A shortened child behavior checklist for delinquency studies

This study examines the reduction of the number of items in the scales of the Child Behavior Checklist, while maintaining the reliability and predictability of its original scales. For that purpose, the original scales were replicated with data from the Pittsburgh Youth Study. New, abbreviated scales were constructed using the most potent items. This process yielded trimmed scales that were highly correlated with the full scales and that still reflect the original meanings of the scales. Further, there was no loss of reliability or predictability with the trimmed as opposed to the full scales. The results were replicated in an analysis with identical variables from the Rochester Youth Development Study. This replication produced equally high reliabilities with similar levels of prediction of delinquent behavior.We would like to thank Terence P. Thornberry for helpful comments and advice on early drafts of this paper.     

The All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and French Intellectuals, 1925–29

The 1920s and 1930s were years of active personal support for the USSR by a number of eminent French intellectuals who assisted in the creation of an image of the USSR in French public opinion. This was largely based on their perceptions of the social, political and cultural achievements in Soviet society. Analysis of the archival, and mainly unpublished, documents of VOKS (the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries) illustrate the true nature of an organisation that claimed to have been created in order to promote international cultural relations. The internal correspondence and reports reveal the mechanisms used by VOKS from its inception in order to create, foster, and manipulate relations with numerous members of the French intelligentsia. Also revealed in this paper is the leading role played by VOKS in the creation of the USSR-France "cultural" friendship societies, its policies concerning the selection and treatment of French visitors, and other features of political propaganda that have been commonly considered to belong to the period of the 1930s.     

Activist Lawyers in Post‐Tiananmen China

What do the activities of twenty‐first‐century Chinese lawyers tell us about the origins and prospects of legal activism under authoritarianism? This essay fits China's Human Rights Lawyers (2014) into an emerging literature on authoritarian legality. The book offers an insider view of a circle of lawyers interested in using China's newly accessible courts as a platform for social activism. It highlights the difficulty of rights lawyers’ day‐to‐day work against the backdrop of the Chinese state's long‐term experiment in how to harness the power of law without ceding political control.     

Quantitative intersectionality: Imperatives and opportunities for advancing social equity

Social equity is a pillar of public administration (PA), yet its actualization remains elusive. The path forward to closing persistent social equity gaps requires the utilization of quantitative intersectionality in PA. This article explores the literature related to quantitative intersectionality and the imperative for use in the scholarship and practices of PA. To exemplify this concept in practice, we present a case study examining Vocational Rehabilitation performance data reports. Findings illustrate how quantitative intersectionality provides an opportunity to unpack overlapping identities for people with disabilities whose individual characteristics include historically oppressed race/ethnicity and gender identities. Findings assert the imperative for using quantitative intersectionality to achieve social equity for all.     

Sentimental Frauds

The 2006 class action against James Frey, concerning his fabrications in A Million Little Pieces, was the first suit of its kind in the United States. There is nothing new about false memoirs, so what can explain the lawsuit? When the book was promoted on “Oprah's Book Club,” viewers were invited to respond emotionally, and saw their responses as a form of testimony. Those responses produced a sense of betrayal and inauthenticity when Frey's falsehoods were revealed. This view finds support in the eighteenth‐century sentimental novel, which similarly linked readers' reactions to the author's emotional authenticity. Fraud was an ongoing concern for sentimental novelists, some of whom used elaborate editorial to ploys to disavow responsibility for the text, while others populated their novels with fraudulent characters, intended as foils for the protagonist. An investigation of these novels helps to reveal the implications of the Frey case for future claims of literary fraud.     

European Professors as Public Intellectuals

Historically, European economists, compared to their American counterpart, were more involved in public discussions of policy. In this paper it is argued that this has likely changed. The chief reasons seem to involve the European imitation of the academic ethos that is more prevalent in America. Features of this academic ethos include a more formalist orientation in graduate programs and an academic incentive system wherein professional journal publication is paramount and public discourse is relatively devalued. I suggest there is an inescapable ideological dilemma in addressing the costs and benefits of professors’ neglect of public discourse. The ideological character of academics compared with our own political sensibilities affect whether we want academics to influence public discourse or not. I use the history of academics as public intellectuals in Sweden to substantiate the change, and I use new data on Swedish social science academics to see whether those who participate in public discourse tend to have certain political and social views.