers
This is a study of psychosocial outcomes of adolescents born to teenage mothers. Adolescents' problem behaviors, psychological well‐being, social support, school variables, and sexual behaviors are compared across three groups—those born to mothers 17 or younger, mothers 18–19 years old, and mothers 20 or older. Analyses from two samples of African American adolescents from Maryland ( n = 205) and Michigan ( n = 570) are reported. The results fro…
Spirituality, religion, and community psychology
A longitudinal study of stress‐buffering effects for urban African‐American male adolescent problem behaviors and mental health
The stress-buffering hypothesis was explored longitudinally in a sample of 173 urban, male, African-American adolescents. Data on parental and friend support, stressful life events, alcohol and substance use, delinquency, and psychological symptoms were collected twice, six months apart. No support for the stress-buffering hypothesis was found for any of the dependent variables. Friend support also was unrelated to the dependent variables longitu…
Narrative concepts, spiritually based communities
A longitudinal study of stress-buffering effects for urban African-American male adolescent problem behaviors and mental health
The stress-buffering hypothesis was explored longitudinally in a sample of 173 urban, male, African-American adolescents. Data on parental and friend support, stressful life events, alcohol and substance use, delinquency, and psychological symptoms were collected twice, six months apart. No support for the stress-buffering hypothesis was found for any of the dependent variables. Friend support also was unrelated to the dependent variables longitu…
Making a Difference
A multidisciplinary and multilevel framework for social transformation is proposed, encompassing four foundational goals: capacity-building, group empowerment, relational community-building, and culture-challenge. Intervention approaches related to each goal are presented at the setting, geographic community, and societal levels. Four exemplars of social transformation work are then discussed: the Accelerated Schools Project, Meyerhoff Program, M…
Resilience Among Urban African American Male Adolescents
Resilience refers to the notion that some people succeed in the face of adversity. In a risk‐protective model of resilience, a protective factor interacts with a risk factor to mitigate the occurrence of a negative outcome. This study tested longitudinally the protective effects of sociopolitical control on the link between helplessness and mental health. The study included 172 urban, male, African American adolescents, who were interviewed twice…
Beating the Odds
Zada N. Johnson, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 68, No. 1, Preparing Students for the New Millenium: Exploring Factors That Contribute to the Successful Education of African American Students (Winter, 1999), pp. 120-122
Empowering Community Settings
The pathways and processes through which empowering community settings influence their members, the surrounding community and the larger society are examined. To generate the proposed pathways and processes, a broad range of studies of community settings were reviewed, in the domains of adult well-being, positive youth development, locality development, and social change. A set of organizational characteristics and associated processes leading to…
Organizational characteristics of empowering community settings
Although empowerment is often cited as a major guiding construct for community psychology, relatively little is known about the characteristics of empowering community settings. The current paper uses a multiple case study methodology to generate a number of key organizational characteristics of empowering community settings to guide future work in the area. In‐depth, multilevel, longitudinal research was conducted on three empowering community s…
Resilience Among Urban African American Male Adolescents
Resilience refers to the notion that some people succeed in the face of adversity. In a risk‐protective model of resilience, a protective factor interacts with a risk factor to mitigate the occurrence of a negative outcome. This study tested longitudinally the protective effects of sociopolitical control on the link between helplessness and mental health. The study included 172 urban, male, African American adolescents, who were interviewed twice…
Making a Difference
A multidisciplinary and multilevel framework for social transformation is proposed, encompassing four foundational goals: capacity-building, group empowerment, relational community-building, and culture-challenge. Intervention approaches related to each goal are presented at the setting, geographic community, and societal levels. Four exemplars of social transformation work are then discussed: the Accelerated Schools Project, Meyerhoff Program, M…
The Stress-Buffering Role of Spiritual Support
The contribution of spiritual support (perceived support from God) to well-being, especially under conditions of high versus low life stress, has received little empirical study. In the present research, the relationship of spiritual support to well-being for several high and low life-stress samples was examined. With demographic variables controlled, regression analyses indicated that spiritual support: 1) was inversely related to depression and…
Social support, organizational characteristics, psychological well‐being, and group appraisal in three self‐help group populations
This study examined the relationship of three social support and three organizational variables to two well-being and two group appraisal variables among 144 members of Compassionate Friends, Multiple Sclerosis, and Overeaters Anonymous self-help groups. An anonymous questionnaire was the major research instrument. Receiving social support was not significantly related to depression or anxiety but was positively related to perceived group benefit…
Religion as a Community Resource for Well‐Being
The potential of religion as a resource for well‐being is examined, with special focus on prevention, healing, and empowerment pathways of influence— pathways operative both inside congregations and in outreach to the community beyond the congregation. Concerning the prevention pathway, religion offers potentially important access to families and children, and the resources of support, lifestyle values, community access, and volunteers. For the h…
Community settings as buffers of life stress? Highly supportive churches, mutual help groups, and senior centers
Meaningful involvement in instrumental activity and well‐being
Meaningful involvement in instrumental activity, social support, and well-being were assessed in two studies. The first study focused on older adolescents enrolled in college (mean age, 18.8; N = 152), and the second on urban black male, and pregnant female, teen-agers (mean age, 17.1; N = 92), half of whom (N = 46) were school dropouts. In both studies, regression analyses indicated that meaningful instrumental activity was positively related to…
A Community Psychology of Men and Masculinity
This paper introduces the special section by presenting a historical and conceptual review of theory and research on the psychology of men and masculinity and then introducing the section's papers. Men have power because of their gender, but differ in access to power based on other individual characteristics such as social class, income, education, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or physical strength. Men typically have been studied as generic rat…
Coordinated Community Intervention for Domestic Abusers
Increasing the Number of African American PhDs in the Sciences and Engineering A Strengths-Based Approach
Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, the percentage of African American students who receive PhDs in natural science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields remains disappointingly low. A multifaceted, strengths-based approach to intervention and research that holds great promise for increasing the number of African American students who achieve at the highest levels academically is described. This work began in 1988 with…
Minority students of color and the psychology graduate pipeline
Trends since 1989 in the minority graduate pipeline in psychology are examined, with special focus on trends in recent years. Encouraging trends generally outweigh troubling ones at lower levels of the pipeline. However, in recent years disquieting trends dominate at the higher pipeline levels. Promising trends include a rise in the percentage (to nearly 25%) of minority psychology students receiving the bachelor's degree and a rise to more than …
Patterns and psychological correlates of material support within a religious setting
Towards an ecological understanding of mutual‐help groups
Adopted an ecological framework to view mutual-help groups, and illustrated its usefulness by examining aspects of the social ecology of "fit" among 163 members of Compassionate Friends (bereaved parents; CF), Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and Overeaters Anonymous (OA) groups. Concerning person-group fit, personal Spirituality was positively related to (a) Providing Support, and to (b) Group Satisfaction for members of a group whose helping ecology em…
A bridge between cultures
Relatively little research in community psychology has explicitly focused on groups whose world views, values, and practices diverge from mainstream North American and social science culture. Furthermore, when research does include members of subcultural groups, the same research methodologies used to stydy mainstream populations tend to be employed. In the current article, it is proposed that a linked ethnographic—empirical methodology is critic…
Community-Based Interdisciplinary Research
This special issue on community-based interdisciplinary research grew out of the work of the SCRA Interdisciplinary Task Force and an Interdisciplinary Working Conference held at Vanderbilt University in May, 2004. In this introduction to the special issue, the historical context for interdisciplinary underpinnings for community psychology theory, research, action and training is first depicted. This is followed by a brief description of the miss…
Cultural specificity of support sources, correlates and contexts
Levels and correlates of parental support, peer support, partner support, and/or spiritual support among African American and Caucasian youth were examined in three contexts: adolescent pregnancy (Study 1), first year of college (Study 2), and adolescence and young adulthood (ages 15–29; Study 3). Partially consistent with a cultural specificity perspective, in different contexts different support sources were higher in level and/or more strongly…
Life‐style and substance use among male African American urban adolescents
Cluster analyzed four variables: school attendance, employment, church attendance, and delinquency, to develop life-style profiles. Data from 218 African-American urban adolescents were used in the study. Five meaningful clusters were retained and subjected to criterion validity analyses using measures of spirituality, participation in a voluntary organization, self-esteem, and friend's substance use. The five clusters were then compared on cigar…
Factors affecting the birth and death of mutual‐help groups
Examined the predictive relationship of three variables to the birth and death of mutual-help groups for a statewide New Jersey sample of 3,152 groups over a 2-year period. The three variables studied were group affiliation with a national mutual-help organization, local professional involvement in group activities, and group members' type of focal problem. Log-linear logit analysis revealed that the best-fitting model included Affiliation Status…
Preparing the Way
Employed qualitative methods to examine the role of the family in the academic success of very high‐achieving African American males. Findings revealed a complex tapestry of family processes and contexts involved in each youth's journey to outstanding academic achievement. Specifically, the combined importance of parental‐determined academic engagement, strict discipline, nurturance, and community connectedness appeared to counteract potentially …
Experiences and perspectives of African American, Latina/o, Asian American, and European American psychology graduate students
A national, Web-based survey of 1,219 African American, Latina/o, Asian American, and European American psychology graduate students revealed both similarities and differences in experiences and perspectives. Mentoring was found to be the strongest predictor of satisfaction across groups. Academic supports and barriers, along with perceptions of diversity within the academic environment, were also important predictors of satisfaction. Students of…
Community contexts for mentoring
Mentoring programs attempt to foster a relationship that is too often missing from the lives of disadvantaged children and youth. However, in view of both the power and the limitations of mentoring programs, it is important to understand how mentoring occurs naturally. Assuming an ecological perspective, we examine mentoring in four contexts: classrooms, youth development organizations, work and service‐learning, and faith‐ based organizations. A…
Spirituality, religion, and community psychology
Empowering Community Settings and Community Mobilization
Empowering community settings exist in many community domains. One domain includes groups and organizations that empower oppressed citizens to challenge societal culture and institutions, and take action to change them. To be considered empowering, a community setting must have both an empowering process, and lead to an empowered outcome. Our study tried to answer the following question: Does the empowering community setting model provide a poten…
Patterns and psychological correlates of material support within a religious setting
Social support, organizational characteristics, psychological well‐being, and group appraisal in three self‐help group populations
This study examined the relationship of three social support and three organizational variables to two well-being and two group appraisal variables among 144 members of Compassionate Friends, Multiple Sclerosis, and Overeaters Anonymous self-help groups. An anonymous questionnaire was the major research instrument. Receiving social support was not significantly related to depression or anxiety but was positively related to perceived group benefit…
Systemic organizational support for self-help groups
A framework for analyzing relationships between self-help groups and systemic organizational support is presented and two affiliation hypotheses tested. Self-help group birthrates in New Jersey over an 18-month period exceeded death rates. Affiliated groups greatly outnumbered independent groups but the birthrate for the latter was higher. Death rates for different types of groups were similar, except for Alcoholics Anonymous groups, which had a …
Towards an ecological understanding of mutual‐help groups
Adopted an ecological framework to view mutual-help groups, and illustrated its usefulness by examining aspects of the social ecology of "fit" among 163 members of Compassionate Friends (bereaved parents; CF), Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and Overeaters Anonymous (OA) groups. Concerning person-group fit, personal Spirituality was positively related to (a) Providing Support, and to (b) Group Satisfaction for members of a group whose helping ecology em…
Community settings as buffers of life stress? Highly supportive churches, mutual help groups, and senior centers
Factors affecting the birth and death of mutual‐help groups
Examined the predictive relationship of three variables to the birth and death of mutual-help groups for a statewide New Jersey sample of 3,152 groups over a 2-year period. The three variables studied were group affiliation with a national mutual-help organization, local professional involvement in group activities, and group members' type of focal problem. Log-linear logit analysis revealed that the best-fitting model included Affiliation Status…
The Stress-Buffering Role of Spiritual Support
The contribution of spiritual support (perceived support from God) to well-being, especially under conditions of high versus low life stress, has received little empirical study. In the present research, the relationship of spiritual support to well-being for several high and low life-stress samples was examined. With demographic variables controlled, regression analyses indicated that spiritual support: 1) was inversely related to depression and…
Meaningful involvement in instrumental activity and well‐being
Meaningful involvement in instrumental activity, social support, and well-being were assessed in two studies. The first study focused on older adolescents enrolled in college (mean age, 18.8; N = 152), and the second on urban black male, and pregnant female, teen-agers (mean age, 17.1; N = 92), half of whom (N = 46) were school dropouts. In both studies, regression analyses indicated that meaningful instrumental activity was positively related to…
Life‐style and substance use among male African American urban adolescents
Cluster analyzed four variables: school attendance, employment, church attendance, and delinquency, to develop life-style profiles. Data from 218 African-American urban adolescents were used in the study. Five meaningful clusters were retained and subjected to criterion validity analyses using measures of spirituality, participation in a voluntary organization, self-esteem, and friend's substance use. The five clusters were then compared on cigar…
A bridge between cultures
Relatively little research in community psychology has explicitly focused on groups whose world views, values, and practices diverge from mainstream North American and social science culture. Furthermore, when research does include members of subcultural groups, the same research methodologies used to stydy mainstream populations tend to be employed. In the current article, it is proposed that a linked ethnographic—empirical methodology is critic…
Religion and Prevention in Mental Health
Contents Religion as a Resource for Preventive Action * I. Religion as a Resource for Preventive Action: Conceptual and Empirical Foundations * Religious Perspectives on Prevention: The Role of Theology * A Sociological Overview: Mental Health Implications of Religio-Cultural Megatrends in the United States * Review of Religion and Mental Health: Prevention and the Enhancement of Psychosocial Functioning * Religious Factors in Physical Health and…
Organizational characteristics of empowering community settings
Although empowerment is often cited as a major guiding construct for community psychology, relatively little is known about the characteristics of empowering community settings. The current paper uses a multiple case study methodology to generate a number of key organizational characteristics of empowering community settings to guide future work in the area. In‐depth, multilevel, longitudinal research was conducted on three empowering community s…
Religion as a Community Resource for Well‐Being
The potential of religion as a resource for well‐being is examined, with special focus on prevention, healing, and empowerment pathways of influence— pathways operative both inside congregations and in outreach to the community beyond the congregation. Concerning the prevention pathway, religion offers potentially important access to families and children, and the resources of support, lifestyle values, community access, and volunteers. For the h…
Seymour sarason,the lost science of man, and primary prevention
Cultural specificity of support sources, correlates and contexts
Levels and correlates of parental support, peer support, partner support, and/or spiritual support among African American and Caucasian youth were examined in three contexts: adolescent pregnancy (Study 1), first year of college (Study 2), and adolescence and young adulthood (ages 15–29; Study 3). Partially consistent with a cultural specificity perspective, in different contexts different support sources were higher in level and/or more strongly…
Coordinated Community Intervention for Domestic Abusers
Preparing the Way
Employed qualitative methods to examine the role of the family in the academic success of very high‐achieving African American males. Findings revealed a complex tapestry of family processes and contexts involved in each youth's journey to outstanding academic achievement. Specifically, the combined importance of parental‐determined academic engagement, strict discipline, nurturance, and community connectedness appeared to counteract potentially …
Resilience Among Urban African American Male Adolescents
Resilience refers to the notion that some people succeed in the face of adversity. In a risk‐protective model of resilience, a protective factor interacts with a risk factor to mitigate the occurrence of a negative outcome. This study tested longitudinally the protective effects of sociopolitical control on the link between helplessness and mental health. The study included 172 urban, male, African American adolescents, who were interviewed twice…
Beating the Odds
Zada N. Johnson, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 68, No. 1, Preparing Students for the New Millenium: Exploring Factors That Contribute to the Successful Education of African American Students (Winter, 1999), pp. 120-122
A longitudinal study of stress‐buffering effects for urban African‐American male adolescent problem behaviors and mental health
The stress-buffering hypothesis was explored longitudinally in a sample of 173 urban, male, African-American adolescents. Data on parental and friend support, stressful life events, alcohol and substance use, delinquency, and psychological symptoms were collected twice, six months apart. No support for the stress-buffering hypothesis was found for any of the dependent variables. Friend support also was unrelated to the dependent variables longitu…
Narrative concepts, spiritually based communities
A longitudinal study of stress-buffering effects for urban African-American male adolescent problem behaviors and mental health
The stress-buffering hypothesis was explored longitudinally in a sample of 173 urban, male, African-American adolescents. Data on parental and friend support, stressful life events, alcohol and substance use, delinquency, and psychological symptoms were collected twice, six months apart. No support for the stress-buffering hypothesis was found for any of the dependent variables. Friend support also was unrelated to the dependent variables longitu…
Making a Difference
A multidisciplinary and multilevel framework for social transformation is proposed, encompassing four foundational goals: capacity-building, group empowerment, relational community-building, and culture-challenge. Intervention approaches related to each goal are presented at the setting, geographic community, and societal levels. Four exemplars of social transformation work are then discussed: the Accelerated Schools Project, Meyerhoff Program, M…
Psychosocial Outcomes of Urban African American Adolescents Born to Teenage Mothers
This is a study of psychosocial outcomes of adolescents born to teenage mothers. Adolescents' problem behaviors, psychological well‐being, social support, school variables, and sexual behaviors are compared across three groups—those born to mothers 17 or younger, mothers 18–19 years old, and mothers 20 or older. Analyses from two samples of African American adolescents from Maryland ( n = 205) and Michigan ( n = 570) are reported. The results fro…
Spirituality, religion, and community psychology
Psychology (35 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Medicine (22 works) · Community Health and Development (18 works) · Political science (18 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Health psychology (16 works) · Public health (14 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (9 works) · Psychiatry (9 works)