Children, women, and substance abuse: a look at recovery in a communal setting

This study explored the sense of community among women (n = 21) and women with children (n = 30) living in Oxford Houses, with emphasis on how the presence of children might affect the household. Sense of community did not vary between participants with more or less than three months residence. Residents reported very high levels of satisfaction with the home, possibly because of a ceiling effect of little room for increases in their sense of community over time. Participants reported that they were getting along with the children in the home, that mothers could count on babysitting help, and that the children had a positive effect on the household and their own recovery process. This effect did not differ between mothers and non-mothers, suggesting that non-mothers might view the children in the home with a sense of responsibility and sensitivity comparable to that of the mothers. Implications are discussed.     

Cultivating and maintaining effective action research partnerships: the DePaul and Oxford House collaborative

In this paper, we review the result of research conducted in the context of a 13-year collaborative partnership between DePaul University and a community-based, self-run, residential substance abuse recovery program called Oxford House. This collaborative effort highlights several examples of the research and action activities fostering a positive alliance that benefited both the research team and the Oxford House community. It also proposed practical guidelines for developing effective action research collaboratives that may be helpful to others who desire to cultivate and maintain similar mutually beneficial partnerships; including such processes as the development of trust, respecting the personal experiences of the community members and group, commitment to serving the community, validating findings with organization members, and accountability.     

Revisiting the Influence of Campaign Tone on Turnout in Senate Elections

Jason C. Sides Reubin O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306 e-mail: rjackson{at}garnet.acns.fsu.edu (corresponding author) e-mail: jcs6605{at}garnet.acns.fsu.edu Examining the influence of campaign tone on individual turnoutin the 1990 U.S. Senate elections, this note revisits Kahn andKenney's conclusion that the political profile of citizens (asbased on partisanship, level of political interest, and levelof political expertise) conditions their responsiveness. Implementingan appropriate modeling strategy for making group comparisons,our analyses do not provide statistical support for the conditionaleffects that they highlight. More generally, our results doreinforce Kahn and Kenney's finding that negativity in toneof news coverage mobilizes citizens, but they do not revealsignificant turnout influence for television advertising tone.     

Fatal angioedema associated with captopril.

A markedly hypertensive, 70-year-old, black man had been on captopril for 2 years when he rapidly developed obstructive angioedema. The initial sign of difficulty in understanding his speech progressed to severe laryngeal and glossal edema over a 3 1/2 h period. His airway became obstructed less than a minute after arrival at the emergency room. Oral intubation was unsuccessful, and a difficult tracheostomy was too late to save the patient. The death was reported to the medical examiner because of its sudden and unusual nature. The risk of angioedema while on angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor therapy has been noted previously in the clinical literature. Because of the sudden onset and possible confusion with an allergic reaction, this entity is brought to the attention of the forensic medical community.     

He sends rain upon the wicked: a panel study of the influence of religiosity on violent victimization

This research investigates low religiosity as a predictor of violent victimization. The theoretical framework the authors present here posits that religiosity should help structure daily activities in such a way as to (a) limit exposure to offenders by encouraging contact with peers who are less deviant, (b) lessen one's target suitability by inhibiting grievance-causing delinquent activity, and (c) enhance guardianship by fostering stronger bonds with parents and school. Thus, although researchers expect religion to be a bivariate predictor of violent victimization, its influence should be indirect. The authors investigate these claims using two waves from the public-use version of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The results indicate that religiosity is a correlate of violent victimization. Consistent with these theoretical claims, the effect of religiosity is not direct, but instead occurs indirectly primarily through its influence on self-reported delinquency and peer deviance.     

Iraq the Vote: Retrospective and Prospective Foreign Policy Judgments on Candidate Choice and Casualty Tolerance

In this article, we model the effect of foreign policy attitudes on both vote choice and casualty tolerance, using survey data collected during the 2004 election. We show that prospective judgments of the likelihood of success in Iraq and retrospective judgments of whether the war in Iraq was right are significant determinants of both vote choice and casualty tolerance. The prospective judgment of success is key in predicting casualty tolerance, while retrospective judgment of whether the war was right takes precedence in determining vote choice. In addition, there is an important interaction between the two variables, so the effect of one is conditional on the value of the other. We believe this is compelling evidence that foreign policy matters, and that it matters in reasonable ways.

The dark side of disagreement? Revisiting the effect of disagreement on political participation

Thriving democracy requires an open exchange of disagreeing viewpoints. Yet disagreement may have a dark side. Recent research claims that people who experience disagreement in their informal political discussions are less likely to vote. This paper adds to a growing group of challenges to the notion of a ‘dark side’. It addresses the conventional wisdom from both a theoretical and practical viewpoint. I argue that disagreement in itself should not depress participation. Only those atypical respondents who encounter entirely disagreeing viewpoints are less likely to vote than those who encounter completely agreeing perspectives. People with mixed networks are equally likely to vote as those who face complete agreement. This paper tests the alternative theory against the conventional wisdom by returning to the dataset that first found evidence of the ‘dark side’. The evidence overwhelmingly supports the alternative theory. As a result, this study helps to mitigate concerns about the negative effects of disagreement and supports a network-centric approach to political science.