Physical and mental health outcomes of women in nonviolent, unilaterally violent, and mutually violent relationships

Despite equivocal findings on whether men or women are more violent, the negative impact of violence is greatest for women. To determine how gender asymmetry in perpetration affects women's health status, we conducted a study in two phases with 835 African American, Euro-American, and Mexican American low-income women in Project HOW: Health Outcomes of Women. In Phase 1, we used severity and frequency of women's and male partners' violence to create six groups: nonviolent (NV), uni-directional male (UM) perpetrator, uni-directional female (UF) perpetrator and, when both partners were violent, symmetrical (SYM), male primary perpetrator (MPP), and female primary perpetrator (FPP). The MPP group sustained the most threats, violence, sexual aggression, and psychological abuse. They also reported the most fear. Injury was highest in the MPP and FPP groups. In Phase 2, we examined group differences in women's health status over time for 535 participants, who completed five annual interviews. Surprisingly, women's health in the MPP and FPP violence groups was similar and generally worse than if violence was uni-directional.     

The counterculture,the new left,and the new right

A version of this article is forthcoming inSocial Movements and Cultural Politics, edited by Marcy Darnovsky, Barbara Epstein, and Richard Flacks, and published by Temple University Press.     

High-dimensional changepoint detection via a geometrically inspired mapping

Statistics and Computing - High-dimensional changepoint analysis is a growing area of research and has applications in a wide range of fields. The aim is to accurately and efficiently detect...     

Getting real: heuristics in sociological knowledge

Theory and Society - This article examines the connections among heuristics, the epistemological and ontological presuppositions that underlie theorizing, and substantive explanations in sociology....     

How discrimination in adoptive,foster, and medical systems harms LGBTQ+ families: Research on the experiences of prospective parents

Abstract

LGBTQ+?people face multiple challenges to parenthood because of barriers such as discriminatory legislation and policies influencing foster parenting, adoption, and reproductive health services. This study documents these obstacles and examines their impact through a grounded theory analysis of interviews of LGBTQ+?prospective parents. Stressors included social isolation, unnecessary medicalization, prohibitive financial costs related to accessing social and medical services (sometimes across state lines), and being denied services, parental leave, and insurance coverage. Findings indicate that heteronormative attitudes and discrimination can lead to debilitating and enduring harm upon the economic, emotional, and relational well-being of growing LGBTQ+?families.     

Crawling Predicts Infants’ Understanding of Agents’ Navigation of Obstacles

We investigated whether crawling versus noncrawling infants interpret an agent's movements around an obstacle as goal‐directed. Infants (6–9 months) were habituated to a self‐propelled circle jumping over an obstacle to reach a goal. When the obstacle was removed, infants who crawled (n = 13) showed longer looking time to the familiar but now nonrational jumping path versus a novel but rational straight‐line path. Noncrawlers (n = 17) did not discriminate. Looking preference was independent of age and speed of habituation. These findings support the claim that infants’ processing of agency emerges early and applies to all agents, but stress the role of experience in the development of action interpretation.     

Legitimizing leisure experiences as emotional work: A post‐humanist approach to gendered equine encounters

Due to changes in lifestyle and work patterns, education and values associated with wellbeing, non‐human animals are now incorporated into a range of human experiences and environments. This research specifically focuses on human–equine relations, examining blurred boundaries between therapeutic and recreational interspecies encounters. It is acknowledged that human–equine relations are often gendered and this research focuses mainly on women's narratives. Viewed through the post‐humanist lens, horses now form kinship and companionship roles, particularly for women, where relations have become mutually emotionally dependent as a result of interspecies communication and embodied encounters. Research utilizes feminist post‐humanist and cultural politics of emotion frameworks associate with the co‐agency on the co‐agency of animals. Embedded in the concept of equiscapes, or post‐humanist leisure spaces, research methods employ qualitative approaches, including in‐depth interviews, participant diaries and multispecies ethnography. Findings reveal how women make considerable investments in equine activities, which develops mutual welfare and wellbeing. Yet, despite these benefits, emotional and other expenditures are justified in work discourses to legitimize them as valuable to themselves, their families and their communities.     

Justice Sensitivity in Childhood and Adolescence

Individuals differ in their sensitivity toward injustice. Justice‐sensitive persons perceive injustice more frequently and show stronger responses to it. Justice sensitivity has been studied predominantly in adults; little is known about its development in childhood and adolescence and its connection to prosocial behavior and emotional and behavioral problems. This study evaluates a version of the justice sensitivity inventory for children and adolescents (JSI‐CA5) in 1472 9‐ to 17‐year olds. Items and scales showed good psychometric properties and correlations with prosocial behavior and conduct problems similar to findings in adults, supporting the reliability and validity of the scale. We found individual differences in justice sensitivity as a function of age and gender. Furthermore, justice sensitivity predicted emotional and behavioral problems in children and adolescents over a 1‐ to 2‐year period. Justice sensitivity perspectives can therefore be considered as risk and/or protective factors for mental health in childhood and adolescence.     

What are the Risk Factors for Antisocial Behavior Among Low‐income Youth in CapeTown?

Research in high‐income countries has identified an array of risk factors for youth antisocial behavior. However, in low‐ and middle‐income countries, despite higher prevalence of offending and antisocial behavior, there is a paucity of prospective, longitudinal evidence examining predictors. South Africa is a middle‐income country with high rates of violence and crime, and a unique social context, characterized by striking income and gender inequality, and increasing number of children orphaned by AIDS. We tested predictors of antisocial behavior at community, family, and individual levels over four years. One thousand and twenty five adolescents from poor, urban South African settlements were assessed in 2005 (50 percent female; M = 13.4 years) and followed up in 2009. The sample analyzed consisted of the 723 youth (71 percent) assessed at both time points. We employed sociodemographic questionnaires and standardized scales. Validity of our antisocial behavior measure was supported by cross‐sectional associations with well‐evidenced concomitants of youth antisocial behavior, including drug taking and truancy. Regression analysis indicated that male gender and experience of community violence, but not poverty or abuse, predicted antisocial behavior. Despite many South African youth experiencing abuse and poverty at the family level, our findings suggest that high levels of violence in communities may be a more important factor contributing to the development of antisocial behavior, particularly among males.