The Role of Religiosity in the Relationship Between Parents,Peers, and Adolescent Risky Sexual Behavior

Research has documented a negative relationship between religion and risky sexual behavior. Few studies, however, have examined the processes whereby religion exerts this effect. The present study develops and tests a model of various mechanisms whereby parental religiosity reduces the likelihood of adolescents’ participation in risky sexual behavior (early sexual debut, multiple sexual partners, and inconsistent condom use). Structural equation modeling, using longitudinal data from a sample of 612 African American adolescents (55% female), provided support for the model. The results indicated that parental religiosity influenced adolescent risky sexual behavior through its impact on authoritative parenting, adolescent religiosity, and adolescent affiliation with less sexually permissive peers. Some mediating mechanisms differed by the gender of the respondent, suggesting a “double-standard” for daughters but not for sons. Findings also indicated the importance of messages about sexual behavior that are transmitted to adolescents by their peers. Theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Radical Actions by Radical Farmers: Regional Revitalization in the Okitama Basin of Yamagata Prefecture

This report describes the ways in which a group of organic farmers in Yamagata Prefecture have been able to effect basic structural changes that contribute to the social transformative process of counter-hegemony. Members of the Okitama Farmers' League (OFL) have initiated a regional revitalization plan based on the concept of eco-circularity in which local household food wastes and other organic materials are converted into compost for use by area organic farmers. By forming organic farmers' collectives, members provide farm-related work in rural areas during the long winter months. The women farmers in the group have formed a support group for farm wives to fight collectively against female subordination within the household as well as to improve the overall position of women in the Okitama area. They are challenging the dominant culture's values and social assumptions, and are engaged in creating new cultural values and definitions of self in relation to others. The OFL offers a vision of a noneconomistic, democratized, and environmentally sustainable society centered on universal principles of human rights, social justice, and popular participation in the reformulation of the meanings attached to work, authority, culture, family, community, gender, and consumption.     

Thailand today

Mervyn Matthews, retired, was formerly Reader in Soviet Studies at the University of Surrey, Guildford. Since 1996 he has been resident for part of the year in Thailand, where he writes and pursues research interests.     

The Question of Political Responsibility and the Foundation of the National Transitional Council for Libya

In March 2011 Jean-Luc Nancy published an article entitled ??What the Arab Peoples Signify to Us?? in the Libération newspaper. The article supported the NATO-led military intervention in Libya that followed the anti-government protests of 15?C16 February 2011. It is in the name of ??political responsibility?? that Nancy makes his intervention. I want to explore the question of ??political responsibility?? in light of Nancy??s work, and his Libération article in particular. I do this by first assessing one of the distinguishing features of the uprising in Libya: the emergence of the National Transitional Council (NTC). By setting Nancy??s response against Derrida??s work on spectrality and his critique of the founding declaration (in ??Declarations of Independence??) we can more clearly appreciate the scope that Nancy??s account of responsibility entails. I suggest that Derrida??s logics of spectrality help not only critique Nancy??s response but also understand the conditions that make his account of political responsibility possible.     

Clinical observations of ghetto four-year-olds: Organization,involvement, interpersonal responsiveness,and psychosexual content of play

This study attempted to refine the assessment of the effectance of four-year-old children through observation of their play. Two scales were developed; the first scale defined organization, involvement, and interpersonal responsiveness in play, and the second operationally defined psychosexual content of play. The validity and reliability of both scales and the inter correlations among the four major variables were explored. The results confirmed the validity and reliability of the instruments as measures of the children's effectance and important indicators of a child's capacity as a learner at age four.This research was carried out at the Dr. Martin Luther King Family Center and was supported by the Kenneth F. Montgomery Charitable Foundation in collaboration with the State of Illinois Department of Mental Health. Additional support was provided by the National Institutes of Health, General Research Support Grant No. 1-So 1 FR 05 666-01.Received M.D. from Tulane University School of Medicine in 1957. Presently Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Research interests lie in cross-cultural personality development and in psychophysiologic studies of human sexual arousal.Received Ph.D. from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1967. Presently Assistant Professor of Psychology at the Yale Child Study Center. Research has been mainly in the area of development and interference of effective learning in children.Graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1954. Presently Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Primarily interested in the effects of poverty on personality and social organization.