Female Juvenile Violent Behavior: Bonding Systems and Other Mediating Constructs

The purpose of this research was to examine a conceptual/theoretical model with negative (substance use) and positive (extracurricular activities) mediating factors between several bonding systems and violent behavior among female youth. Since much of the prior researches have focused on both males and females therefore this study is focusing on females only. Data from the 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health was used for this study. For the purpose of this study female research participants between the age of 12–17 were selected (N = 9383). At the stage of bivariate analysis, parental bonding system was omitted from a model before moving onto a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis as most of the correlations between indicators of parental bonding systems and dependent variables were not significant. Revised model with two bonding systems on violent behavior through two mediating constructs, extracurricular activities and substance use were tested through the SEM and Sobel test analyses. This structural model specifies a satisfactory fit with the sample. Several mediating effects within this model, which help lower the occurrence of violent behavior, were also validated.     

Digital learning across cultures: an account of activity theory

ABSTRACT

This paper explores a teaching and learning process as it unfolds in an online offshore classroom. The paper reports on teaching and learning narratives distilled from different cultures, namely the cultures of educators and students in the context of digital learning environments. Drawing on activity theory as a conceptual framework to analyse the narrative, we employ self-study as a methodological tool for capturing the dynamism and complexities that unravel in intercultural and technology-enabled teaching activities. The framework explores the relationships, tensions and opportunities of diverse activity elements that constitute the design and delivery of digital pedagogies. In the networked intercultural system, sustaining the position of activity elements and the specific relational circuit that they institutionalise is a key task for understanding digital technologies as an influential tool for effective learning and teaching practices. We argue that seeing the digital platform from the perspective of its role in creating dynamic interrelationships in a complex activity system is one way to move beyond the cultural confines of any particular element in the system.     

Top–Down Eco-Systems of Social Bonding on Juvenile Violent Behavior: Gender Sensitive Analysis

The aim of this study is to test a multifaceted model across gender, consisting of bonding systems in relation to violent behaviors of youth and explaining the relationships among them. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2006 was the source of data. This paper reports findings of a study examining gender-sensitive models with adolescent violent behavior, by testing multiple bonding systems in the adolescents’ environment simultaneously with use of (1) bi-variate statistical test, (2) t test, and (3) estimation of the structural equation modeling among all the concepts of violent behavior and bonding systems for the whole juvenile sample and separated sample of male and female juveniles. Both peer bonding and school bonding have an effect in decreasing violent behavior of both male and female youth. However, some different bonding systems were found to be effective only for a certain gender, community bonding for male youths and parental bonding for female youths. The satisfactory model fit was confirmed with whole, male-only, and female-only samples, along with new findings of several male-only and one female-only significant causal linkage among bonding systems.     

中国与印度：从人类学视角来看文化边陲

中国与印度是相邻的文明古国，两国之间存在着重要的共性，这些共性源白两国的地理幅员、人口规模和悠久历史。西藏地区位于汉文化和印度文化之间，汉人和印度人在与藏人交往时显示出不同的态度，这与中国和印度两种文明的特征和两个社会的不同性质有关。在文明的传播过程中，汉文化的传播与印度梵文化的传播也有各自的特点。文章最后就汉人、藏人和日本社会对源白印度的佛教采取的不同的接受方式，探讨了各自社会文化传统的特征。     

A transnational feminist policy analysis of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act

A transnational feminist policy analysis of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act: Noyori‐Corbett C., Moxley D.P. A transnational feminist policy analysis of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act Although originally the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) sought to prosecute traffickers, protect victims, and prevent trafficking, the most essential aim of the act involving prevention, especially in victims’ countries of origin, has not been dominant in combating trafficking. The authors used a transnational feminist framework of policy analysis to reveal the TVPA's limitations in addressing the diminished status of poor women in the developing world. Using five key questions emanating from transnational feminism, the authors illuminate the extent to which the act is unresponsive to the economic realities that make women in developing countries vulnerable to human trafficking. Based on their analysis, the authors offer considerations for the future re‐authorization of the Act, emphasizing a shift from a paradigm involving the criminalization of victims to one embodying prevention.     

Mobile Phone Usage Preferences: The Contributing Factors of Personality,Social Anxiety and Loneliness

Psychological factors and social relationships are important components that influence an individual’s communication style. This paper aims to examine the association of personality factors, social anxiety (SA) and loneliness with mobile phone (MP) usage preferences on the basis of voice calling and text messaging. Malaysian MP users (N = 187) completed four questionnaires (Mobile Phone Usage Questionnaire, Big Five Inventory, Interaction Anxiousness Scale and UCLA Loneliness Scale) on paper or online via a web-link. Multiple regression analyses revealed that personality, SA and loneliness broadly predicted preferences for voice calling or text messaging. Further analyses examining the predictability of time spent on voice calls/text messaging and number of people called/exchanged text messages also revealed some significant findings in regards to the openness-to-experience personality dimension, loneliness and SA. The findings of this research have important implications to tailoring the delivery of psychological services to individuals diagnosed with chronic loneliness and SA.     

Multifaceted Reality of Juvenile Delinquency: An Empirical Analysis of Structural Theories and Literature

The adolescent’s world of delinquent behaviors and risk and protective factors around each behavior is very complicated and articulating certain characteristics or contents of effective programs thus has been intricate. This paper reports the findings of a study examining an original model with the three problems of major juvenile delinquent behaviors: substance abuse, tobacco smoking and violent behavior, by testing their risk/protective factors derived from theories and past empirical studies. The satisfactory model fit was confirmed with the Structural Equation Modeling and structure of a multidimensional construct in the hypothesized model, which showed specified causal linkage, was validated. The authors also found 10 mediating effects among risk/protective factors either with theoretical/past literature result rationale or authors assumptions which led both to confirmatory and new findings.     

On Second Order Admissibilities in Two-Parameter Logistic Regression Model

In two-parameter family of distribution, conditions for a modified maximum likelihood estimator to be second-order admissible are given. Applying these results to two-parameter logistic regression model, it is shown that the maximum likelihood estimator is always second-order inadmissible and the Rao-Blackwellized minimum logit chi-squared estimator is second-order admissible if and only if the number of the doses is greater than or equal to 6.     

New Institutional Entrepreneurship and a Celebrity CEO: The Role of Institutional Actors in Japan

DiMaggio and Powell [1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48 (2): 147–160] suggest that the trend currently seen in Japanese organizations to develop organizational reforms, and notably downsizing, is a kind international ‘mimetic isomorphism’ based on Western blueprints. These concepts of isomorphism and legitimacy go hand in hand with the increase in the use of Western language. However, this paper shows that these concepts have not entered into Japanese culture without debate, resistance and transformation. The paper also looks at the newly developing concept of ‘institutional work’ [Lawrence, T., and R. Suddaby. 2006. “Institutional Work.” In The Sage Handbook of Organization Studies, edited by S. Clegg, T. B. Lawrence and W. R. Nord, 215–254. London: Sage; Lawrence, T. B., R. Suddaby, and B. Leca. 2009. Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Lawrence, T. B., R. Suddaby, and B. Leca. 2011. “Institutional Work: Refocusing Institutional Studies of Organization.” Journal of Management Inquiry 20 (1): 52–58], and argues that this is a useful concept in order to study how PR activities in the Western style have become institutionalized within organizations. The paper also investigates the roles of institutional actors in Japan, by examining the case of Nissan Motor. This industry leader announced drastic downsizing, almost for the first time in Japan, suggesting its contribution to creating new institutional entrepreneurship more widely within Japanese organizations. This research examines the role of top leaders and mass media, who are one of the main institutional actors but are less often considered by neo-institutional theory.