What's different about truants? A comparison study of eighth-graders

Differences and similarities between 25 eighth-grade truants and 25 nontruants-matched for age, grade, gender, and ethnicity-were explored on four dimensions: family variables, friendship patterns and interests, behavior and attitudes toward school, and cognitive factors including academic ability and achievement. The major differences were in school behavior, attitudes, academic ability, and achievement. The most frequent reasons given for truancy were boredom and dislike of school and teachers. Truancy was associated with highly disruptive classroom behavior. The salience of school variables suggests that truancy prevention and intervention strategies should include improved course content, teaching, and school climate. The necessity of having a comparison group is stressed in order to distinguish characteristics of normal adolescent development from those associated with maladjustment.Received Ph.D. from University of California, Davis. Current interests are early adolescents' development and school environment.     

Bildung und subjektives Wohlbefinden im Zeitverlauf, 1984–2002:

This analysis of the change in subjective well-being attempts two aims. On the one hand, the change of subjective well-being over the time period from 1984 to 2002 will be considered. Effects of age, period and cohorts will be analyzed simultaneously. Education and educational expansion are considered as social mechanisms behind these processes of change and therefore introduced into the analyses. Methodologically, a multilevel approach is chosen. To analyze life satisfaction independently from health aspects, satisfaction with health will be controlled for. Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) will be used for data analysis. Data structure, applicability and parameter estimations of HLM will be considered in detail. The data base is the German Socio-economic Panel data set, although only the West German subsample is used for analysis. Results indicate – beside a strong influence of health satisfaction – robust effects of education, a substantial age effect and a weak negative cohort effect on life satisfaction.     

Is Economic Growth Increasing Disparities? A Multidimensional Analysis of Poverty in the Lao PDR between 2003 and 2013

The Asian story of miraculous growth and poverty reduction has reinforced mainstream views of development that equate high and sustained economic growth with progress in human wellbeing. But understanding development only in terms of economic growth is not sufficient. This paper offers a different perspective on possible effects of Laos’s transition from a subsistence-oriented economy to a market-oriented economy. We used a multidimensional poverty approach with panel data for the years between 2003 and 2013. Findings suggest that benefits were not equally distributed: 50 per cent of people moved in and out of poverty, and the other half was either non-poor (37%) or always poor (13%).     

Norms and Political Payoffs in Supreme Court Recusals

Political Behavior - In times when the public and scholarly debates around the effects of norms on political decision making are at their height—and in light of the argument that government...     

Listen to us—we know the solution: mapping the perspectives of African communities for innovative conflict resolution

Inspired by the need to find lasting solutions to violent conflict, the author stated the research question by asking ‘how can community knowledge be given a new centrality so that it can contribute to innovative conflict resolution?’ In answering this question, the author argues that conflict mapping is a strong influential instrument not only for community research, but also to empower a community to deal with conflict, promote equity of discourse on all dimensions of a conflict, as well as to create a web of equal relationships among peace-builders to resolve conflicts. The conceptual framework addresses conflict mapping; the top-down/bottom-up approach to conflict resolution and introduces the concept ‘innovative conflict resolution’. Examples of centralising community knowledge in some African societies are offered. The conceptual framework and examples from Africa are then applied to practical conflict mapping that was performed as part of a community engaged participatory research project with a San community in South Africa.     

Machiavelli at 500: From Cynic to Vigilant Supporter of International Law

Machiavelli's 500‐year‐old treatise The Prince outlined the central features of the realist tradition in international relations. His premises led him to question the likelihood of efficacious and stable international law and international courts, a skepticism that has present‐day proponents. Machiavelli's reluctance was due to a combination of features of human nature and a focus on anarchic features of the relations among states. This article challenges these assumptions and implications: Other interpretations of human nature are closer to Machiavelli's text, and current relations among states are significantly different. The revised assumptions should make Machiavelli's followers more optimistic about international law and international courts.