Mapping an agenda for the study of youth sexual aggression in Europe: assessment,principles of good practice,and the multilevel analysis of risk factors

ABSTRACT

Sexual aggression is a serious threat to young people's sexual health in Europe, but establishing the exact scale of the problem has been hampered by a variety of conceptual and methodological problems. This article presents a framework for studying youth sexual aggression that addresses both prevalence and risk factors of victimisation and perpetration. It proposes a research tool to comprehensively assess the perpetration of, and victimisation by, sexual aggression that captures different coercive strategies, sexual acts, victim–perpetrator relations, and gender constellations. The instrument is rooted in a clear conceptual definition of sexual aggression and was pilot-tested in 10 countries of the European Union (EU). Furthermore, a list of good practice criteria is proposed to promote the quality and comparability of research on youth sexual aggression in Europe. A multilevel approach combining individual-level and country-level predictors of sexual aggression is outlined and illustrated with data from the pilot study in 10 countries.     

Working on the Ground. A Collective Biography of Feminine Subjectivities: Mapping the Traces of Power and Knowledge

In this paper we map the traces of power and knowledge as we read them at play in our own memories and as we make sense of them from a Foucauldian perspective. Our question here is twofold: how might we use Foucault to read our embodied memories of power and knowledge; and how might we use the analysis of those stories to enable us better to see the implications of Foucault's writing for the analysis of subjects' enmeshment in power/knowledge relations? We use as the ground of our analysis our own embodied memories of achieving ourselves as appropriate(d) subjects (as girls and women, in relation to men--fathers, lovers, and husbands). Our trajectory in this paper is double. First, it has been towards uncovering the ways in which girls and women might be said to be powerful, even when they are complicit in their own subjection. Second, it has been to show that when Foucault defines all acts of power to involve the possibility of resistance and freedom, and he takes the opposite, a state of domination, to arise from 'economic, political, or military means', he has not fully acknowledged the extent to which the repeated, minute accretions of everyday practices can generate sedimentations of lines of force that may also be understood as a state of domination.     

The reverse mortgage as an asset management tool

Abstract

Reverse mortgages are usually seen as a vehicle for increasing the income of poor, elderly households. This perspective, coupled with the relatively slow growth of reverse mortgage programs, has led some observers to question the growth potential of the reverse mortgage market. This article presents a more expansive view of reverse mortgages as a financial tool for tapping housing equity for various purposes and at various stages in the life cycle.

Three market segments for reverse mortgages are discussed: elderly persons living alone, other elderly households, and non‐elderly households. Potential uses include turning housing equity into personal human capital investment accounts, enabling children to provide care for their disabled parents, funding elderly households’ long‐term care insurance, and sustaining consumption. Recent progress in product development and availability and political pressures to find private financing for health and long‐term care suggest that the reverse mortgage market has considerable growth potential.     

The contributions of historic preservation to housing and economic development

Abstract

Historic preservation contributes greatly to housing and economic development. Historic preservation has produced almost 250,000 housing units through use of the federal historic rehabilitation tax credit. Additionally, heritage tourism is a multibillion‐dollar industry, and preservation projects help further community revitalization.

Historic preservation also has a downside. Preservation's growing popularity may dilute its imperative and market prowess, and some argue it is used to thwart new development. Preservation requirements may impede affordable housing production and displace area residents. These undesirable consequences are not givens, however. Preservationists are working to become more flexible, and we suggest ways to practice historic preservation while mitigating some of its negative consequences—for example, tax credit changes, more flexible building codes, and a “tiered” system of designating historic properties at varying levels of significance.     

Book reviews

Iron Oxen: A Documentary of Revolution in Chinese Farming. By William Hinton. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1970. Pp. x + 225. $6.95 and £2.15.

Hundred Day War: The Cultural Revolution at Tsinghua University. By William Hinton. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972. Pp. 288. $7.95 and £3.15.

The Development of China's Steel Industry and Soviet Technical Aid. By M. Gardner Clark. Ithaca, NY: New York State School of Industrial and Labour Relations, Cornell University, 1973. Pp. vii + 104, appendices. $7.00.

Urban Unemployment in Developing Countries. By Paul Bairoch. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1973. Pp. v + 99. 12 Swiss F.

Fiscal Federalism. By Wallace E. Oates. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972. Pp. xvi + 256, diagrams.

Foreign Resources and Economic Development: A Symposium on the Report of the Pearson Commission. Edited by T. J. Byres. Portland, Oregon and London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971. Pp. xi + 199, index. £2.75.

The Inter‐American Development Bank: A Study in Development Financing. By Sidney Dell. New York, Washington and London: Praeger Publishers, 1972. Pp. xv + 255. £6.25.

Money and Economic Development: The Horowitz Lectures of 1972. By Milton Friedman. New York: Praeger, 1973. Pp. x + 67, diagrams. £3.50.

Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon. By John Dunn. London: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Pp. 294, index, bibliography. £1 .40 (Paper).

Socialist Economic Development and Reforms. By J. Wilczynski. London: Mac‐Millan, 1972. Pp. xvii + 350. £5.

Reforms in the Soviet and East European Economies. Edited by L. A. D. Dellin and Hermann Gross. Lexington: D. C. Heath and Co, 1972, Pp. viii + 175. £4.

Politics and Society in Post‐War Naples. By P. A. Allum. London: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Pp. xvi + 410, appendices, maps, bibliography and index. £11.00.

Latin America Review of Books. Edited by Colin Harding and Christopher Roper. London and Leeds: Latin America Review of Books Ltd, No. 1 Spring 1973. Pp. 220. £3.00 (cloth), £1.25 (paper).

Rural Guerrillas in Latin America. By Richard Gott. London: Penguin Books, 1973. Pp. 637. £1.00.

Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution. By André Gunder Frank, New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1969. Pp. xviii + 409. £3.90.

Politics and Social Structure in Latin America. By James Petras. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1970. Pp. 382. £4.25.

The Politics of Land Reform in Chile, 1950–1970. By Robert R. Kaufman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. Pp. 321. £6.00.

Political Mobilization of the Venezuelan Peasant. By John Duncan Powell. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971. Pp. 229.

Urban Challenge in East Africa. Edited by John Hutton. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1972. Pp. viii + 285, map, tables and photos. Shs. 42 in East Africa.

Employment, Incomes and Equality: A Strategy for Increasing Productive Employment in Kenya. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1972. Pp. xx + 600. 305 wf.

Arms and African Development. Proceedings of the First Pan‐African Citizens Conference. Edited by Frederick S. Arkhurst. New York and London: Praeger, 1972. Pp. xvi + 158. £7.75.

Man, State, and Society in the Contemporary Maghrib. Edited by I. William Zartman. New York: Praeger and London: Pall Mall, 1973. Pp. vii + 531, appendices with tables, maps, bibliographical essay. $13.50 and £5.67.

Histoire Economique du Québec 1851–1896. By Jean Hamelin and Yves Roby. Editions Fides: Montreal, 1971. Pp. 436, index. $10.00.

Indochina in Conflict: A Political Assessment. Edited by Joseph J. Zasloff and Alan E. Goodman. Lexington, Mass., Toronto and London: D. C. Heath and Co, 1972. Pp. xv + 227. £5.00.

The Dynamics of Indian Political Factions. By Mary C. Carras. London: Cambridge University Press, 1972. £6.50.     

Secular Trend in the Development of Permanent Teeth in a Population of Istria and the Littoral Region of Croatia

The study evaluated secular trends in dental development during a period of 30 years, correlation between dental and chronological age in Istria and the littoral region of Croatia. The sample consisted of 1000 panoramic radiographs of children, aged 6–16 years (mean 10.0 ± 1.8), taken in the period 1977–1979 (N = 500; 243 females) and 2007–2009 (N = 500; 299 females). Dental age was assessed according to Demirjian's method. Correlation between chronological and dental age was linear, positive, high, and statistically significant in both periods and genders, ranging from 0.73 to 0.86. Dental age was underestimated when compared to chronological age by 1 year on average, more 30 years ago (?1.35 ± 1.17) than today (?0.63 ± 1.09), less for girls (?0.80 ± 1.22) than boys (?1.21 ± 1.10). A statistically significant positive secular trend in acceleration of dental development was present of 0.72 years during the 30‐year period and was more significant in girls than boys (0.83‐ and 0.51‐year acceleration).     

Mapping Urban Revitalization: Using GIS Spatial Analysis to Evaluate a New Housing Policy

This longitudinal, multimethod study uses geographical information system (GIS) software to evaluate the community-wide impact of a neighborhood revitalization project. Unsystematic visual examination and analysis of GIS maps are offered as a complementary tool to quantitative analysis and one that is much more compelling, meaningful, and effective in presentation to community and nonscientific professional audiences. The centerpiece of the intervention was the development of a new, middle-class housing subdivision in an area that was declining physically and economically. This represents three major urban/housing policy directions: (1) the emphasis on home ownership for working-class families, (2) the deconcentration of poverty through development of mixed-income neighborhoods, and (3) the clean up and redevelopment of contaminated, former industrial brownfields. Resident survey responses, objective environmental assessment observations, and building permit data were collected, geocoded at the address level, and aggregated to the block level on 60 street blocks in the older neighborhoods surrounding the new housing in two waves: during site clearing and housing construction (Time 1: 1993–95) and three years post-completion (Time 2: 1998–99). Variables mapped include (a) Time 1–2 change in self-reported home repairs and improvements, (b) change in the assessed physical condition of yards and exteriors of 925 individual residential properties, (c) change in residents' home pride, and (d) a city archive of building permits at Time 2. Physical conditions improved overall in the neighborhood, but spatial analysis of the maps suggest that the spillover effects, if any, of the new housing were geographically limited and included unintended negative psychological consequences. Results argue for greater use of GIS and the street block level in community research and of psychological and behavioral variables in planning research and decisions.     

Ethno-Psychological Characteristics and Terror-Producing Countries: Linking Uncertainty Avoidance to Terrorist Acts in the 1970s

Most of the world's terrorism occurs in but a few of the world's countries. This study examines why. The extent to which Hofstede's cultural values relate to terrorism in the 1970s in 51 countries is analyzed. Uncertainty avoidance emerges as the single cultural value that is related to terrorism. Uncertainty avoidance, related to stress, may provide important prerequisites for group-induced aberrant behavior when formerly alienated group members find comfort in adhering to a collective belief system where dissent is discouraged, a sense of group purpose is reinforced, and rules are strictly imposed—apparently confirming the writings of terrorism psychologists.     

Democratic Dreams Neglected in the Land of the Pharaohs: US Democracy Assistance in Egypt

This paper examines the Obama Administration’s approach to democracy promotion in Egypt. After a brief discussion of the motivation for promoting democracy, this essay compares the Obama Administration to its predecessor and analyzes the changes that were spurred by the Arab Awakening. Did the Obama Administration, during and after the 2011 Revolution, fully support democratic change in Egypt not only with rhetoric but also with the financial and programmatic support necessary to help a transitioning country? Did the Obama Administration offer a consistent message on the importance of democratic policies? Or did the administration allow other policy objectives to trump democratic efforts? This paper explores the language, policies, and funding employed by the Obama Administration in Egypt to see what the impact has been.