Context Matters: Links Between Neighborhood Discrimination, Neighborhood Cohesion and African American Adolescents’ Adjustment

Racial discrimination has serious negative consequences for the adjustment of African American adolescents. Taking an ecological approach, this study examined the linkages between perceived racial discrimination within and outside of the neighborhood and urban adolescents’ externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and tested whether neighborhood cohesion operated as a protective factor. Data came from 461 African American adolescents (mean age = 15.24 years, SD = 1.56; 50 % female) participating in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Multilevel models revealed that perceived discrimination within youth’s neighborhoods was positively related to externalizing, and discrimination both within and outside of youth’s neighborhoods predicted greater internalizing problems. Neighborhood cohesion moderated the association between within-neighborhood discrimination and externalizing. Specifically, high neighborhood cohesion attenuated the association between within-neighborhood discrimination and externalizing. The discussion centers on the implications of proximal stressors and neighborhood cohesion for African American adolescents’ adjustment.     

Pathways to national economic benefits from ATP-funded technologies

An important component of the Advanced Technology Program’s (ATP) economic evaluation plan for tracking project progress and outcomes is the administration of an electronic survey on a regular basis to participants in all projects funded since 1993. Progress of projects is compared against business plans and projected economic benefit goals outlined in their proposals. The resulting Business Reporting System (BRS) database is used for ATP project management and for evaluation research. Based on BRS data compiled through December 31, 1996, filed by 480 companies in 210 projects, funded in 19 competitions, this paper provides an overview of pathways to achieving targeted commercial and broader economic goals. Progress reports for the group of projects provide a variety of evidence of (a) opportunities for economic spillovers and national economic benefit and (b) activities supporting technology diffusion.     

From protectionism towards neoliberalism: Ecuador across four administrations (1981–1996)

Ecuador since 1980 illustrates many features of Latin America’s neoliberal transsition. Ecuador shifted from a state-oriented development model and towards a neoliberal approach across four ideologically-diverse administrations. Although the four presidents implemented reforms inconsistently, they have reoriented the country’s development strategy towards neoliberalism. Four contextual factors explain this sustained transition: (1) financial problems, (2) global ideological factors, (3) a perceived lack of alternatives, and (4) weakness of popular opposition. These factors are mutually reinforcing and each need not bear directly on each decision for neoliberal reforms to be chosen. Their combined force sustains the neoliberal transition despite considerable negative social and economic effects. [There is a] change in ideas, a change in reality, an ideological change produced in the world… that discredits socialism, that discredits statism, that discredits interventionism that discredits formal economic planning, and as a consequence liquidates the Latin American model of economic growth, which while not socialist, has had many of [socialism’s] elements. And [this change] legitimizes the conservative revolution of Reagan and Thatcher, and legitimizes another economic model that is based on market force —Osvaldo Hurtado, Ecuadoran President 1981–1984, founder of the left-of-center Democracia Popular party, and founding member of Socialist International; speaking in 1994     

Adolescent room culture: Studying media in the context of everyday life

For the past several years, the authors have been investigating adolescent room culture in order to learn more about the relationship between teens and the media. The bedroom, they have found, is an important haven for most teenagers, a private, personal space often decorated to reflect teens' emerging sense of themselves and where they fit in the larger culture. Teens listen to music, read magazines, watch television, do homework, and consider the events of the day in their rooms. They appropriate and transform media messages and images to help them make sense of their lives. By looking closely at how teens draw from the media as they construct their identities and personal worlds, the authors have come to see adolescent media use as a dialectical process played out through everyday practices. Their Adolescents' Media Practice Model highlights the connections between adolescents' identities and media selection, interaction, and application.An earlier draft was presented at the Society for Research on Adolescence conference in San Diego, California, February 1994.Received M.S. in television-radio from the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. Research focus is on the relationship between the media and public health.Received Ph.D. in mass communication from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Research focus is on adolescent health and mass media.     

The politics of french nuclear development

France has evolved a nuclear energy policy markedly different from that of the United States and other technologically advanced western nations. The roots of the difference lie in French governmental processes which allow French officials to impose policy in the face of resistant public opinion, in the convergent economic interests of the French nuclear industry and labor, and in the French aspirations for technological achievement. But economic factors—rather than political ones—are obliging France to reduce its plans for future growth of the industry.     

Facing the challenges of the year 2000: Learning to manage multidimensional workers

The “organization man” of the 1950s was characterized by an all-encompassing commitment to the work organization. Today, workers are multidimensional and seek a balance between work and nonwork commitments. Research to date has addressed the capacity for multiple commitments simplistically by examining two simultaneously held commitments, such as work organization--family, work organization--union, and work organization--church. Research is needed that examines people's simultaneous and multiple commitments to all of the relevant organizations in their lives. We have proceeded from the one-dimensional “organization man” to the dually-committed person; we now need to consider the person with multiple commitments. A model of multiple organizational commitment is presented, and implications and research directions are discussed.