Urban African American youth exposed to community violence: a school-based anxiety preventive intervention efficacy study

This study evaluated the efficacy of a school-based anxiety prevention program among urban children exposed to community violence. Students who attended Title 1 public elementary schools were screened. Ninety-eight 3rd-5th-grade students (ages 8-12; 48% female; 92% African American) were randomized into preventive intervention versus wait list comparison groups. Students attended 13 biweekly one-hour group sessions of a modified version of FRIENDS, a cognitive-behavioral anxiety intervention program. Results indicated that both intervention and control groups manifested significant reductions in anxiety symptomatology and total exposure to community violence, along with improved standardized reading achievement scores. Additional gains observed only in the intervention group were increased standardized mathematics achievement scores, decreased life stressors, and reduced victimization by community violence. The intervention was equally efficacious for both genders and for children exposed to higher, compared to lower, levels of community violence. Implications for comprehensive, culturally and contextually relevant prevention programs and research are discussed.     

Short Term Change in Attitude and Motivating Factors to Change Abusive Behavior of Male Batterers after Participating in a Group Intervention Program Based on the Pro-Feminist and Cognitive-Behavioral Approach

The Domestic Abuse Education Project (DAEP), in Burlington, Middlebury, and St. Albans, Vermont, is a group based domestic abuse intervention program, based in a pro-feminist and cognitive-behavioral approach for domestic violence intervention and prevention. A pre and post-test instrument was developed and implemented to determine short-term change in attitude of participants and motivating factors to change behavior, after completing the twenty-seven session program. After the program, participants reported a positive change in attitudes regarding their abusive behavior and stereotypical beliefs about women. Participants were also more motivated to change their behavior by the effect abuse has on their family relationships. However, many participants continued to agree that insecurity, jealousy, and alcohol and drug use can cause violence. The positive changes in attitude and motivational factors show that this is an effective model in changing underlying batterer attitudes that provide rationale for abusive behavior.     

Collusion and Facilitating Practices: A New Perspective in Antitrust Analysis

A systematic revision of the notion of facilitating practices is put forward in this paper, with the purpose of relaxing the long-debated tension between economic and legal perspectives on oligopoly. Whereas the law knows of just one collusive illegal conduct, namely agreements, in economic theory the focus on internal enforcement makes the distinction between agreements and other behaviour resulting in the collusive outcome irrelevant. However, the tension may be relaxed, at least in a number of relevant circumstances, provided the focus of competition law shifts from straightforward co-ordination on market strategies to the firms' concerted efforts in the design and implementation of given organisational arrangements of the oligopolistic industry, to which an anticompetitive object can be attached. The theoretical analysis is extensively supported by examples drawn from some recent decisions of the European Commission and the Italian Competition Authority.     

‘Don’t become a lost specimen!’: polygyny and motivational interconnectivity in Kyrgyzstan

ABSTRACT

Why would a woman agree to wed a legally married man when the state would neither recognize her marriage nor grant her alimony, child support or inheritance rights? Although the Communist Party curtailed the rate of openly acknowledged polygynous marriages among the Kyrgyz, its work was undone by glasnost and perestroika, which ushered in a permissive environment. This article highlights constructions of gender as a driver of polygyny in Kyrgyzstan from the perspective of women who voluntarily become second wives. The Kyrgyz case suggests that the cultural value of marriage and motherhood – traditions that grant women communal identities, power and prestige – might lead a woman to consent to second-wife status. I employ the concept of motivational interconnectivity, defined as two or more related reasons women make important personal decisions that have societal repercussions, to explain a woman’s decision to become a second wife.     

The Equality of Public School District Funding in the United States: A National Status Report

For over 30 years, the distribution of educational opportunities and the equality of education funding across communities has generated considerable interest among policy makers, the public, and the courts. This article takes advantage of national data sets to examine funding equality across school districts in 49 states for fiscal years 1992 and 1995. It presents rankings of each state's funding equality and explores factors that may be related to the level of equality within states and to changes across years.
The analyses suggest that, overall, within-state equality improved slightly between 1992 and 1995, although most states' relative rankings changed little during the period. States with fewer school districts relative to students tended to have a more equal distribution of education dollars than states with more districts. States with higher proportions of revenues provided by state governments generally showed a more equitable distribution of resources than states in which districts were more dependent on local revenues.     

The prevalence of violence and relation to depression and illicit drug use among incarcerated women in Recife, Brazil

PurposeTo assess the prevalence and different types of violence experienced by women prisoners in Brazil and the effects of violence on women's depression and illicit drug use.MethodsParticipants (N = 377) were incarcerated women from a state prison in a northeastern city of Brazil. Multivariate logistic regression models (adjusted for age, education, partner status, prison history, drug related offense, and sentencing status) were used to assess associations between each type of violence (physical abuse, sexual abuse, and life threats) and each outcome variable: recent depression and illicit drug use.ResultsThe majority of participants (87%) reported experiencing some type of violence in their lifetime, including physical violence (83%), sexual victimization (36%), and threats on their life (29%.) Sexual violence was significantly related to both recent depression (Odds Ratio (OR) = 2.8; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) = 1.4–5.3) and recent substance use (OR = 2.7; 95% CI = 1.6–4.4) in adjusted models. Experiences of life threats were also significantly associated with illicit drug use (OR = 2.2; 95% CI: 1.3–3.7), as was physical violence (OR = 2.4; 95% CI: 1.2–4.9); however, neither of these latter two violence variables were significantly associated with depression.ConclusionReports of lifetime violence victimization among this incarcerated sample of women were extremely prevalent and relevant to women's depression and illicit drug use. Prison efforts to address women's depression and illicit drug use may be most effective by incorporating aspects related to women's history of victimization, especially given the high rates of violence experienced by women in this sample.     

关于经验法则的思考

本文从经验法则的概念入手,厘清了经验法则的起源和限定,进而讨论了经验法则的具体类型。在此基础上,阐述了经验法则的三种功能:"启发性"功能;"认识性"功能;以及"证明性"功能,并就如何运用经验法则提出具体意见。     

Baseline subjective stress predicts 1-year outcomes among drug court clients

Psychological stress has long been known to predict negative changes in physical and behavioral health in the general population. The same relationships have been found in research on drug abusers. In this longitudinal study, 477 clients of two Kentucky drug courts were followed for 1 year to examine the relationship between subjective stress at intake and outcomes 1 year after the baseline of this 18-month drug court program. Greater baseline subjective stress was significantly associated with poorer employment, substance use, criminal justice, and health outcomes at 1-year follow-up, even after adjusting for selected demographic characteristics and baseline levels of the outcomes of interest. If these results are replicated in these and other drug courts, then a stress reduction treatment trial within the drug court context should be attempted and evaluated.