The aims of this study were to investigate the social constructionist proposition that masculinity varies according to social context and the relationship, in men, between masculinity ideology and alexithymia. Women tended to endorse a less traditional view of masculinity than did men, and European Americans tended to endorse a less traditional view of masculinity than did African Americans, with Hispanics from the Caribbean and the United States in the middle. A relationship between masculinity ideology and alexithymia in men was established, and, even after controlling for demographic variables, masculinity ideology accounted for unique variance in alexithymia in men.Gender roles have an enormous influence on how individuals function both intra-and interpersonally (Jakupcak, Lisak, & Roemer, 2002;Silverstein, Auerbach, & Levant, 2002). Pleck (1981) postulated that the gender role identity paradigm, which dominated research on gender from 1930 to 1980, does not adequately account for the formation of gender roles. According to the gender role identity paradigm, gender roles develop as a result of an inner psychological need to have a sex-appropriate gender role identity, and optimal personality development depends on the construction of sex-appropriate gender role identity (Pleck, 1981). In contrast to the gender role identity paradigm, the new psychology of men relies on the gender role strain paradigm, a social constructionist perspective, to account for the formation of gender roles. In this view, prevailing gender ideologies, which vary according to psychological, historical, social, and political contexts, serve to influence parents, teachers, and peers, who, in turn, socialize children according to the prevailing gender role ideologies.The gender role strain paradigm recognizes biological differences between men and women but argues that concepts of "masculinity" and "femininity" are not constructed by biology (Levant, 1996b;Levant & Pollack, 1995). Rather, gender roles are formed to serve particular purposes within any given society; namely, gender roles maintain the system of power relations between males and females in a social group. Traditional gender role socialization serves to uphold patriarchal codes by requiring that males adopt dominant and aggressive behaviors and function in the public sphere, while requiring that females adopt adaptive and nurturing behaviors and function in the private sphere of the family (Levant, 1996b).

Absence of culturally relevant measures of Black children's strengths inhibitspsychometrically sound strength-based assessment, research, and appropriate use of strengths as scaffolds or targets for clinical intervention. Moreover, the sparse research literature on Black children is primarily deficit focused. Beginning to address these problems, considerable input was sought from the Black community in constructing behavioral and emotional strength forms for Black children. Exploratory factor analyses conducted separately on 559 parent reports, 489 teacher reports, and 417 adolescent self-reports revealed two unidimensional cross-informant factors labeled Resilience and Self-Regulation and Prosocial Behavior. Item response theory analyses revealed invariance across

ESEARCHERS IN THE FIELD OF DE-velopmental psychopathology have recognized the importance of building a database on children's behavioral and emotional problems prevalent in diverse nations. Several studies have compared U.S. children's problems with those of children in other regions of the world, including the

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Societal factors influence the types of problems children of African descent exhibit and the steps adults take to ameliorate them. Cross-national research on children of African descent living in different nations can identify the societal issues associated with problems these children present, but few specifically focus on children of African descent. This article addresses these issues by surveying presenting problems in clinic records of 2,078 children of African descent in the United States and Jamaica. Recorders coded and categorized problems according to eight Child Behavior Checklist syndromes and internalizing (e.g., shyness) and externalizing (e.g., fighting) problems. ANCOVAs revealed significantly more problems for African American than Jamaican youth but the converse was true for severe problems. The findings suggest the need for further studies that test whether lower parental thresholds, a U.S. society that encourages more family openness, widely available treatment services within the United States, and stress associated with minority group membership may cause African American parents to report more child problems than Jamaican parents.The theoretical and empirical literature base (for review, see Al-Issa, 1982;Marsella, 1979) has implicated sociocultural effects in the development of psychopathology. Recognition that societal customs and practices can JOURNAL