Understanding and informing policy implementation: a case study of the domestic violence provisions of the Maryland Gun Violence Act

The Maryland Gun Violence Act, enacted into law in 1996, explicitly authorized courts to order batterers to surrender their firearms through civil protective orders. It also vested law enforcement with the explicit authority to remove guns when responding to a domestic violence complaint. In order to assess how these laws were implemented, we designed a case study and collected data from in-depth, key informant interviews, court observations, and relevant documents. We present findings from this study and recommend how to increase the likelihood that policies designed to separate batterers and guns are implemented in a way that will result in greater protections for victims of domestic violence.     

Supporting transgender children: new legal, social, and medical approaches

The author, a lawyer who advocates for transgender children and youth, explores how clinical approaches to transgender children and youth are keeping pace with social and legal changes affecting these young people and with recent evidence suggesting that children are harmed by family and societal rejection as well as by attempts to change their gender identity or gender expression. The author urges providers and legal advocates to work with policymakers and the families of transgender children and youth to create a future in which these young people can reach their full potential and be embraced as fully equal, respected, and participating members of society.     

Residence background,socioeconomic status,and fertility

Previous research has demonstrated that socioeconomic differentials in fertility are heavily influenced by couples with rural background. These studies show an inverse relationship between fertility and socioeconomic status for couples of rural background, but no relationship for urbanorigin couples. The effect of urban background on rural fertility differentials has not been examined. This study investigates the potential effect of urban-origin couples on socioeconomic differences in fertility in rural areas. Data from the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity are analyzed to show that rural socioeconomic fertility differences are not influenced by the presence of persons of urban background.     

Contents of Volume 66

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 66     

Porn again: some final conclusions

Contributors were asked to respond to seven questions examining various aspects of gay male pornography. Their responses were collated with the hope that the reader may gain additional insight into this topic.     

Some Effects of the Community on Cultural Integration*

Attitudinal and behavioral data indicative of cultural integration support the hypothesis of decreasing race/ethnic differences. The study data were collected from inmigrant Mexican-Americans and Negroes and a control group of Anglo residents at two points in time separated by eleven years. Tau is used to describe similarity or dissimilarity in race ethnic distributions within each year's data and as a measure of changing race/ethnic response across the eleven-year span.     

The Infant Orienting With Attention Task: Assessing the Neural Basis of Spatial Attention in Infancy

Infant visual attention develops rapidly over the first year of life, significantly altering the way infants respond to peripheral visual events. Here, we present data from 5‐, 7‐, and 10‐month‐old infants using the Infant Orienting With Attention (IOWA) task, designed to capture developmental changes in visual spatial attention and saccade planning. Results indicate rapid development of spatial attention and visual response competition between 5 and 10 months. We use a dynamic neural field (DNF) model to link behavioral findings to neural population activity, providing a possible mechanistic explanation for observed developmental changes. Together, the behavioral and model simulation results provide new insights into the specific mechanisms that underlie spatial cueing effects, visual competition, and visual interference in infancy.     

Cognitive impairment and effects on upper body strength of adults with dementia

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the association between cognitive ability and upper body muscle strength. Two sources of existing data were pooled for this examination. Thirty-eight older participants diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or dementia (25 women, 13 men; age = 83.2 +/- 5.6 years, MMSE score = 16.75 +/- 7.04, M +/- SD) underwent an assessment of grip strength via handheld dynamometry. Multiple-regression analysis indicated that cognitive status was a significant predictor of strength and, when combined in a model with age and sex, explained 57% of the between-individuals variance in handgrip strength. The findings from this exploratory investigation suggest that dementia is associated with strength loss, a key contributor to functional disability; this further justifies efforts to investigate mechanisms responsible for this decay and to preserve muscle integrity by integrating physical activity interventions, notably, muscle strengthening, into the lifestyle of adults with dementia.     

Family Instability and Exposure to Violence in the Early Life Course

Family instability has been linked with a host of outcomes across the early life course. This study extends this literature by connecting instability with violence in the community by examining the associations among family structure, family structure change, and secondary exposure to violence during adolescence across diverse segments of the population. Using longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods study, we found that living with a single parent and experiencing family structure changes were associated with secondary exposure to violence. Multiple group models suggest that partner change translated into more exposure for boys than girls. Findings also suggest that family instability may lead to more secondary exposure to violence for African American youth.     

Scapegoating culture: Misunderstanding organizational culture as the problem in carceral institutions and beyond

Organizational culture is an obscure and poorly understood part of organizational life. In scholarly work, researchers use organizational culture as both a catch‐all term and a black box of intrigue. The former suggests its omnipresence and ability to take the blame for all that ills organizations. The latter denotes a mythical and misunderstood invisible cloak that covers organizations and organizational life, yet is misconstrued, complex, and confusing. This paper presents a brief summary of the multidisciplinary history of organizational culture as a concept and operationalized term while simultaneously suggesting our knowledge of organizational culture remains at its infancy. Using prisons as a case study example, the authors consider how better to unpack organizational culture using sound and rigorous qualitative methods with careful attention to sampling and researcher–subject collaboration. Concluding thoughts note the importance of using culture as a dependent, rather than independent variable, so scholars will stop scapegoating culture as the answer to why organizational processes and outcomes fail and will instead recognize the study of culture as the problem itself.