The Peer Context and the Development of the Perpetration of Adolescent Dating Violence

The peer context is a central focus in research on adolescent risk behaviors but few studies have investigated the role of the peer context in the perpetration of adolescent dating violence. This longitudinal study examined between-subjects and within-person contemporaneous and lagged effects of peer attributes, measured with social network analyses, on trajectories of dating violence perpetration and determined if effects varied by grade and/or sex of the adolescent. Data are from adolescents who participated in a five-wave panel study beginning when they were in 7 through 9th grade and ending when they were in 10 through 12th grade (n = 3,412); half were male, 40.5 % were white, 49.9 % were black and 10.4 % were of another race/ethnicity. Significant between-subjects effects indicate that adolescents who typically have friends who use dating violence, and girls who are typically high in social status, are at increased risk for using dating violence throughout adolescence. Adolescents who typically have high quality friendships and girls who typically have friends with pro-social beliefs are at decreased risk for using dating violence throughout adolescence. Significant within-person contemporaneous effects indicate that both boys and girls reported lower levels of dating violence than usual at times when they had more friends with pro-social beliefs, and reported higher levels of dating violence than usual at times when they had higher social status. None of the lagged effects were significant and none of the effects varied across grade. These findings suggest that the peer context plays an important role in the development of the perpetration of adolescent dating violence.     

Queer love economies: Making trans/feminist film in precarious times

In this essay, the authors, all experimental filmmakers, discuss the impact of Born in Flames on their own work, as well as the ways their various projects pick up, extend, or change the political questions raised by the film. The relationships of experimental film to political community and community building are explored, particularly in the context of queer, feminist, trans, anti-racist politics and media.     

A Christian Challenge: Chō Takeda Kiyoko and feminist thought in modern Japan

References to Christian women in the English-language scholarship on the history of Japanese feminism have typically focused on one organisation, the Japan Christian Women's Reform Society. Chō Takeda Kiyoko's 1985 book, Fujin kaihō no dōhyō (Milestones for Women's Liberation), offers a more comprehensive and nuanced image of the contributions of Christian women to the elevation of women's status in pre-World War II Japan, by offering case studies of Christian women. These highlight the widespread influence of Christianity among educated men and women, the broad associational networks of the Christian community, the mutually-reinforcing connections between women's activities in the fields of education and journalism, and the personal struggles of Christian women to create a fairer and more moral society. Takeda portrays the Women's Reform Society as a foundational organisation in the history of feminism, but not the sole avenue through which Christian women worked for women's liberation.     

Risk assessment and suicide prevention in primary care

General practitioners (GPs) are assumed to occupy an important position in the prevention of suicide through the introduction of risk assessment techniques commonly used in psychiatric practice. Despite this theoretical role for primary care services, it remains unclear how frequently GPs implement risk assessment in patients who may be vulnerable to suicide. To address this, a retrospective survey of probable suicides was conducted within a primary care setting utilizing a questionnaire of GPs who had experienced a patient suicide and was augmented by hospital and coroners' records. 85% of questionnaires were returned and 61 deaths were adjudged as suicides during the year long census period. 75% of suicides were male and 54% were aged under 35.28% were in contact with psychiatric services prior to death, although 60% had some diagnosis of mental disorder. GPs had little knowledge of a patient's life circumstances in up to half of cases. Recording of risk assessment occurred in 38% of subjects, was positively associated with prior psychiatric contact (p = 0.001) but negatively associated with presence of physical illness (p = 0.004), older patient age (p = 0.04), and GPs length in practice (p = 0.05). One GP felt their suicide case was preventable. The low rate of risk assessment and limited knowledge of patient lifestyle point to the need for active engagement of GPs in future suicide prevention strategies and should influence the content of training programs in primary care.     

When the exception becomes the rule: borders,sovereignty, and citizenship

Borders are a unique political space, in which both sovereignty and citizenship are performed by individuals and sovereigns. Using the work of Agamben and Foucault, this article examines how decisions made at the border alienate each and every traveler crossing the frontier, not simply the ‘sans papiers’ or refugees. The governmentality at play in the border examination relies on an embedded confessionary complex and the ‘neurotic citizen’, as well as structures of identity, documentation, and data management. The state border is a permanent state of exception that clearly demonstrates the importance of biopolitics to the smooth operation of sovereign power.     

Public Perceptions of Benefits from and Worries over Plant‐Made Industrial Products and Plant‐Made Pharmaceuticals: The Influence of Institutional Trust

Although agricultural biotechnology has been a seminal reference point in risk perception studies, public awareness of their exposure to risk deriving from this new technology has been minimal at best. However, recent events indicate there may be growing public concern as new variations of this technology appear. Understanding what drives perceptions of benefits from the third generation of the agricultural biotechnology and what determines public worries are keys for the future of this technology. To this end, this study analyzes survey data from the midsouth region of the United States to construct four separate regression models of perceived benefits from and worries over plant‐made industrial products and plant‐made pharmaceuticals. Findings suggest that while prior experience with and knowledge about agricultural biotechnology has an impact on perceptions of benefits and worries, trust in farmers plays a highly important role in determining perceptions.     

Special Edition on Performance Management

This edition of Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice isdevoted to police performance management. Several of the articlesherein trace the origins of this style of police managementand the influences that have brought it about. Others appraiseits effects on matters as diverse as domestic violence, criminalinvestigation and the closure of police stations. They do so,not only from the perspective of the UK, but also from thoseof France, the United States and elsewhere; police performancemanagement is widespread and so are the issues that it raises. In this editorial     

The struggle for power and control: shifting policy‐making models and the Harris agenda for education in Ontario

Abstract: This article describes the evolution of three different models in educational policy‐making in Ontario. In the late 1960s, education policy moved away from reliance on a traditional, centralized, administrative‐agency approach and gravitated towards a decentralized, asymmetrical policy interdependence that dominated until the mid‐1990s. The ndp government erected a more centralized scaffolding, with the centre undertaking a greater tutelary role vis à vis local authorities. The aim was to make more transparent the rules and standards by which local authorities, trustees and educators would operate and be held accountable. The education minister also sought to bolster local democracy by widening local parental participation in decision‐making, Since 1995, the Conservative government has erected a politicized administrative agency that has adopted a confrontational stance towards stakeholders, reduced the powers of school board trustees, decimated middle‐level professional staffing, and muffled teacher union executives. Decision‐making now seems to reside with Harris advisers and key cabinet ministers, whose stance is driven by an amalgam of neo‐liberal and neo‐conservative ideology and by voter opinion. This neo‐conservative approach differs in its embrace of a social conservatism ‐ that government maintain social order and that excessive concern for individual choice and liberty not be allowed to undermine it. Harris' social conservatism, in its K‐12 reforms, includes an embrace of regulation, hierarchy, monopoly and uniformity in the design of public policy. Sommaire: Cet article décrit l'évolution de trois modèles différents d'élaboration de politiques en matière d'éducation en Ontario. Vers la fin des anébes 1960, ces politiques d'éducation ne suivaient plus l'approche classique et centralisée caractéristique d'un organisme administratif; elles tendaient plutôt vers une interdépendance décentralisée et asymétrique, qui prédomina jusqu'au milieu des années 1990. Le gouvemement néo‐démocrate érigea une structure plus centralisée qui accordait au centre un plus grand rôle tutelaire par rapport aux autorités locales. Ceci, aux fins d'une plus grande transparence des règles et normes de fonctionnement et de redev‐abilité pour les autorités locales, les conseillers scolaires et les enseignants. Le minis‐tre de l'Éducation s'est efforcé aussi de favoriser la démocratic locale en amplifiant la participation parentale dans la prise de décisions. Depuis 1995, le gouvemement conservateur a éigé un organisme administratif politicisé qui a adopté des positions conflictuelles envers les intervenants, qui a réduit les pouvoirs des conseillers scolaires et qui a sabré dans les rangs du personnel professionnel de niveau intermédi‐aire tout en muselant les dirigeants syndicaux des enseignants. II semblerait que les décisions sont maintenant prises par les conseillers de Harris et par certains de ses ministres ‐ clé, poussés par l'opinion des électeurs et une idélogie à la fois néo‐libérale et néo‐conservatrice. Cette approche néo‐conservatrice embrasse un certain conservatisme social: le gouvemement doit maintenir l'ordre social qui ne doit pas être sapé par une trop grande préocupation concemant la liberté et les choix personnels. Le conservatisme social de Harris dans le cadre des réformes scolaires fait appel à la réglementation, à la hiérarchie, au monopole et à l'uniformité dans l'élaboration des politiques gouvemementales.