Off‐Time Pubertal Timing Predicts Physiological Reactivity to Postpuberty Interpersonal Stress

We investigated associations between retrospectively assessed timing of pubertal development, interpersonal interactions, and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis reactivity to an interpersonal stress task in 110 young adult women. Participants provided salivary cortisol samples at points prior and subsequent to a video‐taped conflict discussion with their romantic partner. Participants also provided subjective global ratings of their discussion on dimensions of conflict and support. For earlier developing girls, higher levels of interpersonal conflict were associated with greater physiological stress in anticipation of the discussion task and less physiological recovery following the discussion. In contrast, for later developing girls, low levels of conflict were associated with greater anticipatory stress and less physiological recovery. These findings have implications for understanding the influence of off‐time pubertal development on the lifetime development of young women.     

Testing the Granger Noncausality Hypothesis in Stationary Nonlinear Models of Unknown Functional Form

In this article, we propose a general method for testing the Granger noncausality hypothesis in stationary nonlinear models of unknown functional form. These tests are based on a Taylor expansion of the nonlinear model around a given point in the sample space. We study the performance of our tests by a Monte Carlo experiment and compare these to the most widely used linear test. Our tests appear to be well-sized and have reasonably good power properties.     

The Great Convergence: Gender and Unpaid Work in Europe and the United States

Over the past decades, men's and women's time use in industrialized nations has changed dramatically, suggesting a gender revolution. Women increased their time in paid work and reduced time in unpaid activities, while men increased their time in unpaid work, but not enough to compensate for women's retreat. We investigate developments regarding men's and women's unpaid work across Europe and the United States, using time diary data from the mid‐1980s and onward. We find evidence for gender convergence in unpaid work over time, but different trends for housework and childcare. Gender convergence in housework primarily resulted from women reducing their time, whereas childcare time increased for both sexes, resulting in convergence only where men increased more than did women. Decomposition analyses show that trends in housework and childcare are explained by changes in behavior rather than compositional changes in population characteristics. Though level differences in unpaid work persist, our findings regarding trends support gender convergence in that they are general across country contexts that vary regarding policy and social norms about gender, family, and work.     

Advertising ‘Happy’ Children: The Settler Family,Happiness and the Indigenous Child Removal System

We analyse 4300 advertisements of children featured in the Today's Child column, a daily written by Helen Allen in The Toronto Telegram and The Toronto Star from 1964 to 1982, to understand how the Canadian public became accepting of the adoption of Indigenous children. While children of all ethnic backgrounds were featured, the Indigenous children who were displayed were part of a larger system of child removal, known as the ‘Sixties Scoop’. We demonstrate the ways Indigenous children are described with a specific form of happiness that is conjoined with colonial conceptions of the family and nation.     

Racial Disparities in Early Criminal Justice Involvement

Criminologists have long reported the existence of racial disparity in the criminal justice system, but the important question is why. While some argue that observed differences are a consequence of more criminal behavior among minorities, the weight of the evidence indicates that this is but a partial explanation. In this paper, we study data from a sample of juveniles to examine how racial differences in early police contact, and important social environments—family, school, and neighborhoods—affect later contact and arrests, controlling for self-reported delinquency. We find that early (in middle school) contact with police is an important predictor of later (high school) arrests. Also we found that, in addition to being male and living in a low-income family, children who have parents who have a history of arrest, who have experienced school disciplinary actions, who have delinquent peers, and who are in networks with deviant adults are more likely to have problems with law enforcement. These factors help to explain racial differences in police contacts and arrests.     

Social Return on Investment of an Innovative Employment Option for Persons with Developmental Disabilities

Common Ground Co‐operative (CGC) provides training, administrative, and job coach support to five social enterprises for which persons with developmental disabilities are the non‐share‐capital partners. This study examines the use of social return on investment (SROI) as a means of determining the value of program impacts related to quality‐of‐life changes for enterprise partners and their families. The process of conducting this SROI analysis is described and analyzed in terms of its utility in employment services for persons with developmental disabilities.     

Letting Students Control Their Own Learning: Using Games,Role-Plays,and Simulations in Middle School U.S. History Classrooms

The purpose of this article is to synthesize research on the benefits and use of games, role-plays, and simulations, whilst providing examples practicing teachers may wish to use in their classroom. Therefore, the article presents a discussion of key previous research on the use of games, role-plays, and simulations in secondary history classrooms. It also presents a discussion of the benefits games, role-plays, and simulations can have on student learning. This includes discussion of how such student-centered teaching and learning opportunities can improve students' critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaborative skills. Finally, it presents examples of these types of student-centered, inquiry-based, hands-on learning experiences, drawn from the author's previous 16 years of secondary classroom experiences.