Federal Court Responses to State and Local Claims of "Undue Burden" in Complying with The Americans with Disabilities Act

Are federal courts sympathetic to local and state officials'cost concerns, particularly when it comes to meeting the requirementsof the Americans with Disabilities Act? This is the fundamentalquery taken up by this analysis. After examining twenty-eightfederal ADA cases where state and local officials have goneto court claiming that complying with this civil rights measurewould be unduly burdensome, this study comes up with mixed findings.In some cases, the courts have been sensitive to cost concernsbut, in others, they have not. Despite these inconclusive findings,this study does cast some light on what state and local officialsmust do if they expect federal courts to be sensitive to theirconcerns.     

The sporting life: Athletic activities during early adolescence

The decline in sports participation that begins in early adolescence has been well documented, and there has been considerable controversy regarding the reasons for this attrition. The present study addressed the attrition process by focusing on the subjective experience of sports as a function of grade, gender, and sport context. Following the procedures of the Experience Sampling Method, 401 5th–9th-grade boys and girls carried electronic pagers, similar to those worn by doctors, for one week, and filled out self-report forms on their activities and subjective states in response to signals received at random times. Older respondents spent less time in sports than their younger peers. This age difference was due primarily to a decline in informal sports participation, with less pronounced attrition from organized sports. Our findings suggest that the reasons for attrition from sport may be context specific. While informal sports were experienced more positively than gym class or organized sports, perceptions of skill were lowest during informal sports and declined with age. It seems youngsters stop participating in organized sports because these activities are less enjoyable to them, while attrition from informal sports is more performance based. Boys spent more time in sports than girls, and this difference was based primarily upon significant gender differences in informal sports participation. In spite of their differential rates of participation, boys and girls reported similar levels of affect, arousal, and skill during sports.This research was supported by NIMH grant number MH38324, Stress in Daily Life During Early Adolescence, awarded to Reed Larson, and was carried out while the first author was a Dissertation Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Loyola University of Chicago.Received Ph.D. in psychology from Loyola University of Chicago. Current research interests include athletic, involvement during early adolescence, body image, and adolescent mental health.Current research interests are stress and coping during early adolescence, and the adaptive use of leisure time.Received Ph.D. from the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago. Current research interests include pubertal development, the precursors of eating disorders, and the effects of maternal employment of young adolescents.     

Family relationships and social competence during late adolescence

Data from a large sample of late adolescents was used to examine associations between family relationships (reported closeness to parents and siblings) and perceived social competence. Significant positive relationships were found between family bonds and the social competence measures, which included social self-esteem, instrumentality, expressiveness, shyness, and degree of satisfaction/ease in same- and opposite-sex peer relationships. There was no evidence of differential effects of sibling versus parent relationships upon adolescent social competence.This project was supported by NIMH Grant 5 R01 MH34570.Received Ph.D. from Northwestern University.     

Financial restraint management and budget control in Canadian provincial governments

Abstract: This study compares and contrasts approaches to the management of financial stress and restraint in four Canadian provincial governments in the period from 1983 to 1985. It indicates that a number of different approaches to restraint management are utilized by Canadian provinces to cope with shortfalls in revenue and policy changes that influence resource allocation decision-making. The four provinces reviewed - British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia - have managed restraint in different ways, each reflecting the politics and the socio-economic and cultural context within which government resource allocation decisions are made. Profiles of these provinces indicate how these factors have influenced financial stress management and budget control strategy. Provincial experience is compared on the following dimensions: overall restraint management strategy; employment policy; marketing the need for restraint; centralized versus participatory government decision authority and control; the use of evaluation in restraint decision-making; and the influence of ideology in restraint management strategy-setting. Sommaire: Cette étude compare et oppose les méthodes de gestion financière adoptées en période d'austérité budgétaire par quatre gouvernements provinciaux au Canada, de 1983 à 1985. Elle indique que les provinces du Canada suivent diverses orientations en matière de gestion durant une période d'austérité budgétaire pour faire face aux manques de revenus et aux changements de politiques qui influencent les décisions d'allocation des ressources. Les quatre provinces étudiées, c'est-à-dire la Colombie-Britannique, la Saskatchewan, le Manitoba et la Nouvelle-Écosse, ont chacune adopté une orientation différence, reflétant le contexte politique, soeio-économique et culturel particulier dans lequel sont prises les décisions gouvernementales d'allocation des ressources. Les profils de la Colombie-Britannique, du Manitoba, de la Nouvelle-Éeosse et de la Saskatchewan précisent la manière dont ces facteurs ont influé sur la gestion de I'austérité financière et la stratégie de contrôle budgétaire. La comparaison entre les provinces porte sur les aspects suivants: 1) stratégie globale de gestion en période d'austérité, 2) politique d'emploi, 3) sensibilisation du public au besoin d'austérité, 4) autorité et contrôle décisionnels concentrés ou participatoires de la part du gouvernement, 5) rôle de 1'évaluation dans la prise des décisions en période d'austérité, et 6) influence de l'idéologie sur la définition des stratégies de gestion de l'austérite.     

The nonpartisan ballot and the decline of American parties: A contextual effect?

The nonpartisan municipal ballot is one of several turn-of-the-century reforms intended to weaken political parties. Through its effects on individuals' political contexts and voting experiences, it might have contributed to the twentieth-century decline in public support for political parties. This paper tests this hypothesis with items available in the 1980 CPS presidential election survey augmented with a ballot form variable. There are no significant differences in measures of party support among residents of partisan and nonpartisan communities, and thus no measurable evidence that nonpartisan elections discouraged the public from supporting political parties.This is a revised version of a paper delivered at the XIII World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Paris, July 1985.     

Utopia and the legal system

She is author of The Boundaries of Utopia.     

Sexually active but not pregnant: A comparison of teens who risk and teens who plan

Previous studies have compared contraceptive users with nonusers, and pregnant teens with nonpregnant ones. This paper reports the findings of a study of a sample of 119 women aged 21 and under who visited the Young Adult Clinic at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City during 1981. All of these women had been sexually active for a year or longer, but had never been pregnant. The expectation that such a sample would include mainly consistent users of contraception was unwarranted; within this special population were found young women who had never used contraception or who had only been sporadic users, as well as the consistent users. Moreover, there are many more similarities than differences among these groups, and their stated motivations for not becoming pregnant are the same. The consistent contraceptors were more likely to live with their mothers, to have mothers who worked, to indicate that their parents would help them have an abortion, and to indicate they would have an abortion should they become pregnant. The similarities between these young women are very important for programs, which often rely heavily on stated motivation or even on a clinic visit as evidence that a young woman intends to use a birth control method. There is nothing here to support this simple view. Instead the notion is substantiated that many adolescents may lack cognitive consistency on this subject or may lack the future orientation to be effective contraceptive users.     

The Peer Appearance Culture During Adolescence: Gender and Body Mass Variations

The purpose of this research was to examine gender and body mass, as factors linked to perceived experiences within the peer appearance culture. The sample included 215 girls and 200 boys who were either in 7th grade or 10th grade. Students provided self-reports on experiences in three domains: appearance culture among friends (appearance conversations and diet/muscle talk), peer evaluations (peer appearance pressure, appearance teasing, and vicarious peer teasing), and peer acceptance concerns (appearance-based acceptance, peer appearance comparison). The results indicated that although girls reported more appearance conversations, boys perceived more appearance pressure and teasing. Boys also admitted that they talked with friends about muscle building at a rate greater than girls talked about dieting. BMI showed distinct gender patterns. BMI was a key attribute that unified the experiences within the appearance culture for overweight girls. Among the boys, BMI was associated with differentiated experiences for underweight and overweight participants.Associate Professor in Educational Psychology at the University of Washington. She is a developmental psychologist specializing in the contributions of peers to body image and social-emotional well-being during adolescence. Research interests include body image during adolescence and gender differences.Doctoral student at the University of Washington in Human Development and Cognition. Her research focuses on the social-emotional development of adolescents, academic and appearance social comparisons, and issues related to gender and science. Research interests include body image during adolescence, gender differences, social comparison, and academic competence.