Cultural Equivalence and Cultural Variance in Longitudinal Associations of Young Adolescent Self-Definition and Interpersonal Relatedness to Psychological and School Adjustment

Ethnic group differences in the contributions of self-definition (self-worth and efficacy) and interpersonal relatedness with parents and peers to changes in psychological and school adjustment were examined among 448 White, Black, and Latino girls and boys (11–14 years of age). Self-report questionnaires and school records were evaluated for socioeconomic and ethnic group differences in patterns of change over 1 year. Overall similarity in changes over time across ethnic groups was found for relatedness, self-definition, and psychological adjustment, although Black and Latino youth reported more overall adjustment difficulties, Black youth reported less positive relationships with parents, and lower SES youth reported less positive peer relationships than others. Ethnic group differences in changes to school adjustment, even after controlling SES, suggested a cultural variation in which often cited declines in school adjustment during middle school characterize White adolescents to a greater degree than Black or Latino adolescents. Ethnicity moderated associations of relatedness and self-definition with psychological and school adjustment such that Black and Latino youth appeared particularly vulnerable to experiences that threaten closeness and trust in relationships. Results pointed to potentially important situational and cultural differences in maladaptive and adaptive developmental processes across ethnicity.     

Measuring changes in women's empowerment and its relationship to intimate partner violence

This article uses survey data to examine changes over time in the relationship between women’s empowerment and intimate partner violence (IPV) in six Bangladeshi villages. Prior analyses using a limited set of empowerment indicators available in both 2002 and 2014 suggested a persistent positive association between empowerment and IPV. The article’s analysis, using an updated set of measures derived from extensive qualitative studies, suggests that empowerment may be shifting from a risk factor for IPV to a protective factor. The article discusses the methodological limitations posed by the shifting manifestations of empowerment and its social meanings within and across settings.     

On James Burnham’sThe Machiavellians

Sidney Hook, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, is emeritus professor of philosophy and former head of the All-University Department at New York University. Among the thirty books he has written or edited are Education for Modern Man, Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life,and Philosophy and Public Policy.Most recently, he has written Marxism and Beyondand his autobiography, Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century.This article will be used as an introduction to a new edition of James Burnham’s The Machiavelliansto be published by Regnery Gateway, Inc.     

The rural proletariat and the problem of rural proletarian consciousness

‘The rural proletariat’ has been employed as a sociological category to describe Caribbean populations for nearly 25 years, but confusion about such populations persists. Proletarianisation, the definition of rural proletariats, and the Marxist conception of consciousness, as applicable to such groups, are discussed in the following paper. The Cuban case is described to exemplify the European bias of some analysts, and the difficulties created by an uncritical transfer of western conceptions of class and of class consciousness to a colonial agrarian situation. A special effort is made to conceptualise the rural proletariat in terms of its relationships to the peasantry, and of the ‘concealment’ of landless workers in peasant communities.     

Italian politics and political change: ‘Eppur si muove’. But where to?

Democracy, Italian Style. By Joseph LaPalombara. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. Pp.308.

Stato e regolazione sociale. Nuove prospettive sul caso italiano. Edited by Peter Lange and Marino Regini. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987. Pp.337.

Il Mercato elettorale. Identikit dell’ elettore italiano. By Renato Mann‐heimer and Giacomo Sani. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987. Pp. 185.

Italian Communism in Transition. The Rise and Fall of the Historical Compromise in Turin, 1975–1980. By Stephen Hellman. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp.223.