Targeting Underage Drinking and Driving in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts: The Reinforcing Alcohol Prevention (RAP) Program

Alcohol use is a concern among our nation's least experienced drivers, and underage drinking contributes to the overall burden of traffic injury and mortality. The goal of the Reinforcing Alcohol Prevention (RAP) Program was to develop a court‐based program targeting underage drinking and driving among teens. An advisory board created the program which included changes to the drivers' licensing ceremonies and traffic dockets conducted in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts. Additions included 5‐minute videos of individuals in alcohol‐related crashes and a crash‐photo display. Exit evaluations garnering impressions/opinions of the program indicated 84% of teenagers felt every teen should view the presentation and 96% would be less likely to drive after drinking. The RAP Program has been well‐received by judges and participants and could be easily implemented by other jurisdictions.     

Classroom Context,School Engagement,and Academic Achievement in Early Adolescence

Classroom context and school engagement are significant predictors of academic achievement. These factors are especially important for academically at-risk students. Grounded in an ecological systems perspective, this study examined links between classroom context, school engagement, and academic achievement among early adolescents. We took a multidimensional approach to the measurement of classroom context and school engagement, incorporating both observational and self-reported assessments of various dimensions of classroom context (instruction quality, social/emotional climate, and student–teacher relationship) and school engagement (psychological and behavioral engagement). Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we tested whether school engagement mediated the link between classroom context and academic achievement among 5th grade students, and whether these pathways were the same for students with previous achievement difficulties identified in 3rd grade. Participants included 1,014 children (50% female) in 5th grade (mean age = 11). The majority of the participants were white (77%) and 23% were children of color. Results indicated that psychological and behavioral engagement mediated the link between classroom context and academic achievement for students without previous achievement difficulties. However, for students with previous achievement difficulties psychological and behavioral engagement did not mediate the link between classroom context and academic achievement. These results suggest that improving classroom quality may not be sufficient to improve student engagement and achievement for students with previous achievement difficulties. Additional strategies may be needed for these students.     

Engagement in after-school program activities: quality of experience from the perspective of participants

Middle school students’ experiences at after-school programs were compared as they participated in different types of activities and with different social partners. The students (N = 165) attended eight programs in three Midwestern states. A total of 1,596 experiences were randomly sampled using the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) during 1 week in the fall of 2001 and 1 week in the spring of 2002. Student engagement was conceptualized as the simultaneous experience of concentration, interest, and enjoyment. Students reported high levels of engagement while participating in sports activities and arts enrichment activities at the after-school programs, and low levels of engagement while completing homework at programs. They reported being more engaged in activities involving both adults and peers than activities with peers only. Concentrated effort, intrinsic motivation, and positive and negative mood states were also compared by program activities and social partners. Findings about participants’ subjective experiences and engagement in specific program activities have implications for understanding after-school programs as a context for youth development.

Coombs’ Bastard Child: The Troubled Life of CDEP

In the mid 1970s HC Coombs was a major promoter of the idea behind the CDEP scheme: that rather than pay lots of Aboriginal people in remote areas unemployment benefits it would be more constructive for them to be employed part‐time by local Indigenous organisations to undertake socially useful tasks. From this simple idea was born one of the most significant and, in time, one of the largest Indigenous‐specific programs Australia has seen, the Community Development Employment Projects scheme. The birth was not easy and neither has been the subsequent life of what I have called, with great licence, Coombs’ bastard child.     

Multilingual Sentiment Analysis: A New Approach to Measuring Conflict in Legislative Speeches

Comparative scholars of legislative politics continue to face the challenge of measuring a key theoretical concept: conflict at the level of legislative bills. We address this challenge with a multilingual sentiment‐based approach and show that such a measure can effectively capture different types of parliamentary conflict. We also demonstrate that an automated translation of the dictionary yields valid results and therefore greatly facilitates comparative work on legislatures. Our applications show that a sentiment approach recovers government‐opposition dynamics in various settings. The use of a simple, translatable sentiment dictionary opens up the possibility of studying legislative conflict in bill debates across languages and countries.