Health Literacy in High-Risk Youth: A Descriptive Study of Children in Residential Care

Although previous studies have demonstrated that children in out-of-home care present with elevated levels of mental and physical health, educational, and behavioral problems, little is known about youth's ability to manage health care needs or access health information and support. This study evaluates the health literacy skills of 229 youth served in a residential setting. Results revealed that the majority of youth demonstrated some level of risk, and anywhere from one-quarter to one-third demonstrated significant health literacy deficits suggesting a need for additional research and treatment intervention. Implications, study limitations, and recommendations for practice and future research are discussed.     

International political economy: a tale of two heterodoxies

International political economy (IPE) originated in the early 1970s. For almost 20 years it has been dominated by separate, largely non-communicating schools, one centred on scholarly institutions in Britain, the other associated with the US journal, International Organization (IO) . In terms of the evolving norms of both economics and political science, both schools are surprisingly heterodox. Rather than developing strong systematic data collections and systematic theory, the IO school has been characterised by a shifting set of conceptual and metatheoretical debates. The British school, which has tended to take a deliberately critical position, has been characterised by an ever-widening set of concerns topical concerns fuelled by a desire to include more and more voices in the study of IPE. These outcomes are explicable only by tracing the specific historical developments of the two schools.     

The Impact of Maternal Relationship Quality on Emerging Adults’ Prosocial Tendencies: Indirect Effects via Regulation of Prosocial Values

Studies document that parents serve as children’s primary socialization agents, particularly for moral development and prosocial behavior; however, less is known regarding parental influences on prosocial outcomes during the transition to adulthood. The purpose of this study was to investigate how mother–child relationship quality was related to prosocial tendencies via emerging adults’ regulation of prosocial values. Participants included 228 undergraduate students (ranging from 18 to 25 years; 90% European American) and their mothers (ranging from 38 to 59 years) from four locations across the United States. Path analyses using structural equation modeling revealed that mother–child relationship quality was related to emerging adults’ regulation of prosocial values, which was, in turn, related to emerging adults’ prosocial tendencies. Specifically, emerging adults who reported higher levels of internal regulation of prosocial values were more likely to report prosocial tendencies that de-emphasized themselves, and were less likely to report prosocial tendencies for the approval of others.

Lady Elinor Davies: The prophet as publisher

Lady Elinor Davies, who published between 1625 and 1652 more works than any other Englishwoman before her, believed herself to be the prophet of the apocalypse, divinely chosen to reveal that the apocalypses of Daniel and St John find their fulfillment in the events of the seventeenth century and thereby to proclaim the coming of the judgement and the end of time. Empowered by confidence in her gift and compelled by the urgency of her mission, Lady Elinor defied patriarchal authority when in 1633 she published prophecies attacking church and king, an act that brought her to trial and to prison and her prophecies to the bonfire. Lady Elinor then mythologized this trial: She, the woman-prophet-publisher, becomes the apocalyptic Woman in Travail, who triumphs over the monstrous embodiments of patriarchal power that persecute her and seek to destroy her work.     

Bureaucratizing Democracy, Democratizing Bureaucracy

This article analyzes the relationship between how rationality is conceived and how democracy is practiced in the Bureau of Reclamation, a water development agency in the Department of Interior. The efforts of some inside the agency to institutionalize rational decision-making models, partly in response to new environmental law, expanded the number and range of interest groups that participated in its decisions fry incorporating their preferences into their models for evaluating plans. But the terms under which people could express their values and interests were strictly controlled in ways that some felt misrepresented their concerns. How we conceive of rationality has important implications for how and which people are included in bureaucratic decision making.     

An Unusual Economic Arrangement: The Brazilian Economy during the First Lula Administration, 2003–2006

This paper describes the economic policy and economic performance of Brazil during the first Lula administration, in 2003–2006. I show that in his first term as president Lula chose fast disinflation as one of the main priority of its economic policy. This choice required the adoption of high real interest rates, which also demanded an increase in the government’s primary surplus to keep the country’s public debt under control. Consequently, as I strive to demonstrate, investment in social safety net (the administration’s other main priority) was financed not only by the increase in tax revenues but also by a reduction in the government’s expenditure on both wages and benefits of public employees and in public investments in infrastructure. A combination of, on the one hand, a favorable global environment and, on the other, successful economic policies resulted in a significant improvement in the Brazilian macroeconomic performance. This in turn contributed a great deal to a reduction in both income inequality and poverty rates. I conclude by unveiling what I view as a quite unusual economic arrangement: president Lula’s economic choices over the 2003–2006 period ended up benefiting most the extremely rich (through high real interest rates) and the very poor (through the increase in income transfers).