From abusive household to dating violence

Social scientists have theorized about the cycle of domestic violence in family abuse. Little research has addressed dating violence as a consequence to the experience of domestic violence by children. This article deals with the self-reported experience of dating violence by high school students from abusive and nonabusive households. A survey was conducted of 1,353 students in a rural area of North Dakota. Results indicated that students from abusive households showed significantly higher incidence of dating violence than those from homes where no abuse was evident. However, less than one in five of the students from abusive home reported dating violence, providing little support for the cycle of violence hypothesis. Students from abusive homes viewed violence as negatively as students from nonabusive homes. Thus, while there are significant differences between the two groups, there are also important similarities. Although there is apparently a greater risk of dating violence among students who have experienced violence at home, these data do not support the idea of an inescapable pattern of violence among adolescents who have experienced violence themselves.     

Family Violence, Anger Expression Styles, and Adolescent Dating Violence

How partner violence is transferred across generations is relatively unexplored. This paper proposes that anger expression style (constructive, destructive direct, destructive indirect) mediates the relationship between exposure to family violence and dating violence perpetration by adolescents. Data are from 1,965 completed self-administered questionnaires given to eighth- and ninth-grade students in a primarily rural county in North Carolina in 1994. Results varied by gender and type of exposure to family violence. For females, destructive direct and destructive indirect anger expression styles mediated the relationship between experiencing family violence and dating violence perpetration. For males, this relationship was mediated primarily by destructive direct anger expression style. The association between witnessing family violence and dating violence perpetration for females was mediated by destructive direct anger expression style only. Witnessing family violence was not associated with dating violence perpetration for males, and therefore could not be mediated. This study suggests that adolescents exposed to family violence learn anger expression styles that put them at risk of being perpetrators of dating violence. Further research is needed to identify other mediators that explain how partner violence is transferred across generations.     

Slovenes: “a nation of owners of one of the three original European languages?”

The Slovene national movement of the late nineteenth century was based primarily on the myth of an eternal linguistic community, an essentialist position within historiography. The national development itself best fits into patterns described by Hroch and Gellner. Although most objective conditions for national constitution were met by 1929, it is not clear if subjective ones had been met by that time. World War II revitalized the nation-constitution process, particularly by warring Communist- and Catholic-supported political and military factions, both claiming to fight for a Slovene identity, while Communists also claimed to be fighting for a “Greater” (Megali) Slovenia. With the war’s end, and Slovenia becoming a Yugoslav republic and expanding geographically, there was no doubt of a Slovene national identity, as understood by Connor, among the general population. However, important developments followed in nation-constitution after 1945, particularly upon gaining independence in 1991. The process need not be considered completed. Slovenes may be considered leaning towards a cultural type nation, with a cultural nucleus in an essentialist understanding of the Slovene language.     

I'm Stuck as Far as Relationships Go

Abstract

This is a study of how heterosexual girls construct the meaning of their health issues within their dating relationships. We found that a number of barriers contributed to girls' difficulty with articulating their needs and desires in their romantic relationships. Adolescent girls who participated in our study blamed themselves for their boyfriends' abuse and lack of commitment and experienced their ability to speak in their own interests as compromised. Many of the girls experienced what researchers term an “impossible choice” between compromising self to maintain a relationship or compromising the relationship to maintain self. The dating relationship was predominantly determined by patriarchal and dualistic thinking that undercut healthy decision making. Assisting girls within supportive environments to reflect upon gendered power differentials in their relationships can facilitate their expression of authentic voice which in turn can enhance their own health behaviors.     

Is Partner Aggression Related to Appraisals of Coercive Control by a Partner?

Research and clinical reports on men who are aggressive towards their intimate partners find that these men tend to behave in highly controlling ways towards such partners (e.g., restricting their social interactions, monitoring of activities, and reducing decision-making power). This study tests the hypothesis that men and women in violent dating relationships appraise such behaviors differently than individuals in nonviolent relationships. Based on clinical and empirical partner abuse literature, 119 college students rated the extent to which they perceived hypothetical behaviors towards a partner as controlling. Results suggest that individuals who had either engaged in or received partner aggression appraised restrictive, domineering, and coercive behaviors from a male to a female partner, and from a female to a male partner as less controlling than individuals who had neither perpetrated nor received partner aggression. Men also viewed those behaviors as less controlling than did women. Generalizability, clinical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Dating Aggression as a Function of Witnessing Only Same Sex Parents vs. Opposite Sex Parents vs. Both Parents as Perpetrators of Domestic Violence

The present study examined the association between witnessing interparental violence as a child, and the risk for perpetrating and being the victim of dating aggression as an adult, in an undergraduate sample. Specifically, this study tested a modeling hypothesis whereby witnessing a same sex parent vs. an opposite sex parent exclusively in the aggressor role would be more highly associated with risk for perpetrating dating aggression. Similarly, observing a same sex parent vs. an opposite sex parent as exclusively a victim of marital aggression would be associated with risk for being a victim of dating aggression. A same sex modeling effect was found for perpetration of dating aggression. Respondents who witnessed only their same sex parent perpetrate physical marital aggression were at increased risk for perpetrating physical dating aggression, whereas respondents who witnessed only their opposite sex parent perpetrate were not. A same sex modeling effect, however, was not found for being a victim of dating aggression. Rather, risk for victimization by dating aggression was associated only with witnessing bidirectional marital violence. Implications of these results, limitations of the present study, and ideas for future research are discussed.     

Committee autonomy in parliamentary systems – coalition logic or congressional rationales?

Large-n comparative research on committee structures in legislatures is rare. This paper uses newly collected data to analyse committee structures across 30 legislatures of parliamentary systems which possess strong parliamentary party groups. It seeks to explain committee autonomy which reflects the degree to which committees are able to carry out their tasks independently. The variation in autonomy is accounted for by contrasting the ‘keeping tabs on coalition partners’ perspective with the congressional theories of legislative organisation (referred to as distributional, informational, and partisan theories). The results support the informational and the keeping tabs perspective. More autonomous committees tend to be found in legislatures with a relatively high workload and frequent coalition governments. For the ongoing discussion about the applicability of the congressional theories outside the US, this study provides support for the usefulness of the US theories in parliamentary systems of government.     

GENDER AND ADOLESCENT RELATIONSHIP VIOLENCE: A CONTEXTUAL EXAMINATION*

A growing body of research examines the problem of adolescent dating violence. In these studies, fairly high rates of female‐to‐male violence have been documented, leading to considerable debate about the role of gender in dating and other partner violence. Drawing from a broader qualitative study of violence in the lives of African‐American youths from a distressed urban community, we weigh in on this debate by providing a contextual examination of the nature, circumstances, and meanings of adolescent dating violence. Our research shows that the meanings and consequences of girls ‘violence are strikingly different than those of boys’, and that both are grounded in gender inequalities. We conclude by discussing the significance of these findings for both feminist and general research on dating violence.     

A multivariate investigation of dating aggression

This study investigated the following variables for their unique and combined contributions to dating aggression: exposure to aggression in the family of origin (witnessing interparental aggression or being the victim of aggressive parenting); attitudes justifying dating aggression (when humiliated or in selfdefense); child-to-parent aggression; child sexual abuse; violent sexual victimization; alcohol use; and socioeconomic status. One hundred and eleven male and 179 female undergraduates reported on their own aggressive behaviors directed toward dating partners. Together, the predictor variables accounted for 41% of the variance in male-to-female aggression but only 16% of the female-to-male aggression. Humiliation, as a justification for dating aggression, contributes to the prediction of both males' and females' dating aggression, while self-defense, although a highly endorsed condition for justifying dating aggression, does not predict actual aggressive behavior. Exposure to interparental aggression plus the product between exposure and humiliation contribute to the prediction of males' dating aggression but exposure does not play a role in females' dating aggression. Violent sexual victimization contributes unique variance to both males' and females' dating aggression. The present data highlight the importance of examining specific circumstances under which males and females justify dating aggression and how such attitudes condoning aggression affect actual behaviors.     

An evaluation of matching unknown writing inks with the United States International Ink Library

Utilizing a database of standards for forensic casework is a valuable resource. Undoubtedly, as more standards (and corresponding information about the specimens) are collected, there is a greater certainty of identification when a questioned and a known item cannot be distinguished after a series of analyses. The United States Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service National Forensic Laboratory jointly maintain the largest known forensic collection of writing inks in the world, which is comprised of over 8500 ink standards collected worldwide, dating back to the 1920s. This study was conducted to evaluate the reliability of matching arbitrarily purchased pens with known inks from a database. One hundred pens were randomly obtained from a variety of sources and their respective ink compositions were compared with standards. Eighty-five of the inks were determined to be suitable for comparison utilizing optical examinations and thin-layer chromatography. Three of the inks did not match any of the specimens on record; one of these inks was similar to an ink from an identical brand of pen that was in the database, but had a modified formulation.