Context Matters: Reactive and Proactive Bystander Action to Prevent Sexual and Dating Violence in High Schools

ABSTRACT

Given high rates of relationship violence among adolescents, there is a need to understand variables that influence adolescents’ helping behaviors to reduce risk for dating and sexual violence (reactive) and promote prevention before violence happens or risk factors are evident (proactive). The current paper examined individual and school variables related to greater actionism in a large sample of high school students. Baseline, cross-sectional data used in the current analyses were gathered before intervention as part of a prevention program evaluation across 25 high schools in New England from students in grades 9–12 (N= 3,404). Students who self-reported a greater number of proactive actions taken were students who identified as sexual minorities, had a history of victimization, and were in schools with supportive peer norms. The current findings suggest a model for prevention that might include training individuals and attending to school level variables.     

Parent Perceptions of Participating in a Program for Adolescents Who Are Violent at Home

Child-to-parent abuse (CPA) is an under-addressed form of family violence and relatively few resources are available for families experiencing CPA. The Step-Up program is a CPA-specific, family-level, group format intervention program in King County, Washington. Qualitative and long-term research on CPA intervention programs is lacking, and it is unknown how parents perceive the effects of participating in Step-Up after program completion. Fifteen parents who completed Step-Up with their adolescent child participated in individual semi-structured telephone or in-person interviews. Participants were asked about their perceptions of the effects of Step-Up participation, how they and their child have used skills taught in the program, and which program features were most and least effective. Participants expressed largely positive effects of participating in Step-Up, including decreased violent behavior by their adolescents and improved parent-child relationships. Recommendations for improving Step-Up included the inclusion of follow-up sessions to further reinforce behavior change and increased program accessibility.     

O,The Roast Beef of Old England! Brexit and Gastronationalism

‘Gastronationalism’ is the idea that there are distinctive and authentic national food cultures that are threatened by the forces of globalisation. It is a myth: there are no unique or authentically distinctive national culinary cultures. But the idea of gastronationalism is a powerful one that can have important political effects, as Brexit shows. In this article, I chart the rise of British food with regard to Britain’s historical relationship with Europe and the EU. I consider how different understandings of British food culture—one more nativist, one more cosmopolitan—have played a symbolic role in the debate on Brexit, before considering the broader relationship between contemporary populist nationalism and gastronationalism.     

Operationalizing Strategy Content: An Example from the Transit Industry

While models of organizational strategy saturate private sector research, public sector research lags behind. The model created by Boyne and Walker (2004) is an exception. The main objective of this study is to operationalize this model using a unique data set from the US transit industry. Through a survey of 103 local transit agencies, we developed separate strategy profiles for each agency that help us answer important questions about organizational strategy. We find that not only do the organizations adopt a mix of strategic stances through the action areas; they also have distinct profiles, which vary greatly between agencies.     

NGOs in a global future: marrying local delivery to worldwide leverage

This article argues that global trends are creating unprecedented opportunities for civic action at local, national and international levels. Three interconnected trends are identified: economic and cultural globalization, and the inequality and insecurity they breed; the increasing complexity of humanitarian action in response to ethnic conflict and intrastate violence; and the reform of international co‐operation to deal with the problems these trends create. In response, new forms of solidarity are emerging between citizens and authorities at different levels of the world system. It is these new relationships—expressed through partnerships, alliances and other forms of co‐operation—that provide the framework for NGO interventions, but they also require major changes in NGOs themselves. Chief among these changes are a move from ‘development‐as‐delivery’ to ‘development‐as‐leverage’; new relationships with corporations, elements of states, the military, international institutions and other groups in civil society; and new skills and capacities to mediate these linkages. These developments call for major changes in NGO roles, relationships, capacities and accountabilities. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Testing the Discourse of Declining Policy Capacity: Rail Policy and the Department of Transport

It has been observed that countries that implemented new public management (NPM) reforms are currently witnessing growing complaints about a decline in the policy capacity of their public services. Australia is a part of this trend with public sector leaders increasingly voicing concern about policy capacity decline within the Australian Public Service (APS). This article sets out to examine whether there is an empirical basis for this discourse and to assess allegations that NPM reforms have contributed to any related shifts. It draws on rail policy and the Department of Transport as its case study. It finds that the reforms transformed role of the department in a way that enhanced strategic policy capacity. However, the reforms also introduced a number of structural impediments that make it difficult for the new role to be effectively executed .     

Understanding Presidential Failure in South America

This article examines the issue of presidential failure in South America by evaluating the multiple factors that create risk of resignation, removal, or impeachment of presidents. The study draws on various economic variables that have not been thoroughly investigated in the past and uses survival analysis to identify what factors are influential. In performing this testing, the importance of variables such as civil protest, executive wrongdoing, and specific measures of economic hardship—inflation and prolonged recession—becomes clear. Majority legislative support also remains significant, supporting early arguments about the influence of presidential institutions. This investigation provides a unique perspective on presidential survival while evaluating the importance of previously excluded variables in a comprehensive manner.