Abusive Males and Abused Females in Adolescent Relationships: Risk Factor Similarity and Dissimilarity and the Role of Relationship Seriousness

This study examines male-to-female physical abuse within adolescent relationships. Analyses use data describing 603 opposite sex relationships reported during Wave II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) matched with data on the individual characteristics of both the reporting females and their male partners from Wave I. In addition to the occurrence of physical abuse, relationship data included information on the seriousness of the relationships. Female and male participants' scores on 14 individual-level variables were used to predict abuse. The first set of analysis found that male-to-female abuse was predicted by 6 individual characteristics of males and 6 individual characteristics of females. Only one of these characteristics, grade point average (GPA), was a significant predictor of the occurrence of male-to-female abuse for both male and female relationship participants. The other characteristics were each only predictive for either males—Verbal IQ, Fighting, Attitudes About Sex and Relationships, and Past Sexual Behavior, or females—Mother Relationship, School Attachment, Drinking Behaviors, and Depression. Analyses also revealed that associations between different individual-level characteristics and relationship abuse were dependant on relationship seriousness. These findings suggest that relationship seriousness, which did not itself predict abuse, may act as a catalyst for the influence of some individual-level characteristics on the occurrence of abuse in relationships.     

The Future Is Uncentralized

In July 1995, ASPA's Endowment Board established the Donald C. Stone Fund to honor the memory of this public administration legend. Income from this fund is used to sponsor a lecture or symposium at ASPA's national conference which reflects Stone's varied interests and contributions to the field. This year marked the fifth Donald C. Stone Lecture. On April 4, Harlan Cleveland, former ASPA National President, was ASPA's Visions 2000 Stone Lecturer and gave the following speech.     

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS): a burgeoning medicolegal problem.

This Article presents a summary analysis of the administrative and statutory bases for the documented, prevalent mismanagement of Suddern Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) cases by a majority of local death investigation agencies in the United States. Herein, Alan P. Cleveland, J.D. advances the theory that the unsatisfactory handling of cases of SIDS by the medicolegal community is the inevitable outgrowth of state laws that expressly require investigative agencies to approach a sudden, unexplained death from the direction of determining first whether or not a criminal act has occurred. In so doing, most statutorily mandated autopsy procedures are socially counterproductive since, in ignoring an acute medical need for supportive family counselling, they often constitute an insuperable obstacle to the effective management of SIDS as a public health problem. The author recommends that a requisite first step in implementing an SIDS management program at the state level is to insulate surviving family members form criminal investigative procedures by appropriate amendment of state laws governing local death investigation systems.     

History of environmental pathology

Environmental pathology provides the opportunity for the pathologist to enter the mainstream of medical diagnosis and treatment through the application of his special skills and knowledge to the problems of the patient as created by his exposure to the environment.     

The Effects of Neighborhood Proportion of Single-Parent Families and Mother–Adolescent Relationships on Adolescents' Number of Sexual Partners

Using both individual-level and census-level data, this study predicts the number of sexual partners reported by male and female adolescents from the quality of their mother relationship and neighborhood proportion of single-parent families. Both predictors were associated with number of sexual partners for both males and females in OLS analyses. However, in Repeated Measures analyses of females, neighborhood proportion of single-parent families was not significant. In both OLS and Repeated Measures formats models with individual-level single-parent family status, race, mothers' education and family income variables, neighborhood proportion of single-parent families was not significant for either gender. Interaction models found that neighborhood proportion of single-parent families moderated the influence of mother relationship on the number of sexual partners in OLS analyses for both sexes, but only for males in the Repeated Measures format. The direction of these two-way interactions varied significantly by gender–in both OLS and Repeated Measures. Mother relationships were more influential for females in neighborhoods with fewer single-parent families. In contrast, mother relationships were more influential for males in neighborhoods with more single-parent families.     

The Influence of Individual and Partner Characteristics on the Perpetration of Intimate Partner Violence in Young Adult Relationships

This study examines individual and partner characteristics associated with the perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV) in young adult relationships with opposite sex partners. Using data from Waves 1 and 3 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined 1,275 young adults’ heterosexual romantic relationships. Controlling for the effects of family and school correlates measured in adolescence, we examined the extent to which participants’ general violent behavior in young adulthood and their partners’ use of violence in their relationship influence participants’ IPV perpetration. We found that both having general violent tendencies and being a target of violence in a relationship influenced one’s likelihood of young adults perpetrating IPV. We also tested whether the overall influence of participants’ general violent behavior on IPV perpetration was moderated by their partners’ use of violence in the relationship. We found that young women’s greatest expression of violent tendencies emerged when in relationships with violent men; yet, when partnered with non-violent men, young women’s own violent tendencies did not lead to IPV. We found little evidence for the interactive effect for young men in the study. The lack of a significant interaction in the model indicated that young men’s general aggression was not conditioned on their partners’ use of physical aggression in their relationships.