The Effects of Importance of Religion and Church Attendance on Adolescents' Moral Beliefs

Drawing on the work of Emile Durkheim ([1912] 1995) and Rodney Stark (2001 Stark, Rodney. 2001. Gods, Rituals, and the Moral Order. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 40(4): 619–636. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) as well as research on the anti-ascetic thesis and reference group theory, we formulate a series of hypotheses regarding the effects of church attendance and importance of religion on adolescents' moral beliefs about marijuana use, getting drunk, hitting, and property offenses. The results of our study suggest that moral beliefs are more consistently and strongly related to importance of religion than to church attendance. Furthermore, much of the effect of church attendance on moral beliefs is mediated by importance of religion. Finally, we find evidence that importance of religion moderates (interaction) the effect of church attendance on moral beliefs. When adolescents believe religion is important, frequent church attendance further strengthens their moral beliefs. On the other hand, when adolescents believe religion is not important, frequent church attendance may actually reduce moral beliefs.     

Family Diversity and Child Health: Where Do Same‐Sex Couple Families Fit?

Increasing family diversity during the past half century has focused national attention on how children are faring in nontraditional family structures. Much of the limited evidence on children in same‐sex couple families suffers from several shortcomings, including a lack of representative data. We use the National Health Interview Survey (2004–2012) and the National Survey of Children's Health (2011–2012) to identify children in different‐sex married and cohabiting families, never and previously married single‐parent families, and same‐sex couple families. Considering important characteristics such as the child's race or ethnicity and adoption status, household socioeconomic standing, family stability, and parent health, we examine the relationship between family type and parent‐rated overall child health. The results suggest that poorer health among children in same‐sex couple as well as different‐sex cohabiting couple and single‐parent families appears to be largely the product of demographic and socioeconomic differences rather than exposure to nontraditional family forms.     

‘Growing Old’ in Shelters and ‘On the Street’: Experiences of Older Homeless People

Homelessness among older people in Canada is both a growing concern, and an emerging field of study. This article reports thematic results of qualitative interviews with 40 people aged 46 to 75, carried out as part of a mixed-methods study of older people who are homeless in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Our participants included people with histories of homelessness (n = 14) and persons new to homelessness in later life (n = 26). Interviews focused on experiences at the intersections of aging and homelessness including social relationships, the challenges of living on the streets and in shelters in later life, and the future. This article outlines the 5 main themes that capture the experience of homelessness for our participants: age exacerbates worries; exclusion and isolation; managing significant challenges; shifting needs and realities; and resilience, strength, and hope. Together, these findings underscore the need for specific programs geared to the unique needs of older people who are homeless.     

Attachment Disturbances Delay Language Acquisition in Internationally Adopted Children

Cross-sectional research on internationally adopted children has indicated an association between early attachment disturbances and language deficits. Raaska et al. (2013 Raaska, H., Elovainio, M., Sinkkonen, J., Stolt, S., Jalonen, I., Matomäki, J., … Lapinleimu, H. (2013). Adopted children's language difficulties and their relation to symptoms of reactive attachment disorder: FinAdo study. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 34(3), 152–160.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) have speculated that this relationship is likely bidirectional. In an attempt to elucidate the causal relationship between these two risk factors, the attachment disturbances and language skills of 44 internationally adopted children were assessed in a cross-lagged structural equation model. Greater attachment disturbances at wave 1 predicted less gain in language by wave 2. In contrast, language at wave 1 was not predictive of attachment disturbances at wave 2. These results suggest that early attachment problems may present an important risk for later language development and should be an immediate and primary focus of post-adoptive intervention for families adopting internationally.     

College students with congenital heart disease: A critical time for transition

As medical and surgical advances improve, more young adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) are attending college. This case study illustrates some of the issues that these young adults may face as they attend college and discusses the role that college health practitioners can play in easing that transition. Participants: A case of a male with CHD presenting to the college health clinic with a new onset headache. Methods: The authors discuss some of the unique challenges that college health practitioners may face when caring for students with CHD. In addition, they make recommendations on how best to care for these patients and how best to coordinate care with CHD students other care providers. Results: This student with a history of coarctation of the aorta presented with new onset headaches and was found to have high blood pressure. He was diagnosed with recurrent coarctation, underwent percutaneous treatment with stenting and quickly resumed classes. Conclusions: As more students with CHD enter college, college health providers will need to understand some of the health risks that CHD students face. In addition, understanding some of the optimal ways to coordinate care with CHD providers can ease the transition that CHD students face as they enter college.     

Childbearing Across Partnerships in Australia,the United States,Norway, and Sweden

This article compares mothers’ experience of having children with more than one partner in two liberal welfare regimes (the United States and Australia) and two social democratic regimes (Sweden and Norway). We use survey-based union and birth histories in Australia and the United States and data from national population registers in Norway and Sweden to estimate the likelihood of experiencing childbearing across partnerships at any point in the childbearing career. We find that births with new partners constitute a substantial proportion of all births in each country we study. Despite quite different arrangements for social welfare, the determinants of childbearing across partnerships are very similar. Women who had their first birth at a very young age or who are less well-educated are most likely to have children with different partners. The educational gradient in childbearing across partnerships is also consistently negative across countries, particularly in contrast to educational gradients in childbearing with the same partner. The risk of childbearing across partnerships increased dramatically in all countries from the 1980s to the 2000s, and educational differences also increased, again, in both liberal and social democratic welfare regimes.     

Engaging with Comparative Risk Appraisals: Public Views on Policy Priorities for Environmental Risk Governance

Communicating the rationale for allocating resources to manage policy priorities and their risks is challenging. Here, we demonstrate that environmental risks have diverse attributes and locales in their effects that may drive disproportionate responses among citizens. When 2,065 survey participants deployed summary information and their own understanding to assess 12 policy‐level environmental risks singularly, their assessment differed from a prior expert assessment. However, participants provided rankings similar to those of experts when these same 12 risks were considered as a group, allowing comparison between the different risks. Following this, when individuals were shown the prior expert assessment of this portfolio, they expressed a moderate level of confidence with the combined expert analysis. These are important findings for the comprehension of policy risks that may be subject to augmentation by climate change, their representation alongside other threats within national risk assessments, and interpretations of agency for public risk management by citizens and others.     

Experiences of adolescent mothers in Costa Rica and the role of parental support

ABSTRACT

Adolescent pregnancy is often thought of as a social problem, one that can cause the adolescent mother hardship, including poverty, low-educational attainment, and housing instability. Although much research has been conducted about adolescent pregnancy in the developed world, less has considered adolescent pregnancy in the developing world. This qualitative study focuses on women who were impoverished in Costa Rica who had been pregnant in adolescence. The goal of the study was to gain a better understanding of the lived experiences of the mothers, as well as the kinds of support they received during and after the pregnancy. The research sample consisted of 22 female participants who were impoverished and had experienced an unintended pregnancy in adolescence. The key finding from this study was that parental support was the most important factor in mitigating adolescent experiences of stress and negative feelings about their choices related to the pregnancy. The study has implications for the understanding of the experiences of women who are vulnerable with respect to adolescent pregnancies in Latin America and for Latina migrants to the United States.     

Derrida’s “Indecent Objection”

Derrida’s account of forgiveness appears to oppose politics to ethics, challenging political reconciliation in the name of unconditional forgiveness. Yet at the same time Derrida seems to sacrifice ethics to politics by advancing but refusing to take the side of what he calls an “indecent objection” to reconciliation. This essay seeks to account for Derrida’s strategy and to think through some of the consequences of Derrida’s emphasis on the “impossibility” of forgiveness.