Teen Choices,an Online Stage-Based Program for Healthy,Nonviolent Relationships: Development and Feasibility Trial

This article describes the theoretical foundation, development, and feasibility testing of an online, evidence-based intervention for teen dating violence prevention designed for dissemination. Teen Choices, a program for healthy, nonviolent relationships, relies on the transtheoretical model of behavior change and expert system technology to deliver assessments and feedback matched to stage of change for using healthy relationship skills. The program also tailors feedback to dating status, risk level, and other key characteristics. Ninety-nine students from high schools in Tennessee and Rhode Island completed a Teen Choices session and 97 completed an 11-item acceptability evaluation. Of participants, 100% completed the intervention session as intended. Evaluations of the program were favorable: 88.7% agreed the program feedback was easy to understand, and 86.7% agreed that the program could help people develop healthier relationships. Findings provide encouraging evidence of the acceptability and feasibility of this approach to dating violence prevention.     

Evolution of presidential news coverage

This study is the second of two reporting on how the American presidency has been rhetorically constructed for the nation's citizens by the mass media between 1945 and 1985. These research papers examined 412 Time magazine articles on the presidency, keying on such matters as how that magazine documented its reportage, which presidential qualities, behaviors, and problems it emphasized, and how Time used language strategies to describe and evaluate the presidency. By using a variety of content analytic methods, the authors detected two general trends in Time’s coverage: (1) the American presidency has been portrayed as an increasingly besieged institution—socially, politically, and psychologically—and (2) Time’s heavy focus on bureaucratic politics has resulted in an increasing institutionalization of the presidency. A variety of data support these two conclusions and suggest, furthermore, the existence of an over‐arching conceptual model in Time’s discussions of the presidency. The implications of this model are explored briefly here.     

Visibility and Invisibility of Animals in Traditional Chinese Philosophy and Law

There is yet to be any animal welfare or protection law for domestic animals in China, one of the few countries in the world today that do not have such laws. However, in Chinese imperial law, there were legal provisions adopted more than a 1,000 years ago for the care and treatment of domestic working animals. Furthermore, in traditional Chinese philosophy, animals were regarded as constituent part of the organic whole of the cosmos by ancient Chinese philosophers who saw no strict delineation between humans and non-human animals. Notwithstanding, the attitude and practice towards animals in ancient Chinese life was also ambivalent and was predicated upon the practical utility of animals for the service of humans and society. Such practice can be seen through the legal provisions in imperial China. This paper first discusses animal’s place in traditional Chinese philosophy and then in Chinese imperial law. It raises the issue of the gap discernable from the philosophical thought on animals and practice regarding animals in everyday life in China. The paper argues that given the gap in perception and attitude regarding animals, law can play an important role that moral teaching has not been able to achieve.