The Impact of Collective Efficacy on Risks for Adolescents’ Perpetration of Dating Violence

Given prevalence rates and negative consequences that adolescents’ perpetration of dating violence may have on an individual’s well-being and future relationships, it is imperative to explore factors that may increase or reduce its occurrence. Thus, we aimed to identify how multiple contextual risk factors (individual, family, schools, and neighborhoods) were related to adolescents’ perpetration of dating violence over a 6 year period. Then, we assessed how neighborhood collective efficacy, an important predictor of urban youths’ well-being, buffered the relationship between each of the risk factors and adolescents’ perpetration of dating violence. Three waves of data from the Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study were used (N = 765; Ages 16–20 at Wave 3). The sample is 53 % female, 42 % African-American, and 53 % Hispanic. For the total sample, drug and alcohol use, low parental monitoring, academic difficulties, and involvement with antisocial peers were significant early risk factors for perpetration of dating violence in late adolescence. Risk factors also varied by adolescents’ race and sex. Finally, perceived neighborhood collective efficacy buffered the relationship between early academic difficulties and later perpetration of dating violence for Hispanic males. These results imply that multiple systems should be addressed in dating violence prevention programs.     

Resistance to Position Change,Motivated Reasoning,and Polarization

Political Behavior - People seem more divided than ever before over social and political issues, entrenched in their existing beliefs and unwilling to change them. Empirical research on mechanisms...     

Perspectives from the Senior Executive Service

Much of the research and scholarship on public administration relies heavily on an ‘outsider’ perspective. There is very little ‘insider’ discussion on the priorities, concerns and personal constructs which influence senior executives’ careers. This small qualitative study captures the perspectives of members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) within Australian public sector agencies and identifies key issues for them as senior executives.     

Male rape myths: the role of gender, violence, and sexism

This study investigates the structure of Struckman-Johnson and Struckman-Johnson's Male Rape Myth Scale, examines gender differences in rape myth acceptance, and explores the underlying ideologies that facilitate male rape myth acceptance. A three-factor model, with rape myths regarding Trauma, Blame, and Denial as separate subscales, is the best fitting solution. However, the results indicate that additional scale development and validity tests are necessary. In exploratory analyses, men are more accepting of male rape myths than are women. Benevolent sexism toward men and acceptance of interpersonal violence are strong predictors of male rape myth acceptance for both men and women. Thus, the attitudes that facilitate rape myth acceptance against men appear to be similar to those that facilitate rape myth acceptance against women. Suggestions for future scale development are outlined and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Self-Esteem and Family Challenge: An Investigation of Their Effects on Achievement

This study uses longitudinal data on a sample of 10th graders to investigate the associations between self-esteem, family challenge, and 2 indicators of adolescent achievement: high school grades and extracurricular involvement. Research on self-esteem and on family challenge has linked both of these factors to achievement in adolescents, but studies have not simultaneously examined the effects of these factors on achievement. The present study finds that family challenge and self-esteem are correlated with one another, and examines the effects of each of these factors on achievement while controlling on the other factor. Controlling on self-esteem, family challenge was positively associated with grades in school, and was marginally associated with extracurricular participation. Controlling on family challenge, we did not find self-esteem to be predictive of grades or extracurricular involvement in longitudinal analyses, but we did find some evidence for a relationship in the opposite direction, with grades in 10th grade predicting self-esteem in 12th grade. Results also suggest differences in academic achievement and extracurricular participation by race/ethnicity. Implications of these findings for the role of family challenge and self-esteem in the positive development of adolescents are discussed.     

Legal developments and industry issues relevant to IT,media and telecommunications law in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific

This column provides a country by country analysis of the latest legal developments, cases and issues relevant to the IT, media and telecommunications' industries in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. The articles appearing in this column are intended to serve as ‘alerts’ and are not submitted as detailed analyses of cases or legal developments.