A Pilot Assessment of a School‐Based Youth Court in a Resource‐Poor African‐American Urban School District: Lessons Learned From Youth Court Volunteers

This study assesses the benefits of youth court participation for volunteers (N = 14) serving as jurors in an urban school‐based youth court. Focus group and questionnaire data indicate that volunteers are capable of providing more effective sanctioning decisions than adults. Volunteers reported developing citizenship skills including learning about the law and decision‐making skills. The youth court leaders developed self‐confidence and maturity while learning the conflict resolution skills necessary for rendering dispositions and conducting trials. We interpret our findings within the context of the youth court literature, the issue of the school‐to‐prison pipeline, and Elijah Anderson's analysis of the Code of the Street.     

First Amendment Showdown: Intellectual Diversity Mandates and the Academic Marketplace

Once described as a quintessential marketplace of ideas by the Supreme Court of the United States, the academic marketplace has been criticized recently for institutionalizing a left-leaning ideology within its curriculum and academic discourse. As a result, national activists and organizations have been calling on state legislatures and university administrators to adopt policies and report on steps taken to encourage intellectual diversity and protect political and cultural minorities from faculty bias and academic retribution in the classroom and other university settings. But who would win a constitutional showdown between the academy and those seeking to infuse academic discourse with alternative viewpoints? Based on an analysis of the First Amendment concerns at stake in this ongoing controversy, this article concludes that university administrators should have the upper hand in such a constitutional challenge given the specific characteristics and selective nature of the academic marketplace.     

The impact of parental homeownership on children's outcomes during early adulthood

Abstract

Whether children benefit from being raised in a home owned by their parents has important policy implications and has been the topic of much scholarly debate. We match Panel Study of Income Dynamics data with census tract data to examine the impact of childhood experiences on adult outcomes for children followed over three decades. This allows us to document a wide range of characteristics.

For children born between 1968 and 1974, we analyze data on their first 18 years and also various outcomes when they are between 25 and 31 in 1999. We control for a comprehensive set of observable parental characteristics and develop a method to control for unobservable child characteristics together with an instrumental variable for the remaining selection problems. Parental homeownership status and children's college education and home‐ownership status are closely related, although the former is generated partially by the greater residential stability associated with homeownership.     

Mental Health Courts and Their Selection Processes: Modeling Variation for Consistency

Admission into mental health courts is based on a complicated and often variable decision-making process that involves multiple parties representing different expertise and interests. To the extent that eligibility criteria of mental health courts are more suggestive than deterministic, selection bias can be expected. Very little research has focused on the selection processes underpinning problem-solving courts even though such processes may dominate the performance of these interventions. This article describes a qualitative study designed to deconstruct the selection and admission processes of mental health courts. In this article, we describe a multi-stage, complex process for screening and admitting clients into mental health courts. The selection filtering model that is described has three eligibility screening stages: initial, assessment, and evaluation. The results of this study suggest that clients selected by mental health courts are shaped by the formal and informal selection criteria, as well as by the local treatment system.     

Body Dissatisfaction,Living Away from Parents,and Poor Social Adjustment Predict Binge Eating Symptoms in Young Women Making the Transition to University

The current study explored how body dissatisfaction and challenges associated with the transition to university predicted symptoms of binge eating. Participants were 101 female full-time first-year university students (M=18.3 years of age; SD=.50) who completed a background questionnaire and a web-based daily checklist assessing binge eating. Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling results showed that participants who were more dissatisfied with their bodies were three times as likely to report symptoms of binge eating compared to participants who were less dissatisfied. Participants who lived away from home were three times as likely to report symptoms of binge eating compared to participants living with parents. Finally, poor perceived social adjustment to the university context was associated with an increased likelihood of binge eating. Discussion calls for more research exploring the role that university challenges and adjustment play in predicting eating problems.