Attributes that Differentiate Children Who Sip Alcohol from Abstinent Peers

Sipping alcohol during childhood may be a marker of differentiation as regards children’s future risk of underage drinking; yet very little is known about alcohol use when it occurs among elementary school-aged children. The purpose of the present study is to examine alcohol sipping behavior in a sample of third-grade school children to learn whether sipping is associated with attributes that could increase children’s likelihood of further underage drinking. We collected telephone interview data from 1,050 mothers and their third grade children (mean age 9.2 years; 48.2 % male) residing in the Southeastern United States. The majority of mothers were White non-Hispanic (69.02 %) or Black non-Hispanic (21.3 %); most (85 %) lived in households shared with fathers or other adult caretakers. We hypothesized that children who sip alcohol would score lower than abstinent peers on indicators of competence and score higher on indicators of exposure to alcohol-specific socialization by parents and peers. A multivariate model controlling for frequency of parent alcohol use and demographic covariates showed that children who had sipped alcohol were significantly less likely than abstinent peers to affirm indicators of competence and significantly more likely to affirm indicators of exposure to alcohol specific socialization by parents and by same age peers. These preliminary findings suggest that developmental attributes associated with risk of underage drinking begin to differentiate at least as young as middle childhood. Research is needed to test prospectively for continuity between alcohol risk attributes present in middle childhood and future alcohol use.     

Associations Between Adolescents’ Perceived Discrimination and Prosocial Tendencies: The Mediating Role of Mexican American Values

Experiences with perceived discrimination (e.g., perceptions of being treated unfairly due to race or ethnicity) are expected to impact negatively youths’ prosocial development. However, resilience often occurs in light of such experiences through cultural factors. The current longitudinal study examined the influence of perceived discrimination on the emergence of Mexican American adolescents’ later prosocial tendencies, and examined the mediating role of Mexican American values (e.g., familism, respect, and religiosity). Participants included 749 adolescents (49 % female) interviewed at 5th, 7th, and 10th grade. Results of the current study suggested that, although perceived discrimination was associated negatively with some types of prosocial tendencies (e.g., compliant, emotional, and dire) and related positively to public prosocial helping, the associations were mediated by youths’ Mexican American values. Directions for future research are presented and practical implications for promoting adolescents’ resilience are discussed.     

Risk assessment and suicide prevention in primary care

General practitioners (GPs) are assumed to occupy an important position in the prevention of suicide through the introduction of risk assessment techniques commonly used in psychiatric practice. Despite this theoretical role for primary care services, it remains unclear how frequently GPs implement risk assessment in patients who may be vulnerable to suicide. To address this, a retrospective survey of probable suicides was conducted within a primary care setting utilizing a questionnaire of GPs who had experienced a patient suicide and was augmented by hospital and coroners' records. 85% of questionnaires were returned and 61 deaths were adjudged as suicides during the year long census period. 75% of suicides were male and 54% were aged under 35.28% were in contact with psychiatric services prior to death, although 60% had some diagnosis of mental disorder. GPs had little knowledge of a patient's life circumstances in up to half of cases. Recording of risk assessment occurred in 38% of subjects, was positively associated with prior psychiatric contact (p = 0.001) but negatively associated with presence of physical illness (p = 0.004), older patient age (p = 0.04), and GPs length in practice (p = 0.05). One GP felt their suicide case was preventable. The low rate of risk assessment and limited knowledge of patient lifestyle point to the need for active engagement of GPs in future suicide prevention strategies and should influence the content of training programs in primary care.     

The influence of foreign direct investment on contracting confidence in developing countries

This paper examines whether foreign direct investment (FDI) influences confidence in commercial contracts in developing countries. While the research on how host countries’ policy environments encourage FDI inflows has flourished, scholars have paid less attention to how the policy environment and local actors’ beliefs might, in turn, be affected by FDI. This is surprising because multinational enterprises are well‐recognized political and economic actors across the world. We expect that their increasing economic salience will influence the policy environments in which they function. By employing an innovative measure of property rights protection – contract‐intensive money – we examine how foreign direct investment influences host countries’ contract‐intensive money ratio in a large panel time series of both developed and developing countries from 1980 to 2002. Our analysis suggests that higher levels of FDI inflows are associated with greater confidence in commercial contracts and, by extension, the protection of property rights in developing countries.     

Understanding Change in Political Science: On the Need to Bring Space into Theoretical Positions and Empirical Analyses

In recent times, issues surrounding change have become increasingly important in the study of political analysis. This is especially true within strains of new institutionalism such as historical institutionalism and the 'Varieties of Capitalism' approach. However, although this has led to a sensitising towards the temporal dimension, the spatial dimension has been relatively ignored. This is arguably problematic, as a fuller understanding of space and the spatiality of social and political relations would lead to more coherent and accurate analyses of political phenomena that currently characterise historical institutionalism. Indeed at an ontological level, drawing on work within the natural sciences and geography, it is impossible to talk of time without reference to spatiality and of space without reference to temporality. This short article reviews some of the more prominent historical institutionalist literature that deals with change and renders explicit the problematic conceptualisation of space, and consequently time, which underpins their analyses. Drawing on Massey and Sayer, it proceeds to outline briefly a relational conception of space and the difference that space makes to political analyses.     

Earth Day and Its Precursors: Continuity and Change in the Evolution of Midtwentieth‐Century U.S. Environmental Policy

Earth Day 1970's legacy overshadows two earlier events resulting in popular misconceptions about U.S. environmental politics: that environmental policy began with Earth Day and that Congress and the president were not concerned with the environment until public opinion and interest groups pressured them. These misconceptions increase public opinion ambivalence and frustrate environmental leaders. This paper describes Earth Day 1970, the congressionally established Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission established in 1958, and President Kennedy's Natural Resources Tour of September 1963, arguing the latter two prepared for the convergence of multiple streams of policy change that resulted in the first Earth Day.