Effects of Rock and Water: an intervention to prevent sexual aggression

Abstract

Sexual aggression among adolescents is a common problem which is related to lack of aggression regulation, positive or permissive attitudes towards sexual coercion, group pressure and inadequate communicative skills. Rock and Water is a psycho-physical intervention which addresses these issues. We conducted a quasi-experimental trial of Rock and Water in the Netherlands. In total, 521 boys aged 14–17 from nine pre-vocational education schools were included. The primary outcome variable was sexual aggression. Secondary outcomes were sexual interaction competence, self-regulation, attitudes towards dating violence, self-efficacy and self-esteem. Data were collected prior to the intervention, immediately after the intervention and five months after termination of the intervention. Boys reported a significant reduction in coercive strategies and particularly verbal manipulation (OR = .48). At follow-up, the boys reported a significant improvement in self-regulation and general self-efficacy (β = ?.11, p < .05 and β = 1.02, p <.05, respectively). Rock and Water was effective in decreasing verbal manipulation and improving self-regulation and general self-efficacy.     

Investigating the relationship between justice‐vengeance motivations and punitive sentencing recommendations

Purpose. The present research investigated the relationship between underlying justice and vengeance motivations and sentencing recommendations made by expert clinicians, semi‐experts, and lay‐people. It was hypothesized that the semi‐experts would recommend significantly different sentence lengths from those recommended by the expert and lay‐person groups, in line with previous research findings. It was also hypothesized that justice and vengeance motivations would be related to punitive sentencing recommendations, and that these would not be the same across the three levels of expertise. Method. An independent groups design was utilized in the main analysis, with participants belonging to three distinct levels of clinical experience (experts, semi‐experts, and lay‐people). A questionnaire was administered, with participants being measured on levels of justice and vengeance motivations, and asked to recommend appropriate sentence lengths based on nine separate crime‐scenarios. These covariables were correlated and the correlation coefficients were compared across the three levels of expertise. Results. The former hypothesis was not upheld. Findings do, however, support the latter hypothesis, with the key finding indicating that for both justice and vengeance motivations in punitive judgement, it is the lay‐participants who appear distinct from the experts and semi‐experts. Conclusions. The current findings emphasize that while expert and lay‐person judgements may often appear to be the same, different processes and motivations underlying clinical judgements are occurring at the different stages of expertise. With the differences in the relationships between justice and vengeance motivations and judgements found in the current research, it is argued that expert and lay judgements that appear to be the same are, in fact, distinguishable and are related to quite different underlying motivations and decision‐making processes.     

Daring to Be Heard: Advertorials by Organized Interests on the Op-Ed Page of The New York Times , 1985-1998

Advertorials are a form of outside lobbying that organized interests use to influence policymakers and attentive publics. It is apparent from their popularity that organized interests consider them to be an effective form of political communication. This article analyzes 2,805 organized interest advertorials that appeared on the lower right quadrant of The New York Times op-ed page from 1985 to 1998. Advertorials take two broad forms: (a) image advertorials, which are paid messages by organized interests designed to create a favorable climate of opinion, and (b) advocacy advertorials, which are sponsored messages intended to win support for an interest's viewpoints on controversial issues. Typologies of advertorials (11 categories), organized interests (21 categories), corporate and noncorporate economic interests (29 categories), and policy content (28 categories) are used to document annually and over time who is sponsoring advertorials, what types of advertorials are being used, what interests avail themselves of advertorial campaigns, which issue areas are receiving attention, what images and policy messages are being communicated, which organizations sponsor the most advertorials, and the timing of such political advertising campaigns. We find over time an increasing number of advertorials, an increasing number and diversity of sponsoring interest organizations, an increasing trend toward advocacy advertorials, a continuing but declining sponsorship dominance by corporate interests, a shifting policy issue emphasis that corresponds to events in the political environment, and evidence that organized interests employ a variety of sponsorship strategies.     

Recovering the transnational life of Charlotte Maxeke: an interview with Zubeida Jaffer

Abstract

A conversation with Zubeida Jaffer, discussing her recent book Beauty of the Heart: The Life and Times of Charlotte Mannya Maxeke (2016) and Maxeke’s perspectives towards colonialism, women’s rights, and transnational pan-African movements during the twentieth century.     

Breaking boundaries,defying borders: transnational networks of gender and race in South Africa and the United States

Abstract

This special issue examines transnational connections and collaborations among women and People of Color from South Africa and the United States, from the late nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first century: it considers how connections were fostered and how ideologies travelled. Key figures include Emily Hobhouse, Charlotte Maxeke, Cecilia Lilian Tshabalala, Maude White Katz, Madie Hall-Xuma, Elizabeth Mafeking, Miriam Makeba, Gloria Steinem, and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Actively and symbolically, each of these non-state actors approached the relationship between the two nations differently, through political and religious affiliations, and as individuals and through organizations. Many challenged and transcended the restrictions imposed upon them officially, through state-sanctioned segregation and apartheid, but also socially, on account of their gender. These women fostered intellectual and social connections with each other, as well as for their nations, through interpersonal relationships and in print, but also simply – and perhaps most problematically – through abstracted ideas about humanitarianism, motherhood, apartheid, and nation. Such travels and intellectual journeys could prove both mutually beneficial and hierarchically imbalanced, but nonetheless reiterate the continued transnational relevance and resonances between South Africa and the United States.