Engaging Youth in Municipal Government: Moving Toward a Youth-Centric Practice

Youth councils are one mechanism to engage youth in community governance; yet, there is scant research to guide practice. This study examined the extent to which youth are engaged in the origin, structure, and activities of municipal youth councils. Interviews were conducted with 24 adult stakeholders involved in the operations of youth councils. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results demonstrated that youth-centric practice builds upon theoretical frames of positive youth development, social justice, and civic engagement. Youth-centric practice consists of youth representation, leadership, initiative, and decision-making. Results can assist practitioners and policy makers in engaging youth in municipal government.     

Acting with the best of intentions… or not: A typology and model of impression management in leadership

Impression management (IM) is important for effective leadership. Followers accept influence from individuals who meet their perceptions of what it means to be a leader, and IM is an important way of impacting those perceptions. Yet, the extant literature on leader IM is fragmented. We unify the literature in this area by creating a multi-dimensional typology and multi-level model of IM in leadership. We examine the multi-dimensional nature of IM as a construct composed of information processing, communicative, and goal-directed components, thereby creating eight IM archetypes. Then, we examine how IM can be used to impact follower perceptions of the leader through the lenses of transformational/charismatic, authentic, and leader categorization theories. This research unites a currently fragmented area of research and sparks new questions about how leader behaviors can be used to influence followers toward multi-level leadership outcomes.     

Same-Sex Marriage and the Assimilationist Dilemma: A Research Agenda on Marriage Equality and the Future of LGBTQ Activism,Politics, Communities,and Identities

ABSTRACT

This special issue of the Journal of Homosexuality, examines the impact of the marriage equality movement and the resulting landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) that legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S., on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) activism, politics, communities, and identities. The articles in this issue examine the complicated ways in which the discourse used in same-sex marriage court cases is related to heteronormative discursive frames; the lived reality of married same-sex couples and the complex ways in which they think about marriage and heteronormativity; the ways that heteronormativity is racialized, which affects how African Americans perceive the impact of same-sex marriage on their lives; how same-sex marriage has influenced public opinion and the likelihood of anti-gay backlash; and the impact of same-sex marriage on family law. In this article, I draw on the empirical research from these articles to develop a theoretical framework that expands a multi-institutional (MIP) approach to understanding social movements and legal change. I build on and develop three conceptual tools: the assimilationist dilemma, discursive integration and cooptation, and truth regime. I conclude by laying out an agenda for future research on the impact of same-sex marriage on LGBTQ movements, politics, identities, and communities.     

Mechanisms Linking Self-Regulation and Sexual Behaviors in Never-Married Young Adults

Little is known about specific mechanisms linking self-regulation to sexual risk taking. The present study considered four possibilities in emerging adulthood: sexual self-restraint, consideration of future consequences, substance use, and romantic competence. Never-married young adults (N = 274), ages 18 to 24, responded to anonymous Internet surveys (60.2% female, 78.8% European American, 66.3% university students). The effects of self-regulation were primarily indirect but varied by sexual behavior, suggesting that high self-regulation limits sexual risk via high sexual self-restraint and low substance use. High regulation was linked to multiple sexual partners and high-risk practices risk via high romantic competence, high self-regulation was linked to multiple sexual partners and high risk practices.     

Examining residence status as a risk factor for health risk behaviors among college students

Objective: The current study is aimed to evaluate college student residence as a unique risk factor for a range of negative health behaviors. Participants: We examined data from 63,555 students (66% females) from 157 campuses who completed the National College Health Assessment Survey in Spring 2011. Methods: Participants answered questions about the frequency of recent use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and illicit drugs, as well as sexual risk behavior in the last 30 days. Sexual risk behaviors were operationalized as having unprotected vaginal sex (yes/no) and the number of sexual partners. Results: Logistic regression analyses revealed that living off-campus is a unique predictor of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and illicit drug use, as well as engaging in unprotected sex and a greater number of sexual partners (all ps <. 01). Conclusions: Students living off-campus exhibit more substance use and sexual risk behaviors than students living on-campus, independent of gender, age, or race.     

The faces of local TV news in America: youth,whiteness, and gender disparities in station publicity photos

TV news is a visual medium that requires its on-air journalists to look good, but a history of lawsuits and survey research suggests that this burden is spread unevenly. Critics charge that women are expected to look younger and sexier, and minority broadcasters are held to a White standard of beauty. This project investigated the reality behind those complaints by examining the faces of on-air journalists working for local stations in the US according to race, gender, and attractiveness. The resulting content analysis of more than 400 online publicity photos suggests that a certain look dominates for men and for women and that the range of appearance standards is wider for men than women.     

Development of a Model of Holistic Reflection to facilitate transformative learning in student midwives

Background

Reflective practice is considered an essential aspect of personal and professional development, and critical reflection is considered the cornerstone of being an accountable and autonomous practitioner. Tertiary education should lay the foundations of lifelong learning by ensuring students develop into critically reflective and reflexive practitioners, who demonstrate self-awareness and an ability to reflect on personal values and beliefs and their impact on the wider healthcare system. This level of reflective practice is essential to effect change at both an individual and societal level. Reflection should therefore be embedded into education programs as a learning, teaching and assessment strategy.

Interior Immigration Enforcement and Political Participation of U.S. Citizens in Mixed-Status Households

The 2000s have witnessed an expansion of interior immigration enforcement in the United States. At the same time, the country has experienced a major demographic transformation, with the number of U.S. citizens living in mixed-status households—that is, households where at least one family member is an unauthorized migrant—reaching 16 million. U.S. citizens living in mixed-status households are personally connected to the struggles experienced by their unauthorized family members. For them, immigration policy is likely to shape their current and future voting behavior. Using data from the 2002–2014 Current Population Survey Voting and Registration Supplements, we examine whether intensified immigration enforcement has affected the political engagement of U.S. citizens living in mixed-status households. We find that immigration enforcement has chilled their electoral participation by lowering their propensity to register by 5 %; however, it has not visibly affected their voting propensity among those registered. Importantly, their lower voting registration likelihood does not seem to reflect indifference for community and public matters, given that it has been accompanied by greater involvement in civic forms of political participation, such as volunteering. Understanding how immigration policy affects the political participation of a fast-growing segment of the electorate is imperative because they will inevitably constitute a rapidly rising political force in future elections.     

The entanglement of leader character and leader competence and its impact on performance

Whereas the micro- and macro-oriented leadership literatures have often studied leader competencies necessary for effective performance, the role of leader character in relation to competencies and performance has been to a large extent neglected. Our work seeks to shift the scholarly dialogue by introducing the concept of character-competence entanglement, which reflects the binding between character and competence over time. The highest degree of entanglement represents the deep and more persistent interconnection and mutually-reinforcing effect between highly-developed leader character and highly-developed leader competence, whereas in cases of low entanglement, character can be activated temporarily in a particular context to help strengthen the relationship between competence and performance. Our core proposition is that high character-competence entanglement will lead to extraordinary performance over time. In addition, we emphasize that relying on naturally-occurring learning opportunities and the processes of “learning-by-living” both outside and inside the organization will positively impact the development of character-competence entanglement.