Mechanisms of Family Impact on African American Adolescents' HIV‐Related Behavior

A longitudinal model that tested mediating pathways between protective family processes and HIV‐related behavior was evaluated with 195 African American youth. Three waves of data were collected when the youth were 13, 15, and 19 years old. Evidence of mediation and temporal priority were assessed for 3 constructs: academic engagement, evaluations of prototypical risk‐taking peers, and affiliations with risk‐promoting peers. Structural equation modeling indicated that protective family processes assessed during early adolescence were associated with HIV‐related behavior during emerging adulthood and that academic engagement, evaluations of prototypical risk‐taking peers, and affiliations with risk‐promoting peers accounted for this association. Evidence of a specific pathway emerged: protective family processes→academic engagement→negative evaluations of prototypical risk‐taking peers→affiliations with risk‐promoting peers→HIV‐related behavior. Academic engagement also was a direct predictor of HIV‐related risk behavior.     

Sociétés Coopératives d'Intérêt Collectif: The Arrival of Social Enterprise Within the French Social Economy

The French nonprofit sector has been in existence since July 1, 1901 when the legal form of associations was created. Since then, as a consequence of legal, fiscal, and cultural restrictions, it has developed characteristics that are markedly different to those of other nonprofit sectors. This paper focuses on one such characteristic that makes the French nonprofit sector virtually unique, that is the restrictions imposed on social entrepreneurism. It was not until July 17, 2001 that a new organizational form called Sociétés Coopératives d'Intérêt Collectif (SCIC) was created specifically to address this anomaly. This paper discusses the context within which this organizational form was created, and the potential advantages that it offers in respect to facilitating the development of social enterprises. The paper also explains why a specific organizational form was required and why it was placed outside the nonprofit sector. It concludes by identifying potential problems concerning organizational effectiveness in delivering socially beneficial services and the difficulties that may arise as a consequence of SCIC's unique governance structure.     

Cognitive Self‐Regulation and Depression: Examining Academic Self‐Efficacy and Goal Characteristics in Youth of a Northern Plains Tribe

The relationship between cognitive self‐regulatory processes and depression was examined in American Indian adolescents from a Northern Plains tribe. Students completed measures of negative life events, self‐efficacy, goals, and depressive symptoms. Results indicated that academic self‐efficacy was strongly associated with depression. Academic self‐efficacy also correlated with intrinsically motivating goal representations, such that students who indicated high academic self‐efficacy had goals that were more important to them, goals they thought more about, and goals they viewed as wanted by the self instead of as imposed on by others. However, we did not find the hypothesized mediational model in which academic self‐efficacy influenced depression indirectly by influencing goal characteristics. Rather, this indirect model varied by grade, and differed from what we expected. Specifically, for older adolescents, higher levels of academic self‐efficacy predicted goals that were more likely to be identified as the adolescent's own, and in turn, these self‐ as opposed to other‐oriented goals predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms. Results are discussed as providing support for continued investigations into the role of specific cognitive self‐regulatory processes in youth adjustment.     

Parental Involvement Promotes Rural African American Youths’ Self‐Pride and Sexual Self‐Concepts

This study, an evaluation of the Strong African American Families Program, was designed to determine whether intervention‐induced changes in targeted parenting behaviors were associated with young adolescents’ development of racial pride, self‐esteem, and sexual identity. Participants were 332 African American mothers and their 11‐year‐old children in 9 rural Georgia counties. Families were randomly assigned to a control group or an intervention group. Unlike those in the control families, mothers in the intervention group reported increases in targeted parenting behaviors, which promoted self‐esteem, positive racial identity, and positive sexual self‐concepts among their children. These findings expand the study of African American youths’ identity development by including broader domains of identity and parenting processes other than racial socialization.     

Forecasting murder within a population of probationers and parolees: a high stakes application of statistical learning

Summary.  Forecasts of future dangerousness are often used to inform the sentencing decisions of convicted offenders. For individuals who are sentenced to probation or paroled to community supervision, such forecasts affect the conditions under which they are to be supervised. The statistical criterion for these forecasts is commonly called recidivism, which is defined as a charge or conviction for any new offence, no matter how minor. Only rarely do such forecasts make distinctions on the basis of the seriousness of offences. Yet seriousness may be central to public concerns, and judges are increasingly required by law and sentencing guidelines to make assessments of seriousness. At the very least, information about seriousness is essential for allocating scarce resources for community supervision of convicted offenders. The paper focuses only on murderous conduct by individuals on probation or parole. Using data on a population of over 60000 cases from Philadelphia's Adult Probation and Parole Department, we forecast whether each offender will be charged with a homicide or attempted homicide within 2 years of beginning community supervision. We use a statistical learning approach that makes no assumptions about how predictors are related to the outcome. We also build in the costs of false negative and false positive charges and use half of the data to build the forecasting model, and the other half of the data to evaluate the quality of the forecasts. Forecasts that are based on this approach offer the possibility of concentrating rehabilitation, treatment and surveillance resources on a small subset of convicted offenders who may be in greatest need, and who pose the greatest risk to society.     

Estimating the number of classes in multiple populations: A geometric analysis

The authors study estimation of the total number of classes present in multiple overlapping populations. They show that the number of classes is identifiable in a nonparametric mixture model of multivariate Poisson densities. Unusual phenomena occur in both point estimation and confidence inference for the parameter defined as the odds of a class being unidentified in the data. Consequently only one‐sided confidence intervals are available for the number of classes.     

Sources of Double Disadvantage for People with Disabilities Living in Remote and Rural Areas of New South Wales, Australia

This study demonstrates how people with disabilities living in remote and rural areas experience double disadvantage in regard to receipt of services. They tend to experience similar disadvantages to other remote and rural dwellers (as compared with their urban counterparts), but these disadvantages are compounded by those associated with living in an environment which does not cater for the needs of people with disabilities. Findings display how geographical, physical, cultural, social and psychological factors within the external environment create disadvantages for the individual. The project involved data collection from people with disabilities, disability groups, service providers, families and carers through consultations and field trips. Major issues emerging from consultations were concerned with: transport and distance, isolation, the need for more consumer involvement, the nature of service provision (appropriateness, flexibility, co-ordination and location), the need for community and professional disability awareness education, protection of rights, carers and respite care, accommodation and housing, education, employment, information dissemination and access to specialised equipment. Comparison with overseas studies indicates that findings from this Australian study have applicability in other countries which have large remote and rural areas.     

Accepting the unacceptable: the concept of acceptance in work with the perpetrators of hate crime

We consider the challenge presented to social workers in working with people who are the perpetrators of hate crime. We argue that in order to be able to bring about positive change in this group, as in any other, the work can only take place in the context of a constructive relationship between worker and client, a relationship which is underpinned by the acceptance of the client by the worker. We trace the development of the concept of acceptance from its early formulation in the work of Rogers, through other writers, to its contemporary manifestation, as is to be found in some examples of work with the perpetrators of hate crime and most explicitly in the work of Krafeld. We conclude that in this area of work the concept needs to be understood in terms of an active and dynamic rather than passive approach.