Regional disparities and economic growth in Russia: new growth patterns and catching up

The regional disparities in Russia are increasing since transition started in the 1990s, as result of the structural processes of reorganisation and reallocations of resources taking place in the territory. The scopes of this contribution are two folds: to clarify the theoretical and policy background in analysing regional development in the transition and in particular in Russia, and to analyse the specificity of the spatial development and the regional disparities patterns in Russia. The economic geography is recognised among the different theories, very useful for helping to understand in particular the recent phenomena of new concentration pattern in Russia, giving a key of analysis of new polarisation trends: new trends toward urban concentrations in the Western regions, de-population of the Eastern regions, rural decline in those regions faraway from large urban agglomerations. In fact the empirical analysis indicates two dominant phenomena in the up-surging of regional disparities: the increasing weight of the capital city, Moscow as agglomeration effects brings the polarisation phenomena; and the strengthening of the natural resources and energy endowed regions. There is the question whether Russia, at this stage of development, can pursue an active regional policy toward equity targets or whether, for the target of sustaining macro-economic growth, there is the urgency to keep selected priorities based on the best performing poles. A difficult balance between the two targets would be the most suitable answer.     

Minority women and the experiences of migration

This article addresses the theme of minority relations and the intensification of gender oppression. We adopt a comparative perspective to examine women’s experiences of migration in two diverse locations. The recent focus on difference in feminist writing renders problematic such comparative enterprises through the contemporary concern with questioning the universality of the category “woman.” However, we suggest that the concept has been deconstructed to the point that it raises the possibility that feminism becomes an inadequate theory and methodology for explaining the status of women. Through a comparative analysis of minority women in different social and cultural contexts, we explore this dilemma for feminism. We examine how gender relations reconfigure in reconstituted relations of class, race, and ethnicity and emphasize the necessity of recognizing both the dynamics of migrating feminisms and the centrality of gender in structuring power relations in diverse contexts.     

Balance Between Local Economic Development and Environmental Sustainability: A Multi-level Governance Perspective

This study seeks to explain why U.S. local governments utilize environmental sustainability to promote economic development. Economic development and environmental protection need not be competing objectives, but rather, environmental protection can enhance local economic competitiveness. Using data from the ICMA Economic Development Survey, this study tests an empirical model that includes state sustainability initiatives, participation in climate protection networks, and political attitudes toward economic development as predictors of local policy decisions. The findings reinforce a multi-level governance perspective on explaining the balance cities seek to achieve between environmental protection and economic growth.     

still,nothing: Mammy and black asexual possibility

Although many iterations of the mammy in the last two centuries have received analytical attention, the construction of this figure as asexual or undesiring and undesirable remains to be interrogated. This essay attends to this under-theorised dimension of her image. Resisting a reading of the mammy as fixed in silence, I assert that she might instead ‘say nothing’, and bring into focus a black asexual agency that I call a declarative silence. This strategy of ‘saying nothing’ is then explored in a reading of the withholdings of the character of Mama in Gayl Jones’s neo-slave narrative, Corregidora (1975).     

Neighborhood,Family, and Peer Factors Associated with Early Adolescent Smoking and Alcohol Use

There is broad agreement that neighborhood contexts are important for adolescent development, but there is less consensus about their association with adolescent smoking and alcohol use. Few studies have examined associations between neighborhood socioeconomic contexts and smoking and alcohol use while also accounting for differences in family and peer risk factors for substance use. Data drawn from the Seattle Social Development Project (N?=?808), a gender-balanced (female?=?49%), multiethnic, theory-driven longitudinal study originating in Seattle, WA, were used to estimate trajectories of smoking and alcohol use from 5th to 9th grade. Time-varying measures of neighborhood socioeconomic, family, and peer factors were associated with smoking and alcohol use at each wave after accounting for average growth in smoking and alcohol use over time and demographic differences. Results indicated that living in more socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods, lower family income, lower family general functioning, more permissive family smoking environments, and affiliation with deviant peers were independently associated with increased smoking. Lower family functioning, more permissive family alcohol use environments, and deviant peers were independently associated with increased alcohol use. The effect of neighborhood disadvantage on smoking was mediated by family income and deviant peers while the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on alcohol use was mediated by deviant peers alone. Family functioning and family substance use did not mediate associations between neighborhood disadvantage and smoking or alcohol use. The results highlight the importance of neighborhood, family, and peer factors in early adolescent smoking and alcohol use. Future studies should examine the unique association of neighborhood disadvantage with adolescent smoking net of family socioeconomics, functioning, and substance use, as well as peer affiliations. Better understanding of the role of contextual factors in early adolescent smoking and alcohol use can help bolster efforts to prevent both short and long harms from substance use.     

Children’s attitudes towards animal cruelty: Exploration of predictors and socio-demographic variations

ABSTRACT

Assessing the risk for animal cruelty is imperative, yet understudied and problematic due to the sensitivity of the topic. Early prevention is critical, yet very little research examines cruelty when it first appears in childhood. The aim of this study was to explore children’s attitudes towards types of animal cruelty, to investigate potential demographic differences, and to examine potential associations between acceptance of cruelty and cognitive and affective factors that place children ‘at-risk’ for cruelty perpetration. Questionnaire data was collected from 1127 children in schools. The results indicate that cruelty attitudes are predicted by some demographic variables such as urban living, being male, younger age and not having pets, but depend on the type of animal cruelty. Acceptance of cruelty predicted low compassion and low reported humane behaviour towards animals. Acceptance of cruelty was predicted by negative attitudes towards animals, lower beliefs in animal minds and low attachment to pets, signifying the importance of targeting such variables in future prevention programmes. This study is an original contribution to research into childhood animal cruelty in the general population, with implications for designing and implementing early prevention programmes that tackle problematic attitudes to cruelty.     

Measurement Properties of the Communities That Care<Superscript>®</Superscript> Youth Survey Across Demographic Groups

Prevention science has produced information about risk and protective factors that predict adolescent drug use and related problem behaviors. This paper investigates the Communities That Care Youth Survey that measures multiple risk and protective factors. Using a sample of 172,628 students who participated in surveys administered in seven states in 1998, analyses were conducted to test the factor structure of these risk and protective factors and to test the equivalence of the factor models across five racial/ethnic groups (African Americans, Asians or Pacific Islanders, Caucasians, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans), four grade levels (6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th) and both gender groups. Results support the construct validity of the surveys risk and protective factor scales and indicate that the measures are equally reliable across males and females and five racial/ethnic groups. Implications of these findings for science-based prevention planning are discussed.