Social Competence in Late Elementary School: Relationships to Parenting and Neighborhood Context

Despite evidence that neighborhoods confer both risk and resilience for youth development, the existing neighborhood research has a number of methodological limitations including lack of diversity in neighborhoods sampled and neighborhood characteristics assessed. The purpose of this study was to address these methodological limitations of existing research and to examine the relationship of neighborhood structural and social characteristics to family-level social processes and teacher-reported social competence during early adolescence. The study sample of 3,624 fifth graders (51?% girls) was ethnically diverse, including roughly even proportions of non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic youth. Neighborhood measures included economic disadvantage derived from the U.S. Census, physical and social disorder obtained by direct observation, and social capital from parental reports. Family-level social processes included parent reported family cohesion and youth reported maternal and paternal nurturance. We found that neighborhood factors significantly associated with youth social aggression and social competence but not social withdrawal, after controlling for individual demographic characteristics and parenting factors. There was limited evidence of moderation of family influences by neighborhood characteristics as well as the moderation of neighborhood effects by children’s gender. Neighborhood physical disorder was associated with increased social aggression among boys but with increased social withdrawal among girls. Implications of the study’s findings for research on neighborhoods and adolescent development and the development of preventive interventions are discussed.     

Understanding the Influence of Mental Health Diagnosis and Gender on Placement Decisions for Justice-Involved Youth

Justice-involved youth have high rates of psychiatric diagnoses, and these youth are often placed out-of-home, although evidence identifies several negative implications of juvenile confinement, especially for youth with psychopathology. Furthermore, youth in the justice system may be processed differently based on gender. As males and females tend to manifest symptoms differently, the psychopathology of youth may act to moderate the relationship between gender and placement in the juvenile justice system. The present study used a large, diverse sample (n?=?9?851, 19.8?% female) to examine whether youth placed in various types of out-of-home facilities differed in terms of externalizing, internalizing, substance use, or comorbid disorders, and to determine the predictive value of mental health diagnoses in placement decisions. The moderation effect of psychopathology and substance use on the relationship between gender and placement also was explored. The results indicated that each type of disorder differed across placements, with internalizing being most prevalent in non-secure, and externalizing, comorbid, and substance use being most prevalent in secure settings. Mental health diagnoses improved the prediction of placement in each out-of-home placement beyond legal and demographic factors such that externalizing and substance use disorders decreased the likelihood of placement in non-secure settings, and internalizing, externalizing, and substance use disorders increased the likelihood of placement in secure and state-secure facilities. The relationship between internalizing pathology and placement in more secure facilities was moderated by externalizing pathology. The relationship between gender and placement was significantly moderated by mental health such that females with mental health diagnoses receive less secure placements. Implications for policymakers and practitioners are discussed, as well as implications for reforming juvenile justice within a developmental approach.     

A Comparative Study of Denmark and New Zealand’s National Health Targets

This paper investigates the influence of nationally imposed health targets on current management control practices in New Zealand and Denmark. It reveals how variants of New Public Management (NPM), arising from specific historical socio-political contexts, rise to the challenge of national differences. The study finds that both nations are challenged to ensure data registration procedures produce valid and comparable performance measures. Denmark’s reliance on a single efficiency measure of health sector performance reflects a historic socio-political context that reduces the feasibility of additional measures whereas New Zealand’s context enables the government to impose a more extensive range of health targets.     

Who is a Terrorist? Ethnicity,Group Affiliation,and Understandings of Political Violence

What does the American public label as “terrorism?” How do people think about the factors motivating violence, and in turn, the policies that are favored? Using ingroup and outgroup dynamics, we argue that the terrorist label is more readily applied to Arab-Americans than Whites, and to members of militant groups. Moreover, people attribute different motives to violence committed by Arabs versus Whites, and favor different policies in response. We conducted an experiment where we randomly assigned one of six stories about a failed armed attack, each with a different combination of ethnicity and group affiliation. We find that an Arab ethnicity and Islamist group affiliation increase the likelihood of labeling an act as terrorism. Attacks by Whites and members of a White supremacist group are less likely to be labeled terrorism. Rather, Whites are more likely to be called “mass shooters.” Despite never discussing motive, Arab-American attackers are more likely to be ascribed political or religious motives, while White suspects are more likely to be seen as mentally ill. Lastly, an Arab ethnicity increases support for counterterrorism policies and decreases support for mental health care.     

Party and Gender Stereotypes in Campaign Attacks

Research on negative campaigning has largely overlooked the role of stereotypes. In this study, we argue that the gender and partisan stereotypes associated with traits and policy issues interact with a candidate’s gender and partisanship to shape the effectiveness of campaign attacks. We draw on expectancy-violation theory to argue that candidates may be evaluated more harshly when attacks suggest the candidate has violated stereotypic assumptions about their group. Thus, attacks on a candidate’s “home turf,” or those traits or issues traditionally associated with their party or gender, may be more effective in reducing support for the attacked candidate. We use two survey experiments to examine the effects of stereotype-based attacks—a Trait Attack Study and an Issue Attack Study. The results suggest that female candidates are particularly vulnerable to trait based attacks that challenge stereotypically feminine strengths. Both male and female candidates proved vulnerable to attacks on policy issues stereotypically associated with their party and gender, but the negative effects of all forms of stereotype-based attacks were especially large for democratic women. Our results offer new insights into the use of stereotypes in negative campaigning and their consequences for the electoral fortunes of political candidates.     

For the Want of a Nail: The Interaction of Managerial Capacity and Human Resource Management on Organizational Performance

Human resource management and managerial capacity are well documented in the public management literature as integral management functions. The field has devoted attention to the importance of human resources, but it has yet to consider whether human resource management interacts with capacity in attaining organizational outcomes. Using a large‐N, multiyear data set of public organizations, this article seeks to rectify this gap in the literature. The findings validate scholarly arguments on the importance of public organizations’ need to manage human resources and capacity effectively, identifying just the right combination for performance gains. Empirical results encourage practitioners to consider the ways in which human resource management and capacity work together to influence performance but sometimes undermine each other in counterintuitive ways.     

Reconsidering Women’s Empowerment: the Contradictory Effects of Microfinance for Guatemalan Women

In light of changing global trends that connect women’s empowerment and development, this paper extends debates by exploring how projects aimed at empowering women in the Global South intertwine with diverse women’s lived realities in ways that complicate assessments of “success” or “failure.” The article begins by analyzing the incorporation of the concept of empowerment into mainstream development, demonstrating that the conceptual fuzziness of empowerment has allowed it to be associated with vastly different development strategies: some have interpreted it narrowly to promote self-help strategies whereas others have interpreted it broadly to promote structural change. The former has targeted women with “choice-enhancing” resources that are thought to have spillover effects; the latter tends to adopt a more holistic approach. In order to explore how these contrasting strategies affect women’s empowerment experiences and outcomes on the ground, this article then draws on comparative ethnographies of two microfinance non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are emblematic of these diverging approaches. It finds that despite their differences, both spillover and holistic approaches lead to diverse and contradictory experiences that defy easy classification as “empowering” or “disempowering.” This finding reveals the advantages and limitations of relying on the concept of empowerment for evaluating development outcomes and raises questions about our ability to generalize about the effects of the varying approaches encompassed under the current feminization of policy. The analysis also suggests that we should adjust our understanding of women’s agency to include the agency women exercise when they transform, challenge, or reject empowerment projects themselves.     

Measuring Policy Success: Evaluating Public Sector Reform in Bhutan

There has been resurgence in evaluation of policy, reflected mostly by an increase in ex ante studies. Although there is a shift towards ex post evaluation, this has been gradual, resulting in a paucity of ex post evaluation literature. To address this gap, we apply a revisionist approach to evaluate a major public sector reform in the Bhutanese civil service. We conclude that it provides a more holistic approach for ex post evaluation policy, and also a more nuanced evaluation which moves us beyond the narrow binary view of success or failure in reform.