Patterns of Middle School Adjustment and Ninth Grade Adaptation of Rural African American Youth: Grades and Substance Use

The transition to high school has been identified as a potentially difficult time in adolescents’ lives. Reductions in both academic and social functioning often accompany this transition. While these effects have been documented in urban youth, the move to high school has not been extensively studied in rural minority youth. Toward that end, the academic grades and substance use in ninth grade of 447 (184 male and 263 female) African-American adolescents from two rural counties in a state in the deep South were examined in relation to configurations of adaptation from sixth through eighth grade. Results indicate that individual with consistently positive patterns across middle school had higher grades and lower rates of substance use compared to individuals with persistent difficulties or those that transitioned to problem behavior. Many individuals who improved in their patterns of adaptation had relatively high grades, but also rather high rates of substance use in the ninth grade. David B. Estell is an assistant professor of educational psychology at Indiana University Bloomington. He received his PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His major research interests include peer relations and the development of aggression. Thomas W. Farmer is an associate professor of education at Pennsylvania State University and director of the National Research Center on Rural Education Support. He received his PhD in Special Education from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His major research interests include peer relations and the development of aggression in students with and without special needs. Matthew J. Irvin is a research scientist at the Center for Developmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His major research interests include resilience and student engagement. Jana H. Thompson is a research associate at the Center for Developmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include peer social relations and developmental transitions into early adolescence. Bryan C. Hutchins is a research assistant at the Center for Developmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a graduate student in the Educational Psychology, Measurement, and Evaluation Program at UNC. His research interests include child and adolescent social development and school based emotional and behavioral interventions and prevention programs. Erin M. McDonough is currently a doctoral candidate in School Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Emory University. As a research assistant at the Center for Developmental Science, she has been able to explore her interests in student achievement as well as rural education. Another major research interest of hers is school-based mental health.     

Ohne Substanz. Eine Antwort an Gross und Jungbauer-Gans

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Agenda Control, the Median Justice, and the Majority Opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court

Some scholars argue that the author of the majority opinion exercises the most influence over the Court's opinion-writing process and so can determine what becomes Court policy, at least within the limits of what some Court majority finds acceptable. Other students of the Court have suggested that the Court's median justice effectively dictates the content of the majority opinion: whatever policy the median justice most wants, she can get. We test these competing models with data on Supreme Court decision making during the Burger Court (1969–86). While we find substantial evidence for both models, the agenda control model gains greater support. This suggests that opinions on the Court on each case are driven, in general, by the interaction of three key variables: the policy preferences of the majority opinion author, the policy preferences of the median justice, and the location of the legal status quo .     

The Wisdom of Crowds: Learning from Administrators' Predictions of Citizen Perceptions

Public agencies use surveys to solicit feedback from citizens and targeted customer groups, but many experts question whether the results of these surveys are valuable. This paper explores how a recent innovation in citizen surveys—asking public administrators to predict how citizens will respond to survey questions—may be used to increase that value and, at the same time, provide additional data of interest on its own account. The innovation is explored through two surveys: (1) a public opinion poll of Georgia residents conducted by the authors for the Georgia Department of Transportation in January 2004, and (2) a brief survey of that agency's administrators asking for their predictions of public opinion. The prediction process appeared to increase the agency's interest in the resident survey. The findings document the frequent superiority of groups—what Surowiecki terms "the wisdom of crowds"—over individuals in predicting public opinion.     

Wie lässt sich Demokratie am besten messen? Zur Konzeptqualität von Demokratie-Indizes

This article proposes a new instrument for the assessment of the concept quality of democracy indices. We evaluate six famous democracy measurement datasets along our instrument’s requirements and show that the indices perform quite differently: The Index on Defect Democracy receives the best scores, whereas the Freedom House Index gets the worst. In addition, we provide some new insights as to general weaknesses of democracy measurement.     

Why National Competition Policy?

Strategies to enhance Australia's international competitiveness need to embrace reform of key infrastructure service industries, reform of the regulatory environment, industrial relations reform and taxation reform. Key aspects of this reform agenda can only be addressed through a shared commitment by all levels of government. Ownership of the public utilities responsible for the nation's key infrastructure networks and services is divided among commonwealth, state and territory (and local) governments. Achieving a substantial lift in the productivity of these industries and ensuring the emergence of truly national infrastructure networks relies on agreement by all governments to public utility reform and the removal of barriers to cross-border competition. Moreover, the regulation of industries, occupations and businesses is primarily the responsibility of state and territory governments, hence regulatory reform also requires a cooperative approach by all governments.
While most jurisdictions have taken some steps to reform public utilities and to deregulate certain product markets, to date reform has been piecemeal. A more systematic approach to removal of impediments to competition across the board is likely to be necessary to lift the overall competitiveness of the Australian economy. The agreement by the commonwealth and all states and territories to implement the National Competition Policy (NCP) not only provides the necessary shared commitment to reform across the board, it also provides the rewards and sanctions needed to sustain that commitment in the face of certain resistance from vested interests.