Family policy and the under-3s: Money, services, and time in a policy package

The key components of social policy toward the elderly and disabled, and policies for families and their children, have featured what are by now widely employed income and service components. Now, as demographic and social change have motivated increasing numbers of countries to face the need for societal policies for children under the age of 3, exploration reveals the centrality of an additional policy dimension — time. A six-country study and earlier research targeted on this group finds that several major policy patterns are emerging, with individual country choices reflecting history, culture, religious traditions, political configurations, and resources. Referring to illustrative countries, the paper explicates these options: (a) supporting an at-home parent in "family work"; (b) backing a pattern of involvement of parents in both family and work; (c) offering parents of very young children the option of concentrating on family or work; (d) stressing programmes in support of the socialization and education of young children and their parents. It is suggested that social security institutions internationally contribute to these new developments through data collection, dissemination activities, and encouragement of discussion and research.     

The role of sadism and peer pressure in the sexual aggression of male college students

Two types of motivational models help explain sexual aggression in college men. Socialization models emphasize imperatives of the male sex role, whereas a sadistic model focuses on increased sexual stimulation from female distress. These models were evaluated by comparing the relationship between a measure of sexual sadism and the frequency of sexually aggressive episodes with the relationship between peer pressure for sexual intimacy and sexual aggression. College men's ratings of sexual attractiveness for a series of female faces registering both pleasant and distressed affects were used to measure sexual sadism. Results showed that 60% of the college men with a sexual sadism pattern reported repeated episodes of sexual aggression since the 10th grade, whereas only 29% of those not showing this pattern did so. Peer pressure was inversely related to repeated aggression; sexual aggressives reported less peer pressure than students who did not have a history of repeated aggression. These results are not only important because they identify a possible source of sexual aggression toward females but also because they encourage an interest in discovering how sexual and aggressive motives become fused in a significant proportion of normal males.     

Improving Understanding About Tanning Behaviors in College Students: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Objective: Melanoma is the second most common cancer diagnosed among 15- to 29-year-olds. This pilot study assessed behaviors, barriers, and beliefs relevant to sun exposure and protective behaviors. Participants: The sample comprised 153 undergraduate students at a large state university in western New York. Methods: Participants completed an online survey about sun safety habits, barriers to using sunblock, and beliefs about tanning and sun exposure. Results: Response rate was 90.8% (n = 139). Most students (87.8%) reportedly spent ≥ 3 hours per day outside in the summer, but only 17.3% reported always using sunblock during this time. Sixty percent reported recent indoor tanning and 41% reported more than 10 lifetime sunburns. The greatest barrier to using sunblock was forgetting (84.2%). Conclusions: Demographics coupled with inconsistent and low levels of sunblock use, high annual prevalence of indoor tanning, and multiple lifetime sunburns indicate that this sample is at high risk for skin cancer.     

Documentation in evaluation research: Managerial and scientific requirements

Documentation in evaluation research consists of written material, in human- or machine-readable form, pertaining to the plans, activities, and results of the project. It is argued here that good documentation is essential for effective management of evaluations, and for responsible reporting of the research procedures and findings. Documentation relating to electronic data processing activity is especially important. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate consideration and discussion of documentation, and to emphasize its importance in evaluation research. The role of documentation in the planning and control functions of project management is reviewed, and the importance of documentation in the assessment of research quality with respect to objectivity, validity, and replicability is discussed. Reasons for poor documentation are considered. An outline of documentation required in different phases of research projects is provided, and recommendations for improving the quality of documentation are presented.     

Predicting premarital cohabitation: Employing individuals versus couples as the units of analysis

This study employs a sample of 309 recently married couples to discover predictors of cohabitation and cohabital duration before marriage. On the individual level religiosity and sex-role traditionalism were negatively related to the probability of having cohabited for both husbands and wives. However, couple-level analyses revealed that these variables significantly predictnot cohabiting only whenboth partners are religious or traditional. A history of previous divorce is related to a greater propensity to cohabit only when the wife has been married before, but the husband has not. No variables were significantly related to cohabital duration.     

Child and Family Policies in the United States at the Opening of the Twenty-first Century

A repeated theme, characterizing US social policies toward children and their families, is that the US has no explicit family policy, nor does it have a coherent package of social policies that are targeted on children and their families. Nonetheless, there is general agreement that the US does have policies that have consequences for children and their families, and that many of these might constitute 'implicit' family policies. However, these policies tend to be limited in scale, coverage, and generosity and are usually categorical and narrowly focused. They lack the comprehensiveness and universality of policies in other advanced industrialized countries. Furthermore, the US has consistently invested a significantly smaller share of GDP in children and their families than almost all the other such countries. One consequence is that the situation of children in the US seems to be much worse than that of children in other advanced industrialized countries. In more recent years, however, there have been some efforts at improving child and family policies and the story now is a mixed one—but there remain major deficits in our policies and programs. Fortunately, children's issues are emerging on the national policy agenda. In this article, we describe current US child and family policies, touch on earlier history for context, and discuss the issues facing the US as we enter the twenty-first century. Ultimately, we need to confront the question of what can be done now to advance the children's cause on the national agenda.     

Harsh Physical Discipline in Childhood and Violence in Later Romantic Involvements: The Mediating Role of Problem Behaviors

This study examines the impact that experiencing harsh physical discipline in childhood and engaging in problem behaviors during adolescence and young adulthood have on experiencing and perpetrating intimate violence. Using LISREL 7, we tested a model based on social learning theory, Freudian theory, and theories of deviance. The 608 cases analyzed are from a longitudinal study of adolescents conducted in 1982 and 1992–1993. The results suggest that harsh physical punishment in childhood is directly related to greater perpetration of violence against an intimate partner later in life. The enactment of problem behaviors in adolescence and young adulthood was also found to increase the level of perpetration of violence against an intimate partner. In addition, harsh physical punishment in childhood was found to be indirectly but significantly related to increased perpetration via the intervening variables of adolescent and young adult problem behavior. We hypothesized that perpetration and victimization are significantly related to one another bidirectionally, but the results only support that greater levels of perpetration lead to increased levels of victimization.     

Comparative evaluation of aesthetic, biological, and economic effectiveness of different lawn management programs

We evaluated aesthetic (lawn quality), biological (weeds and insect pests), and economic (management costs) effectiveness of a commercial (managed by a professional company), consumer (managed using consumer lawn care products following labeled instructions), integrated pest management (IPM) (pesticide applications based on monitoring and thresholds), organic (monitoring and need-based organic and natural product applications), and an untreated lawn care program. Percent weed cover was the lowest in the commercial followed by IPM, organic, and consumer programs. The commercial program had lower white grub density than all other programs, and the organic program had lower white grub density than the untreated program. The commercial program had the highest lawn quality while the untreated program had the lowest. The IPM and organic programs did not differ significantly in lawn quality, but both rated significantly higher than the consumer program. Annual costs were highest in the commercial ($382/0.05 ha) followed by the organic ($305/0.05 ha), IPM ($252/0.05 ha), and consumer program ($127/0.05 ha), respectively. We conclude that the commercial program produced the highest lawn quality, and weed and insect control, and was the most expensive. The IPM and organic programs were cheaper than the commercial program and produced slightly lower lawn quality. Although the consumer program was the cheapest, it produced the lowest weed control and lawn quality among treated lawns.