Erotic arguments and persuasive acts: discourses of desire and the rhetoric of female-to-male drag

This chapter analyzes the October 21, 2000 drag king performance by Mildred Gerestant, a.k.a. Dréd. Arguing that her act appropriates, embodies, and manipulates certain ideological discourses of desire and identity, the article studies the shape and force of Dréd's performative arguments and illuminates how a drag king act can not only tease and titillate the addressed audience (the actual people who watched the show) but also hail the invoked audience (the audience called upon, imagined, or made possible by the performance). Arguing that, as a rhetorical act, Dréd's performance offers a purposeful discourse about gender, race, and power, this chapter ultimately explores how a rhetorical analysis of FTM drag elucidates the complex relationship between the rhetor, performance, and audience. More specifically, it shows how a rhetor's performance of non-normative identity and engagement with discourses of desire has the potential to unmask the hegemonic effects of language and power and to unsuture the seemingly natural connections between sex and gender.     

Measuring risk and protection in communities using the Communities That Care Youth Survey

The Communities That Care Youth Survey measures risk and protective factors shown in prior studies to predict adolescent problem behaviors such as drug use, delinquency, and violence. This paper describes the development and validation of cut points for the risk and protective factor scales in the Communities That Care Youth Survey that distinguish youths at higher risk for involvement in problem behaviors from those at lower risk. Using these cut points, populations surveyed with this instrument can be described in terms of the proportions of youths experiencing risk and the proportions experiencing protection on each predictor. This facilitates communities' prioritization of specific factors for attention. This paper compares different cut points, and evaluates the discriminant validity of selected cut points. Results indicate that cut points with sufficient sensitivity and selectivity can be established for each of the scales, and that risk and protective factors can be profiled as prevalence rates. Implications of these findings for prevention planning are discussed.     

Multimethod measurement of high-risk drinking locations: extending the portal survey method with follow-up telephone interviews

Portal survey techniques involve multimodal assessments (e.g., self-report, biologic, and observational) in high-risk drinking and drug-use settings. Our investigation expanded the portal survey methodology to include follow-up assessments of emerging adult women recruited at the border as they cross to and from Mexico south of San Diego, California. The feasibility of the follow-up procedure was established, and the limitations of the technique clarified. Follow-up participants and nonparticipants did not differ by age or reported victimization. Data indicated that 8% of women experience negative events on their return to the United States after a night of binge drinking. These experiences could only be captured in a follow-up survey, as they happened after participants left the border area.     

Individuals with developmental disabilities and their caregivers

Adults with Developmental Disabilities (DD) are experiencing increased longevity and the projected number of older persons with DD is expected to double by 2020. As a result, concerns have been raised that agencies and professional staff are ill-prepared to address the increased needs of an older population with lifelong disabilities. The caregiving life of familis of person with DD now spans multiple decades and is increasingly a feature of advanced age for parents and grandparents, and of old age for siblings. Problem behaviors, onset or poor management of mental health concerns and inadequate planning for their aging years are the biggest barriers to successful aging for persons with developmental disabilities. However, psychosocial interventions have the potential to alleviate these barriers and promote positive aging for older persons with developmental disabilities. The evidence for the effectiveness of such interventions will be examined within this article.     

Assessing the effects of a school-based intervention on unscheduled school transfers during elementary school.

Raising Healthy Children is a cluster-randomized study of a school-based intervention aimed at preventing problem behaviors among children recruited into the project in the first or second grade of elementary school. Multilevel analysis was used to compare students in intervention and control schools with respect to whether they transferred out of their original schools. Students in intervention schools were less likely to transfer within the first 5 years of the project. A multilevel discrete-time survival model that included both time-varying and contextual variables revealed that the difference in hazard of transfer was greatest in the earlier years of the project.     

Exposure to harsh parenting and pornography as explanations for males' sexual coercion and females' sexual victimization

Sexual violence against women is a major concern to researchers and policy makers, as well as to the general public. This study uses a sample of more than 2,000 college students to investigate the extent to which exposure to harsh parenting practices and sexually explicit materials contributes to perpetration and victimization. Findings indicate that frequent corporal punishment in the family of origin combined with consumption of pornographic materials increased the probability that males reported engaging in coercive sexual practices. For females, both frequent corporal punishment and exposure to paternal hostility combined with consumption of pornographic materials were associated with higher levels of reported sexual victimization. These results provide increased understanding of the impact of pornography use among a nonclinical sample, as well as the consequences of experiencing harsh corporal punishment in one's family of origin, on the sexual victimization of females.     

Caregivers as Interventionists and Trainers: Teaching Mands to Children with Developmental Disabilities

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - We evaluated the use of behavioral skills training (BST) to train caregivers to conduct procedures commonly associated with mand training. We trained two...     

Ready Rhetorics: Political Homophobia and Activist Discourses in Malawi,Nigeria, and Uganda

Since the late 1990s political leaders in several African countries have pursued legislation to expand criminal penalties for same-sex sex. Yet, much of the research on efforts to expand criminalization of same-sex sexualities in Africa has focused on individual country cases, neglecting the role of national and transnational sociopolitical contexts and economic flows. Focusing on discourses present in news media data from 2000 to 2014 in three African countries pursuing regressive policies targeting homosexuality—Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda—we examine: 1) the different antihomosexual discourses and constellations of actors that emerge over time; 2) the linkages among antihomosexual discourses and other social or cultural logics that allow individuals and collective actors to make sense of antihomosexual discourses in a particular historical moment; and 3) the relationships among discourses vying for power in a given discursive field. In these data we observe episodic public debates around homosexuality that engage different arguments and constellations of actors over time. The intensity of public debates has increased since the mid-2000s in each country, and debates reflect strong linkages among transnational and national actors. Ultimately, we contend that the particular debates occurring around the regulation of same-sex sex in Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda reflect larger conflicts over social change, political power, and global status hierarchies. We conclude with implications for the study of homophobia and LGBT movements in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Using the Internet to prescreen participants for research on interpersonal violence: experimental design considerations

Internet-based testing has become increasingly popular in recent years due largely to the availability of computers and the Web to research participants. For researchers studying interpersonal violence, Internet-based methodologies can also be used as a prescreening device to identify a population of interest, such as individuals reporting violence in their relationships. However, several challenges exist with this approach. This article evaluates the use of an Internet-based prescreening device to identify potential participants for a study on interpersonal violence, highlighting challenges encountered with this methodology, and offers suggestions for improvement in experimental design when conducting Internet-based screenings of interpersonal violence.