Perceptions of justice: Clientele evaluations of conflict adjustment by a utility regulatory agency

During the past 15 years social psychological research on justice has evaluated hypotheses about linkages among various personal and institutional attributes and variables like outcome favorability and perceptions of procedural and distributive justice in decision-making contexts. This article reexamines hypotheses and findings about procedural and distributive justice using data from the dispute adjustment process used by a state regulatory agency. This study differs from any previous studies of perceptions of justice in two respects. First, the study employs data about the perceptions ofboth sides of a disputing experience before a public authority. Second, rather than using multiple regression and path analysis as in many past studies, we illustrate the value of hierarchical log-linear analysis as an analytical technique. The data analyzed through loglinear analysis permit us to reconsider previous conclusions about the procedural neutrality and participation in dispute adjustment and the linkage of these concepts to the legitimacy of the political regime.     

Factors affecting perception of pregnancy risk in the adolescent

Perception of pregnancy risk, fertility knowledge, and probability-based teaching examples of risk were assessed in 104 primiparous urban adolescents 13–18 years of age in their second and third trimester of pregnancy. Perception of risk was not associated with age, actual frequency of intercourse, or level of fertility knowledge. Sexually active adolescents were surprised at subsequent conceptions. Adolescents were unable to utilize concepts of risk taking, even after concrete examples and teaching techniques had been presented.This study was conducted under the auspices of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Baylor College of Medicine, which provides medical faculty to the Harris County Hospital District, Houston, Texas.Received Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Current interests are patterns of adolescent child bearing and rearing.Received M.P.H. from the University of Texas School of Public Health. Current interests are adolescent contraceptive behavior.Received D.P.H. from the University of Texas School of Public Health. Current interests are biological psychiatry and socio-medical research.Received M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. Current interests are continuing education in medical and nonmedical settings.     

Anthologomania

Drusilla Modjeska (ed.), Inner Cities: Australian Women's Memory of Place (Penguin) Ringwood, 1989; Susan Hawthorne and Jenny Pausacker (eds), Moments of Desire: Sex and Sensuality by Australian Feminist Writers (Penguin), Ringwood, 1989; Gillian Whitlock (ed.), Eight Voices of the Eighties (The University of Queensland Press) St. Lucia, 1989; Guilia Guiffré (ed.), A Writing Life (Allen and Unwin) Sydney, 1990.     

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND FAMILY COURT REFORM

Creating a unified family court, or any type of family court reform, may have only a minimal impact if it simply changes the structure of how judges do business rather than addresses the structure of the child welfare system itself. The authors argue that family court reform must place social justice at its center. First, they discuss profound flaws in the child welfare system that make poor and minority families especially vulnerable to coercive state intervention. Second, they describe two approaches to child welfare cases–family systems theory and therapeutic justice–that can help to guide reform efforts directed at addressing these structural flaws. Finally, they suggest ways in which family law scholarship can assist in creating a social justice agenda for family court reform.     

HELPING CHILDREN SUCCEED AFTER DIVORCE

In an effort to prevent some of the well-documented problems that occur in children and families undergoing divorce, a parent education program, Helping children Succeed After Divorce, was developed and mandated by a domestic relations court in a major metropolitan area. The purpose of the parent seminar is to educate divorcing parents about the effects of divorce and continued conflict on their children and to specify concrete actions that divorcing parents can take to help their children. The seminar's intent is to prevent long-term emotional, social, and academic problems among children of divorce. This article addresses the development, operation, and preliminary evaluation results of this psychoeducational program for divorcing parents.