Gender-Typed Personality Qualities and African American Youth’s School Functioning

Numerous studies document sex differences in African American girls’ and boys’ academic achievement and motivation, but little is known about how the enactment of gender, such as in the forms of gendered behaviors, attitudes, or personal-social qualities, is related to school functioning. To advance understanding of African American adolescents’ academic experiences, this study examined the longitudinal linkages between stereotypically feminine (i.e., expressive) and stereotypically masculine (i.e., instrumental) personality characteristics and school adjustment. The moderating effects of youth’s ethnic identity and school racial composition also were tested. Participants were 352 African American youth (50.1% girls; mean age at Time 1?=?12.04 years; SD=?2.03) who participated in annual home interviews. Net of biological sex, expressive traits (kind, sensitive) were positively related to school self-esteem and school bonding for both girls and boys, but youth with higher levels of instrumentality (independent, competitive) exhibited sharper declines in academic achievement across adolescence. School racial composition moderated the effects of instrumentality at the between-person level, such that instrumentality was positively related to school self-esteem only for youth who attended schools with fewer African American students. These results highlight the importance of incorporating gendered personality traits, rather than biological sex alone, into theoretical accounts of African American youth’s school functioning.

     

Transforming security sectors: the IMF and World Bank approaches

Since the end of the Cold War, donors have come to realise that when security sectors operate autonomously, with scant regard for the rule of law, democratic principles, and sound management practices, sustainable, poverty-reducing development is extremely di?cult, if not impossible, to achieve. Because of the substantial ?nancial resources and technical expertise at their disposal, there is a growing expectation that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will play an important part in supporting improved security-sector governance. These organisations have, however, long taken the position that, because of restrictions on political activities in their Articles of Agreement, their involvement in issues pertaining to the security sector must be limited. This article suggests that a governance approach to the security sector is well within the mandate of both organisations. And it is necessary for the Bank and the Fund to address the quality of security-sector governance if they are to be e?ective in carrying out two of their core functions: reforming public institutions and strengthening governance.     

Clearing Crime in Prime-Time: The Disjuncture Between Fiction and Reality

Crime dramas provide entertainment to millions of Americans. The impact of viewing these programs on perceptions and expectations of police is a concern for practitioners, researchers and policy makers. While a growing body of research is identifying factors associated with the probability of clearance in offenses reported to police, a dearth of research looks at the portrayal of police efficiency in apprehending offenders in popular crime dramas. This study examines the depictions of police investigations across four fictional crime dramas. The authors find offenses are cleared at much higher rates than national averages and that several case characteristics typically associated with clearance in actual cases do not share the same relationship in these fictional programs. Results indicate substantial variation between programs in the depiction of the collection and utility of DNA evidence in assisting investigators to identify suspects. Findings are discussed in relation to data collected from actual police departments.     

Stay With or Leave the Abuser? The Effects of Domestic Violence Victim’s Decision on Attributions Made by Young Adults

While negative attributions are often made toward female victims of domestic violence, studies have not explored whether attributions shift contingent upon whether women stay with or leave abusive husbands. Further, no studies investigated whether negative attributions decrease if the participants receive information about the prevalence of domestic violence or the risks inherent in leaving an abuser. Therefore, two studies were designed that investigated attributions made by young adults when women either stay with or leave an abusive husband and whether educating the participants about prevalence of domestic violence and risks of leaving mitigate negative judgments. In both studies, young adults responded to surveys assessing attributions toward a female heterosexual victim of domestic violence. Results indicated that participants made more positive attributions about her personality characteristics and parenting ability if a woman left the relationship. Informing students beforehand about potential risks of leaving and personal experience with domestic violence did not erase this effect, but interactions mitigated some of the effects. Results suggest that educating young adults about risks of violence while useful, is not sufficient to change blaming attitudes. Educators may instead need to challenge the attribution process. Further research involving attributions toward gay and lesbian victims of domestic violence is suggested.     

Can Beijing Buy Taiwan? An empirical assessment of Beijing’s agricultural trade concessions to Taiwan

In the mid-2000s, Beijing made a series of unilateral trade concessions with respect to agricultural trade with Taiwan. This move distressed the then incumbent party of the Republic of China, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), because Beijing’s offers might weaken the DPP’s rural support. This article offers the first empirical assessment of Beijing’s trade concessions. Using an original and highly disaggregate dataset at the township-product level, it examines what types of regions were more likely to be the beneficiary of the trade concessions, whether the concessions caused any production change, and the extent to which these changes undermined the DPP’s electoral support. It is found that while the benefit of tariff concession was not confined to pro-DPP regions, the townships that grew tariff-reduced products were no less likely to vote for the DPP. The result suggests a limit of Beijing’s economic enticement.     

11/112.0

正It was the night of November 10 and the moment I’d been waiting exactly a year for was fast approaching.At the stroke of 12,my actions would determine whether all that careful planning in the two weeks prior had been worth it.Come midnight,the madness that is China’s annual November 11 sales would be unleashed.November 11 is Singles Day in China,the     

Creating value through external intellectual property commercialization: a desorptive capacity view

In open innovation systems, capturing value through external intellectual property (IP) commercialization is an increasingly important strategy for firms to keep pace with competitive changes. However, many firms have major difficulties in creating value through external patent exploitation. To understand these challenges, this paper explores how firms manage their external patent exploitation based on a multiple case study research design with fourteen firms from the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. Adopting a desorptive capacity perspective we find four main factors influencing the firms’ management of external patent exploitation: the type of value creation, the organizational structure, the locus of initiative, and the extent of know-how transfer along with the patent. Based on these factors, three archetypes of external patent exploitation with different levels of desorptive capacity are identified. The article extends the concept of desorptive capacity and existing literature on intellectual property management in the context of open innovation. Managerial implications helping firms to implement external IP commercialization structures are discussed.