Family life education for young inner-city teens: Identifying needs

Sexual decision making, perceptions of responsibility for birth control and pregnancy, and knowledge of contraception and the consequences of teenage pregnancy were assessed among 251 high-risk seventh- and eighth-grade black, inner-city adolescents to determine these young peoples' need for information. Survey results indicated that these adolescents were aware of contraceptive methods, but lacked practical information about requirements for obtaining them or method effectiveness. Many students were uninformed about the circumstances under which pregnancy can occur. Males indicated a willingness to have intercourse, regardless of the contraceptives used, if any, and believed responsibility for use of a birth control method belonged to females. Females believed themselves to be responsible for contraceptive utilization and preferred intercourse with adequate protection. Both genders endorsed the notion of mutual responsibility for an unplanned pregnancy and related decisions. Implications for school-based family life education programs for young adolescents are discussed.This research was supported by grants from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Pittway Charitable Trust, to the Center for Health Services and Policy Research of Northwestern University; the project was administered by the Ounce of Prevention Fund. Portions of this paper were presented at the 112th annual meeting of the American Public Health Association at Anaheim, California, November 1984. Conclusions or opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Population Options, Northwestern University, or the State University of New York at Buffalo.Received Ph.D. from Loyola University of Chicago. Major interests include policy analysis and maternal and child health care.Received Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Major interests include evaluation of the effectiveness of maternal and child health services.     

Self-reported delinquency and home life: Evidence from a sample of British girls

This study examines the correlation between family variables and delinquency (both self-reported and official) in a small sample of British teenage girls. Factor analysis of the 72-item Home Life Questionnaire (from T. H. Hirschi [1969] Causes of Delinquency, University of California Press, Berkeley) revealed a clear four-factor structure of caring and communication, discipline, pressure and mother-daughter closeness, which cumulatively accounted for 31% of the variance. Multiple regression of these factors onto self-reported delinquency indicated the maternal factor to be most powerful, explaining 25% of the variance in self-reported delinquency. Institutionalized and noninstitutionalized girls showed only chance differences in terms of the quality of their home life.Anne Campbell's research interests are in sex differences in antisocial behavior, especially aggression.     

Communication and connectedness in mother- and father-adolescent relationships

In Study 1, 605 adolescents estimated how well their parents knew them and said how much they cared what their parents thought about them. Sons and daughters judged that mothers knew them fairly well, but daughters judged that fathers did not know them so well. At the same time, statements of caring indicated high concern by sons and daughters for both parents. A supplemental result was that sons from white-collar families gave relatively low estimates of how much their mothers knew them and daughters from blue-collar families gave very low estimates of how much their fathers knew them. In Study 2, 52 adolescents from single-parent families and living with their mothers but not with their fathers also gave estimates for knowing and caring. Knowing followed the above pattern, with an expected lowering of estimates for fathers by sons and daughters. Further, estimates of caring declined especially for fathers by daughters. These results add to the growing literature that shows mother-adolescent and father-adolescent relationships contribute differentially to psychological development. The results seem especially relevant for adolescents' sex role development and constructed individuality as mediated through relationships with both parents.Received Ph.D. in experimental psychology from The Catholic University of America. Research interests are in social development, developmental theory, and the history of the concept of psychological development.Received Ph.D. in developmental psychology from The Catholic University of America. Research interests are in social development in adolescence and the effects of parental divorce on development.     

Unanimous decision making on the U.S. Supreme Court: Case stimuli and judicial attitudes

Although behavioral scholars have devoted much time and energy to attempting to explain decision making on the U.S. Supreme Court, they have virtually ignored the unanimous decision. We investigated the Vinson, Warren, and Burger Courts and discovered that the liberal outcome was more successful in the unanimous cases whether those cases involve civil liberties or economic liberalism and whether they were decisions to reverse or decisions to affirm. We also ascertained that the ideological position that tended to win in the unanimous reverse cases was related to the ideological position that tended to win in the nonunanimous reverse cases, but that no such relationship was present in the two kinds of affirm cases. These two findings are in conformity with a psychometric model, which posits that the relative position of judicial attitudes and case stimuli determines the vote on the U.S. Supreme Court.     

The effect of some aspects of low temperature and radiation on the survival of Latheticus oryzae eggs

In an attempt to delay hatching without affecting their viability, the eggs ofLatheticus oryzae W. were subjected to cold treatment at 5° for varying periods and at different stages of their development. A small dose of 0.5 krad of gamma radiation was also given at each of those temperature treatments. Most of the eggs hatched at 30° following low-temperature exposures of 1 and 2 days. There was a significant decrease in hatch as the exposure period increased further (P<0.05). An egg exposure to 5° also led to an increase in egg period and the increase was nearly equal to the period of cold exposure. Radiation did not alter the situation.

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Zusammenfassung Kühllagerung ist eine der gebr?uchlichsten Methoden für die Aufbewahrung von Insekteneiern. Um die optimalen Bedingungen für eine Vorratshaltung zu bestimmen, wurden 0–1 d alte Eier vonL. oryzae Temperaturen von 5° w?hrend 1–7 d ausgesetzt, nachdem sie verschieden lange bei 30° gehalten waren. Eine kleine Dosis von 0.5 krad Gammabestrahlung wurde bei jeder Temperaturbehandlung ebenfalls gegeben. Alle Eiproben wurden nach den verschiedenen K?ltebehandlungen in 30° zurückgebracht und die Wirkung auf Schlüpfprozentsatz und Eidauer bestimmt. Die Eidauer nahm zu, wenn die Eier bei 5° gehalten wurden, was anzeigt, da? die Embryogenese bei 5° unterdrückt wurde. Die Lebensf?higkeit der Eier wurde nicht beeintr?chtigt bei einer 5°-Einwirkungsdauer von 2 d, nahm aber bei weiterer Verl?ngerung der Expositionsdauer ab. Nur etwa 37% der Eier schlüpften (44,1% der Kontrolleier) nach 7-t?giger K?ltebehandlung. Bestrahlung beeinflu?te weder das Schlüpfen noch die Entwicklungsdauer.

     

Income of new disabled-worker beneficiaries and their families: findings from the New Beneficiary Survey

In 1982, disabled workers who came on the social security disability insurance rolls from mid-1980 to mid-1981 had median monthly incomes of less than $500 if they were unmarried and less than $1,300 if they were married. These median monthly income levels, which include the income of a spouse and minor children if present, are roughly half those of the noninstitutionalized population aged 25-64. Social security benefits are the most important source of income for disabled workers and their families: They account for 40 percent of the total family income of married disabled workers and 65 percent of the total income of unmarried disabled workers. Social security benefits provide at least half of all income for more than 80 percent of unmarried disabled-worker beneficiaries and for 50 percent of the married beneficiaries. For married disabled-worker beneficiaries, earnings of the spouse are the second most important income source. Spousal earnings account for 28 percent of total income. Pensions and asset income each account for about 10 percent of total income for these married beneficiaries. Earnings are not an important source of income for unmarried disabled-worker beneficiaries for whom they amount to only about 3 percent of total income. Pensions, asset income, and public transfers each account for about 10 percent of total income of the unmarried beneficiaries.     

Comparative nationalism: the Basques in Spain and France

Abstract. Little research on peripheral nationalism goes beyond the case study approach. Comparative studies provide greater understanding of national self-identification by comparing different ethnic groups, yet encounter difficulties in rigorously delineating specific non-group causal factors. This study adds to our insights into peripheral nationalism by comparing self-identification within the same group but in two different political systems. Study of the Basques in both Spain and France permits a comparison of the same group, thus imposing an analytical control on ethnicity, under two different sets of state policy directions. Utilizing survey data, this investigation found sharp differences in national self-identification in the Basques in Spain and France. The argument is advanced that, even when other explanatory factors are considered, this difference in Basque identification should be understood in light of the different policy stances taken over time by the central governments in Paris and Madrid toward their respective Basque minorities. While initially counter-intuitive, it is suggested that toleration and non-repressive policies toward such minorities may actually serve in the long term to decrease peripheral national identification.     

The distribution of income in a despotic society

A distribution of income between rulers and subjects can be derived as an equilibrium of violence, rather than from considerations of marginal products of owned factors of production. Society is organized in ranks, and the occupants of each rank are provided with incomes just sufficient that obedience is preferable to rebellion. To incorporate such considerations into a model, it is necessary to recognize phenomena that are normally excluded from economic analysis: combat, the mortality rate (from natural causes and from violence) as a component of the utility function, and a rudimentary technology of control.