Psychological correlates of teenage motherhood

The social and economic consequences of adolescent motherhood are known, yet the psychological associates are largely unstudied. Clinical studies point to distressing reactions to adolescent pregnancy, and do not reflect changes in social attitudes about teenage parenting. In this study, adolescent mothers (n=62), pregnant teenagers (n=63), and non-pregnant and nonparenting (n=60) adolescents enrolled in public high schools completed measures of socioeconomic status, depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-esteem, and social supports. Findings suggest that adolescent mothers and pregnant teenagers are less distressed by their situation than was once thought. Social supports and socioeconomic status predicted psychological well-being better than parenting status. Expanded school programs for teenage mothers and renewed efforts to enhance young mothers' social and socioeconomic resources are called recommended.Funding was provided by the William T. Grant Foundation of New York.Received his D.S.W. from the University of California, Berkeley. Major interests are adolescent parenthood, child welfare services, social and cognitive skills training, and social supports.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Current research interests are primary prevention, adolescent pregnancy and parenthood, and teenaged alcohol and drug abuse.Current interests are adolescent pregnancy and social supports.     

Adolescent conceptions of the homeland: A cross-cultural study

Irish (135) and United States (123) subjects, aged from 8 to 17 years, wrote essays on their respective homelands. A content analysis revealed that American subjects, as they grow older, identify the homeland increasingly with its political ideals, while Irish subjects identify theirs with certain psychological ideals which they associate with the rural culture and landscape. Irish essays tended to be longer and more varied, and they showed a higher level of affective development. Profiles of the homeland on 7 semantic differential scales showed the break-up of a halo effect in the Irish sample. Adolescents in both countries showed a transition from concrete to abstract topics with age. The implications of these findings for research on the adolescent self-image are discussed.     

Perceived fairness of drug-testing policies: An application of Leventhal’s principles of procedural justice

Employees rate the fairness of organizational policies by applying principles of distributive and procedural justice. Using Leventhal’s (1980) Principles of Procedural Justice, the current study surveyed 279 upper-level college and graduate students to determine the impact each principle has on support for drugtesting policies. The results support the hypothesis that drug-testing programs that violate these principles are viewed as unfair.     

HIV/AIDS in prisons: recent developments

In a report released on 20 November 2002, entitled Action on HIV/AIDS in Prisons: Too Little, Too Late--A Report Card, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network concluded that despite repeated studies and nearly ten years of recommendations for urgent and pragmatic action, the response of Canadian governments to HIV/AIDS, HCV, and injection drug use in prisons remains inadequate. Only a few weeks later, the House of Commons Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs released its report, which contained a number of recommendations to the Correctional Service of Canada. Although the Committee avoided talking about needle exchange programs in prisons, it did recommend them! Meanwhile, in Ireland, not even condoms or bleach are provided.     

A critique on the concept of "brain death"

Since the concept of "brain death" was introduced in medical terminology, enough evidence has come to light to show that the concept is based on an unclear and incoherent theory. The "brain death" concept suffers by internal inconsistencies in both the tests-criterion and the criterion-definition relationships. It is also evident that there are residual vegetative functions in "brain dead" patients. Since the content of consciousness is inaccessible in these patients who are in a profound coma, the diagnosis of "brain death" is based on an unproved hypothesis. A critical evaluation of the role and the limitations of the confirmatory tests in the diagnosis of "brain death" is attempted. Finally it is pointed out that a holistic approach to the problem of "brain death" in humans should necessarily include the inspection of the content of consciousness.     

Estimating Aggregate Policy Reform Effects: New Baselines for Registration, Participation, and Representation

Statistical models are often extended to explore the aggregateimpact of policy reforms. After discussing these techniquesand the incorporation of prediction uncertainty, this articleexamines the effects of registration reform in an analytic frameworkthat explicitly considers the two stages that defined electoralparticipation throughout the 20th century in the United States—registrationand then voting. Using selection bias techniques, the effectsof counterfactual registration reform conditions are exploredon the aggregate level of participation and the nature of representationin the electoral process. These offer a richer baseline of theimpact of policy changes than previous work by directly exploringthe expected level of dropoff in going to the polls by new registrants.Results indicate that the dropoff between registration and votingwould be expected to increase as more individuals become registered.In addition, while turnout due to reforms among projected "newregistrants" shows potentially larger biases than those amongexisting registrants, because of the different bases of registrationthe changes would still lead to a modest reduction in the disparitybetween actual group sizes and their role in elections.     

Validation of chest X-ray comparisons for unknown decedent identification

Comparing skeletal structures between antemortem and postmortem chest radiographs is widely used by forensic specialists from many disciplines to positively identify unknown decedents. However, validity assessments of this method have been fairly limited. This study had three objectives: 1) to quantify the reliability of ante- and postmortem chest radiograph comparison for decedent identification; 2) to identify useful radiologic features supporting decedent identification; and 3) to recognize sources of error in decedent identification related to use of comparative radiographs. A forensic pathologist, a forensic anthropologist, and two radiologists participated in the study. Our results showed that chest radiograph comparisons proved reliable, if basic decedent information was provided, and antemortem and postmortem radiographs were adequately positioned and exposed. A "morphological approach" using normal anatomical structures for comparison may provide the most efficient method for accurate identification.