African American Child Discipline: Differences Between Mothers and Fathers

Child rearing methods used in African American homes have been the subject of much commentary among social scientists, child welfare, and legal personnel. Much of the deliberation has centered on firm disciplinary techniques used by African American mothers. However, few studies have included the perspectives of African American fathers. This study investigated the differences between African American mothers' and fathers' responses in relation to child misbehavior. Several significant differences were found with mothers utilizing more intense disciplinary methods than African American fathers. Results of this investigation underscored the importance of obtaining the viewpoints of African American fathers as well as mothers in understanding parenting in African American homes.     

Economic Crisis and Support for Democracy in Europe

The study of the impact of the economic crisis on attitudes toward democracy tends to be focused on satisfaction with specific democratic institutions. This article expands upon previous research to explore how the current economic crisis can affect core support for democracy as a regime. Based on European Social Survey data for the Eurozone countries, the findings are twofold. It is shown, firstly, that perceptions of the state of the economy have an impact both on satisfaction with and support for democracy, and, secondly, that citizens’ support for democracy is greater in bailed-out countries. In countries that have experienced intervention, the more critical citizens and those less satisfied with the outputs of democracy are the stronger advocates of democracy. The article argues that this is connected with the tendency of critical citizens in bailed-out countries to blame external agents for the economic situation while increasing the saliency of democratic rules as a reaction to the imposition of unpopular measures.     

Civil Society Capture: Top-Down Interventions from Below?

Driven by the failure of internationally led top-down peacebuilding interventions, international donors have increasingly posited that civil society actors can play a crucial role in peacebuilding and conflict resolution. This has led to a notable increase in the support for civil society in order to integrate local perspectives into peacebuilding and statebuilding interventions over the past decades. Using the case of Cyprus, this paper challenges this premise and argues that this support continues to create homogenized discourses that are not representative of the diversity of local notions of peace. Rather, most types of international support cause civil society actors to adapt their agendas to external priorities, and exclude alternative, less professionalized and critical voices. Local peace actors who resist liberal governmentality have access neither to the monetary support needed to sustain their peace work, nor to international protection for their cause. At the same time, those actors working in line with the international endeavour remove themselves from the ‘everyday’ of local realities so that peace interventions yet again fall into the old trap of top-down interventions.     

Learning to Mediate? The Mediation Support Unit and the Production of Expertise by the UN

The UN Mediation Support Unit (MSU) was created to support peace processes and enable organizational learning. This article analyses the unit through a sociological lens with the aim to understand its present configuration, and what this reveals about the production of knowledge about mediation at the UN. It argues that, because of the constraints imposed by intrastate wars and the existing institutional setting within the Secretariat, the MSU emphasizes generic and depoliticized expertise, by contrast with mediation's traditional reliance on non-transferable skills. This approach, in spite of its pitfalls, enables the unit to justify its own existence and to claim a position of authority within the organization and beyond.     

Positive engagement and support for single‐parent families: Building bridges across sector boundaries

The high rate of joblessness among single‐parent families in Australia, relative to other organisation for OECD countries has resulted in the development of various government initiatives designed to support single parents to prepare for and gain employment. The ParentsNext pilot program that began in March 2016, in 10 socially and economically deprived areas throughout Australia, is the most recent Federal Government program aimed at connecting parents with young children into local activities that will build their confidence, skills, and networks and ultimately prepare for future employment. The ParentsNext pilot program is delivered through contracted providers in each of the 10 disadvantaged areas. WISE Employment, a national not‐for‐profit organization together with its local partner, Youth Family and Community Connections, delivers the pilot program in Burnie, Tasmania. This article discusses the findings of a study, which examined the implementation of ParentsNext in Burnie and provides insights to inform and improve practice outcomes.     

Perceived Social Support among Bullies,Victims, and Bully-Victims

Research indicates that social support plays a protective role among adolescents, but little research has explicitly evaluated its function among youth involved in bullying. Accordingly, this study examined relations among social support, bully/victim status, and psychological distress in a sample of 784 ethnically diverse youth. We assessed differences in perceived social support across bully/victim subtypes, and evaluated peer and maternal social support as protective factors among victims, bullies, and bully-victims. Youth were classified as uninvolved (61.6%), as bullies (14.3%), as victims (12.5%), and as bully-victims (11.6%). Uninvolved youth reported the most peer and maternal social support and the least anxiety/depression. Multivariate analyses revealed that there was a significant interaction between bully/victim groups and peer social support. Specifically, bullies, victims, and bully-victims who reported moderate peer social support also indicated the least anxiety/depression. Results highlight the importance of encouraging youth to develop and effectively use peer support networks as part of bullying intervention programs.

The Consequences of Victim Physical Attractiveness on Reactions to Injustice: The Role of Observers’ Belief in a Just World

Two studies explored Dion and Dion’s (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 775–780, 1987) suggestion that the belief in a just world may contribute to the “beauty is good” stereotype. In Study 1, we found that participants rated the death of a woman as more tragic and unfair when she was physically attractive than less attractive. Participants were also more punitive towards agents of harm when the victim was physically attractive. In Study 2, we varied the extent to which a woman suffered from a house fire and asked participants to later recognize the woman’s picture among several choices varying in physical attractiveness. Participants who learned that the woman suffered a great deal remembered her to be less physically attractive than when her suffering was minimal. The results are discussed in terms of how the justice motive contributes to the evaluative and moral importance attached to physical attractiveness.