Religiosity and Alcohol Use in Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Youth and Young Adults

Despite interest in the role of religiosity in youth development and health behavior, few studies have examined these associations in sexual minority youth. Participants (n = 11,699) who were adolescents (wave 1) and young adults (wave 3) in the Add Health survey were used to examine proximal and distal religiosity by sexual identity group and to test group differences in associations between religiosity and alcohol use. Sexual minorities were less likely than heterosexuals to report a current religious affiliation. In young adulthood, heterosexual females reported significantly higher distal and proximal religiosity than heterosexual males and sexual minority young adults. From adolescence to young adulthood, religiosity in all three sexual identity groups (heterosexual, bisexual, gay/lesbian) significantly declined, with the largest effects found for the sexual minority groups. Distal and proximal religiosity scores were significantly associated with less alcohol use and less binge drinking among heterosexuals, but not among sexual minorities. Future studies of sexual minority youth and their religious contexts are suggested.

Family Transitions and Later Delinquency and Drug Use

Changes in the family structure can be very disruptive to adolescents who live in those families. This article examines the impact of the number of family transitions on delinquent and drug-using behavior. Specifically, the effect of family transitions is hypothesized to be mediated by problems within the family, school, and peer settings. A sample of 646 boys (73%) and girls (27%) taken from a longitudinal panel study of high-risk adolescents are used to examine these hypotheses. For girls, little support is found for the direct or the indirect effect of family transitions on delinquent behavior or drug use. For boys, however, both forms of problem behavior are influenced by family transitions directly and indirectly through changes in, and problems with, peer associations. The findings suggest that during times of family turmoil, the friendship network of adolescent male children is also disrupted, leading to an increase in associations with delinquent others and, in turn, an increase in problematic behaviors.

Self-Rated Pubertal Development,Depressive Symptoms and Delinquency: Measurement Issues and Moderation by Gender and Maltreatment

This cross-sectional study examined relationships between pubertal development, depressive symptoms and delinquency in a sample of 241 males and 213 females aged 9–13 years. Four objectives were set forth for this study: (1) to examine relationships between pubertal stage or timing and depressive symptoms and delinquency; (2) to compare continuous and categorical measures of pubertal timing; (3) to examine gender as a moderator of these relationships, and (4) to examine maltreatment as a moderator of these relationships. Results indicated that mature pubertal stage and early (continuous) pubertal timing were both related to higher delinquency whereas only early pubertal timing was related to depressive symptoms. Categorical timing was not related to depressive symptoms or delinquency. Neither gender nor maltreatment were found to be moderators. These findings provide evidence against equating pubertal stage, continuous timing, and categorical timing, and highlight the need to identify possible moderators in research on pubertal development.

Past and present conference on inheritance and the family

The origins of English individualism: the family, private property and social transition. Alan Macfarlane. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978. xv + 216pp; £8.50.

The English Peasant: Studies Historical, Local and Biographic by Richard Heath. East Ardsley: EP Publishing, 1978. Pp.viii + 382; £5.50.

The Bettesworth Book, by George Sturt. Firle: Caliban Books, 1978. Pp.xv + 325; £7.50.

William Smith, Potter and Farmer: 1790–1858 by George Sturt. Firle: Caliban Books, 1978. Pp.x + 230; £7.50.     

drones,swarms and becoming-insect: feminist utopias and posthuman politics

Insects and ‘the swarm’ as metaphors and objects of research have inspired works in the genres of science fiction and horror; social and political theorists; and the development of war-fighting technologies such as ‘drone swarms’, which function as robot/insect hybrids. Contemporary developments suggest that the future of warfare will not be ‘robots’ as technological, individualised substitutions for idealised (masculine) warfighters, but warfighters understood as swarms: insect metaphors for non-centrally organised problem-solvers that will become technologies of racialisation. As such, contemporary feminist analysis requires an analysis of the politics of life and death in the insect and the swarm, which, following Braidotti (2002), cannot be assumed to be a mere metaphor or representation of political life, but an animating materialist logic. The swarm is not only a metaphor but also a central mode of biopolitical and necropolitical war, with the ‘terrorist’ enemy represented as swarm-like as well. In analysing the relations of assemblage and antagonism in the war ontologies of the drone swarm, I seek inspiration from what Hayles (1999, p. 47) describes as a double vision that ‘looks simultaneously at the power of simulation and at the materialities that produce it’. I discuss various representations and manifestations of swarms and insect life in science/speculative fiction, from various presentations of the ‘Borg’ in Star Trek (1987–1994, 1995–2001, 1996), Alien (1979) and The Fly (1958, 1986) to more positive representations of the ‘becoming-insect’ as possible feminist utopia in Gilman’s Herland (2015 [1915]) and Tiptree’s Houston, Houston, Do You Read? (1989 [1976]). Posthuman warfare also contains the possibilities of both appropriating and rewriting antagonisms of masculine and feminine in the embodiment of the subject of war in the swarm. This piece seeks to analyse new ways of feminist theorising of the relations of power and violence in the embodiment of war as the swarm.     

Syphilis and Madness

Life Lived Like a Story

Julie Cruikshank, Life Lived Like a Story: Life Stories of Three Yukon Elders; in collaboration with Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith and Annie Ned, University of Nebraska Press, £35 hbk, £12.95 pbk.

Laura Coltelli, Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak, University of Nebraska Press, £21.40.

Paula Gunn Allen, Spider Woman's Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women, The Women's Press, £6.95.

Unappeasable Ghosts

Jacqueline Rose, The Haunting of Sylvia Plath, Virago, £14.99.

Paul Alexander, Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath, Viking Press, $12.99.

Backlash

Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women, Chatto &; Windus, £9.99.

Catherine Hall, White, Male and Middle‐Class: Explorations in Feminism and History, Polity Press, £12.95.

Gendering the Imagined Community

Andrew Parker, Mary Russo, Doris Sommer and Patricia Jaeger (eds), Nationalisms and Sexualities, Routledge, £40 hbk, £12.99 pbk.

Doubts and Daydreams

Teresa Brennan, The Interpretation of the Flesh: Freud and Femininity, Routledge, £35.     

Coping Styles and Sex Differences in Depressive Symptoms and Delinquent Behavior

Building on research that links gender to differences in well-being and differences in stress exposure and vulnerability, the current study examines how coping styles are gendered in ways that may contribute to sex differences in depressive symptoms and delinquent behavior. The study disaggregates stress measures to reflect gender differences in the experience of stress, examining whether avoidant, approach, and action coping condition the relationship between stress and well-being. Regression analyses were conducted using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Results revealed sex differences and similarities. The interaction of avoidant coping and stress helped explain why girls had more depressive symptoms than boys, action coping increased delinquent behavior for girls, while approach coping decreased delinquent behavior for boys and girls. Assisting adolescents in developing coping styles that discourage avoiding problems or taking quick action, but that encourage problem-solving, can improve well-being, regardless of sex

Work and home

Jane Jenson, Elisabeth Hagen and Ceallaigh Reddy (eds) Feminization of the Labour Force. Paradoxes and Promises (Polity Press) Cambridge, 1988; Willem van Vliet (ed.) Women, Housing and Community (Gower) Brookfield, Vermont, 1988; Sophie Watson, Accommodating Inequality, Gender and Housing (Allen and Unwin) Sydney, 1988; Christina Hardyment, From Mangle to Microwave. The Mechanization of Household Work (Polity Press) Cambridge, 1988.     

Spending and Spirit

The making and remaking of Simone de Beauvoir

Kate Fullbrook and Edward Fullbrook, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean‐Paul Sartre. The Remaking of a Twentieth‐century Legend, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993.

Toril Moi, Simone de Beauvoir. The Making of an Intellectual Woman, Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.

Ms. en Abyme

Diane Elam, Feminism and Deconstruction: Ms. en Abyme, London and New York: Routledge, 1994.     

Victimization and Relational Aggression in Adolescent Romantic Relationships: The Influence of Parental and Peer Behaviors, and Individual Adjustment

Consistent with the view that adolescent relationships are established in the context of important characteristics of their social networks, we examined the effects of adolescents’ experiences of parenting (psychological control and positive monitoring) and of peer aggression and victimization, on their self reports of dating victimization and aggression. We also examined the effects of individual differences in emotional and behavioral problems. We used questionnaire data from a population-based sample of youth 12–18 years old who were in dating relationships (n = 149). Parental monitoring emerged as a protective factor in reducing both dating victimization and relational aggression. Our findings also point to a significant transfer of aggression in peer relationships to relational aggression in dating relationships.

Peer Victimization and Social Anxiety in Adolescents: Prospective and Reciprocal Relationships

This study used a 2-month prospective research design to examine the bi-directional interplay between peer victimization and social anxiety among adolescents. Participants included 228 adolescents (58% female) in grades 10–12. Three types of peer victimization were examined: overt (physical aggression or verbal threats), relational (malicious manipulation of a relationship, such as by friendship withdrawal), and reputational (damaging another’s peer relationships, such as through rumor spreading). Adolescents’ self-reported feelings of social anxiety and peer victimization experiences were assessed at two time points, in November and January of the same school year. Peer victimization was strongly related to adolescents’ social anxiety, and relational victimization explained additional unique variance. Moreover, peer victimization was both a predictor and consequence of social anxiety over time, with the most robust results found for relational victimization. Limited support was obtained for gender as a moderating variable. Findings highlight the deleterious effects of peer victimization, especially relational victimization, and suggest avenues for future research and clinical intervention for adolescents experiencing such victimization.

Religion and modernity: Gender and identity politics in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh as in other Muslim majority societies, Islamist forces have emphasized the importance of women adopting traditional religious practices, such as wearing “the veil”, as a cultural symbol and a weapon in the movement of Islamization against Western Modernization. On the question of modernity although some Islamic groups hold extreme attitudes of imagining it as ‘immoral’ and ‘dangerous’, there are other activists who negotiate to engage modernity by controlling its negative impacts through reinventing Islamic tradition. The discursive shift is mainly towards establishing modern civil society based, middle class led and urban organizations. In reaction to the image of commodification of the woman's body in Western modernity, they construct women wearing hijab in the public space as an image of “Modern Muslim Women”. This article explores how women negotiate modernist and Islamist discourses and thereby engage in the politics of everyday living. It argues that woman's agency moves beyond analysis of women as mere victims of ideological constructions.     

Philosophy and feminism

Ellen Kennedy and Susan Mendus (eds) Women in Western Political Philosophy (Wheatsheaf Books) Brighton, Sussex, 1987; Gail Tulloch, Mill and Sexual Equality (Harvester Wheatsheaf) Hemel Hempstead, 1989; Andrea Nye, Feminist Theory and the Philosophies of Man (Routledge) New York, London, 1988.     

Hukou and land: market reform and rural displacement in China

Scholarship about the Chinese hukou (household registration) system has focused on the advantages and entitlements associated with urban hukou. This paper shifts attention to the key entitlement provided by rural hukou – village land. While early hukou reforms were mainly designed to open up urban labor markets to rural migrants, recent reforms have also begun to open up rural land markets, by replacing hukou-based land rights with market-based rights. These reforms are designed to facilitate land concentration and the transfer of land to outside developers and agribusiness companies, which has been hindered by hukou-based land rights. Underlying the reforms is the government's agenda of promoting large-scale agriculture and urbanization, both of which require the removal of a large portion of the rural population from the land. By focusing on land rights rather than urban benefits, this paper provides a new perspective on the evolution of the hukou system, and highlights the negative implications of recent reforms for livelihood security in the countryside.     

Adolescent Obesity and Young Adult Psychosocial Outcomes: Gender and Racial Differences

Using a sample of 7,881 African American (915 males and 1,073 females) and White (2,864 males and 3,029 females) adolescents from Waves 1 and 3 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined the psychosocial consequences that obese adolescents encounter as they reach young adulthood. Results indicate that obesity among adolescent females is associated with a lower status attainment in young adulthood than normal weight adolescent females. In addition, obese adolescent females have more depressive symptoms in young adulthood than normal weight females, even after controlling for prior depressive symptoms in adolescence. Obesity status among adolescent males is not associated with poorer psychosocial outcomes in young adulthood. We did not find evidence of an interaction between obesity status and race, indicating no significant differences in psychosocial outcomes for obese White compared to obese African American adolescents.

Women and citizenship

Barbara Sullivan and Gillian Whitehouse (eds), Gender, Politics & Citizenship in the 1990s (University of New South Wales Press) Sydney, 1996.

Jan Jindy Pettman, Worlding Women: A Feminist International Politics (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1996.     

A Variable-Centered and Person-Centered Evaluation of Emotion Regulation and Distress Tolerance: Links to Emotional and Behavioral Concerns

Distress tolerance and emotion regulation deficits are associated with many emotional and behavioral concerns and may be important deficit areas for college students especially during the transition to college. However, little is known about how distress tolerance and emotion regulation relate to each other or what typical profiles of these deficit areas might be. We took a variable-centered (i.e., exploratory factor analysis) and a person-centered approach (i.e., latent profile analysis) to identify the overlap and distinctiveness of distress tolerance and emotion regulation deficits and then evaluated how the profiles related to several emotional and behavioral concerns. Participants were undergraduates (N = 627; age M = 20.23, SD = 1.40; 60 % female; 47 % European-American) who completed an online assessment. The exploratory factor analysis of distress tolerance and emotion regulation subscales demonstrated three factors with one factor corresponding to distress tolerance and two factors defined by emotion regulation. Subscales demonstrated significant multidimensionality across the factors. The latent profile analysis with distress tolerance and emotion regulation subscales produced three profiles corresponding to “Functional”, “At Risk”, and “Challenged” levels of distress tolerance and emotion regulation abilities. Internalizing symptoms (i.e., depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and suicidal ideation) had significantly higher symptom severity in the “At Risk”, and “Challenged” profiles than in the “Functional” profile. ADHD symptoms and hostility showed a similar pattern. Conduct problems and substance use were much less related to the deficit profiles. Implications for the etiology of mental health, for prevention and treatment of college students are discussed.     

Intergenerational Cultural Dissonance,Parent–Child Conflict and Bonding,and Youth Problem Behaviors among Vietnamese and Cambodian Immigrant Families

Intergenerational cultural dissonance (ICD)—a clash between parents and children over cultural values—is a frequent issue for Asian American youth. Using longitudinal data from the Cross Cultural Families Project, this study examines the mechanisms by which ICD contributes to problem behaviors, including whether ICD predicts parent–child conflict, whether parent–child conflict then has a direct effect on youth problem behavior, and whether positive bonding with parents mediates the effects of such conflict on youth problem behaviors among Vietnamese (n = 164) and Cambodian (n = 163) families with adolescents [average age = 15.2 years (SD = 1.05)]. The results from the path analyses show that, in both groups, ICD indirectly predicts problem behaviors by increasing parent–child conflict, which in turn weakens positive parent–child bonding. Interventions that target youths’ perception of intergenerational cultural gaps, help them manage conflict, and help strengthen bonds with parents may prevent problem behaviors among Cambodian and Vietnamese families. This study contributes to inform how to effectively prevent problems and difficulties among these families.

Antisocial Beliefs and Attitudes in Pre-adolescent and Adolescent Youth: the Development of the Antisocial Beliefs and Attitudes Scales (ABAS)

A focus on antisocial beliefs and attitudes has informed both the assessment and treatment literature, and practice, in youth justice service provision. This study attempts to broaden the construct of antisocial beliefs and attitudes and reports on the psychometric development of the Antisocial Beliefs and Attitudes Scale (ABAS). The ABAS is a new instrument for measuring antisocial thinking in older children and adolescents, which is developmentally-sensitive, broad-based, and assesses domains grounded in the empirical literature on childhood conduct problems and delinquency. Along with a self-reported measure of antisocial behavior, the ABAS was administered to 425 school children aged 10–18 (M = 14.18; SD = 2.31). A meaningful factor structure emerged from our instrument with two of the three factors, Rule Non-Compliance and Peer Conflict, predicting self-reported antisocial behavior while demonstrating sensitivity to age and gender. These findings are encouraging in our aim to “bridge” the measurement gap, by developing a reliable and valid measure of antisocial thinking applicable to older children and adolescents.