Examining Multiracial Youth in Context: Ethnic Identity Development and Mental Health Outcomes

Although multiracial individuals are the fastest growing population in the United States, research on the identity development of multiracial adolescents remains scant. This study explores the relationship between ethnic identity, its components (affirmation, exploration), and mental health outcomes (anxiety, depressive symptoms) within the contexts of schools for multiracial adolescents. The participants were multiracial and monoracial minority and majority high school students (n = 4,766; 54.6 % female). Among the participants, 88.1 % were Caucasian, 7.4 % were African American, and 4.5 % were multiracial. The research questions examined the relationship between ethnic identity exploration and affirmation on mental health outcomes and explored the role school context plays in this relationship. The findings suggested that multiracial youth experience more exploration and less affirmation than African Americans, but more than Caucasians. In addition, multiracial youth were found to have higher levels of mental health issues than their monoracial minority and majority peers. Specifically, multiracial youth had higher levels of depressive symptoms than their African American and Caucasian counterparts. Multiracial and Caucasian youth had similar levels of anxiety but these levels were significantly higher than African Americans. School diversity did not influence mental health outcomes for multiracial youth. These findings provide insight into the experiences of multiracial youth and underscore the importance of further investigating factors that contribute to their mental health outcomes.     

Best Friends’ Discussions of Social Dilemmas

Peer relationships, particularly friendships, have been theorized to contribute to how children and adolescents think about social and moral issues. The current study examined how young adolescent best friends (191 dyads; 53.4 % female) reason together about multifaceted social dilemmas and how their reasoning is related to friendship quality. Mutually-recognized friendship dyads were videotaped discussing dilemmas entailing moral, social-conventional and prudential/pragmatic issues. Both dyad members completed a self-report measure of friendship quality. Dyadic data analyses guided by the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model indicated that adolescent and friend reports of friendship qualities were related to the forms of reasoning used during discussion. Friends who both reported that they could resolve conflicts in a constructive way were more likely to use moral reasoning than friends who reported that their conflict resolution was poor or disagreed on the quality of their conflict resolution. The findings provide evidence for the important role that friendship interaction may play in adolescents’ social and moral development.     

论恐怖主义的社会解构

作为一种极端的解构力量,恐怖主义对于国际秩序的威胁和损害不仅在于通过制造恶性事件以破坏国际社会的安全稳定,更在于借助销蚀主流价值而削弱国际秩序的观念基础。因此,国际社会有必要将评估和应对恐怖主义的社会解构纳入反恐治理的基本范畴。其中,以“伊斯兰国”组织为代表的恐怖主义力量进行社会解构的行为策略,可以分为以动摇当代领土政治、颠覆主流生命伦理和创设替代政治秩序为主要构成的重释再造,以动员恐怖袭击、滋长恐怖气氛和催生仇恨敌对为主要构成的“木马”植入,以“黑色经济”“黑色宣传”和“黑色技术”为主要构成的反向利用。目前,国际社会的反恐路径注重结合预防恐怖主义的内向防御逻辑与打击恐怖主义的外向进攻逻辑。沿着这一思路,国际社会可以综合采取加强反恐实践中的逆向战略、修正反恐叙事中的敌意话语和联通反恐治理中的不同系统等多种举措以应对恐怖主义的社会解构。     

Correction to: Age Patterns in Risk Taking Across the World

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - In the original publication, the legends for Figs 4 and 5 were incorrect, such that each regression line was mislabeled with the incorrect country. Below are the...     

Demokratie als öffentliches Gut?

Political Science neglect classical insights on constitutional and economic conditions of the so called “tax state” as a fiscal institutional architecture sui generis. While studies in Political Economy focus on distribution quality of the welfare state or compare budgets from local to international level fiscal research should also consider the capitalist structure of tax paradigm again. Only after such a regeneration the discipline could better reflect old and new democratic challenges of fiscal problems. Recalling former theories of interdependencies between fiscal, constitutional and ideological orders, this article suggests to make sense of conceptualizing democratic regime itself as prime public good. Because if it is fiscal sovereignty that is foremost to produce with democracy’s budget it should be easier to analyze tax state driven regressive effects of democratic integrity.     

Die „Sonntagsfrage“, soziale Erwünschtheit und die AfD: Wie alternative Messmethoden der Politikwissenschaft weiterhelfen können

In Germany, the standard vote intention survey item has come under attack because it failed to correctly measure the vote share of the German party “Alternative für Deutschland” (AfD). We argue that alternative measurement techniques that aim to reduce social desirability bias are better suited for this task. We test three measurement techniques to forecast AfD vote share—a double list experiment, the crosswise-model randomized response technique, and the wisdom of crowds design—and compare their performance to the standard vote intention item. Our results indicate that the wisdom of crowds design is an easily implementable and promising addition to political scientists’ toolbox of survey items.     

The Public Service Mutual: Theories of Motivational Advantage

Public service mutuals are a form of employee‐led organization in which service workers spin out of the public sector to form “mutuals” that contract back with government to provide a service. This article draws on economic and psychological theory to demonstrate that mutuals can align both self‐interested and altruistic or public service motivations so as to serve the social good; moreover, by offering greater autonomy to public service professionals, mutuals are predicted to encourage energetic and persistent behaviors. In both cases, there is an advantage over alternative forms of organization such as the public sector bureaucracy, the shareholder‐owned private firm, or the nonprofit organization. The employee‐led mutual form, however, may not appeal to risk‐averse workers, its collective decision‐making systems may be inefficient, and external mechanisms may be required to ensure that organizational outcomes are always directed toward the social good.     

Behavioral Public Administration: Combining Insights from Public Administration and Psychology

Behavioral public administration is the analysis of public administration from the micro‐level perspective of individual behavior and attitudes by drawing on insights from psychology on the behavior of individuals and groups. The authors discuss how scholars in public administration currently draw on theories and methods from psychology and related fields and point to research in public administration that could benefit from further integration. An analysis of public administration topics through a psychological lens can be useful to confirm, add nuance to, or extend classical public administration theories. As such, behavioral public administration complements traditional public administration. Furthermore, it could be a two‐way street for psychologists who want to test the external validity of their theories in a political‐administrative setting. Finally, four principles are proposed to narrow the gap between public administration and psychology.     

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.     

Does Reacting to the Past Increase Student Engagement? An Empirical Evaluation of the Use of Historical Simulations in Teaching Political Theory

Within the teaching of political theory, an assumption is emerging that Reacting to the Past simulations are an effective tool because they encourage greater student engagement with ideas and history. While previous studies have assessed the advantages of simulations in other political science subfields or offered anecdotal evidence of their effectiveness in political theory courses, less attention has been paid to the empirical assessment of simulations in political theory. This study uses data — in the form of presimulation and postsimulation surveys, as well as focus groups — collected from two political theory courses in order to gauge levels of student engagement inside and outside of the classroom. We ask if students’ levels of engagement increase during the simulation in their political theory courses. We also explore the mechanisms involved in driving higher levels of student engagement during the simulation. We conclude by arguing that it is the liminal nature of the Reacting to the Past simulations that most likely explains increased levels of student engagement.