Adolescents’ time use: Effects on substance use,delinquency and sexual activity

Using an integration of social control theory and the routine activity perspective, adolescent time use was examined for effects on problem behaviors. We examined a wide variety of time use categories, including homework, extracurricular activities, sports time, alone time, paid work, housework, television watching, as well as indices of family time and peer time, for their effects on heavy alcohol use, cigarette smoking, illicit drug use, delinquency and sexual activity. The study employed a representative household sample of adolescents (n=606) and took into account important sociodemographic factors – gender, age, race (Black and White), and socioeconomic status. The most important predictors of adolescent problem behaviors were family time and peer time. Family time serves as a protective factor against all five problem behaviors while peer time is a highly significant risk factor for all five problem behaviors. Ph.D. in Sociology from the University at Buffalo. She is a Senior Research Scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions, University at Buffalo, 1021 Main Street, Buffalo, The State University of New York 14203. Her research interests include family influences on the development of adolescent substance use, gambling, and other problem behaviors M.A. in Mathematics from the University of Rochester. He is Project Manager/Data Analyst at the Research Institute on Addictions, University at Buffalo, 1021 Main Street, The State University of New York 14203. His current research interests include advanced data analysis techniques for studies of alcohol, other substance use and gambling behaviors among youth and adults. Ph.D. in Psychology from the University at Buffalo. He is a Senior Research Scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions, University at Buffalo, 1021 Main Street, The State University of New York 14203. His research interests include the substance abuse/crime nexus, the epidemiology of substance abuse, and the etiology and epidemiology of pathological gambling. Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale University. He is Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology, University at Buffalo, 430 Park Hall, Buffalo, The State University of New York, 14260. His research interests include interpersonal relations in adolescent, family, friendship, and work groups. M.S. in Epidemiology from the University at Buffalo. She is a retired Research Scientist from the Research Institute on Addictions, University at Buffalo, 1021 Main Street, The State University of New York 14203. Her research interests include alcohol and other substance use among adolescents and families     

“How Can We Stay Sober?” Homeless Women’s Experience in a Substance Abuse Treatment Center

This article presents findings from an exploratory, qualitative examination of an intensive outpatient treatment program for homeless women recovering from substance dependence disorders. Structured interviews of seven current program clients and three graduates of the program were conducted to ascertain how clients maintain their sobriety in addition to meeting the unique challenges of being homeless. Based on these interviews, there are four main concerns discussed: lack of communication between service providers, inconsistency in personnel during recovery, inconsistency in relapse policies, and clients feeling ill prepared to live in the “real world” after program completion.     

Assessing the Abu Sayyaf Group's Strategic and Learning Capacities

It remains unclear whether the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) is a well-structured terror organization that poses a strategic threat, or a loosely organized collection of bandits that poses limited risk. Efforts to assess the nature of the organization are complicated by flaws in existing datasets on Violent Non-State Actors (VNSAs). ASG's role in kidnappings serves as a test-case to estimate incongruities among four major datasets on VNSAs. Original data collected at the agent level provides an additional point of comparison and also serves to test the efficacy of ASG's knowledge-dissemination structures, which are key in determining VNSAs' strategic capacities.     

Modernization and Change in Social Housing: The Case for an Organizational Perspective

It is argued that past approaches to the research of housing policy and housing organizations are now inadequate and unable to provide a clear explanation of modernization and change. The modernization of social housing is associated with changing core organizational competencies and the movement towards a variety of partnership approaches. In response we develop a tripartite theoretical framework based around new institutional economics, strategic management and institutional theory. An exploratory review of the evidence at a sectoral level (examining social housing as a field, regulation and the profession) and the organizational level (focusing upon changing organization behaviour) is used to illustrate the legitimacy of this approach. In conclusion a research agenda is outlined.     

Decolonising online development studies? Emancipatory aspirations and critical reflections – a case study

Academics in high-income countries are increasingly launching development studies programmes through online distance learning to engage practitioner-students in low-income countries. Are such initiatives providing opportunities to critically tackle social injustice, or merely ‘mirroring’ relations of global inequality and re-entrenching imperial practices? Building on recent scholarship addressing efforts to ‘decolonise development studies’ and the complex power dynamics they encounter, we reflect on this question by analysing experiences of faculty and students in a United Kingdom-based online development studies programme, focusing particularly on perspectives of development practitioner-students working from Africa. We discuss barriers to social inclusivity – including the politics of language – that shaped participation dynamics in the programme as well as debates regarding critical development course content, rethinking possibilities for bridging counter-hegemonic development scholarship with practice-oriented approaches in a range of social contexts. Our analysis unpacks key tensions in addressing intertwined institutional and pedagogic dilemmas for an agenda towards decolonising online development studies, positioning decolonisation as a necessarily unsettling and contested process that calls for greater self-reflexivity.     

‘Happy Abortionists’

Recent feminist scholarship about abortion in Australia has focused on the politics of abortion as it is played out in the law, the media, public discourse and political debate. This article seeks to offer new angles on the politics of abortion by focusing on the provision of abortion services and in particular the position of doctors in relation to abortion in Australia since the early 1990s. It crafts a theoretical framework to think about the place of doctors, and their patients, in abortion provision and sketches a history of doctors over the last two decades. It is based in a small interview project conducted by the author in 2013 and uses interviews to supplement documentary evidence with ‘inside information’ about local histories and the micro-politics of decision-making in order to build an account of the multifaceted position of doctors in relation to abortion. It also uses the interviews to build a picture of the subjectivity of doctors who play a crucial part in the provision of abortion services. It argues that the ‘pro-choice versus anti-abortion’ spectrum is inadequate for understanding the multiple negotiations that doctors make in relation to abortion. Responsibility is devolved, often to the individual, albeit in sometimes resistant environments. Neoliberal female consumer citizens, empowered by as well as subordinated to dominant discourses, are often oblivious to the history and politics that make abortions available. Some doctors, although caught up in these forces, claim to be ‘happy abortionists’.     

Functional Actorness? Border Security in the EU and Turkey

The European Union (EU) has fortified its external borders using a number of measures including the creation of new institutions and networks such as FRONTEX and EUROSUR. In non-EU countries such as Turkey, border security is being reorganized with EU support and cooperation. By combining the literature on EU actorness and neo-functionalism, I provide a theoretical toolkit to critically unpack these new developments through conceptualizing multiple dimensions of what I call functional actorness. The contribution analyzes how the functional transformation of EU and Turkish border security has produced a number of side effects which are critically appraised.