“Use words. Not your body”: The hunger that has no name

This essay examines the competing readings of food refusal that emerged from a student hunger strike held at Columbia University in fall 2007. The invisibility of the act of food refusal forces hunger strikers to adopt performance strategies that make their (non)action visible as protest. To make the politics of their food refusal legible, advocates for the hunger strike promoted their actions as part of a 40 year tradition of student protest. However, that same invisibility allowed the protest's detractors to deride the hunger strikers as anorexic. At the center of the protest and the commentary about it was a wasting female body that confused for spectators the line between the political and the pathological. Attention to this body raises questions of how community is created and disciplined through performative acts, how easily female protest is evacuated of political meaning and the uneasy role of whiteness in popular attention to anorexia.     

Social support factors and drinking among college student males

The present investigation focused on social support and social competence among male college freshmen and the relation of these variables to alcohol use and psychological adjustment. Recent critical analyses of the social support literature suggest that studies in this area have generally failed to distinguish between different modes of support. Therefore, measures pertaining to possible dimensions of the social support construct (i.e., social network characteristics and perceived social support) were administered to 137 male college freshmen, along with a measure of social competence, and these data were factor analyzed. As a result, three interpretable factors were identified: Network Functions, Perceived Intimacy/Support, and Social Competence. Measures representing social network characteristics (e.g., network size, density, amount of social contact), perceived support, and social competence were used to predict alcohol use and psychological symptomatology. Results indicated that alcohol use was positively related to social network characteristics that reflect high levels of social interaction (e.g., network density, amount of social contact) and measures of social competence. Drinking was not significantly related to measures of perceived social support. Psychological symptomatology was negatively related to measures of perceived support, social competence, and network density. Thus, this study concludes that different modes of support and different measures of psychological adjustment should not be treated as if they are equivalent. And this study reaffirms a growing concern that the social context provides frequent opportunities for alcohol use and abuse in a college community.     

Women Activists: rewriting Greenham's history

The Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp protest of the 1980s and 1990s has become synonymous with radical feminism. Given that many of the challenges raised and discourses employed were similar, it might appear as a relatively uncomplicated progression from Women's Liberation. From this perspective, the threat of nuclear war could be viewed as a stark indication of the persistence of male violence enabled by an unremittingly patriarchal world. The women's protest was therefore often described by those who took part as a direct challenge to the status quo, intended to bring about the cultural revolution required to overthrow it. This article examines two histories of the event published in the ‘post-feminist’ era of the mid 2000s. It will demonstrate how a shift in discourses since the end of the protest has enabled these emergent texts to challenge the previously dominant version of the Greenham peace camp. It will go on to suggest that this shift was necessary in order to communicate a new contemporary political message: a message that gains its authority by drawing on other ‘silent’ discourses from Greenham. It will compare this development to the post-suffrage period as observed by other historians. In so doing, it will once again reveal how closely the ‘present’ influences the reflections of the ‘past’, and how this affects the performances of participants in their autobiographical accounts.     

Political legitimacy and approval of political protest and violence among children and adolescents

A question of general theoretical relevance for political socialization research concerns the role played by basic political orientations in structuring specific political opinions. This report investigates the relationship between beliefs in the legitimacy of political objects and approval of political protest and violence among a sample of children and adolescents. The setting for the research was a Florida town. Four aspects of political legitimacy are defined and measured. Measures of approval of political protest and political violence are distinguished conceptually and empirically. Beliefs in political legitimacy are shown to be of considerable importance in structuring opinions about political violence but have little impact on opinions about protest.     

Adolescents’ Information Management: Comparing Ideas About Why Adolescents Disclose to or Keep Secrets from Their Parents

Recognizing that adolescents providing or withholding information about their activities is a strong predictor of parental knowledge, this article compares several ideas about what prompts adolescents to disclose information or keep secrets from their parents. Using a sample of 874 Northern European adolescents (aged 12–16 years; 49.8 % were girls), modified cross-lagged models examined parental monitoring (solicitation and monitoring rules), adolescent delinquency, and perceived parental support as predictors and consequences of adolescents disclosing to parents or keeping secrets, with adolescents’ acceptance of parental authority as a moderator. Results suggest that, when adolescents view their parents as supportive, they subsequently disclose more and keep fewer secrets. Engaging in delinquent behavior was related reciprocally to keeping secrets. By comparison, the results generally did not support the idea that adolescents who are monitored provide information to parents, even when they accept parental authority. These results suggest that relationship dynamics and adolescents’ delinquent behaviors play an important role in adolescents’ information management.     

State Facilitated Economic Abuse: A Structural Analysis of Men Deliberately Withholding Child Support

Economic abuse is well established as a widespread and damaging element of intimate partner violence. However research largely addresses cohabiting couples, with few detailed explorations of women’s longer-term experiences after separation. Further, researchers have not developed a gendered analysis of child support related economic abuse. Such an analysis requires understanding gender as a framework that organises institutions and relationships in ways that build and reproduce hierarchical relations of difference. In this paper, I present data from in-depth interviews with 37 single mothers to pursue a structural analysis of how men’s deliberate withholding of child support (termed child maintenance in some countries) can be a form of economic abuse that is facilitated through gendered state processes and institutions that order child support transfers. I argue that masculine financial discretion structures policy and organizational practices in ways that legitimate men’s financial agency at the expense of women’s financial autonomy. On-going compliance issues are not the result of a failure of Australia’s Child Support Program, but suggest that the state’s role can be one of regulation, not prevention, of economic abuse. Thus, Australia’s Child Support Program normalises the potential for post-separation economic abuse.     

Changes in Teachers’ Involvement Versus Rejection and Links with Academic Motivation During the First Year of Secondary Education: A Multilevel Growth Curve Analysis

Research consistently shows that the learning environment plays an important role for early adolescents’ learning and outcomes and suggests that good teacher–student relationships can serve as a protective factor for maintaining young adolescents’ interest and active engagement in learning. However, less is known about the dynamic nature of teacher–student relationships and how they link with academic motivation development. Furthermore, little is known about the nature and the effects of teacher–student relationships in a cross-national context. The present study investigated changes in two components of teacher–student relationships (teachers’ involvement vs. rejection) and examined links with students’ academic motivation during the first grade of secondary school. Ten Dutch and ten Indonesian teachers (65 % female) from 24 classes were videoed 12 times across the school year, and four videos for each class were selected randomly and coded on teachers’ involvement versus rejection. A total of 713 students (52 % girls) completed four-wave measures of their academic motivation after each video observation. Multilevel growth curve modeling revealed that the teacher’s involvement changed in a curvilinear way and decreased across the first year of secondary education, while changes in the teacher’s rejection did not follow a linear time function. Academic motivation changed in an undesirable way: controlled motivation increased, while autonomous motivation decreased over time. Teachers’ involvement had a unique contribution in preventing high levels of controlled motivation in both countries. Findings suggest that teacher–student relationships (teachers’ involvement) play an essential role in early adolescents’ motivation regardless of the nations and should be a priority for schools.     

IMPRACTICAL RECONCILIATION

This article examines the events and texts of the Huggins–Bell debate, in view of the revival of Bell's ‘everyone's business’ position in the current context of the Northern Territory Intervention. I argue that while there are disjunctures between the position Bell espoused and the measures taken in the Intervention, the Intervention's policy approach of ‘practical reconciliation’ shares the signature features of Bell's position. As in Bell's work, the discourses supporting the Intervention use an ideology/practice binary to defend the morality of intervention, refuse to treat issues of lateral violence and racism intersectionally, and claim to bolster the authority of Indigenous women while in practice undermining that authority.     

Relationship of life events and social support with psychological dysfunction among adolescents

Relationships among major life events, perceived social support, and psychological disorder were assessed in a sample of older adolescents. Negative life events and satisfaction with social support were significantly and independently related to a range of psychological symptoms. Further, the relationship between negative events and disorder was moderated by gender, the types of events experienced, and anticipated change in the psychosocial environment. The importance of the use of standardized and psychometrically sound measures of life events, social support, and psychological disorder is highlighted.Received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1980. An assistant professor, he is currently investigating stress and coping among children and adolescents.Received her Ph.D. from the University of Vermont in 1985. An assistant professor, she is currently studying social support.Received Ed. M. from Harvard Universtiy. He is a doctoral student in clinical psychology interested in the role of social support in coping with stress during adolescence.Received her BA from the University of Vermont. She is a doctoral student in clinical psychology.     

Differentiating specialists and generalists within college students' social support networks

In order to examine the relationships among social network structure, types of social support, and determinants of support satisfaction, an alternative method was used to score the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ). Factor analysis procedures suggested that college students' (N=198) social networks consisted of four groups: nuclear family, other family, friends, and others. Satisfaction with support was positively related to the proportion of the network occupied by nuclear family and negatively related to the proportion of friends in the network. Evidence was found for the presence of both support specialists and support generalists in the networks of the college students. These results are discussed from a developmental perspective with attention to the implications for interventions.     

Seek Help from Teachers or Fight Back? Student Perceptions of Teachers’ Actions during Conflicts and Responses to Peer Victimization

Previous research has shown that teachers’ actions when addressing conflict on school grounds can shape adolescent perceptions regarding how well the school manages victimization. Our objective in this study was to determine how these perceptions influenced the likelihood that adolescent students would react to victimization scenarios by either seeking help from school authority or physically fighting back. Vignettes describing two events of victimization were administered to 148 ethnic minority adolescents (Latino, African American, and Asian backgrounds; 49% female) attending an urban high school with high rates of conflict. Positive perceptions of teachers’ actions during conflicts—assessed via a questionnaire tapping how teachers manage student conflicts both generally and in a specific instance of strife—predicted a greater willingness to seek help from school authority, which in turn negatively predicted self-reported aggressive responses to the victimization scenarios. Path analysis established the viability of this indirect effect model, even when we controlled for sex, beliefs about the acceptability of aggression, and previous levels of reactive aggression. Adolescents’ perceptions of teachers’ actions during conflicts are discussed in relation to social information processing models, improving student–teacher relations, and decreasing aggression at schools.     

Women,Godliness and Personal Appearance in Seventeenth‐Century England 1

This article discusses Lady Jersey's brief sojourn in New South Wales in 1891-92, as the wife of the colonial governor. In the context of colonial anxieties and hopes about the contemporary women's movement, Lady Jersey's aristocratic confidence and imperial authority gave her the appearance of an ‘Advanced Woman’. A published writer and confident public speaker before she arrived in the colony, Lady Jersey took a keen interest in local political affairs, and her demeanour and activity were swiftly satirised in the radical nationalist and frequently misogynist Bulletin. Local feminist groups, perhaps craving some of the legitimate public authority she so readily exercised, sought her patronage and support but were generally doomed to disappointment. The article suggests that Lady Jersey, despite her own conservatism, offered an ambiguous role model for those seeking positive ways in which to imagine female power.     

Identity Style,Parental Authority,and Identity Commitment

The role that parental authority patterns and social-cognitive identity styles may play in establishing identity commitments was investigated. The results indicated that family authority and identity style variables combined accounted for 50% of the variation in strength of identity commitment. As hypothesized, the relationship between parental authority and identity commitment was mediated by identity style. The findings are consistent with the view that family authority patterns may contribute to the way in which late adolescents negotiate the task of constructing a sense of identity. Alternative explanations of the findings are considered.     

Life Satisfaction and Student Engagement in Adolescents

Situated within a positive psychology perspective, this study explored linkages between adolescent students’ positive subjective well-being and their levels of engagement in schooling. Specifically, using structural equation modeling techniques, we evaluated the nature and directionality of longitudinal relationships between life satisfaction and student engagement variables. It was hypothesized that adolescents’ life satisfaction and student engagement variables would show bidirectional relationships. To test this hypothesis, 779 students (53% female, 62% Caucasian) in a Southeastern US middle school completed a measure of global life satisfaction and measures of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement at two time points, 5 months apart. A statistically significant bidirectional relationship between life satisfaction and cognitive engagement was found; however, non-significant relationships were found between life satisfaction and emotional and behavioral student engagement. The findings provide important evidence of the role of early adolescents’ life satisfaction in their engagement in schooling during the important transition grades between elementary and high school. The findings also help extend the positive psychology perspective to the relatively neglected context of education.     

Effects of Student Participation and Teacher Support on Victimization in Israeli Schools: An Examination of Gender,Culture, and School Type

Much of the research literature on school violence has focused narrowly on individual characteristics of troubled youth, without careful examination of contextual factors that might influence violence and victimization in school settings. This study examines the associations among Student Participation in Decision-Making in their Schools, Teacher Support, and Student Victimization (by students and staff members) in a nationally representative sample of 10,254 students in 164 junior high and high schools in Israel. Data were analyzed using structural equations modeling for full group analyses and for group comparisons of patterns among junior high, high school, male, female, and Jewish and Arab students. Across all models, higher levels of teacher support were associated with lower rates of victimization. Participation in Decision-Making was also related to Victimization, with varying patterns depending on students' gender and ethnicity. Theoretical and social cultural factors contributing to these gender and cultural differences are discussed. The general findings are consistent with the research literature on teacher support, however they raise future research questions about culture and gender effects when considering participation and school contexts. Presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, July 31st, 2004 Honolulu, Hawaii. Roxana Marachi is an Assistant Professor of Education at San José State University. She received her Ph.D.in Education and Psychology in 2003 from the University of Michigan. Her major research interests include school climate, learning environments, social behavior in schools, and the prevention of school violence Ron Avi Astor is Professor of Social Work and Education at the University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. in School Psychology and Human Development from the University of California at Berkeley in 1991. His major research interests include school violence, moral reasoning about family and school violence, violence interventions, and student empowerment methods using mapping and monitoring methods Rami Benbenishty is a Gordon Brown Professor of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He received his Ph.D. in Social Work and Psychology in 1981 from the University of Michigan. His major research interests include child welfare, student victimization, and clinical judgment and decision making     

Toilets and resistance in Italian factories in the 1950s

ABSTRACT

In the literature on industrial conflict, the Italy of the 1950s is often described as marked by worker acquiescence and an absence of conflict, ensured by high unemployment and the severe repression of union activism. My research challenges this. While formal, organized collective action subsided, workers continued to show their defiance and opposition to factory authorities by means of diverse acts of individual resistance that have escaped scholarly study. Drawing on anthropological theory, particularly Scott’s notion of ‘weapons of the weak’ – the strategies used by subordinate classes when facing heavy repression or lack of resources – this article undertakes an innovative analysis of the use of insults, irreverent behaviour, rumours and mockery of foremen and bosses to undermine the authority and legitimacy of factory hierarchies. It casts new light on the protest cultures and practices of Italian workers in the 1950s and improves our understanding of post-1945 industrial conflict.     

coloniality,political subjectivation and the gendered politics of protest in a ‘state of exception’

In this paper, I shall make the following propositions: in order to conceptually capture and represent the acts of political protest in a state of exception, we will need to reorient and supplement our representational apparatuses and also our theoretical frameworks for thinking about the gendered modes of protest under emergency laws and political abandonment. Through an analysis of the ‘naked protest’ of the Meira Peibis in Manipur, a ‘state of exception’ in democratic India, I shall argue that a series of supplementations to our current thinking on intersectionality, bare life and political subjectivation are required if we are to make sense of political acts of resistance, refusal and disavowal of the law of exception.     

Social support in healthy adolescents

Social support is examined in a representative sample of 141 healthy adolescents. By means of a revised version of the Mannheim Interview on Social Support, the number, type, perceived adequacy (satisfaction), and quality (importance) of the social relationships available were assessed. While peers were found to provide prime supportive functions in day-to-day matters, the social support provided by parents has a stress-buffering effect in emergency situations. The role of other family members is discussed. Differences in gender and education are moderate. The data suggests the adequacy of social support and social integration, contrary to the traditional view of adolescence as a time of crisis and conflict.This study was supported by the Swiss National Foundation (Grant Number 32.26367.89).Received M.D. from University of Berne. Has conducted research on chronic illness (cystic fibrosis), minimal brain dysfunction, and suicide prevention in children.Received Ph.D. from University of Berne. Has done research on coping in cancer and cystic fibrosis.     

Birth order and self-concept in adolescence

The effect of birth order on self-concept was examined in a sample of adolescent boys and girls. Based upon self-theory, which suggests that the two main processes of self-concept formation (e.g., reflected appraisals and social comparisons) are affected by the power and role relationships associated with ordinal position in the family, several hypotheses were tested: (1) The self-evaluations of only and oldest children are more positive than those of younger siblings; (2) middle-borns have the lowest self-evaluations; (3) these relationships are affected by the sex and spacing of nearest sibling; and (4) the self-conceptions of oldest and only children are more similar to those of their parents than the self-conceptions of younger siblings and their parents. Using analysis of variance and several different measures of self-evaluation, very little support was found for any of these hypotheses. The strongest support was found for the hypothesis on middle-borns, but even these relationships were not large. Several explanations are offered for these weak and inconsistent findings.