Growth in Adolescent Self-Regulation and Impact on Sexual Risk-Taking: A Curve-of-Factors Analysis

Adolescent self-regulation is increasingly seen as an important predictor of sexual risk-taking behaviors, but little is understood about how changes in self-regulation affect later sexual risk-taking. Family financial stress may affect the development of self-regulation and later engagement in sexual risk-taking. We examined whether family financial stress influences self-regulation in early adolescence (age 13) and growth in self-regulation throughout adolescence (from age 13–17 years). We then assessed the effects of family financial stress, baseline self-regulation, and the development of self-regulation on adolescent sexual risk-taking behaviors at age 18 years. Using a curve-of-factors model, we examined these relationships in a 6-year longitudinal study of 470 adolescents (52% female) and their parents from a large northwestern city in the United States. Results indicated that family financial stress was negatively associated with baseline self-regulation but not with growth in self-regulation throughout adolescence. Both baseline self-regulation and growth in self-regulation were predictive of decreased likelihood of engaging in sexual risk-taking. Family financial stress was not predictive of later sexual risk-taking. Intervening to support the development of self-regulation in adolescence may be especially protective against later sexual risk-taking.     

Introduction: Ideology,Propaganda, and Political Discourse in the Xi Jinping Era

The ideology, propaganda, and political discourse of the Communist Party of China (CPC) have continued to function as key elements of the political system of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the post-Maoist period since 1978. In the first term of the Xi Jinping leadership (2012–2017), the CPC, for instance, elaborated on its guiding ideological concepts, devised inventive ideational framings of phenomena usually perceived as tangible (such as the “New Normal”), engaged in complex intellectual debates on crucial topics (such as “eco-civilization”), intensified and diversified its argumentation patterns and discursive strategies, and consolidated ideational governance over some citizens’ individual values, beliefs, and loyalties. Furthermore, it is often no longer possible to differentiate between the CPC’s internal and external propaganda, as seemingly exclusively domestic ideational and discursive issues increasingly correlate with international phenomena. However, the trends in the Xi era do not present paradigmatic shifts, but rather an overall reassertion-cum-innovation of previous Maoist and post-Maoist uses of ideology, propaganda, and political discourse, primarily aiming at strengthening one-party rule.     

Whose New Normal? Framing the Economic Slowdown Under Xi Jinping

After decades of double-digit economic growth, China experienced a significant drop in GDP growth rates in the wake of the global financial crisis. For the new Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping, who had assumed power in the fall of 2012, analysts predicted a looming crisis due to the alleged decline in the regime’s performance legitimacy. This article argues against a mechanistic application of the notion of performance legitimacy. Instead, it proposes to take into account the role of ideology in mediating public perceptions of regime performance. By tracking the career of the concept of “new normal” in Chinese public discourse over a period of three years – from late 2013 to late 2016 – it shows how the economic slowdown has been framed in ways conducive to the reproduction of regime legitimacy. The findings suggest an intense process of ideological contestation and decontestation, in which the domestic reflection of foreign audiences and their recognition of the Chinese regime’s performance have gained in importance.     

The Feminist Citizen-Subject: It’s not About Choice,It’s About Changing It All

This article ties together two different sources related to the Trial of Pussy Riot in Russia in 2012. On the one hand, I consider legal documents, such as court proceedings, police reports, and the sentence. On the other, I analyse a life-history interview with one of the accused, thus giving her a voice that is not mediated by juridical institutions within criminal law procedure. This allows an analysis of two different subject positions produced by these texts: a conformist citizen and a feminist activist-citizen. I pay more attention to the latter. I conclude that in order to retain an activist position, the feminist subject has no option but to resist.     

Beyond ‘Revenge Porn’: The Continuum of Image-Based Sexual Abuse

In the last few years, many countries have introduced laws combating the phenomenon colloquially known as ‘revenge porn’. While new laws criminalising this practice represent a positive step forwards, the legislative response has been piecemeal and typically focuses only on the practices of vengeful ex-partners. Drawing on Liz Kelly’s (Surviving sexual violence. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1988) pioneering work, we suggest that ‘revenge porn’ should be understood as just one form of a range of gendered, sexualised forms of abuse which have common characteristics, forming what we are conceptualising as the ‘continuum of image-based sexual abuse’. Further, we argue that image-based sexual abuse is on a continuum with other forms of sexual violence. We suggest that this twin approach may enable a more comprehensive legislative and policy response that, in turn, will better reflect the harms to victim-survivors and lead to more appropriate and effective educative and preventative strategies.     

Campus Feminisms

Drawing from a long history of feminist writing grounded in personal reflection and informal dialogue between feminist thinkers, Cobb and Godden-Rasul present an email-based conversation with Jess Lishak, the outgoing Women’s Officer at the University of Manchester Students’ Union (2014–2016). The conversation draws on Cobb and Godden-Rasul’s experience as feminist academics engaged in critical institutional practice through such initiatives as editing the Inherently Human blog, organising the Inspirational Women of Law exhibition, and participating in university working groups on campus-based harassment and violence. In asking Lishak to reflect on her journey to feminism and her experiences of activism, the conversation ranges over such issues as personal influences and experiences, strategies for securing institutional support, encouraging student engagement with feminism, and campaigning tactics. The conversation developed out of a “Campus Feminisms” event in March 2016, which explored the rise of exciting new grassroots single-issue campaigns and political mobilisations by students in higher education, and was organised by Cobb and Godden-Rasul at Newcastle University, UK. Undergraduate and postgraduate students shared their personal struggles and achievements in bringing feminist ideas and campaigns to their university campuses. Lucy Morgan, the Gender Equality Officer at Newcastle University Students’ Union, offered inspiring reflections on her efforts to reinvigorate the ‘F’ word, in the face of simultaneous student apathy and backlash. Many of these campus-based mobilisations have demanded better institutional responses to sexual violence against women. At around the same time, Cobb was beginning a new role as the co-chair of the University of Manchester’s first Task & Finish Group on Sexual Violence and Harassment on Campus. This followed Universities UK’s decision to create a taskforce to consider options for improving institutional responses to student safety. In the process, Cobb crossed paths with Lishak, who had been appointed a member of the UUK Taskforce in light of her path-breaking students’ union work addressing violence against women. Since Lishak was an exemplar of this new feminist wave in higher education, one that was still inadequately understood by feminist academics despite often working side-by-side within the same institutions, the authors embarked on this conversation in order to better understand the relationship between academic and student feminist activism on campus. As Lishak makes clear in her own reflections, there is nothing inevitable about the synergies between these movements, but there is potentially a great deal that could be achieved through their closer engagement.