To Join or Not to Join: Gay-Straight Student Alliances and the High School Experiences of Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,and Transgender Youths

This retrospective study investigates 79 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) college students’ experiences attending high schools with gay-straight student alliances (GSAs). Responses to two, open-ended survey questions were analyzed thematically to identify reasons that underlie GSA non-membership and to model facets of GSAs that may impact the GSA-related experiences of LGBT youths. Three frames of reference for understanding GSA non-membership and perceptions of GSAs emerged. Implications for predicting GSA membership and identifying protective mechanisms of GSAs are outlined. Suggestions to help GSA leaders and advisors enhance specific aspects of GSAs that appear to be associated with positive perceptions of GSAs are also provided.     

Dyadic Interaction: Greater than the Sum of its Parts?

The study of dyadic interaction plays a major role in infancy research. To advance conceptually informed measurement of dyadic interaction and integration across studies, we examined factor structure of individual parents' and infants' measures and dyadic measures from face‐to‐face interactions in two samples of 6‐month‐old infants and their parents: mothers from a demographically heterogeneous sample (N = 164), and mothers and fathers (N = 156) from a Caucasian middle‐class sample. Results suggested that a) individual and dyadic measures, and parents' and infants' behaviors contribute independent information, b) measures of both valence and process are needed, c) there are context‐general and context‐specific qualities, and d) structure of dyadic interaction is more similar among mother–infant dyads from independent samples than between mother–infant and father–infant dyads within the same sample. Future research should use multiple measures incorporating valence, temporal processes, contextual influences, and behaviors of individual partners along with dyadic measures to adequately assess the quality of dyadic interaction.     

Global Warming Risk Perceptions in India

Few studies have focused on global warming risk perceptions among people in poor and developing countries, who are disproportionately impacted by climate change. This analysis conducts a comprehensive assessment of global warming risk perceptions in India using a national sample survey. Consistent with cultural theory, egalitarianism was positively associated with global warming risk perceptions. In addition, perceived vulnerability and resilience to extreme weather events were also two of the strongest factors associated with global warming risk perceptions. While worry was positively associated with risk perceptions, it accounted for only a small proportion of the variance, unlike studies in developed countries. Finally, the study also collected global warming affective images. The most common responses were “don't know” or “can't say” (25%), followed by “pollution” (21%), “heat” (20%), and “nature” (16%). The study finds that the predictors of global warming risk perceptions among the Indian public are both similar and different than those in developed countries, which has important implications for climate change communication in India.     

Weight-preserving simulated tempering

Statistics and Computing - Simulated tempering is a popular method of allowing MCMC algorithms to move between modes of a multimodal target density $$pi $$. One problem with simulated tempering...     

Single Homelessness as Social Exclusion: The Unique and the Extreme

Recent research into single homelessness and rough sleeping has begun to consider the issue using the concepts and the language of social exclusion. This paper considers the new literature and what it may mean in terms of changing our understanding of single homelessness and rough sleeping (called street homelessness in the United States). The paper begins by reviewing the concept of social exclusion and the recent literature on single homelessness and drawing associations between the analysis of social exclusion and the emerging academic work on the nature of single homelessness and rough sleeping. Drawing on this literature, it is argued that single homelessness needs to be reconceptualized and viewed as one of the products generated by the process of social exclusion. The paper concludes with the argument that single homelessness and rough sleeping are a form of social exclusion, characterized chiefly by the inability of a section of the socially excluded population to get access to welfare services and social housing, and that homelessness does not actually exist as a discrete social problem with unique characteristics and causes.     

Political science: Moral dialogues and our understanding of American politics

This commentary focuses on the connection between Etzioni’s moral dialogues conception and the concepts of social capital, civil society and the ultimate outcome to be anticipated from the election of Donald Trump in 2016. The optimist view that a progressive social movement is in the making is called somewhat into question given the well documented decline in the very institutions and trust-based norms essential for the moral dialogues in question to transpire.     

Emotion Socialization in the Context of Risk and Psychopathology: Mother and Father Socialization of Anger and Sadness in Adolescents with Depressive Disorder

This study examined parental emotion socialization processes associated with adolescent unipolar depressive disorder. Adolescent participants (N = 107; 42 boys) were selected either to meet criteria for current unipolar depressive disorder or to be psychologically healthy as defined by no lifetime history of psychopathology or mental health treatment and low levels of current depressive symptomatology. A multi‐source/method measurement strategy was used to assess mothers’ and fathers’ responses to adolescent sad and angry emotion. Each parent and adolescent completed questionnaire measures of parental emotion socialization behavior, and participated in meta‐emotion interviews and parent‐adolescent interactions. As hypothesized, parents of adolescents with depressive disorder engaged in fewer supportive responses and more unsupportive responses overall relative to parents of non‐depressed adolescents. Between group differences were more pronounced for families of boys, and for fathers relative to mothers. The findings indicate that parent emotion socialization is associated with adolescent depression and highlight the importance of including fathers in studies of emotion socialization, especially as it relates to depression.     

Reexamining the Economic Costs of Marital Disruption for Women

Objective . Changes in labor force participation and returns may have lessened divorce's traditionally severe economic consequences for women. Method . We use recent data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to analyze the economic well-being of women whose marriages ended between the first and second waves of data collection. Results . Comparing pre- and postmarital median per capita income shows that marital disruption now has much more modest economic consequences for women than in years gone by. A multivariate analysis suggests that their higher postdivorce incomes can be primarily attributed to labor force participation and human capital. Conclusions . These findings suggest better life chances for divorcèes and their children.     

Devolution and Patient Choice: Policy Rhetoric versus Experience in Practice

Background: market reforms in England have been identified as making a clear distinction between English health policy and health policy in the devolved systems in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Patient choice is a high profile policy in the English National Health Service that constitutes significant changes to the demand side of health care. It is not clear what national differences this has led to regarding implementation of policy. This article presents the findings from a large UK‐wide study on the development and implementation of policies related to patient choice of provider. The findings reported here relate specifically to the policy development and organizational implementation of choice in order to examine the impact of devolution on health care policy. Aim: this study examines patient choice of provider across all four countries of the UK to understand the effect of differences in national policies on the organization and service how choice of provider presented to patients. Methods: at the macro‐level, we interviewed policymakers and examined policy and guidance documents to analyze the provenance and determinants of national policy in each UK nation. At the Primary Care Trust or Health Board level, we interviewed a range of public and private health service providers to identify the range of referral pathways and where and when choices might be made. Finally, we interviewed ear, nose and throat, and orthopaedics patients to understand how such choices were experienced. Findings: while we found that distinct rhetorical differences were identifiable at a national policy level, these were less visible at the level of service organization and the way choices were provided to patients. Conclusion: historical similarities in both the structure and operation of health care, coupled with common operational objectives around efficient resource use and waiting times, mediate how strategic policy is implemented and experienced in the devolved nations of the UK.