Early Adolescent Peer Ecologies in Rural Communities: Bullying in Schools That Do and Do not Have a Transition During the Middle Grades

The transition to middle school is considered to be a heightened period for involvement in bullying because the lack of a defined dominance hierarchy is thought to promote jockeying for social positions among students. Accordingly, this study examined bullying in peer ecologies at the beginning of the middle grade years in rural schools that did and did not have a transition to middle school. Thirty-six schools (20 with transitions, 16 without transitions) participated in this research with a sample of 1,800 participants (52% female) who were in sixth grade during the second year of data collection. Overall, 67% were White, 19% African American, 7% Latino, 2% Native American, and 5% other (multi-racial, Asian, unknown). Compared to schools without a transition, schools with a transition had fewer bullies following the move from fifth to sixth grade and the social dynamics in schools with a transition appeared to be less supportive of bullying. Further, students in schools with a transition reported being bullied less frequently in sixth grade and they perceived the sixth grade peer ecology as being more protective against bullying than did students in schools without a transition. In addition, proportionally more youth had controversial sociometric status in schools without a transition during sixth grade than in schools with a transition. Collectively, these findings suggest that risk for involvement in bullying may be elevated in schools that do not have a transition to middle school. They also bring into question the conventional view of the small K-8 or K-12 rural school as a peaceful and supportive peer community.     

Cross-validation of the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ): an offender risk and need assessment measure on Australian, British, Canadian, Singaporean, and American offenders

The Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ) is a 72-item self-report measure designed to predict violent and nonviolent recidivism among adult criminal offenders. The results from using samples from Australia, Canada, England, Singapore, and two samples from the United States (North Carolina and Pennsylvania) indicated that (a) the SAQ has sound psychometric properties, with acceptable reliability and concurrent validity for assessing recidivism and institutional adjustment; (b) there were no significant differences among the scores of the White, African American, Hispanic, and Aboriginal Australian offenders on the SAQ; (c) there were no significant differences among offenders who completed the SAQ for research purposes versus offenders who completed it as part of a decision-making process. Results provided support for the validity of the SAQ to be used with the culturally diverse offenders involved in this research and provided further evidence that contradicts concerns that the SAQ as a self-report measure may be susceptible to lying, and self-presentation biases.     

Drugs, alcohol, and accidental death coverage

Accidental death policies insure against what their name implies, but what is an accidental death? This is often not a question easily answered, and when alcohol and drugs (prescribed or illegal) are the causes of, or contributors to, the death, the issue becomes even thornier, and highly fact- and jurisdiction-specific. As this survey shows, the law in this area is inconsistent but nevertheless susceptible of coherent and organized analysis.     

Women, power and ordination: A psychological interpretation of objections to the ordination of women to the priesthood

The ordination of women to the priesthood is a subject which still encounters strong antagonism from both men and women. In this paper, such antagonism is interpreted using the thesis of Dinnerstein (1978) which suggests that it may be an expression of the flight from maternal power. The experience of a woman as the first caretaker, coupled with the infant's primitive capacity to deal with the necessarily dependent and frustrating relationship with her, leads men and women to associate their ambivalent fantasies of maternal power with female authority. In particular, the ordination of women for a role which is itself mystically powerful provokes arguments and attitudes which can be interpreted as an expression of this irrational fear.     

Engagement,Disengagement, or Exit: A Theory of Equilibrium Associations

This article considers the possibility of mutually beneficial communication among groups when any group may choose to unilaterally join or exit an alliance. My main concern is the trade‐off groups face between the informational benefits of associating with others in a large society versus the costs imposed by power sharing and preference diversity. When these costs are sufficiently high, groups may prefer exit to association. The results of this article characterize the associations of groups that can be sustained in equilibrium, and within those associations, the types of groups that choose to meaningfully communicate with others. The results demonstrate that there can be benefits or costs associated with the inclusion of preference extremists in a diverse society, whether or not those extremists choose to actively communicate with outgroups. The results also speak to institutional mechanisms for fostering communication across diverse groups.     

Nudging Early Reduces Administrative Burden: Three Field Experiments to Improve Code Enforcement

In the past decade, public sector organizations around the world have worked to simplify administrative processes as a way to improve user experience and compliance. Academic evidence on administrative burden supports this approach and there is a strong body of research showing that learning costs, compliance costs, and psychological costs help to explain why residents do not always take up programs for which they are eligible. This article considers the role of these types of costs in a different set of resident-state interactions: compliance with regulations. We present the results of three large field experiments aimed at improving resident compliance with municipal housing codes using targeted behavioral interventions. We find that contacting property owners earlier, redesigning first notices, and proactively communicating with previous violators, can significantly improve compliance by 14.7 percent, 3.3 percent, and 9.2 percent, respectively, with costs savings ranging from 6 to 15 percent of a city's annual enforcement budget. Our results counterintuitively suggest that sometimes adding steps to an administrative process can reduce the costs associated with the resident-state interaction.