The Three-Item Thinking about Your Partner’s Drinking Scale (TPD-3): Item Response Theory,Reliability, and Validity

Interdependence is a defining feature of close relationships, and alcohol use is one domain where one person’s motivations and behaviors can affect a partner’s well-being. Concern about partner drinking is a gauge that determines whether a partner’s alcohol use has the potential to be problematic to the relationship, and brief and efficient measurement of this construct can be used to serve clinicians, scientists, and practitioners. Across four studies (N = 1,807), we use item response theory analysis to present a 3-item brief screening tool assessing concern about partner drinking: Thinking about your Partner’s Drinking-3 (TPD-3). The TPD-3 revealed strong test–retest reliability and expected patterns of convergent, concurrent, and incremental validity with perceived partner drinking and alcohol-related consequences, behavioral responses to partner drinking, and relationship well-being. We present the TPD-3 as a useful screening tool and for measurement of concern about partner drinking when efficient assessment is desired.     

‘If it weren’t for rugby I’d be in prison now’: Pacific Islanders,rugby and the production of natural spaces

This paper examines the positive role of sport in building social cohesion and the accrual of social and cultural capital for many young Pasifika men. In the process, we also critique the disciplinary discourse, underpinned by bio-racism and commodification, which is enacted on the bodies of Pacific Island men in the context of post-colonial, neoliberal, Australia. This results in over-representation in the rugby codes, manual labour, the security industry, and in prison. Of specific interest to this paper are the ways in which certain spaces, and the means to occupy them, become naturalised. This naturalisation serves to obscure the actual regulatory, and at times exploitative, function of sports; instead positing them as exemplars of individualism and self-governance. In positioning neoliberalism as the reengineering, rather than simply the deregulation, of the state, sports such as rugby enact considerable disciplinary power over the bodies of a minority ethnicity. We refer to this diversion from conventional working class employment opportunities as ‘sportfare’. Qualitative data for this paper has been drawn from several independent studies engaging with Pasifika communities in Australia.     

Emotional functioning, attachment style, and attributions as predictors of child abuse potential in domestic violence victims

To explore cognitive and emotional factors that may exacerbate child-abuse potential among domestic violence victims, 80 participants reported on their depression, hopelessness, anxiety, and anger as well as their attachment style and attributional style. Increased emotional difficulties as well as insecure attachment styles were significantly positively correlated with child abuse potential, although depression and anxiety were the strongest predictors. Externalizing blame for the spousal abuse was not associated with abuse risk. Women residing in shelters demonstrated significantly greater abuse risk than those in transitional housing programs, suggesting that greater temporal proximity to the spousal abuse may in part account for the increased abuse potential. Depression and hopelessness, however, appeared particularly relevant to increased abuse risk in domestic violence victims in the transitional housing system. Implications of these findings for working with battered women in terms of their emotional functioning and attachment style are discussed.     

An inconvenient truth: why evidence-based policies on obesity are failing Māori,Pasifika and the Anglo working class

Public health initiatives around obesity have generally worked well for middle class Australians and New Zealanders. This message has not had the same impact in Anglo working class areas and certain CALD communities, especially Māori and Pasifika, where obesity rates remain highest. This paper employs qualitative data from interviews with eighty-five Māori and Pasifika migrants to Australia to explore attitudes to food purchasing and consumption behaviours and associated health risks. It is evident the individual, medicalised approach to improving obesity rates has not been effective and there needs to be a new culturally responsive structural approach. This would require governments to prioritise population health over existing relationships with commercial food manufacturers – especially in relation to spatial domination of commercialised fast food outlets in low socio-economic status districts and in the areas of sports and education sponsorship. We also explore the assumptions of evidence-based health policy more generally, providing a critique of who is represented and served by the commercial solicitation and management of health research. This includes what constitutes ‘evidence’, who is conducting and funding the research, who appraises and compares the data and how is it interpreted and employed.     

Kidnap risks and migration: evidence from Colombia

Using a unique data set from the major Colombian cities collected between 2000–2003 and with information on more than 12,000 households, this paper studies the relationship between the kidnap risk a household faces with its migration decisions. We find evidence that exposure to such risk induces households to react sending some of their members to an international destination but not necessarily to a domestic one. Estimates are robust to the inclusion of several household characteristics usual in the migration literature, other crime risks, reported feelings of insecurity of the household, and an alternative measure of kidnap risk.     

Body Image Disturbances and Predictors of Body Dissatisfaction Among Hispanic and White Preadolescents

This study assessed ethnic and gender differences in ideal body size, body dissatisfaction (BD), and the relationship between BD and various predictors (e.g., body composition indicators and cardiorespiratory fitness). The sample consisted of 190 White and Hispanic preadolescents aged 10–13 years. Demographic, percent body fat (%BF), body mass index (BMI), body image variables, and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) were examined. A significant Gender × Ethnicity interaction was found for ideal body size (p < .05), with Hispanic girls preferring the thinnest figures and Hispanic boys the largest figures, compared to their counterparts. No significant gender or ethnic differences in BD were observed. After controlling for demographic and cultural variables, increased %BF and BMI scores predicted greater BD, whereas CRF did not.     

Joining the Dark Side: Women in Management in the Dominican Republic

This article presents evidence of the challenges faced by women in management in their interactions with men and other women, contesting the idea that men organizationally oppress women and suggesting instead that both men and women can be organizational oppressors of women. Using empirical evidence, this article provides new insights into the working lives and challenges of women in a Latin American and Hispanic Caribbean context. The article highlights struggles of power and credibility in women in management's relationships with men and other women. It draws on findings of research conducted in the public sector in the Dominican Republic, where in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted with professional men and women. This article has significant implications for advancing understanding of the dynamics of gender and organizations in developing countries, in particular, the experiences of women in management.