Mail vs. telephone surveys of criminal justice attitudes: A comparative analysis

This study compares results from surveys using two modes of administration. A subset of questions from the 1992Texas Crime Poll, a statewide poll conducted annually by mail, was replicated in telephone interviews using the Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing System. The phone survey yielded better participation rates but less complete responses to individual attitude questions than did the mail poll. As expected, the mail survey was less expensive but less efficient than the automated phone survey. The central finding was that all but one of the responses to five attitude questions difered significantly across the surveys. The samples differed in their demographic composition, but this did not explain differences in the substantive findings from the mail and phone surveys. The discussion considers alternative explanations for differences in the findings from the two surveys and suggests direction for further comparative research.     

Results of a curriculum intervention with seventh graders regarding violence in relationships

This research measured the effects of a violence prevention curriculum on the knowledge and attitudes of seventh grade health education students (N=239) about woman abuse using a valid and reliable inventory. Pretests, post-tests, and post-post-tests were administered to experimental and comparison groups. The experimental group received the curriculum intervention,Skills for Violence-Free Relationships. Significant differences were found between the experimental and comparison groups from pretest to post-test on both the knowledge (p=.0027) and attitude (p=.0089) sections of the inventory. This impact did not remain stable at post post-test. These results confirm those found in other studies and reinforce recommendations of the battered women’s movement to integrate violence-free principles into school curricula. Within the experimental group, significant gender differences were found only on the attitude section from post-test to post post-test (p=.0335); females showed greater change over time. Such limited change was not unexpected in a middle school population given the reported formative nature of the subjects’ gender acquisition as contrasted with those at an older age.     

Consistency of adolescents' self-report of sexual behavior in a longitudinal study

This study examines three issues relevant to adolescent self-reported sexual behavior: the extent to which adolescents rescind reports of sexual intercourse, changes in reporting of lifetime sexual intercourse, and changes in reported age at first sexual intercourse. Data come from a three-year longitudinal study of health-compromising behaviors among a cohort a 758 rural adolescents. Students completed a self-administered questionnaire on health behaviors annually in eighth, ninth, and tenth grades. Findings show that 88.8% of students in eighth grade and 94.3% in ninth grade who reported having had sexual intercourse gave the same answer in a subsequent year. Approximately 15% of students reported fewer numbers of lifetime sexual intercourse experiences in tenth grade than they did in ninth grade. Age at first sexual intercourse was reported inconsistently by 67% of the students. Inconsistency rates differed by racial-gender groups, question sensitivity, and prior sexual experience.Received Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Research interests include adolescent health and early adolescent development.Received Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Research interests include personality, stress, and coping.Received Ph.D. from University of Chicago. Research interests include adolescent delinquency and substance use.Received Dr. P.H. from Johns Hopkins University. Research interests include rural adolescents and international health issues.Received Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Research interests include adolescent sexuality and contraceptive decision making.     

The Political Economy of State Environmental Regulation: The Distribution of Regulatory Burdens

This article examines interstate variance in the distribution of costs for hazardous waste regulation in the American states. The analysis identifies the distribution of regulatory costs for technical externalities and answers specific questions about the regulatory strategies of competing states in a federal system.     

Life (Hi)story writing: The relationship between talk and text

This paper is based on my experience of life (hi)story work with Aboriginal women. It will focus mainly on the development of a collaborative methodology between Patsy Cohen and myself and the process of creating the text Ingelba and the Five Black Matriarchs ¹.

Life (hi)story writing lies uneasily on the boundary between biography and autobiography and as such challenges many of our assumptions about telling and writing a life. It has traditionally been regarded as ‘an extensive record of a life told to and recorded by another who then edits and writes the life as though it were autobiography‘². More recently feminist researchers have redefined this process to emphasise its collaborative nature ‘in life history, two stories together produce one. A speaker and a listener ask, respond, present and edit a life‘³. Such a definition focuses our attention on the relationship, the inevitable power relations involved in the processes of the production of knowledge, the interface between talk and text and the need for alternative models to conventional biography and autobiography. Both the process and the text produced by this method are potentially deconstructive of conventional autobiography and biography. They are not simply deconstructive, however, as new narratives and new forms can be created out of this process which enable us to re‐evaluate the telling of all our lives.