Engaging Intercollegiate Athletes in Preventing and Intervening in Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Objective: The object of this exploratory evaluation was to evaluate the “Bringing in the Bystander” sexual and intimate partner violence prevention program with a new sample of intercollegiate athletes. Participants and Methods: Fifty-three male and female athletes participated in the program (experimental group), and 86 were in the control group. All completed pretest, posttest, and 2-month follow-up surveys, including assessment of rape myth acceptance, intent to engage in bystander behaviors, bystander confidence, and bystander behaviors. Results: The program worked overall and for both women and men, improved bystander confidence and intent to engage in bystander behaviors, and did not create significant backlash effects (ie, worsening of attitudes as a result of program). Conclusions: The program fits with the intent of the National Collegiate Athletic Association CHAMPS/Life Skills program regarding its focus on the overall development of student-athletes and demonstrates the promising bystander approach compatible with the 2007 American College Health Association toolkit, Shifting the Paradigm: Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence.     

Combining Economic Forecasts

A method for combining forecasts may or may not account for dependence and differing precision among forecasts. In this article we test a variety of such methods in the context of combining forecasts of GNP from four major econometric models. The methods include one in which forecasting errors are jointly normally distributed and several variants of this model as well as some simpler procedures and a Bayesian approach with a prior distribution based on exchangeability of forecasters. The results indicate that a simple average, the normal model with an independence assumption, and the Bayesian model perform better than the other approaches that are studied here.     

A CRITIQUE OF METHODOLOGICAL REASON

In this essay, we argue that, following their perception of practices in the natural sciences the social sciences have reified methodology, making it the chief imperative of social investigation and using it to ground their knowledge claims. We find this to be the case even in the work of social scientists who try to overcome or reject the dominant positivist paradigm. We argue that this obsession with method has led the social sciences to abandon thinking-beyond-the-given in favor of small, specialized studies whose justification is no longer substantive but methodology driven. After a review of the history of the role of method in traditional philosophies of science, the essay turns to the work of recent critics of social science who have become increasingly dissatisfied with modeling the social sciences after the natural ones. We distinguish between a hermeneutic and phenomenological critique of positivism, both of which, we argue, end up reproducing the scientism they reject. We identify this problem in our careful readings of some of the most influential critics of Popperian scientific philosophy. In the final section, we distinguish between contemporary social science, situated in what we term the epistemological paradigm, and our own critical science, stemming from an alternate, ontohistorical tradition in the history of ideas. Here, we begin to lay out what a critical, nonmethodology-driven, reflective and historical science might look like.     

The utilitarian contract: A generalization of Rawls' theory of justice

In a series of major papers culminating in A Theory of Justice, John Rawls constructs an alternative to utilitarianism by developing a social contract theory of moral and political philosophy. Unfortunately, Rawls formulates the two basic principles upon which the theory rests in such a way as to restrict (unduly) the contract theory's applicability (see Section I). In this paper we present a more general discussion of the theory of justice that avoids the problems of Rawls' formulation and yet retains the important idea of justice as fairness and the contractarian approach (Section II). Later it is argued that this more general theory constitutes a bridge between the pure utilitarian theories and the social contract doctrines (Sections V and VI). The theory's advantages are demonstrated by applying it to a problem discussed by Rawls, intergenerational equity, and comparing the two solutions (Section III). Further comparisons are made and inferences drawn in the concluding three sections.Without implicating them, we would like to thank James M. Buchanan and David Lyons for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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Introduction: “There Is a Person Here”: An Interview with Judith Butler

In this interview, the coeditors, along with other contributors, ask Judith Butler a variety of questions regarding queer theory, gender identities, scientific and legal discourse, bodily abjection, race and class positioning, and political organizing. This range of subject matter suggests not only the breadth of Butler's work, but also its applicability to any number of people, whose relation to theory ranges from highly politicized to politically indifferent. The interview demonstrates the responsiveness of Butler's work to cultural translation and political action.     

The North American Career Development Partnership: Experiment in International Collaboration

This article describes how career development programs became the focus of an international partnership between the United States and Canada. Beginning in 1976 in the United States, the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (NOICC) and its State Occupational Information Coordinating Committees (SOICCs) developed training and materials that promote the use of occupational and labor market information. Similarly, in the early 1970s, Canada began to explore the feasibility of creating a computer‐based career information delivery system. What follows is the story of an unusual and significant international collaboration. It concludes with identification of lessons learned.     

On perfect simulation for some mixtures of distributions

This paper studies the implementation of the coupling from the past (CFTP) method of Propp and Wilson (1996) in the set-up of two and three component mixtures with known components and unknown weights. We show that monotonicity structures can be exhibited in both cases, but that CFTP can still be costly for three component mixtures. We conclude with a simulation experiment exhibiting an almost perfect sampling scheme where we only consider a subset of the exhaustive set of starting values.     

Light and Heavy Heterosexual Activities of Young Canadian Adolescents: Normative Patterns and Differential Predictors

The objectives of this research were to explore patterns of heterosexual activity in early adolescence and to examine the differential pathways to light and heavy heterosexuality. We utilized the National Longitudinal Survey of Canadian Children and Youth (NLSCY) in which heterosexual behaviors, as well as puberty, parenting processes, peer self‐concept, and problem behaviors were examined. The heterosexual activities of the majority of 12‐ and 13‐year‐old adolescents were largely confined to light activities of hugging, holding hands, and kissing. Heavy activities such as petting and sexual intercourse were reported less often. Using predictor variables from Cycle 1 of the NLSCY when participants were 10‐ and 11‐year‐olds, SEM analyses indicated that puberty and higher peer self‐concept shared significant direct pathways to both light and heavy heterosexuality. Heavy sexual activity, however, was uniquely associated with the risk factors of adolescent problem behaviors. Positive and hostile parenting styles were indirectly associated with light sexual activity through peer self‐concept. Positive and hostile parenting styles were also indirectly associated with heavy sexual activity through both peer‐oriented self‐concept and problem behaviors. Results support differential patterns and predictors of light and heavy sexuality in early adolescence.     

Death Penalty Opinions: A Classroom Experience and Public Commitment

This study attempts to identify stimuli that produce changes in death penalty opinions and to determine whether public commitment to a death penalty opinion has an effect on that opinion. Consistent with previously reported findings, the results of this study suggest that public commitment has a substantial inhibitory effect on opinion change. Reasons for both changing and maintaining death penalty opinions are provided, and the implications of the research are discussed.