Parenting Predictors of Early-Adolescents’ Health Behaviors: Simultaneous Group Comparisons Across Sex and Ethnic Groups

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the invariance of predictive relations across early-adolescent sex and ethnic groups regarding parenting factors and externalizing and internalizing problems and victimization. Data (n = 598; 54% female) from a triethnic (Hispanic, non-Hispanic white, and non-Hispanic black) probability sample of fifth graders collected from three sites (Birmingham, AL, Houston, TX, and Los Angeles, CA) were used in the analyses. Simultaneous group structural equation modeling supported the invariance of parenting-early adolescent outcomes across sex and ethnic groups. Parental monitoring and parental norms were relatively robust predictors of early-adolescent externalizing problems and victimization, and to a lesser extent, of internalizing problems. A maternal nurturance by parental monitoring interaction was statistically significant for all outcome behaviors, indicating that higher monitoring in conjunction with higher maternal nurturance was associated with lower levels of early-adolescent problem behaviors. The findings suggest that core parenting factors such as nurturance, monitoring, and normative expectations for early adolescent problem behaviors may serve as a foundation for parenting components of multi-component intervention studies.     

Contextualising the Teaching of Statistics in Political Science

The teaching of quantitative research methods is an integral part of most postgraduate programmes in politics, but less common at undergraduate level. This article explores the extent to which research methods in general, and quantitative research methods in particular, form part of the curricula of Politics departments in the UK. We then discuss an approach for motivating interest in a subject that tends to be unpopular with many students. We recommend an approach that utilises the links between the general quantification of politics with the quantitative study of political phenomena, as well as a combination of basic research methods for all and more advanced student-focused training for some.     

Perceived Discrimination and Mexican-Origin Young Adults’ Sleep Duration and Variability: The Moderating Role of Cultural Orientations

Perceived ethnic discrimination is central to the experiences of Latino young adults, yet we know little about the ways in which and the conditions under which ethnic discrimination relates to Latino young adults’ sleep patterns. Using a sample of 246 Mexican-origin young adults (M _age  = 21.11, SD = 1.54; 50 % female), the current study investigated the longitudinal links between perceived ethnic discrimination and both sleep duration and night-to-night variability in duration, while also examining the moderating roles of Anglo and Mexican orientations in the associations. The results revealed that perceived discrimination predicted greater sleep variability, and this link was not moderated by cultural orientations. The relation between perceived discrimination and hours of sleep, however, was moderated by Anglo and Mexican orientations. Individuals with high Anglo and Mexican orientations (bicultural) and those with only high Mexican orientations (enculturated), showed no association between discrimination and hours of sleep. Individuals with low Anglo and Mexican orientations (marginalized) displayed a positive association, whereas those with high Anglo and low Mexican orientations (acculturated) displayed a negative association. The results suggest that discrimination has long term effects on sleep variability of Mexican-origin young adults, regardless of cultural orientations; however, for sleep duration, bicultural and enculturated orientations are protective.     

Mexican Origin Youths’ Trajectories of Perceived Peer Discrimination from Middle Childhood to Adolescence: Variation by Neighborhood Ethnic Concentration

Developmentally salient research on perceived peer discrimination among minority youths is limited. Little is known about trajectories of perceived peer discrimination across the developmental period ranging from middle childhood to adolescence. Ethically concentrated neighborhoods are hypothesized to protect minority youths from discrimination, but strong empirical tests are lacking. The first aim of the current study was to estimate trajectories of perceived peer discrimination from middle childhood to adolescence, as youths transitioned from elementary to middle and to high school. The second aim was to examine the relationship between neighborhood ethnic concentration and perceived peer discrimination over time. Using a diverse sample of 749 Mexican origin youths (48.9 % female), a series of growth models revealed that youths born in Mexico, relative to those born in the U.S., perceived higher discrimination in the 5th grade and decreases across time. Youths who had higher averages on neighborhood ethnic concentration (across the developmental period) experienced decreases in perceived peer discrimination over time; those that had lower average neighborhood ethnic concentration levels showed evidence of increasing trajectories. Further, when individuals experienced increases in their own neighborhood ethnic concentration levels (relative to their own cross-time averages), they reported lower levels of perceived peer discrimination. Neighborhood ethnic concentration findings were not explained by the concurrent changes youths were experiencing in school ethnic concentrations. The results support a culturally-informed developmental view of perceived peer discrimination that recognizes variability in co-ethnic neighborhood contexts. The results advance a view of ethnic enclaves as protective from mainstream threats.     

Parent–Child Relationships,Parental Psychological Control,and Aggression: Maternal and Paternal Relationships

Few studies have examined both maternal and paternal parenting practices in the prediction of child outcomes despite evidence that underscores the salience of fathers throughout their children’s development. This study examined the role of the quality of mother–child and father–child relationships in buffering the influence of ineffective parenting practices on subsequent adolescent aggression. Measures of parental psychological control, the quality of the parent–child relationship, and youth aggressive behavior were completed by 163 (49 % female) mostly White and Asian adolescents and their parents during the eighth and ninth grades. Paternal psychological control predicted aggression when adolescents perceived low-quality relationships with their mothers. Similarly, maternal psychological control predicted aggression when adolescents perceived low-quality relationships with their fathers. Maternal psychological control was also associated with lower levels of aggression among adolescent males who reported a high-quality relationship with their father. These findings indicate that, when one parent exerts psychological control, the low-quality relationship the adolescent shares with the opposite gender parent increases risk for adolescent aggression. The findings also suggest that, as mothers exert psychological control, the high-quality parent–child relationship a son shares with his father decreases risk for adolescent aggression.     

Exit from agriculture: a step forward or a step backward for the rural poor?

World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development recommends that rural smallholders unable to compete in higher value production should exit agriculture. For the old and new landless, the way forward is wage labour in agriculture, in rural off farm work, or in urban areas. Disjunctively, the Report also proposes ‘farm-financed social welfare’ as a safety net when urban workers are ejected back to countryside at times of ‘urban shock’. My essay contrasts the Report's narrative about felicitous trajectories away from and back to the farm with the historical and contemporary experience of Asia's rural poor.     

The polyamorous threat to nonmarriage

Some progressive U.S. Cities and several Canadian provinces now provide mechanisms for polyamorous families to register as such with state authorities. More than a million people in the United States identify as polyamorous and many more practice some form of ethical nonmonogamy. This article suggests that the growing recognition of polyamory poses a substantial threat to a simultaneous development in family law: the call by scholars and the Uniform Law Commission for courts to enforce a more implied contract, implied partnership and equitable claims in the context of non-marital conjugal cohabitation. Non-marital cohabitants argue that courts can infer marital-type commitments to share property from the fact of conjugal cohabitation. They argue that their nonmarriage should entitle them to the kinds of relief afforded to divorcing couples. But polyamorous conjugal cohabitation involves very different norms and commitments to reliance, partnership and transparency than does traditional marriage. Marital-type relief maps awkwardly, if at all, onto the reality of most polyamorous relationships. By bringing into relief that which we cannot necessarily assume about conjugal cohabitation, the recognition of polyamory questions what many proponents of more legal protection of nonmarital couples ask courts to assume about conjugal cohabitation, namely that it gives rise to reasonable reliance on a status quo and an intent to share property. Moreover, by providing a means for polyamorous households to register their relationships, polyamorous registration normalizes the idea of non-marital relationship registration. The more normal and expected it is for people who want rights as some form of family to register their familial intent with the state, the harder it is for those who have not so registered to argue that the state must treat them as some sort of family.