Candidate Valence and Ideological Positions in U.S. House Elections

We examine the relationship between the valence qualities of candidates and the ideological positions they take in U.S. House elections based on a study of the 2006 midterm elections. Our design enables us to distinguish between campaign and character dimensions of candidate valence and to place candidates and districts on the same ideological scale. Incumbents with a personal‐character advantage are closer ideologically to their district preferences, while disadvantaged challengers take more extreme policy positions. Contrary to conventional wisdom, challengers can reap electoral rewards by taking more extreme positions relative to their districts. We explore a possible mechanism for this extremism effect by demonstrating that challengers closer to the extreme received greater financial contributions, which enhanced their chances of victory. Our results bear on theories of representation that include policy and valence, although the interactions between these two dimensions may be complex and counterintuitive.     

Parental Involvement and Adolescent Academic Outcomes: Exploring Differences in Beneficial Strategies across Racial/Ethnic Groups

Gaps in educational outcomes between racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups persist in the United States, and parental involvement is often cited as an important avenue for improving outcomes among racially/ethnically diverse adolescents. This study utilized data from the Education Longitudinal Study 2002–2013 (56% female, N?=?4429), which followed 10th-graders through high school and ten years post-high school, to examine the links between parental involvement strategies and academic outcomes (grade point average and educational attainment). Participants included white, African American, and Hispanic/Latino adolescents from low-SES families. This study used recursive partitioning, a novel analytic strategy used for exploring higher-order interactions and non-linear associations among factors (e.g., parental educational involvement strategies) to predict an outcome (e.g., grade point average or educational attainment) through step-wise partitioning. The results showed that the combination of greater academic socialization and school-based involvement was beneficial for all adolescents’ grade point average, whereas the combination of home-based involvement with academic socialization and school-based involvement yielded mixed results. Greater academic socialization and home-based involvement appeared beneficial for educational attainment among African American and Hispanic/Latino adolescents, but not white adolescents. More home-based involvement and less academic socialization were associated with less educational attainment for white adolescents. Overall, the findings showed different combinations of parental educational involvement strategies were beneficial for adolescents across racial/ethnic groups, which may have implications for practice and policy.     

A Two Decade Examination of Historical Race/Ethnicity Disparities in Academic Achievement by Poverty Status

Research on achievement gaps by race/ethnicity and poverty status typically focuses on each gap separately, and recent syntheses suggest the poverty gap is growing while racial/ethnic gaps are narrowing. In this study, we used time-varying effect modeling to examine the interaction of race/ethnicity and poverty gaps in math and reading achievement from 1986–2005 for poor and non-poor White, Black, and Hispanic students in three age groups (5–6, 9–10, and 13–14). We found that across this twenty-year period, the gaps between poor White students and their poor Black and Hispanic peers grew, while the gap between non-poor Whites and Hispanics narrowed. We conclude that understanding the nature of achievement gaps requires simultaneous examination of race/ethnicity and income.     

Victimization and Relational Aggression in Adolescent Romantic Relationships: The Influence of Parental and Peer Behaviors, and Individual Adjustment

Consistent with the view that adolescent relationships are established in the context of important characteristics of their social networks, we examined the effects of adolescents’ experiences of parenting (psychological control and positive monitoring) and of peer aggression and victimization, on their self reports of dating victimization and aggression. We also examined the effects of individual differences in emotional and behavioral problems. We used questionnaire data from a population-based sample of youth 12–18 years old who were in dating relationships (n = 149). Parental monitoring emerged as a protective factor in reducing both dating victimization and relational aggression. Our findings also point to a significant transfer of aggression in peer relationships to relational aggression in dating relationships.

Conduit or contributor? The role of media in policy change theory

The policy change literature is contradictory about the role the media plays in policy change: a conduit for policy participants, with media accounts transmitting multiple policy beliefs of those involved in policy debates or a contributor in the policy process, with media accounts supplying consistent policy beliefs with congruent narrative framing strategies to construct a policy story. The purpose of this study is to empirically test whether the role of the media is that of a conduit or contributor in the policy change process. This study tests whether there are differences in policy beliefs and narrative framing strategies between local and national print media coverage of two contentious policy issues in the Greater Yellowstone Area between 1986 and 2006, that of snowmobile access and wolf reintroduction. In the Greater Yellowstone Area policy arena, local media accounts are believed to be aligned with the Old West Advocacy Coalition, whereas the national media accounts are thought to be part of the New West Advocacy Coalition. With a methodology informed by narrative policy analysis, one hundred seventy five local and national print newspaper accounts were content analyzed to determine whether these media accounts were policy narratives, with embedded policy beliefs and narrative framing strategies. The results indicate that there are statistical differences between local and national media coverage for five of the seven hypotheses. Media accounts are generally policy stories, suggesting that the media’s role is more of a contributor than a conduit in the policy change process.

Policy learning and change during crisis: COVID-19 policy responses across six states

Whereas policy change is often characterized as a gradual and incremental process, effective crisis response necessitates that organizations adapt to evolving problems in near real time. Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in the case of COVID-19, which forced subnational governments to constantly adjust and recalibrate public health and disease mitigation measures in the face of changing patterns of viral transmission and the emergence of new information. This study assesses (a) the extent to which subnational policies changed over the course of the pandemic; (b) whether these changes are emblematic of policy learning; and (c) the drivers of these changes, namely changing political and public health conditions. Using a novel dataset analyzing each policy's content, including its timing of enactment, substantive focus, stringency, and similar variables, results indicate the pandemic response varied significantly across states. The states examined were responsive to both changing public health and political conditions. This study identifies patterns of preemptive policy learning, which denotes learning in anticipation of an emerging hazard. In doing so, the study provides important insights into the dynamics of policy learning and change during disaster.     

Spatio-Temporal Interaction of Urban Crime

Over the past decade, a renewed interest in the analysis of crime hot-spots has emerged in the social and behavioral sciences. Spurred by improvements in computing power, data visualization and geographic information systems, numerous innovative approaches have materialized for identifying areas of elevated crime in urban environments. Unfortunately, many hot-spot analysis techniques treat the spatial and temporal aspects of crime as distinct entities, thus ignoring the necessary interaction of space and time to produce criminal opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the utility of statistical measures for identifying and comparing the spatio-temporal footprints of robbery, burglary and assault. Functional and visual comparisons for spatio-temporal clusters are analyzed across a range of space–time values using a comprehensive database of crime events for Cincinnati, Ohio. Empirical results suggest that robbery, burglary and assault have dramatically different spatio-temporal signatures.

Neutrality: A Guide for the Organizational Ombudsperson

Like dispute resolution practitioners in other arenas, organizational ombudspeople face profound challenges in dealing with the issue of neutrality. For ombuds, it is useful to view neutrality as composed of three major dimensions: the definition or terms of reference for the position; its institutional location; and the interactions of the ombuds within the organization. The authors analyze each of these conditions, and offer advice on how ombudspeople can maintain and enhance their neutrality.