Correspondence

Negotiation Journal -     

Legitimacies, Indian Identities, and the Law: The Politics of Sex and the Creation of History in Colonial New England

In an early-eighteenth-century legal contest on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, an Indian leader, Jacob Seeknout, appealed a ruling that under-mined his political authority. Seeknout's lawyer, Benjamin Hawes, crafted an argument that intertwined the sexual legitimacy of Seeknout's ancestors with his political legitimacy; at the same time, Hawes also linked Indians'collective chastity as a "nation" to their sovereign status. This paper examines the economic, religious, criminal, and historical contexts of this argument, exploring the history of Indians'conjugal practices and their reinvention as the criminal acts of fornication. The case illustrates some of the diverse sources of early American law, links between these legal structures and colonialism, and the importance for scholars of attending to the local level in exploring the power of colonial law to shape new racial identities.     

Use of the MMPI-2 to predict the employment continuation and performance ratings of recently hired police officers

The MMPI-2 is one of the most frequently employed instruments for the selection of police officers. Serafino and Serafino (1997) collected data which involved information about employment continuation and ratings by supervisors of 32 police officers who had recently been hired and who had been given the MMPI-2 during the hiring process. In this study, the Paranoia Obvious (Pa) and Paranoia Subtle (Ps) scales proved to be the significant. Pa Subtle correlated with removal whereas Pa Obvious correlated with rating. Higher scores on Pa Subtle correlated significantly with being removed from the job, whereas low scores on the Pa Obvious correlated with higher ratings of performance by supervisors. Discussion of the results involved the fact that Subtle Pa scores would suggest paranoid tendencies not easily detected during the interview. Since most high Pa Obvious individuals would have been eliminated in the hiring process, expression of this tendency was at a low level after being hired but if present resulted in low ratings. Significant predictors were noted to be very much a function of the type of criterion variable employed in the study.     

Assessing child maltreatment risk in the recently divorced parent-child relationship

Reports of single-parent-child relationships characterized by child maltreatment have increased in recent years. The present paper discusses Belsky's child maltreatment/parenting model concerning parenting and the etiology of this problem. The model may serve as a source of conceptual unification of this risk in single-parent homes. It is proposed that the model also may have heuristic value in identifying highest risk single-parent families who warrant intervention.     

Making civic engagement go viral: Applying social epidemiology principles to civic education

This paper explores the connections between education for youth civic engagement and theories and strategies from public health (specifically, epidemiology). We illustrate this with four applications of epidemiologic theory to youth civic engagement: social determinants and fundamental causes, vulnerable populations and cumulative disadvantage, positive spillover, and herd immunity and critical mass. Formalizing concepts of current civics, in schools and the public, as a civic epidemic, we present a case for individual‐ and group‐level interventions based around targeted, school‐based, effective civic education initiatives. Grounded in epidemiological theory, such approaches call attention to the simultaneous need to improve broad civics education and ensure that particular populations receive necessary attentions.