Community Interventions: A Brief Overview and Their Application to the Obesity Epidemic

Community-based interventions built on theory and informed by community members produce potent, sustainable change. This intervention model mobilizes inherent community assets and pinpoints specific needs. Advancing community-based research to address obesity will require training of future leaders in this methodology, funding to conduct rigorous trials, and scientific acceptance of this model.     

A Preliminary Evaluation of the Spanish Parent–Child Aggression Acceptability Movie Task in Spain

The current study presents a preliminary evaluation of a Spanish adaptation of an implicit analog procedure, the Parent–child Aggression Acceptability Movie task (Spanish Parent-CAAM). Based on Social Information Processing theory, Spanish Parent-CAAM scores were expected to relate to self-reported PCA attitudes, negative child attributions, and child abuse risk in Spanish students; 245 undergraduates in Spain completed the Spanish Parent-CAAM along with self-report measures of PCA attitudes, negative children attributions, inclination to punish misbehavior, and child abuse risk. Findings indicate Spanish Parent-CAAM scores were significantly related to explicit measures of PCA, attributions of intentional child misbehavior, propensity to punish such misbehavior, and increased child abuse potential. Results are considered within the cultural context of Spain’s corporal punishment ban and PCA attitudes.     

The “net” of the Internet: Risk Factors for Cyberbullying among Secondary-School Students in Greece

Cyberbullying is one of the most common threats an adolescent might face online with serious negative consequences at the social, emotional and educational level. Despite the intense study of the phenomenon over the past decade, most researchers ask for new directions in research that will focus on risk and protective factors. This study attempted to investigate the predictive effect of internet use, parental mediation, school-bullying and victimisation, gender and empathy on cyberbullying and cybervictimisation in two measurements, 4 months apart. Data collection was conducted using a self-report questionnaire. Four hundred and forty secondary school students, aged 12–14, participated in the study. The students were randomly selected from six public schools located in the Greater Metropolitan Area of Thessaloniki in Greece. Results showed that involvement in traditional bullying as a victim or as a perpetrator is the factor with the highest predictability for cyberbullying and cybervictimisation, which also remains stable across time. This finding points to the urgent need for designing and implementing programmes against all forms of bullying both offline and on line.     

The differential predictive validity of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory: the role of gender

Most criminogenic risk assessments are developed and empirically validated on samples of boys or samples comprised of mostly boys, and subsequently applied to girls. Using a sample of male (n = 1,267) and female (n = 453) probationers, the purpose of the current study was to examine the potentially differential performance of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) and the instrument’s eight domains for female juvenile offenders. Findings revealed gender differences in the predictive validity of the YLS/CMI in which girls scored significantly higher on the risk assessment, but recidivated at significantly lower rates than boys two years following the administration of the assessment. The predictive validity of the instrument was impacted by these gender differences in which the YLS/CMI total score was a better predictor of recidivism for boys (area under the curve (AUC) = .623) than girls (AUC = .565). The only subscales that significantly predicted recidivism for girls were the family (AUC = .607) and personality (AUC = .572) domains, whereas all of the subscales significantly predicted recidivism for boys. Directions for future research as well as gender-responsive assessment, programming, and policy implications are discussed.     

Through the Party Lens: How Citizens Evaluate TV Electoral Spots

Party affiliation is considered one of the most important factors explaining voters' party choice, but also a strong intervening variable when it comes to the effectiveness of electoral advertising. The question raised in this study is to what extent party affiliation explains voters' judgments of electoral advertising, which was investigated by using data carried out during the Swedish general election campaign 2010. The results show that party affiliation still functions as a filter when voters are exposed to electoral advertising. The findings are suggested to be understood against the background of cognitive dissonance theory and selective exposure according to which people try to avoid a state of cognitive dissonance by avoiding information that conflicts with their attitudes.     

Correction to: A Two-Way Street? Reciprocal Associations Between Parental Warmth and Hostility with Substance Use Among Justice-Involved Adolescents

Journal of Youth and Adolescence -     

Who Does Cohesion Benefit? Race,Gender, and Peer Networks Associated with Adolescent Depressive Symptoms

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Adolescence is a developmental period when peer network structure is associated with mental health. However, how networks relate to distress for youth at...     

A Two-Way Street? Reciprocal Associations Between Parental Warmth and Hostility with Substance Use Among Justice-Involved Adolescents

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Transactional developmental theories propose that poor parenting behaviors contribute to youth substance use, and youth substance use contributes to poor...     

Symposium: Professionalization and professionalism in public administration

The Symposium on Professionalization and Professionalism in Public Administration, contained in this volume of The International Journal of Public Administration, presents some of the most recent outlooks of prominent scholars and practitioners in the field. They have offered their research and insights into a subject of perennial importance. They have charted the significant progress being made in public administration toward its professional development. This collection of refereed articles is a survey updating the evolution of the field in this regard. Several features are noteworthy. First, the articles are arrayed from general to specific--that is, from theoretical presentations and overviews to case studies. Second, the case studies have been arranged from the federal level to sub-national jurisdictions. Third, the Symposium examines not only professional developments in public administration but also the mechanisms engendering and supporting such changes--namely, associations and formal higher education.

In addition to their other relationships, the articles also bear epistimological links to one another. A precis of these contributions makes this point evident. The first article, “Specifying Elements of Professionalism and the Process of Professionalization” by John J. Gargan, offers an interdisciplinary perspective on these two concepts. His coverage suggests that characteristics of a profession are no different for public administration than they are for other disciplines in the social sciences or in the natural sciences as well, although the seventh essay in this symposium challenges this perspective. Gargan posits that all professions, developed as well as evolving, concern themselves with three broad issues: (1) theory generation (the creation of basic knowledge and the formation, alteration, or replacement of paradigms); (2) theory translation and advocacy (the establishment of education processes); and (3) theory implementation and routinization (the applications of knowledge to human affairs through standardized practice). All three processes are concomitants of one another, and public administration has been no exception.

The second contribution, “Public Official Associations and Professionalism” by Jeremy F. Plant and David S. Arnold, develops the second and third issues presented in Gargan's essay. They focus on the roles of associations as illustrations of a genre of education processes and as vehicles for bringing a greater degree of homogeneity to the field of public administration. Furthermore, they postulate that, in seeking to fulfill these roles, associations have been moving toward convergence. Their typology stipulates the existence of two kinds of public administration associations: (1) professional-specialist and (2) political-generalist. The first type, made up of public servant careerists, including members of federal and state senior executive services, has been becoming more political whereas the second kind, consisting of elected political officials (especially governors, mayors, and legislators) has been proceeding in a managerial direction, regardless of party affiliation and ideology. Both types of organizations are melding since they have become increasingly symbiotic hybrids. The authors captured this trend when they commented: “As players in the policy arena, professional association and generalist, political associations are increasingly finding ways to work together.”

The third essay, “The Ideology of Professionalism in Public Administration: Implications for Education” by Curtis Ventriss, also extends Gargan's work but in a narrower way than the Plant-Arnold article. Ventriss focuses on theory translation and advocacy not from an associational standpoint but from the vista of higher education. He fears that the pedagogical regime for public administration is succeeding too well in professionalizing the field and in thus making it more valuable in serving the state. He argues that professionalism tends to constrain thought in the discipline so that it cannot readily conceive of purposes apart from such service. This alleged parochialism detracts from what Ventriss thinks the primary purpose of public administration ought to be: the inculcation of citizenship. Radically, he proposes an end to traditional public administration instructional programs but scattering their elements among other disciplines. He questions implicitly the distinction, going back to Woodrow Wilson, between techniques, which can be value neutral, and their applications, which can involve normative choices. Stated another way, he asks whether public administration can be made safe for democracy because he doubts but hopes, like Frederick Mosher, that universities can perform such a function.

The fourth article, “The Future of Professionalization and Professionalism in Public Administration: Advancements, Barriers, and Prospects” by the co-editors of this symposium, is the last presentation falling within the framework of Gargan's piece. Whereas Gargan sought to delineate the nature of professional status, Gazell and Pugh examine the extent to which the field has reached this long-sought goal. They explore six broad areas of advancement and an equal number of obstacles and conclude that, despite widespread popular animus toward governments at all levels, the prospects of the field are favorable, mainly because of an expanding public need for its services. The authors view professionalization (process) and professionalism (result) as fully compatible with the achievement of a genuinely democratic state. In fact, the authors see professional status for public administration as necessary for making representative governments effective enough either to survive or become more democratic. There is always a risk that professional development could eventually become an end in itself, threatening the achievement of a pervasive democratic order. Implicit in the article are the ideas that the nexus between effectiveness and democracy is curvilinear but that the quest for effectiveness through professionalism has not yet reached a point of diminishing returns--that is, threatening democratic evolution.

The fifth presentation, “Professionalizing the American States in the 1990s” by Beverly A. Cigler, is the first of a series of essays reporting on the progress of professionalism in government at various levels. The author furnishes an overview of professional developments in state governments throughout the nation. In particular, she meticulously catalogs efforts toward professionalism in the executive branches of such governments, although coverage of the judicial and legislative branches would be necessary for a complete picture. However, such an expansion would have taken her far beyond the scope of her article. Especially notable is her exploration of executive reorganizations, commissions on effectiveness, and multi-agency initiatives. She sums up a potpourri of efforts, often gubernatorially inspired and sustained, by remarking: “Collectively, the various activities pursued by the states have the potential to change what government does and how it operates.” She sees executive-branch professionalization and professionalism as steps toward revitalizing (or reinventing) government at the state level.

The sixth article, “Professionalization within a Traditional Political Culture: A Case Study of South Carolina” by Steven W. Hays and Bruce F. Duke, represents a specific example of what Cigler covers generally. Hays and Duke make at least three significant contributions. One is that they chronicle the earliest movements toward professionalism in a state, leading to the possibility that it has had similar origins in other jurisdictions at this level of government. A second contribution is that such change can take place despite a spate of systemic obstacles such as decentralized personnel systems, fragmented political authority, and an absence of gubernatorial support. A third feature is the presentation of an interstate model for measuring professional development, including such criteria as public management certification, graduate degrees, and formal ethical codes. Despite various structural problems the authors argue: “Considering the distance traveled and the obstacles overcome, there is no disputing the conclusion that tremendous progress has occurred over the past two decades [in South Carolina].”

The seventh study, “Professional Leadership in Local Government” by Ruth Hoogland DeHoog and Gordon P. Whitaker, presents an overview of professionalization and professionalism at the local level. What is novel here is the suggestion that professionalism at this level of government may be different than at other realms of government and than in the private sector. Broadly speaking, the primary difference is that professionalism in the public sector, especially in government, involves less autonomy because of greater accountability for appointed and elected officials. In particular, there are three salient distinctions: a respect for expertise on the part of elected officials, deference to their legitimacy and authority, and an additional acceptance of responsibility to the people at large (that is, the public interest). Also stressed is a greater role of ethics in professional development with a highlighting of the role of the International City Management Association's efforts to bring improvement in this area. For instance, the authors point out: “Managers must learn these values through professional education, professional association contacts, and work with other professionals in local government.”

The eighth article in this symposium, “The Possibility of Professionalism in County Management” by James H. Svara, complements the DeHoog-Whitaker essay by providing a case study focusing on local public management in one state: North Carolina. Svara interviewed a cross-section of county executives and concerned himself with the extent of their professionalization and professionalism. To illuminate these developments, he compared the positions of county and city managers, using the latter as a model towards whom the former aspire. Generally, he found, that county executives have less authority (that is, fewer administrators under their direct control) than their municipal counterparts. However, he also discerned a narrowing gap between these two kinds of officials because of similar pre-job and in-service training received by them and the elected officials to whom they report. In addition, he noted that almost all of the counties in this state now have professional executives and that their advancement has been substantial.

The ninth--and final--contribution, “Decentralization and Initiative: TVA Returns to its Roots” by John G. Stewart and Rena C. Tolbert, is significant in at least four respects. First, the essay presents another case study of professional development--but at the local headquarters of a federal agency: Knoxville, Tennessee. Second, this research centers on professionalization and professionalism in a third (or mixed) sector organization--namely, a public corporation rather than a governmental agency. Third, the professional development of the TVA is distinctive because it has been internally generated, especially due to the efforts of its early leaders (David E. Lilienthal and Gordon R. Clapp), rather than externally imposed, as in the previous case studies. This provenance is analogous to what often takes place in the corporate sector. Lilienthal was instrumental in promoting organizational decentralization and grass-roots democracy as approaches toward improving the viability of a controversial governmental innovation, one widely regarded as “socialistic” at and after its inception. Clapp fostered a managerial culture promoting employee initiative, easy access to top executives, organizational teamwork, labor-management collaboration, and partnerships with states and localities through councils and conferences. Fourth, the authors traced professional development in the TVA through what in this symposium is a unique pattern: strong early efforts, retrenchment through bureaucratization, and, recently, a return to the agency's roots.