Developing Sexual Self-Efficacy Beliefs During Adolescence: Do Health Teachers Really Matter?

Teacher attitudes and instructional strategies impact success of human sexuality programs. Limited prior research has examined the relations of teachers’ attitudes and instruction to the development of adolescents’ sexual self-efficacy beliefs. This study examined how adolescents’ perceptions of their health teachers (i.e., teacher value of content, teacher affinity, teacher caring for students) predict changes in efficacy beliefs related to HIV/STD and pregnancy prevention, and if perceptions of mastery goal structure predicted adaptive efficacy beliefs. Data were collected in 4 Midwestern/Appalachian high schools in health class where the delivery of a 14-lesson sexual health curriculum occurred. Participants included 561 students (50.4% 9^th graders, 43.5% female, 56.3% White, 53.7% did not have a current romantic partner, and 59.7% had previously not engaged in sexual activity). The findings indicate students’ perceptions of teachers valuing the content predicted perceptions of mastery goal structure for all sexual self-efficacy beliefs: learning efficacy, condom negotiation efficacy, refusal self-efficacy, and situational self-efficacy. Students who perceive a mastery goal structure in health class, and who feel their teachers value learning about HIV/STD and pregnancy prevention, are likely to experience positive adaptive self-efficacy beliefs related to sexual health, ultimately leading to behaviors indicative of decreased STDs among teenagers and safe sexual practices, such as abstinence, the use of a condom, and saying “no” to having sex.

     

The effectiveness of social skills training (SST) for juvenile delinquents: a meta-analytical review

Journal of Experimental Criminology - To examine the effectiveness of social skills training (SST) for juvenile offenders and for whom and under which conditions SSTs are the most effective....     

De Gaulle,Colonel Passy and British Intelligence, 1940–42

De Gaulle's relationship with his secret intelligence and subversive services, the Bureau central de renseignements et d'action (BCRA) headed by Colonel Passy, as well as with British intelligence is examined in the light of the now declassified archives of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the BCRA. These archives reveal that de Gaulle failed to interest himself seriously in secret intelligence or subversion before the arrival of Jean Moulin in London in October 1941. De Gaulle's subsequent relationship with the BCRA and British intelligence was defined by an obsessive need for political control, which only served to compromise the BCRA's otherwise successful collaboration with British intelligence.     

Violent behavior and the factors associated with the decision to report it: a retrospective study

An ample volume of research evidence supports the conclusion that severe mental illness is correlated with violent behavior. While episodes of violent behavior are included in medical notes, not all episodes of violent behavior are officially reported to the police, even when they are actual crimes. We conducted a retrospective study on the already existing clinical files of four public psychiatric outpatient facilities, based in Southern Italy, in order to assess how many cases of violent behavior are actually reported and which variables are more frequently connected with the decision to report. The data shows that the episodes known to the health services, in number and seriousness, vastly outnumber the complaints actually made towards their patients.     

Characterisation of 12 new alleles in the STR system D18S51

D18S51 alleles 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 and 40 were detected and sequenced; these new alleles are mistyped with commercial STR kits, causing presumptive null alleles or false exclusions when paternity testing.     

Do Conditional Cash Transfers Affect Electoral Behavior? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Mexico

This article reexamines the argument that targeted programs increase pro‐incumbent voting by persuading beneficiaries to cast ballots against their first partisan choice. The evidence comes from the randomized component of Progresa, the pioneering Mexican conditional cash transfer (CCT) program. Experimental data show that early enrollment in the program led to substantive increases in voter turnout and in the incumbent’s vote share in the 2000 presidential election. The experiment also reveals that opposition parties’ vote shares were unaffected by the program. Thus, the electoral bonus generated by CCTs may be best explained by a mobilizing rather than persuasive mechanism. These findings are difficult to reconcile with the notion that the electoral effects of CCTs are a result of prospective concerns triggered by threats of program discontinuation or endogenous program enrollment. Instead, the evidence in this article suggests that CCTs’ mobilizing effects are compatible with programmatic politics.