Some common questions about participatory research: a review of the literature

This article reviews, through reference to the published literature, some key questions about participatory research. When should participatory research be used? How should participatory research be applied? What about quality of science in participatory research? Are there any institutional issues associated with the use of participatory research? And what are the benefits and costs of participatory research? The article is not a comprehensive literature review on participatory research, it is not meant to set standards for participatory research, nor to define what constitutes ‘good’ participatory research, but rather it seeks to summarise the realities of implementing participatory research, as discussed and debated by several published authors, and to provide some useful background for this special issue.     

Can Callous-Unemotional Traits and Aggression Identify Children at High-Risk of Anti-Social Behavior in a Low Socioeconomic Group?

Frick et al. (2005) proposed that Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits may be an important personality dimension associated with youth offending. The goal of the present study was to examine whether CU traits were associated with risk factors for offending in a low SES sample of children aged 10 years to 11 years in New Zealand. Two subgroups were identified: one high (High-CU/Agg group) and one low (Low-CU/Agg group) on CU traits and aggression. Results showed that scores for the High-CU/Agg group were significantly worse compared to the Low-CU/Agg group on a range of measures including stress management, caregiver criminal convictions, and dysfunctional parenting. However, analyses revealed that the measure of aggression accounted for more unique variance compared to CU traits. Further research is needed with youths from low SES communities to develop a more robust profile of potential youth offenders.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The Necessity of Politics: Reclaiming American Public Life by Christopher Beem. For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today by Jedediah Purdy.     

Fatal (F)laws: Law, Literature and Writing

In this article, we develop an account of judgment as writing which displaces and contests the conventional staging of the signifiers ‘law’ and ‘literature’. If judgment is understood as writing, then it is opened out onto the contexts which structure it, but which it must disavow or repress. To investigate this process, we read the judicial judgment of a killing of a gay man. In this text, the context that is simultaneously cited and repressed is that of literature - and specifically, Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. Literature functions not as law's other in this judgment, but as a legal concept. Its chief performative effect is the concealment of a corpse: literature enables law to forget the wounds of the murdered man, and to bury his corpse within the grammar of fate. Our reading is an attempt to illuminate the scene of this crime. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Forensic Assessment of Adults Reporting Childhood Sexualized Assault: Risk,Resilience, and Impacts

Though childhood sexualized assault (CSA) increases risk for varied psychological difficulties, no single condition, syndrome, or set of difficulties is reliably associated with such experiences. CSA likely disrupts or impairs normal development in complex ways that depend on the risk and resilience factors present before, during, and after CSA. CSA characteristics that increase risk for later difficulties include young age, trauma inflicted by another person, number of occurrences, violence or intrusiveness, betrayal of trust, adverse peri-traumatic reactions, negative reactions from others following disclosure, and a context of previous sexualized assault or maltreatment. Resilience increases with positive self-esteem, better intellectual functioning, good self-control, positive social support, and early therapeutic intervention. CSA is associated with impaired psychological development, mental health disorders, behavioural and relationship difficulties, physical health problems, reduced intellectual function, lower educational achievement, lower occupational attainment, and reduced lifetime income. Any particular difficulty may be problematic in its own right and may also contribute to other difficulties in the interlocking domains of individual abilities and attributes, relationships, and significant life activities. In individual forensic assessment cases, general evidence on CSA risk/resilience and impacts can be used in combination with the lifespan developmental analysis (Barnes & Josefowitz, Psychological Injury and Law, 2014), to determine whether and how CSA contributed to psychological injuries.