The Effects of Parenting Stress,Perceived Mastery,and Maternal Depression on Parent–Child Interaction

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to test a model that delineated the interrelationships among parenting stress, perceived mastery (defined as the belief that one's life chances are under one's own control), maternal depression, and parent–child interaction. A secondary data analysis of the Fragile Family and Child Well-Being Study was conducted, using a sample of 2,650 mothers. Results suggest that parenting stress undermines one's sense of perceived mastery which, in turn, resulted in depression. Moreover, the results also indicated that parenting stress directly affected maternal depression and parent–child interaction. There was no support for the hypothesis that parenting stress undermines one's sense of perceived mastery which, in turn, resulted in depression, which affected one's parent–child interaction. Implications of these findings for professionals working with mothers of young children are discussed. Future research should test this model using other forms of parenting behavior.     

Peaceful power transfers or successions and democratic consolidation in South Korea

This article sheds light on the positive role of power transfers or leadership successions in the democratic consolidation process in South Korea. In this study, we argue that democratic consolidation in South Korea is slowly taking place, and it is best measured by institutional rather than an individual president’s accomplishment. Therefore, democratic consolidation is not directly related to the success or failure of presidents since the transition to democracy occurred in 1987. Regardless of each president’s performance, repeated power shifts and successions through fair elections are likely to lead to the creation of a favorable political environment for democratic institutions to mature, which will support continued democratic consolidation in South Korea.     

Dissolving borders: Reframing risk,delinquent peers,and youth violence

Although “association with delinquent peers” is commonly identified as “a risk factor for youth violence,” this framework leads us to blame individuals and ignore the complex lives of youth who face state, symbolic, and interpersonal violence. This study is based on interviews with young adults about their adolescence in a low-income immigrant gateway neighborhood of Oakland, California. Most of the interviewees have peer networks that are racially/ethnically diverse and also include both delinquent and conforming peers. We show that having these “doubly diverse” friendship networks helps youth move through their neighborhood safely and feel anchored to their community even when they leave to attend college. Even successful youth in our study do not erect borders between themselves and “delinquent peers.” It is easy to assign blame to youth for their friendships, their violent behavior, their lack of education, their unstable and low-paying jobs, but this calculus ignores both the structural factors that constrain youth choices and the benefits that seem to be linked to diverse friendships, even with delinquent peers. Growing up in a site of global capital accumulation and disinvestment in the era of neoliberalism, our interviewees challenge us to reframe risk.     

A proportional-reduction-in-impurity measure of association for categorical variables

This paper presents a proportional-reduction-in-impurity (PRI) measure for categorical association, that employs application-dependent loss functions which make the measure widely applicable. The well-known proportional -reduction-in-error (PRE) measure is shown to be a special case of the new PRI measure. Moreover, the asymptotic variance of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of the measure is derived to facilitate its use for statistical inference. An extension of the PRI measure to compositional association is made to show that it can have a variety of applications. Selected loss functions are treated to illustrate the derivation of the measure.     

Religion,spirituality, coping,and resilience among African Americans with diabetes

Study aims were to explore how religion and spirituality impacted attitudes about self-management practices among African Americans with homelessness histories and to understand resilience in diabetes care practices. Qualitative semistructured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 42 African Americans older than 18 years. All audio-taped interviews lasted between 1–1.5 hr, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using ATLAS.ti (version 7.0). Five resilience themes emerged. While participants recognized diabetes as an illness requiring professional treatment, the context of balancing treatment with religion and spiritual practices mattered. The study findings highlight the importance of spirituality, religious beliefs, and coping strategies in diabetes self-care activities.     

When Nonverbal Greetings “Make It or Break It”: The Role of Ethnicity and Gender in the Effect of Handshake on Social Appraisals

Despite previous evidence identifying the role of ethnic and gender differences in nonverbal communication, few studies have comprehensively investigated the role of these factors in the effect of handshake on appraisals of social interactions. Here, 88 young adults (with equal proportions of Caucasians and East Asians, and women and men) observed and evaluated a series of movies illustrating guest–host interactions in a business setting. Each interaction started with a greeting protocol initiated by the host, which, in half of the trials, involved a handshake. The greeting was followed by a display of behaviors either encouraging (approach) or discouraging (avoidance) further interaction. Ethnicity and gender of the hosts were manipulated to depict the same categories represented by participants. First, the effect of handshake on appraisals of social interactions was more positive in Caucasian than in East Asian participants. Second, the effect of handshake on appraisals of social interactions was more positive for male than for female hosts in male participants, whereas such differences were not observed in female participants. Third, appraisals of social interactions involving approach and avoidance behaviors were more positive in Caucasian than in East Asian participants. Finally, appraisals of social interactions involving approach behaviors were more positive in female than in male participants. Overall, these findings shed light on the role of ethnic and gender differences in the appraisal of nonverbal behaviors, and extend our understanding of factors that may lead to successful social interaction in the context of growing diversity in our society.     

Race,Ethnicity, and Deviance: A Study of Asian and Non-Asian Adolescents in America

This study shows that Asian American adolescents commit less deviance in the form of school misbehavior than white, black, Hispanic, or Native American adolescents. Social control and social learning theories receive support as the observed differences are explained primarily by race/ethnic differences in family backgrounds and school bonding. These variables' explanatory ability tends to be invariant across four regional groups of Asian Americans. This study applies OLS regression to self-reported data from a nationally representative sample.     

Minimax Designs for the Stability of Slope Estimation on Second-order Response Surfaces

In this paper, designs for the stability of the slope estimation on a second-order response surface are considered. Minimization of the point dispersion measure, which is maximized over all points in the region of interest is taken as the optimality criterion, and the minimax properties in some class of designs are derived in spherical and cubic regions of interest. We study the efficiencies of the minimax designs relative to other optimal designs with various criteria.     

The social ecology of the Columbine High School shootings

The Columbine High School shooting in 1999 prompted school officials and policy-makers to create and implement programs and policies that would prevent violence in school and ensure school safety. Ten years have passed since the Columbine shooting; however, debates concerning risk factors for the shootings continue to ensue. The focus of this article is to examine the Columbine school shootings within the context of Bronfenbrenner's (1994) ecological systems analysis. We examine the most commonly identified risk factors, which operate within five systems levels: chrono-, macro-, exo-, meso-, and microsystems, and draw implications for school-based practice and policy.