Verbal and Physical Abuse Toward Mothers: The Role of Family Configuration,Environment, and Coping Strategies

This paper focuses on parental maltreatment, a rarely documented phenomenon. We prospectively examine factors that can increase the risk of abusive behavior toward mothers. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between a stressful family situation, parental divorce, and verbal and physical aggression toward mothers. We use a large Canadian sample of adolescents who have been followed since kindergarten. At age 15, we assessed verbal and physical abuse toward mothers, as reported by both mothers and their adolescents. Multinomial logit modeling revealed that parental divorce was associated with a greater risk of physical aggression directed toward mothers by adolescents. Family environment and parental coping strategies partially mediated that relationship. Mothers who divorced, and remained divorced, were at greater risk of being assaulted by their adolescent children. A positive family environment, reflecting a better parent–child relationship, partially diminished this risk. However, support-seeking behavior on the part of mothers increased the risk of abuse, concurrent with tyrannical strategies often mobilized by abusive children.     

An income-related loans proposal for drought relief for farm businesses

In 2004 the Commonwealth government is undertaking a review of its drought policy. This follows expenditure in excess of $1 billion on drought relief during 2002 and 2003 and comes only a decade after similarly large expenditure on support for farmers during the drought of the 1990s. Drought support for farm businesses has been provided within the framework of the National Drought Policy (NDP) agreed by Commonwealth and state governments in 1992 and at present is in the form of interest rate subsidies. This article suggests an alternative form of drought relief for farm businesses based on the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, which is more equitable between farmers, less regressive in its impact on tax payers and less open to politicisation.     

China's consumer revolution: The 1990s and beyond

Since 1980 China's economic revolution has enabled more households to allocate labor to market‐related activities to earn more income. In 1992 an even greater surge in market economy growth took place when urban households began abandoning state‐related occupations and took their chances in the marketplace. The increase in consumer spending that followed reflects a new pattern of household spending for the first time in China since 1949: the share of spending for food relative to spending for other categories of goods and services is fast declining. This new trend, already strongly evident among high income‐earning households, is rapidly being replicated by other households as their incomes rise. During the 1990s new consumer patterns have emerged in the cities of the coastal provinces that strongly indicate that a consumer revolution is under way. This revolution has revived traditional gift‐giving between the Chinese people, thus facilitating the strengthening of their social, economic, and political ties and encouraging people to emphasize social and political stability.     

Advancing Human Rights Policy: Does Grassroots Mobilization and Community Dispute Resolution Matter? Insights from Chiapas,Mexico

This research examines the impact of grassroots organizing at the community level in Chiapas, Mexico, to address problems associated with human rights advocacy and implementation. Traditionally, the nation‐state has had the primary responsibility to address issues pertaining to human rights violations and the enforcement of international human rights principles and treaties. Local political struggles and acts of resistance by disenfranchised groups in Mexico offer insight to understand the impact of indigenous and other social movements in furthering human rights. Indigenous populations in the state of Chiapas use local community dispute resolution to contest the inadequacy of the state in responding to the problems that give rise to poverty, lack of human dignity, educational access, racial and ethnic discrimination, lack of political participation in government and the right to equality in economic, social, and political sectors. Drawing from research based on participant observations in Chiapas, Mexico, there is some evidence to suggest that since the 1994 EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army) uprising several micro‐level political and social movements have contested the power of the state through symbolic and pragmatic organizing efforts. These groups include, but are not limited to, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), women's groups, and indigenous groups. After the Zapatista uprising, these groups were instrumental in making claims against the state through numerous activities: protests to end the war, the development of NGOs to observe human rights violations, civilian‐based Zapatista support groups (base de apoyo), peace camps, and open dialogue with the EZLN. I argue that collective mobilization in local communities serves both symbolic and pragmatic efforts in helping disenfranchised groups empower themselves to address economic, social, and political inequality. Local‐level activism has fueled a sense of self‐empowerment to change state institutional responses and to involve sectors of civil society domestically and internationally to initiate a proper resolution of issues that are fundamentally related to human rights.