Youth Resilience: Can Schools Enhance Youth Factors for Hope,Optimism, and Success?

Resilience research requires attention to the factors that promote youth development and success. Youth success is associated with youth having adults in their lives who care about them and set high expectations for them to succeed; oftentimes these adults are presumed to be the children's parents. Because youth spend a great deal of time in schools, school settings may be a place where youth resilience can be fostered. In 2004, 6th-grade youth in 5 schools in Maricopa County, Arizona, were surveyed to determine if they had factors to promote their resilience. In these schools, teachers had been trained by an agency called Kids at Hope. Kids at Hope presupposes that “all children are capable of success, no exceptions” and offers an alternative paradigm to kids at risk. The results of this research show that youth who believe that they are successful and who are optimistic about themselves and their schools are more likely to find their schools to be places where they can be successful and optimistic.     

The Alchemy of Accomplishing Medicine (sman sgrub): Situating the Yuthok Heart Essence (G.yu thog snying thig) in Literature and History

This essay examines historical and contemporary connections between Buddhist and medical traditions through a study of the Accomplishing Medicine (sman sgrub) practice and the Yuthok Heart Essence (G.yu thog snying thig) anthology. Accomplishing Medicine is an esoteric Buddhist yogic and contemplative exercise focused on several levels of “alchemical” transformation. The article will trace the acquisition of this practice from India by Tibetan medical figures and its assimilation into medical practice. It will propose that this alchemical practice forms the central nexus of connection between Tibetan medicine and the Buddhist Nyingma tradition, and that this little-studied link is not a marginal feature of Tibetan medicine but rather one that has had a significant shaping factor on each tradition throughout history.     

Won't you be my neighbor? Using an ecological approach to examine the impact of community on revictimization

An ecological model is used to explore the moderating effects of community-level variables on the relation between childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and adult intimate partner violence (IPV) within a sample of 98 African American women from low incomes. Results from hierarchical, binary logistics regressions analyses show that community-level variables (perceived neighborhood disorder and community cohesion) moderated the relation between childhood emotional abuse and adult physical IPV. Findings support the use of an ecological approach in examining the phenomena of revictimization. Clinical implications from a community and ecological perspective are discussed.     

Examining the effects of paper type, pen type, writing pressure and angle of intersection on white and dark dominance in ESDA impressions of sequenced strokes--an application of the likelihood ratio

Questioned document casework can occasionally involve the sequencing of impressions. Although some conclusions can be drawn from looking at ESDA traces of intersections there is currently no way of assessing the strength of the observations made in any given case. Using a range of paper and pen types this work examines points of intersection and evaluates the results statistically in order judge the value of the results obtained.     

Social Orientation: Problem Behavior and Motivations Toward Interpersonal Problem Solving Among High Risk Adolescents

A model of problematic adolescent behavior that expands current theories of social skill deficits in delinquent behavior to consider both social skills and orientation toward the use of adaptive skills was examined in an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of 113 male and female adolescents. Adolescents were selected on the basis of moderate to serious risk for difficulties in social adaptation in order to focus on the population of youth most likely to be targeted by prevention efforts. Structural equation modeling was used to examine cross-sectional data using multiple informants (adolescents, peers, and parents) and multiple methods (performance test and self-report). Adolescent social orientation, as reflected in perceived problem solving effectiveness, identification with adult prosocial values, and self-efficacy expectations, exhibited a direct association to delinquent behavior and an indirect association to drug involvement mediated by demonstrated success in using problem solving skills. Results suggest that the utility of social skill theories of adolescent problem behaviors for informing preventive and remedial interventions can be enhanced by expanding them to consider adolescents' orientation toward using the skills they may already possess.     

A century (plus) of parenthood: Changes in living with children, 1880–1990

This paper summarizes the broad foundations of the changing nature of parenthood by examining trends in coresidence with children under age 15. Our study uses data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS) to provide a portrait of demographic parenthood in the US over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In describing changes in parenthood over the past 110 years, we distinguish between those living with own children and those living with other children. We focus in particular on changes in gender patterns of coresidential parenthood and changes in the likelihood that divorced men and women live with children. We also examine the impact of the baby boom on parenting. Our findings support a recasting of ongoing discussions of the parental roles of American men and women by shifting the historical demographic focus from biological transitions to the social aspects of parenting.     

The Allen priority/consequence model as a behavioral approach to reduction of high risk behavior in youth

Youth violence in America has grown to insurmountable levels. Homicide is now the third leading cause of death for youth ages 5–14, the second leading cause of death for those ages 15–24 and the number one cause of death among black males ages 15–34. With increased levels of violence and senseless killings across the nation, there is a need to explore behavioral and environmental causes of high risk behavior and various types of interventions to decrease antisocial behavior. Violence prevention should be approached comprehensively from a myriad of approaches and levels of prevention and intervention that should infiltrate individuals, homes, schools, communities and systems.

Numerous types of theories are being designed, implemented and evaluated to decrease and prevent unhealthy behaviors. While there is a need to continue to refine intervention and containment strategies, a preventative approach to addressing root causes of antisocial behaviors needs to be considered as we comprehensively look at interventions for violence prevention. The purpose of this article is to add to the body of research a theory, the Priority/ Consequence model, which depicts interrelated dynamic behavioral and societal variables that can influence, positively or negatively, attitudes, values and beliefs that establish prioritized behaviors that produce consequences.     

Regulating technology: Can administrative agencies cope with technological change?

The debate over scientific issues has made a difficult transition from the scientific community to the public-polity process. The traditional view of scientists undertaking “pure” science in their laboratories did not envision government intervention into scientific and technological discovery through administrative agency regulation of risks associated with the results of such research. Yet examples of government regulation of technological risks abound as the nation grapples with nuclear power issues, new-drug testing, and environmental issues, to name a few. This paper considers whether the presently constituted regulatory apparatus is capable of responding to dramatic advances in technology in a timely and effective way. Concluding that it is not, the paper examines the circumscribing characteristics of the regulatory process. Then it discusses alternate approaches for regulating the risks posed by science and technology without doing too much violence to due process or the notion of public participation in the regulatory function.     

Stalking Behaviors Within Domestic Violence

An examination of data from 120 male and female batterers of varied age and marital, educational, and economic status, who attended group treatment for batterers or who were charged with domestic violence from January to February 1996 in a district court setting, produced the following findings: Stalkers tended to live alone, were less likely to be married, not living with children, and used more alcohol than nonstalkers. They also tended to have had a history of prior stalking offenses and of being abused themselves. Factor analysis found three stalking groupings: one in which discrediting was the key, a second revolving around love turning to hate, and a third with violent confrontation with the ex-partner.