Family life education for young adolescents: A quasi-experiment

The impact of a family life education program for inner-city, minority elementary-school students was investigated. Two randomly assigned groups of seventh and eighth graders (balanced for gender) completed a self-administered survey, both before and after program implementation. In comparison to the control group, program participants displayed (a) improved knowledge about contraception, reproductive physiology, and adolescent pregnancy outcomes; (b) increased awareness of the existence of specific birth control methods; (c) among seventh graders, more conservative attitudes toward circumstances under which sexual intercourse was viewed as personally acceptable, and among eighth graders, a shift toward more liberal attitudes; and (d) a greater tendency to acknowledge mutual responsibility for contraception. The impact of this intervention and school-based sex education programs in general is discussed within the broader context of the young adolescent's social environment.This research was supported by grants from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Pittway Charitable Trust, and administered by the Ounce of Prevention Fund.Received Ph.D. from Loyola University Chicago.Received Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.Received Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.     

Misplaced Applications of Economic Theory to the Middle East

Tyler Cowen in this issue proposes an application of publicchoice and game theory as a means of understanding the MiddleEast conflict and viewing the ``Road Map for Middle EastPeace''. Cowen's approach is not based on appreciation of the``hidden agendas and rules of the game'' that are present inthe Middle East. Economic theory may indeed usefullycontribute to understanding aspects of the Middle East war,but through different avenues and in different directions fromthose suggested by Cowen. In this paper I suggest a viewconsistent with the institutional characteristics of theconflict and the objectives of the participants.     

Contractualism and Liberal Neutrality: A Defence

The most influential contemporary defences of liberal neutrality are premised on a contractual view of political legitimacy. For contractualists, perfectionist principles of justice are illegitimate because they cannot be the object of reasonable agreement among free and equal citizens. Several critics have challenged this connection between contractualism and neutrality by suggesting that the epistemic arguments commonly offered in its favour are self-defeating. This paper examines three recent expressions of this claim – those of Simon Caney, Simon Clarke and Joseph Chan – and finds that none of them succeeds. They fail because they mistake an ethical claim about how states should respond to disagreement for an epistemic one that explains why such a response is needed.     

Procedural Contexts, Party Strategy, and Conditional Party Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1971–2000

In this article, we provide a critical review of the evidence and arguments about party polarization in the House of Representatives during the late 20th century. We show that inferences about party polarization are significantly affected by voting reform in the early 1970s. We observe that a decomposed roll-call record alters our view of the timing of changes in party polarization and therefore requires that we reconsider explanations of the trend. We revisit explanations of party polarization and establish a strong case for placing substantial emphasis on party strategies in explanations of party polarization in floor behavior during the 1980s and 1990s.     

The child's awareness of adult beliefs concerning the child: The effects of gender and subculture

Patterns of agreement among mothers' and teachers' beliefs about their children, children's self-beliefs, and children's beliefs about adults' beliefs were investigated among Afro-American inner city matrifocal families. Findings were compared to those previously obtained with Italian-American families. Twenty-four mothers, their 10–12-year-old children, and their children's teachers were administered the Family Belief Interview Schedule assessing adult beliefs about the child and the child's beliefs about adult beliefs. Findings indicated that children were more accurate in predicting teachers' than mothers' beliefs. Among Afro-American children and in the combined Afro-American and Italian-American samples, girls, relative to boys, were more accurate in predicting mothers' beliefs, assumed greater similarity of mothers' beliefs to their own, and assumed greater consistency between mothers' and teachers' beliefs. Among boys, relative to Italian-Americans, Afro-Americans assumed significantly less similarity of mothers' beliefs to their own. These findings are interpreted within a subcultural family socialization framework.Research interests include child and adolescent development within the context of the family, developmental psychopathology, and socialization processes.Research interests include the development of social cognition, family interactional styles and belief systems, and developmental theory.     

The Federal Role in State Fiscal Stress

This article examines the extent to which the federal government'spolicies were responsible for the fiscal stress experiencedby most state governments in the early 1990s. Federal policieshave contributed considerably to recent state fiscal stress,particularly through the Medicaid program—the fastestgrowing part of state budgets—and the recession, whichdepressed revenue and increased welfare and Medicaid spending.Federal aid reductions have not been an important source ofrecent state fiscal stress. The real value of per capita federalaid other than for welfare programs fell considerably in the1980s, but the reductions were much greater for local governmentsthan for states. The largest reductions were in the early 1980s.Federal policies have affected state finances in several otherways—through tax policy, unfunded mandates, and the federalfailure to cope effectively with problems like health and poverty.Federal court rulings have also caused budget problems (as havestate court decisions). In some respects, state fiscal problemsare not a federal responsibility. Rising school enrollments,new corrections policies, and inelastic tax systems have createdfiscal stress for many states. Excessive state spending in the1980s has contributed to recent fiscal problems in some states,but not generally.