Scaling the baseline: Technicalities and environmental regulation in Owens Valley,California

If we want to understand the logic of environmental regulation—as well as its uneven effects—we should look to how regulators and regulated alike generate and deploy baselines. In this article, I chart the scalar frames used to mark the “natural” conditions that are perceived as normal, desirable, and worthy of legal protection and intervention. I explore these frames and resulting legal standards through the case of Owens Lake, California, which has long been a subject of state efforts to regulate resources and remediate pollution. This case study provides an opportunity to understand how presumed technicalities of environmental governance, such as baselines, are constructed and deployed.     

Parents’ Self-efficacy Beliefs and Their Children’s Psychosocial Adaptation During Adolescence

Research has shown that parents’ perceived parental self-efficacy (PSE) plays a pivotal role in promoting their children’s successful adjustment. In this study, we further explored this issue by comparing psychosocial adaptation in children of parents with high and low PSE during adolescence. One hundred and thirty Italian teenagers (55 males and 75 females) and one of their parents (101 mothers and 29 fathers) participated in the research. Data were collected at T1 (adolescents’ mean age = 13.6) and T2 (mean age = 17.5). Parents reported their PSE at T1. At T1 and T2, adolescents reported their perceived academic self-efficacy, aggressive and violent conducts, well-being, and perceived quality of their relationships with parents. At T2, they were also administered questions by using Experience Sampling Method to assess their quality of experience in daily life. As hypothesized, adolescents with high PSE parents reported higher competence, freedom and well-being in learning activities as well as in family and peer interactions. They also reported fewer problematic aspects and more daily opportunities for optimal experience. Findings pointed to the stability of adolescents’ psychosocial adaptation and highlighted possible directions in future research.     

Academic Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Quality of Experience in Learning

This study investigated learning activities and associated quality of experience of students with different levels of perceived academic self-efficacy. Two groups were formed out of 130 Italian adolescents (age 15–19), one with high and one with low academic self-efficacy beliefs (31 and 32 participants, respectively). Students provided valuation of academic pursuits and aspirations, and were monitored for one week with experience sampling method (ESM). Attention was paid to the association of learning activities with optimal experience, characterized by high perceived environmental challenges matched by high personal skills, involvement, concentration and intrinsic reward. High self-efficacy students reported higher academic aspirations and pursuits than low self-efficacy students. They also spent more time in homework, and primarily associated learning activities with optimal experience. Results have educational implications in fostering motivation and enjoyment in learning. They also provide empirical support for the combination of self-efficacy beliefs and quality of experience in motivational research. Lecturer of Psychology at the Medical School of the University of Milan, Italy. She received her Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Milan. She has conducted research in human development, focusing on adolescents’ quality of experience and identity building, as well as on methodological aspects of experience sampling procedures. She received her Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Padua. Her main interests focus on the study of subjective and psychological well-being across the life span, as well as on methodological aspects of longitudinal research Her main research interests are the cross-cultural investigation of the quality of daily experience and its long-term developmental impact. She is supervisor in intervention projects on migration, disability and social maladjustment His major research interests include personality development and personality assessment along the life span. He is supervisor in longitudinal projects on psychosocial adjustment from childhood to young adulthood     

The “Right Paper”: Developing Legal Literacy in a Legal Self‐Help Clinic

Legal self‐help is the fastest‐growing segment of legal services in the United States, and a significant addition to the repertoire of programs aimed at opening up access to justice in the civil legal system. Few studies, however, have examined how such services work in practice. Through ethnographic research and analysis of meetings between unrepresented litigants and attorneys offering advice in a legal self‐help clinic, this article expands the empirical investigation of access to justice to consider what legal self‐help looks like in actual practice. In this article, I follow the concept of the “right paper” to analyze the process through which legal self‐help litigants develop legal literacy, including the role of lawyers in helping them to do so. The article concludes by discussing what such practices reveal about recent efforts to open up access to justice and also about the dynamics through which people come to think about law and, especially, how to use it.     

Offshore Wind: Government Control and the Regulatory Landscape

The open ocean, especially off the eastern seaboard of the United States, presents a significant opportunity for the generation of electricity with the development of offshore wind projects. The first offshore wind project commenced operation during 2016 with a five-turbine project in Rhode Island. It is anticipated this is the first of many offshore wind projects that are expected along the East Coast of the United States. The legal and regulatory landscape for the development of offshore wind projects is complex and expensive. Projects are typically fifteen miles offshore where the federal government has jurisdiction and is responsible for leasing the ocean bottom for projects. Additionally, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has jurisdiction with regard to the disturbance of the ocean bottom. The state's jurisdiction commences within three miles of the coast, where the principal role for the states will be permitting for transmission lines both offshore and onshore.