This paper examines how the means through which social benefits are delivered—either through a direct government program, or through a tax expenditure program—affects how citizens view social welfare programs and their beneficiaries. Attitudes toward social spending in the United States are strongly conditioned by both racial considerations and perceptions of the deservingness of recipients. We argue that the political cues given by spending conducted through the tax code differ from those given by direct spending in a way that both de-racializes spending attitudes and changes the lens through which citizens evaluate the deservingness of beneficiaries. Through a series of survey experiments, we demonstrate that social benefits delivered through the tax code are less likely to activate racialized thinking than similar or identical benefits delivered directly. This is true, at least in part, because recipients of tax expenditures are perceived as more deserving than recipients of otherwise identical direct spending.
In an effort to increase both adolescents’ engagement with school and academic achievement, school districts across the United
States have created small high schools. However, despite the widespread adoption of size reduction reforms, relatively little
is known about the relationship between size, engagement and outcomes in high school. In response, this article employs a
composite measure of engagement that combines organizational, sociological, and psychological theories. We use this composite
measure with the most recent nationally-representative dataset of tenth graders, Educational Longitudinal Study: 2002, (N = 10,946, 46% female) to better assess a generalizable relationship among school engagement, mathematics achievement and
school size with specific focus on cohort size. Findings confirm these measures to be highly related to student engagement.
Furthermore, results derived from multilevel regression analysis indicate that, as with school size, moderately sized cohorts
or grade-level groups provide the greatest engagement advantage for all students and that there are potentially harmful changes
when cohorts grow beyond 400 students. However, it is important to note that each group size affects different students differently,
eliminating the ability to prescribe an ideal cohort or school size. 相似文献
Intentional self regulation describes how people make choices, plan actions to reach their goals, and regulate the execution
of their actions, making processes of intentional self regulation central to healthy human functioning. Prior research has
confirmed the presence of three processes of intentional self regulation—elective selection (ES), optimization (O), and compensation
(C)—in middle adolescence (Grades 8 through 10) and concurrent and predictive relationships with measures of Positive Youth
Development (PYD). A fourth process, loss-based selection (LBS), should also develop by the end of middle adolescence. The
present study used data from the 4-H Study of PYD to confirm the presence of a four-scale structure of intentional self regulation
(ES, O, C, and LBS) in a sample of 2,357 racially diverse Grade 10 youth (63% female) and examine its covariation with indicators
of positive and problematic development. Results supported the identification of a four-part structure of intentional self
regulation, and scores covaried positively with indicators of PYD and negatively with substance use, delinquency, and depressive
symptoms. Implications of the findings for the understanding of self-regulatory actions in adolescence and for future research
are discussed. 相似文献
In contemporary Russia and Ukraine, Pentecostalism carries with it commitments to civic engagement and democracy, strong bonds
of social capital, and the embracing of an entrepreneurial spirit. In this article, the authors analyze the origins of Pentecostalism
in Russia, Soviet methods of repression, and Pentecostal survival strategies. Continuing, the authors examine the political
efficacy of Pentecostals, their civic commitments, their embracing of the free market, and the strength and nature of social
capital among them. While the authors conclude that it is too soon to conclude that Pentecostalism will bring about democracy,
civil society, and free markets in Russia and Ukraine, they argue that Pentecostalism is proving itself a popular choice in
the contemporary religious marketplace and that choice is not without significant civic, economic, and political consequences. 相似文献
This article focuses on the degree to which friends’ influence on substance use is conditioned by the consistency between their behavior and that of schoolmates (individuals enrolled in the same school, but not identified as friends), contributing to the literature on the complexity of interactive social influences during adolescence. Specifically, it hypothesizes that friends’ influence will diminish as their norms become less similar to that of schoolmates. The authors also propose that this conditioning relationship is related to the density of the friendship group. This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (AddHealth) (n ~ 8,000, 55 % female) to examine the interactive relationship between friend and schoolmate influences on adolescent substance use (smoking and drinking). The sample contains students ranging from age 11 to 22 and is 60 % White. The findings demonstrate that, as the substance use of the friendship group becomes more dissimilar from schoolmates’ substance use, the friendship group’s influence on adolescent substance use diminishes. Further, the results demonstrate that this conditioning relationship does not emerge when the friendship group is highly dense. 相似文献
Prior research has identified a vast number of correlates for delinquent behavior during adolescence, yet a considerable number of errors in prediction remain. These errors suggest that behavioral development among a portion of youths is not well understood, with some exhibiting resilience and others a heightened vulnerability to risks. Examining cases that do not confirm prediction outcomes provides an opportunity to achieve a greater understanding of the relationships between risk factors and delinquency, which can be used to improve theoretical explanations of behavior. This study explores the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to differences in individual responses to cumulative risk for delinquency among a sample of adolescent twins (N = 784 pairs, 49 % female) in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The results indicate that additive genetic and unique environmental factors significantly contribute to variation in responses to cumulative risk across 14 risk factors spanning individual, familial, and environmental domains. When analyzed separately, the majority of the difference between vulnerable youths and the overall population was attributed to genetic influences, while differences between resilient youths and the population were primarily attributed to environmental influences. The findings illustrate the importance of examining both genetic and environmental influences in order to enhance explanations of adolescent offending. 相似文献
Empirical evidence suggests that religiousness is related negatively to adolescent substance use; yet, we know little about how such protective effects might occur. The current study examined whether parents’ and adolescents’ religiousness are associated positively with parental, religious, and self-monitoring, which in turn are related to higher self-control, thereby related to lower adolescent substance use. Participants were 220 adolescents (45 % female) who were interviewed at ages 10–16 and again 2.4 years later. Structural equation modeling analyses suggested that higher adolescents’ religiousness at Time 1 was related to lower substance use at Time 2 indirectly through religious monitoring, self-monitoring, and self-control. Higher parents’ religiousness at Time 1 was associated with higher parental monitoring at Time 2, which in turn was related to lower adolescent substance use at Time 2 directly and indirectly through higher adolescent self-control. The results illustrate that adolescents with high awareness of being monitored by God are likely to show high self-control abilities and, consequently, low substance use. The findings further suggest that adolescents’ religiousness as well as their religious environments (e.g., familial context) can facilitate desirable developmental outcomes. 相似文献
Student engagement is an important contributor to school success, yet high school students routinely describe themselves as
disengaged. Identifying factors that alter (increase) engagement is a key aspect of improving support for student achievement.
This study investigated students’ perceptions of autonomy, teacher connection, and academic competence as predictors of changes
in student engagement within the classroom from the start to the end of a course. Participants were 578 (58% female) diverse
(67.8% White, 25.2% African American, 5.1% Hispanic, 1.2% Asian American) high school students from 34 classrooms who provided
questionnaire data both at the start and the end of a single course. Novel results from a cross-lagged model demonstrated
that students who perceived their classrooms as allowing and encouraging their own autonomy in the first few weeks increased
their engagement throughout the course, rather than the typical decline in engagement that was demonstrated by students in
other classrooms. This finding is unique in that it extended to both students’ perceptions of engagement and observations
of student engagement, suggesting a fairly robust pattern. The pertinence of this finding to adolescent developmental needs
and its relationship to educational practice is discussed. 相似文献