Inner-city birth rates following enactment of the Minnesota parental notification law

An increase in birth rates to Minneapolis minors following the enactment of a parental notification law was examined. A well-publicized link between increasing birth rates and the law is shown to have been premature. Birth, abortion, and population data by age, race, and region suggest that the increasing birth rate in Minneapolis was not related to parental notification, but rather to a growing racial minority population.Preparation of this article was supported in part by an Aldeen Grant from Wheaton College. The authors wish to thank the Minnesota Center for Health Statistics, particularly James Wigginton and Carol Vargas, for their considerable work to provide birth, abortion, and population data in a form suitable for the current analysis. The authors also thank Americans United for Life for purchasing the data and providing them to the authors.     

Ideas, Interests, and Institutions: Challenging the Property Rights Paradigm in Botswana

Recent work in international studies and comparative politics scrutinizes the relative importance of ideas, interests, and institutions as sources of policy change. A growing body of scholarship identifies ideas as the main causal factors, influencing perceived interests as well as perceived policy options. Others contend that policies can best be understood as products of institutions. Neither explanation can account for both policy choice by politicians and the implementation strategies of administrators. In Botswana, the use of professional criteria for hiring and advancement encourages adherence to international professional norms within the bureaucracy, but electoral competition gives politicians more reason to be attentive to local political concerns. The institutions that define relations of authority among actors with different motivations shape the outcomes of policy choice and implementation. Institutions influence the attentiveness of policy-makers to ideas when making decisions, the degree of attention particular policy-makers give to ideas from particular sources, and the degree of acceptance that ideas must achieve to affect policy. Better evaluations of political development can be achieved through attentiveness to the mix of actors involved in policy decisions, the diversity of institutions and ideas that affect their policy preferences, and the relations of authority that shape their relative influence over policy choice and implementation.     

Predicting Children’s Depressive Symptoms from Community and Individual Risk Factors

Community, demographic, familial, and personal risk factors of childhood depressive symptoms were examined from an ecological theoretical approach using hierarchical linear modeling. Individual-level data were collected from an ethnically diverse (73% African-American) community sample of 197 children and their parents; community-level data were obtained from the U.S. Census regarding rates of community poverty and unemployment in participants’ neighborhoods. Results indicated that high rates of community poverty and unemployment, children’s depressive attributional style, and low levels of self-perceived competence predict children’s depressive symptoms, even after accounting for demographic and familial risk factors, such as parental education and negative parenting behaviors. The effect of negative parenting behaviors on depressive symptoms was partially mediated by personal variables like children’s self-perceived competence. Recommendations for future research, intervention and prevention programs are discussed.

Relational Aggression at School: Associations with School Safety and Social Climate

The present study examines how exposure to relational aggression at school is associated with adolescents’ perceptions of, and participation in, a hostile school environment. Participants were 1,335 African American and European American adolescents in grades 7 through 12 (52% female, 49% African American). Results indicate that exposure to relational aggression is associated with several components of adolescents’ perceptions of the school climate. Adolescents exposed to high levels of relational aggression perceived their school to be less safe, and were less pleased with the general social atmosphere at school. Moreover, for males, but not females, exposure to relational aggression was associated with carrying a weapon to school. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed in terms of working toward safer school environments for adolescents.