Invited Commentary: Exploring the Promises,Intricacies, and Challenges to Positive Youth Development

We highlight the need for and critical importance of the program of research reported in this Special Issue. We emphasize that a focus on positive youth development is sorely overdue. The impressive project covering one decade, 42 states and 7,000 participants demonstrates critical contributors to positive youth development. The two identified themes emerging from the set of papers are that contexts and the nature of assets matter for youth. Collectively, the papers explored a variety of positive youth development relevant questions and utilized combinations of annual assessments and data sources from an extraordinary data base. The core methodological and conceptual flaw across papers was the under-representation of minorities in the data set, which limited the generalizability of findings. While the major shortcoming was acknowledged at the onset and recognized as a failing in each paper, nevertheless, merely conceding the flaw was seen as insufficient given the policy, practice, and research implications. The inadequate sampling and follow-up of youth from families which continue to face persistent social inequality and having the most to gain from a positive youth development conceptual strategy and was a major shortcoming; it prevented within group analyses. The co-authors note that although research decisions made limited the generalizability of the positive youth development research strategy for non-white American youth, the intended goals for inclusiveness are evident and, accordingly, suggest a level of hopefulness.     

Entitled Ease: Social Milieu of Corporate Criminals

This paper looks at the mechanisms through which financial corruption thrives both in Canadian society and elsewhere. There is a significant literature that examines the embeddedness of capitalism and the biases and advantages that this provides to all profit-directed activities. My focus is more on the social and attitudinal ways in which the embeddedness is exploited and simultaneously denied while serving as a lifestyle of the financially advantaged. I am interested in these cultures that develop and how the people within them come to accept their impunity and their entitlements as normal or at least ‘business as usual’. In addition, I am interested in the resistance to change pertaining to corruption of the powerful segments of our society. I present case studies that expose not only the privileges and advantages that capital allocates to the wealthiest but also a picture of the national and international social interactions among the clients, the enablers, and the regulators whereby the access to privilege is legitimized.     

Towards a critique of the theory of state monopoly capitalism

Marx and Engels's writings on Ireland are usually associated with their positive support for Irish nationalism. This article seeks to examine the extent and depth of their knowledge of Ireland, politically and economically, by focusing attention on Marx's analysis of post-famine agricultural readjustment. Comparing the latter's comments in Capitaland elsewhere with actual developments, it is suggested that Marx and Engels's understanding was less than accurate. The source of their misinterpretation lies principally with their inadequate analysis of tenants, agrarian capitalism, and land fever.     

Multiple perspectives on the meaning of revenue

The full range of the meaning of revenue emerges from seriously considering how people understand revenues from various perspectives. Explicit discussion of revenue meanings may contribute to improving our understanding of revenue-related phenomena. Insights can be gained from considering revenues from various perspectives. Revenue conceptualizations examined here range from the most immediate one, the notion of resources, to policy devices, mediation of relationships, measurements of political situations, and values. These discussions show that a variety of meanings are associate with revenues and that revenues are at least as fundamental to public budgeting as expenditures.     

Psychiatric disorder,IQ, and emotional intelligence among adolescent detainees: A comparative study

Objectives. To document criminality, psychiatric difficulty, IQ, EQ, and EI amongst Irish, male juvenile detainees (Detainee Group). To compare their IQ, EQ, and EI to non‐offending boys attending a child psychiatry clinic (Psychiatric Group) and boys without offending or psychiatric problems (Community Group). To compare psychiatric morbidity between the detainee and psychiatric groups. Method. Criminality levels of 30 detainees were evaluated using official court charge sheets. Psychiatric status was assessed through structured clinical interview (DISC‐IV); IQ through an individually administered IQ‐scale (WASI); EQ using the BarOn EQi:Youth Version (EQi:YV); and EI using the MSCEIT: Youth Version – Research Edition (MSCEIT:YV‐RE). IQ, EQ, and EI levels in the psychiatric and community groups were compared. Psychiatric morbidity between detainee and psychiatric groups were compared. Results. A total of 335 crimes led to the detention of detainees. Eighty‐three percent of detainees had a psychiatric disorder compared to 60% of young people in the psychiatric group. Detainees had 3.1 disorders each compared to 1.4 disorders in the psychiatric group. A total of 63.3% of detainees had an externalizing problem, 37.9% an internalizing problem, and 66.7% a substance dependency or use problem. A total of 21.4% of detainees had an IQ score below 70. The detainee and psychiatric groups had similar deficits in EI and significantly lower EI than the community groups. Conclusions. Serious levels of criminality and psychiatric disorder exist amongst Irish detainees. They have significantly lower IQ than young people attending a psychiatry clinic and both share deficits in the ability to accurately identify emotions, use emotions to guide thought processes and to prioritize thinking and to effectively regulate emotions.