Intergenerational Continuity in Depression: The Importance of Time-Varying Effects,Maternal Co-morbid Health Risk Behaviors and Child’s Gender

Intergenerational continuity in depressive symptoms is well established between mother and child, but there are still important facets of this relationship that are underexplored. We examine intergenerational continuity in depressive symptoms between mother–child dyads as a flexible function of child age and account for the potential moderating role of maternal co-morbid health risk behaviors. Using prospective, self-report data collected yearly from 413 mother–child dyads (210 mother–son dyads and 203 mother–daughter dyads) between child ages 12–17, the results indicate that the effect of maternal depressive symptoms on daughters’ depressive symptoms steadily increases throughout adolescence whereas the effect of maternal depressive symptoms on sons’ depressive symptoms is relatively small, stable, and non-significant during mid-adolescence before increasing in effect in later adolescence. A positive interactive effect between maternal depressive symptoms and intimate partner violence is observed for sons and maternal depressive symptoms and substance use for daughters. A negative interactive effect of maternal depressive symptoms and substance use is observed among sons. Overall, this study identifies particular subgroups for whom intervention programming is most beneficial and suggests targeting health risk behaviors of mothers to lessen the impact of maternal depressive symptoms on offspring.     

Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Adolescent Health Risk Problems: The Role of School Engagement

Maternal depressive symptoms disrupt positive youth development, though the pervasiveness of this disruption is understudied. Additionally, it remains unknown whether prosocial factors such as adolescent school engagement may buffer against this risk factor. Using multigenerational, longitudinal data spanning ten years from an ethnically diverse sample of mother-child dyads (66% Black, 17% Hispanic, and 17% White), this study examines the effect of maternal depressive symptoms in late childhood (ages 8–13) on the development and progression of offspring depressive symptoms, substance use, and delinquent behavior during adolescence (ages 14–17). Further, the study examines whether school engagement moderates the ill effects of maternal depressive symptoms. Mother-son (n?=?212) and mother-daughter (n?=?215) dyads are compared to assess for similarities and differences between male and female offspring. The results indicate that offspring of mothers with greater maternal depressive symptoms are more likely to display higher levels of depressive symptoms, substance use, and delinquency throughout adolescence, although important nuances emerge across outcome and child sex. Additionally, while school engagement itself is associated with reduced depressive symptoms, substance use and delinquency among adolescents, it is not profound enough to offset the risk posed by maternal depressive symptoms. The findings of this study reinforce the pervasive, negative, intergenerational impact of maternal depressive symptoms and has implications for prevention and intervention efforts for adolescent health risk problems.

     

In-your-face Watergate: neutralizing government lawbreaking and the war against white-collar crime

Crime, Law and Social Change - Ample official evidence exists that the Trump administration was the most corrupt in modern American history. Donald Trump’s overall pattern of behavior not...     

Race,economy and punishment: inequity and racial disparity in imprisonment, 1972–2002

Guided by the Rusche and Kirchheimer thesis, this study examines variation in incarceration rates across states. Time-series regression analysis is applied to 30?years of state-level data to examine how economic factors interact with aggregate measures of race/ethnicity in predicting rates of incarceration. The analysis indicates that income inequality, not unemployment, is the most salient predictor of incarceration rates. That is, state-level measures of income inequality exert a strong, positive effect on state-level incarceration rates, and this effect is particularly salient in the presence of higher percentages of African-Americans.     

Revolving Doors: Examining the Effect of Race and Ethnicity on Discretionary Decision-Making in Parole Revocations

American Journal of Criminal Justice - Approximately 20% of offenders under community supervision in the United States are currently on parole. While parole board members possess a wide range of...     

Revolutions: a twenty-first-century perspective

Abstract

We held the ‘Revolutions’ conference in 2017 to commemorate the Russian Revolution and redeem the actual record of revolutions in the Third World for the left. A quarter-century after the demise of the USSR, we found liberal capitalist triumphalism unwarranted. Two of the most important expectations to which it gave rise – that the world had become ‘unipolar’ and that it would enjoy a ‘peace dividend’ – remained unfulfilled. Instead, the world became multipolar and the West, led by the United States, engaged in unprecedented economic and military aggression against countries that contested its power. If this were not enough, social unrest and explosions in the First World as well as the Third underlined the relevance of revolutions. To trace their lineage, we recall capitalism’s intimate relation with revolution. It has needed revolutions to usher it into history and to usher it out. In addition to revolutions against developed capitalism, we also underline how important and necessary revolutions against nascent capitalism in various parts of the world have been. The contributions in this volume explore different parts of this lineage and vivify revolutions for our time.