Extending the Study of Continuity and Change: Gender Differences in the Linkage Between Adolescent and Adult Offending

Recently, Paternoster etal. used data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, a longitudinal study of 411 South London boys mostly born in 1953, to investigate the linkage between adolescent and adult offending and found that variations in adult offending were consistent with a random process after conditioning on adolescent offending. In this paper, we test the robustness of this early study across data sources and genders. Here, we use data from the Dunedin New Zealand 1972 birth cohort study to replicate previous findings regarding stability and change in criminal offending between the adolescent and adult years. In particular, our interest centers on the stochastic properties of the adolescent and adult conviction distribution in the cohort and whether the structure of this distribution is similar for males and females. This replication and extension of prior work is especially important since criminologists have little understanding of the pattern of female adolescent offending or how the patterns are linked to adult offending for women. The analysis reveals that variation in adult offending after conditioning on adolescent offending is consistent with a random (Poisson) process. Furthermore, this pattern is evident for both the males and the females in the Dunedin New Zealand 1972 birth cohort.     

All in the Family? Family Environment Factors in Sibling Violence

Sibling violence is presumed to be the most common form of family violence and the least studied. Based on data from “Physical Violence in American Families, 1976,” this paper assesses the family environment factors associated with sibling physical violence. Of a range of potential family influences, measures of family disorganization were the most significant predictors of sibling violence, overriding the characteristics of children or particular family demands. What mattered most to the occurrence of sibling violence was a child’s actual experience of physical violence at the hands of a parent, maternal disciplinary practices and whether husbands lose their temper. These findings point to the deleterious effect of corporal punishment, and suggest sibling violence in families is associated with more ominous family and gender dynamics.

Family Historiography in The White Earth

In recent years, family history research has become a popular activity for many Australians. This imperative to connect with our ancestors extends into the field of literary production. In this essay, we examine one prominent novel that reflects this movement, Andrew McGahan’s The White Earth (2004). Looking through a lens of family history and historiography, the novel asks questions about postcolonial belonging, inheritance, and the violent foundations of the nation. McGahan’s young protagonist, William, stands to inherit a vast but crumbling property on the Darling Downs in Queensland. As William discovers more about the land, he comes into contact with both his own white pastoralist ancestors, and the powerful Indigenous spirits who inhabit secret and sacred spaces in the landscape. We argue that William’s encounter with secret family histories produces the hysteria at the climax of the novel, when the repressed violence of the past returns to haunt the present. Confronted with hidden knowledge, William—and, by proxy, the reader—is called to reconsider inherited histories in light of contemporary historiographies. The move towards knowledge of the family’s origins is a realisation of the complexity of the white Australian relationship to the land and its first inhabitants.     

农村家庭教育对大学生“三观”教育的影响——基于农村家庭教育现状调查

农村家庭教育是影响农村大学生形成正确的世界观、人生观和价值观的先导性因素。当前农村家庭教育中存在的问题影响了大学生的"三观"教育。因此,亟需转变农村家庭教育机制,实现学生个人、家庭、学校、政府多方面的教育联动,为学校的后导性教育奠定良好的"先验"基础。     

Correlates of Behavioral Outcomes in Sexually Abused Children

The present study attempted to identify individual and contextual factors associated with outcomes in a group of 63 latency-aged children disclosing sexual abuse (SA). Children reporting SA were found to display greater internalizing and externalizing behavioral difficulties as well as more sexualized behaviors relative to same-age non-abused peers. Mothers also reported these children as less socially competent than their peers. Family contextual factors appeared to be associated with behavioral difficulties and made a unique contribution to the prediction of externalizing and sexualized behaviors. Of the personal variables, avoidance coping was found to be linked to poorer outcomes. In examining possible factors linked to ‘resilient’ outcomes in a 6-month time-frame, family conflict and avoidance coping were found to be associated to clinical status in children reporting SA.     

家庭生命周期对农村劳动力回流的影响分析——基于福建农村的调查问卷

农村劳动力回流一直是影响我国城市化进程和经济可持续发展的一个重要因素,在理论上,诸多学者都对农村劳动力回流进行过富有价值的研究。本文基于2007年福建农村的调查问卷资料,运用多元有序Logit模型,从家庭生命周期这一全新的角度对农村劳动力回流进行了实证分析。分析结果显示,家庭生命周期对农村劳动力回流具有显著的影响,其中,成熟的核心家庭劳动力回流的意愿最强,年轻夫妇家庭劳动力回流的意愿最弱;在家庭生命周期的不同阶段,既有共同的影响因素,也存在差异化的影响因素。基于此,在加强农村劳动力流动管理以及制定相应的就业政策时,一方面要针对家庭生命周期不同阶段劳动力回流的共同影响因素,采取具有普遍意义的政策措施;另一方面,也要针对家庭生命周期不同阶段劳动力流动的特点以及所受制约因素的不同,对症下药,全面考虑。     

论家庭对罪犯教育感化的作用与启示

家庭是社会的细胞，也是几千年来中国人心灵的皈依。天然血缘关系所铸就的亲和性、共同生活所熟知的可能性和家庭教育感化的有效性决定了家庭对罪犯教育感化作用的不可替代性。家庭能够促使罪犯真诚悔罪，能够帮助罪犯矫治犯罪心理乃至预防犯罪人再次犯罪。犯罪给家庭带来了危机，有缺陷的畸形的家庭对教育感化犯罪人也存在负面的影响。基于家庭对罪犯教育感化作用的分析，监狱工作者进行了有益的探索，对罪犯教育感化工作具有重要的启示。     

Community and Families

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the social organization, social networks and interactive processes supporting family systems living in communities with marginal economies, in disadvantaged neighbourhoods (barrios) in Caracas, Venezuela. Twelve families inserted in four different communities were observed by four researchers, taking thirty-six ethnographic records of the families' daily life activities, as well as the interaction patterns between family members, and between the family system and the community and social organizations. Some characteristics of the organization, structure, and functioning of the underprivileged family systems as well as their interrelations to the community and to the educational and social institutions are shown. It is concluded that the analysis of these interactive patterns permits the researcher to explore the complexity of family life in poverty stricken communities, its culture and process of change.     

Between ‘Objectivism’ and ‘Contextualism': the Normative Foundations of Social Philosophy

Abstract

One of the principal challenges facing contemporary social philosophy is how to find foundations that are normatively robust yet congruent with its self-understanding. Social philosophy is a critical project within modernity, an interpretative horizon that stresses the influences of history and context on knowledge and experience. However, if it is to engage in intercultural dialogue and normatively robust social critique, social philosophy requires non-arbitrary, universal normative standards. The task of normative foundations can thus be formulated in terms of negotiating the tension between ‘contextualism’ and ‘objectivism’. Six contemporary responses to this challenge are examined. Their respective limitations call for renewed reflection on justificatory strategies, in particular for a conception of ‘objectivity’ based in a normative theory of social learning processes.     

The End of Domestic Violence

In this article, I examine the rationales that have been given for extending domestic violence legislation to associated persons. I argue that the empirical and principled rationales are unfounded and that the ideological rationale is reactionary. With regard to the empirical rationale, the extent of violence that the aggregate of associated persons suffers is not high enough to justify privileging associated persons over other citizens with regard to protection from violence. In relation to the principled rationale, the impetus for domestic violence legislation was based on isolation and inequality, which are not experienced in particular by the category of associated persons when taken as a whole. With regard to the ideological rationale, it is worrying that intimacy and equality are emerging as the touchstones of a newer rationale for domestic violence legislation, which rightly has more to do with isolation and inequality than intimacy and equality.