The Role of Social Support in Students’ Perceived Abilities and Attitudes Toward Math and Science

Social cognitive models examining academic and career outcomes emphasize constructs such as attitude, interest, and self-efficacy as key factors affecting students’ pursuit of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) courses and careers. The current research examines another under-researched component of social cognitive models: social support, and the relationship between this component and attitude and self-efficacy in math and science. A large cross-sectional design was used gathering data from 1,552 participants in four adolescent school settings from 5th grade to early college (41 % female, 80 % white). Students completed measures of perceived social support from parents, teachers and friends as well as their perceived ability and attitudes toward math and science. Fifth grade and college students reported higher levels of support from teachers and friends when compared to students at other grade levels. In addition, students who perceived greater social support for math and science from parents, teachers, and friends reported better attitudes and had higher perceptions of their abilities in math and science. Lastly, structural equation modeling revealed that social support had both a direct effect on math and science perceived abilities and an indirect effect mediated through math and science attitudes. Findings suggest that students who perceive greater social support for math and science from parents, teachers, and friends have more positive attitudes toward math and science and a higher sense of their own competence in these subjects.     

The Peer Context and the Development of the Perpetration of Adolescent Dating Violence

The peer context is a central focus in research on adolescent risk behaviors but few studies have investigated the role of the peer context in the perpetration of adolescent dating violence. This longitudinal study examined between-subjects and within-person contemporaneous and lagged effects of peer attributes, measured with social network analyses, on trajectories of dating violence perpetration and determined if effects varied by grade and/or sex of the adolescent. Data are from adolescents who participated in a five-wave panel study beginning when they were in 7 through 9th grade and ending when they were in 10 through 12th grade (n = 3,412); half were male, 40.5 % were white, 49.9 % were black and 10.4 % were of another race/ethnicity. Significant between-subjects effects indicate that adolescents who typically have friends who use dating violence, and girls who are typically high in social status, are at increased risk for using dating violence throughout adolescence. Adolescents who typically have high quality friendships and girls who typically have friends with pro-social beliefs are at decreased risk for using dating violence throughout adolescence. Significant within-person contemporaneous effects indicate that both boys and girls reported lower levels of dating violence than usual at times when they had more friends with pro-social beliefs, and reported higher levels of dating violence than usual at times when they had higher social status. None of the lagged effects were significant and none of the effects varied across grade. These findings suggest that the peer context plays an important role in the development of the perpetration of adolescent dating violence.     

Associations Between Adolescents’ Perceived Discrimination and Prosocial Tendencies: The Mediating Role of Mexican American Values

Experiences with perceived discrimination (e.g., perceptions of being treated unfairly due to race or ethnicity) are expected to impact negatively youths’ prosocial development. However, resilience often occurs in light of such experiences through cultural factors. The current longitudinal study examined the influence of perceived discrimination on the emergence of Mexican American adolescents’ later prosocial tendencies, and examined the mediating role of Mexican American values (e.g., familism, respect, and religiosity). Participants included 749 adolescents (49 % female) interviewed at 5th, 7th, and 10th grade. Results of the current study suggested that, although perceived discrimination was associated negatively with some types of prosocial tendencies (e.g., compliant, emotional, and dire) and related positively to public prosocial helping, the associations were mediated by youths’ Mexican American values. Directions for future research are presented and practical implications for promoting adolescents’ resilience are discussed.     

Russia as a New Immigration Country: Policy Response and Public Debate

Both the Russian public and its elites were taken by surprise by the fact that Russia has become an immigration country. It has resulted in widespread anti-immigrant sentiments and inconsistency in government actions. Russian immigration politics, as well as immigration politics in liberal democracies of the West, are characterised by a wavering between protectionist and liberal laissez faire approaches. This leads to a mismatch between public rhetoric and legal decisions. However, two features seem to make the Russian situation specific: open borders with most of the countries of the former Soviet Union and omnipresent corruption. Corruption results in a discrepancy between formal (legal) decisions and informal (illegal) practices.     

Catherine Cl ment and Julia Kristeva. The Feminine and the Sacred. Trans. Jane Marie Todd. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001

And the Mirror Cracked: Feminist Cinema and Film Theory, by Anneke Smelik. London: Macmillan Press, 1998.

Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Reader, edited by Elizabeth Fallaize. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, edited by Barbara Newman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Women Preachers and Prophets Through Two Millennia of Christianity, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind, by Anna Battigelli. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998.

Cracks in the Pedestal: Ideology and Gender in Hollywood, by Philip Green. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998.

The Women and War Reader, edited by Lois Ann Lorentzen and Jennifer Turpin. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Surrealist Women: An International Anthology, edited by Penelope Rosemont. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.

The Knotted Subjed: Hysteria and its Discontents, by Elisabeth Bronfen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.

Ventures into Childland: Victorians, Fairy Tales, and Femininity, by U.C. Knoepfimacher. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.     

No hay ganancia en la milpa: the agrarian question,food sovereignty,and the on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity in the Guatemalan highlands

Although they receive little recognition for their contribution, peasant farmers in the global South play a fundamental role in securing the long-term global food supply. Via their self-sufficient agricultural practices, they cultivate the crop genetic diversity that enables food crops to adapt to changing environmental conditions. In this paper I draw upon empirical data from the Guatemalan center of agricultural biodiversity to investigate the concern that market expansion will displace peasant agriculture and undermine a cornerstone of the global food supply. I find that even though peasants' livelihoods involve multiple forms of market provisioning, they also engage in a Polanyian ‘double movement’ to protect their subsistence-oriented agricultural practices from the potentially deleterious effects of markets. I also investigate the so-called ‘agrarian question’ about the effects of market expansion on the viability of peasant agriculture, finding that although new forms of market provisioning are likely exacerbating rural inequality, the income from market activities actually enables rural Guatemalans to reproduce the conditions for peasant agriculture. Ultimately, I observe that the conservation of agricultural biodiversity and, consequently, global food security are contingent upon the ‘food sovereignty’ of peasant farmers.     

TAKING THE ‘HIGH ROAD’: DOES PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION ALTER ETHICAL DECISION MAKING PROCESSES?

Although public administration scholars have long been interested in promoting administrative ethics, recent lapses in judgment by government employees make the study of ethics even more pressing. Yet, we know relatively little about how public values and publicly oriented motives influence the ethical obligations employees reference when confronting organizational problems. We employ Perry's (2000) process model of public service motivation to connect public values, public service motivation, and employees' understanding of their ethical obligations. Using data collected from over 1,400 managers in United States municipal governments, we present findings that suggest that public service motivation appears to be positively correlated with ethical obligations rooted in virtue and integrity, or high road ethics, for less professionalized employees. Further, broader constellations of public values encourage increased application of high road ethics for the same employees, but only to the extent that they foster public service motivation.     

Setos' way to manage identities and well-being: shame and pride,opposition and openness

The paper examines how the tiny ethno-cultural group of Setos constructs its identity in the multicultural context. The study examines the validity of three acculturation models and tests earlier findings on the relationship between identity and well-being. The results suggest that Setos have clearly adopted a multicultural identity strategy while not merging different identities, and that they have managed to separate the material well-being from the pride of their identity. Despite its small size and peripheral location, the Setos' way to preserve their identity in a constantly changing context is an interesting lesson for other indigenous groups, and also for bigger neighbors.     

What Makes Them Successful? Influential Interest Groups in Hungary (1990–2014)

Although many scholars of Central and Eastern Europe politics write about the relative weaknesses of civil societies, some studies delivered evidence of cases where interest groups were able to influence particular decisions and policies. Therefore, we aimed at identifying and examining the most influential national interest groups of eight different policy areas in post-communist Hungary hoping to explore the reasons for their success. Older generations of organisations benefit from political embeddedness, while newer advocacy groups rely more on legal instruments and public mobilisation. The operation of successful groups has not been affected by the strong political polarisation of the Hungarian party system.