CONTESTED PORTRAYALS: Medical and Legal Social Control of Juvenile Sex Offenders

While juvenile courts were originally designed to respond to troubled youth by providing treatment appropriate to the needs of individual offenders, advocates of a system that gets tough on young criminals by meting out punishments based on offense characteristics (both present offense and past offense history) have become increasingly influential in recent years. In this article, I examine a special case, that of juvenile sex offenders in a Washington State county. for whom a 1990 law reintroduced treatment as a central goal. While Washington has been a forerunner in the shift toward a juvenile justice system in which offending behavior is the central factor in decision making, I argue that, largely as a result of this law, juvenile sex offending has been medicalized and that, in this process, distinctions based on offense characteristics have noticeably diminished. This case study provides both empirical support for established theoretical arguments regarding medicalization and a detailed explication of the differences between medical and legal assumptions about social problems.     

Interpersonal skills scale: Development and validation in urbanized sample of adolescents

Interpersonal skills play a vital role in the growth and development of adolescents. The current study explored the experience and manifestation of interpersonal skills in Pakistani adolescents. In phase I, using open‐ended phenomenological approach, key components of interpersonal skills were elicited from 32 adolescents (boys = 16; girls = 16) aged 11–19 years (M = 14.48; SD = 1.06). In phase II, Content Validity Index for items (I‐CVIs) and scale (S‐CVI) was established. In phase III, pilot testing was carried out on 21 adolescents (boys = 11; girls = 10). In Phase IV, a sample of 674 adolescents (boys = 47%; girls = 53%) aged 11–19 years (M = 14.88; SD = 1.33) were tested for psychometric properties of Interpersonal Skills Scale along with Social Intelligence Scale for Adolescents and Self‐Esteem Scale for Children. Exploratory Factor Analysis (n = 221) generated three factors of the Interpersonal Skills Scale social engagement, sociability, and social etiquettes. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (n = 453) also supported the three‐factor structure of the Interpersonal Skills Scale. Furthermore, the scale found to have high internal consistency, construct validity, discriminant validity, split‐half reliability, and test–retest reliability. The results are discussed in the light of factorial structure in the Pakistani cultural context.     

Institutional isomorphism and nonprofit managerialism: For better or worse?

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have increasingly adopted business‐like practices as a response to institutional pressures. Some researchers argue that this development leads to mission drift, whereas others find a positive effect on organizational performance. However, the institutional pressures responsible for shaping the nonprofit sector have remained hard to distinguish from each other. This study explores the consequences of mimetic, normative, and coercive pressures, and looks at how they affect managerialism, organizational performance, and mission drift. We link these concepts through a structural equation model based on survey data and find that one aspect of managerialism, strategic behavior, is a key construct in influencing the response to isomorphic pressures and can positively affect organizational performance while holding off‐mission drift. Normative isomorphism even has a direct positive effect on organizational performance. Mission drift can take place when organizations are under coercive pressure without having strategies or internal processes in place. These findings imply that organizations should invest in their strategy and the professional development of their staff to increase organizational performance and avoid mission drift.     

Multidimensional Demand Strength of Recreational Activity Programming in Assisted Living: A Conceptual Model and Prototypical Rating Scale

ABSTRACT

This article describes a framework for measuring activity demands and the psychometric properties of a related measurement tool, the Multidimensional Activities Demand Strength for Assisted Living (MADS-AL). Nine experts—three in physical, cognitive, and social domains, respectively—rated demands of 37 common assisted-living activities. Interrater reliability and internal consistency for physical, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC)(2, 3) = .96, Cronbach's α = .97, cognitive, ICC(2, 3) = .71, α = .93, and social, ICC(2, 3) = .80, α = .86, scales give preliminary support for reliability of the MADS-AL tool. Overall, this article moves the field toward considering task demands as a relevant variable to inform future activities research and practice.     

The influence of friends on adolescents’ behavior problems at school: The role of ego,alter and dyadic characteristics

This paper deals with the influence of friends in class on adolescents’ problematic school behavior (i.e. inattention in class and not doing homework). We examine whether this influence is moderated by ego (i.e. the adolescent's indegree), alter (i.e. friends’ indegree) and dyadic characteristics (i.e. friendship reciprocity). Influence processes are analyzed with a stochastic actor-based model (SIENA), while controlling for friendship selection. Using a 4-wave panel dataset, we find that friends influence adolescents’ problematic school behavior. Adolescents with a higher indegree are less likely to be influenced. The influence of friends is not significantly moderated by friends’ indegree and friendship reciprocity.     

Beyond alphabet soup: helping college health professionals understand sexual fluidity

ABSTRACT

Many college students today are no longer using the terms straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender to self-identify their sexual orientation or gender identity. This commentary explores research related to fluidity of sexual identities, emerging sexual identities used by college students, and how these identities interact with the health and well-being of the student. Additionally, the authors discuss strategies to help college health professionals provide a sensitive environment and clinical experience for students whose sexual identity is fluid.     

Treatment and Prevention of Elder Abuse and Neglect: Where Knowledge and Practice Meet—A Model for Intervention to Prevent and Treat Elder Abuse in Israel

Successful handling of elder abuse and neglect requires various interventions. This article presents findings from an evaluation study of a model for intervention implemented in three municipalities in Israel. Data from 558 older adults, exposed to abuse and treated through the program, and interviews with victims, abusers, and professionals revealed that improvement was achieved in 66% of the cases. In 20% of the cases, the abuse was stopped. The most widespread type of intervention consisted of individual counseling. Legal intervention yielded the highest rate of improvement (82%). Provision of supportive services for victims of neglect was found to be most effective (82% of improvement in the situation).     

M/Otherland

This article introduces El Vez, an important performance artist and musician, whose translation of Elvis extends far beyond local audiences. In our historical moment of shrinking public outlets for the circulation and discussion of alternative and oppositional perpectives, his creator, Robert Lopez, has opened up a discursive space – on the terrain of popular music, in the unlikely genre of Elvis impersonation – that enables both critique of the status quo and dialogue concerning progressive social transformation. This article investigates Lopez's artful superimpositions of Chicana and Chicano realities and cultural icons on to the iconography, soundings and lyrics that cluster around Elvis, and claims that Lopez subverts both the myth of ‘Elvis as the embodiment of the American Dream’ and the reactionary assumption that American national identity and cultural belonging are (or should be) equated with exclusionary representations of whiteness. This article also argues that the content of his live and recorded stage shows (which are part strip-tease, part Chicana/o studies, part labour history, and part history of popular music course) respond to hegemonic discourses that fault racialized immigrants and working-class people for the consequences of global economic restructuring, and that his aesthetics of resistance subvert both dominant and subaltern dictates for strict, unyielding definitions of identity, sexuality and citizenship. Finally, it suggests that the positive reception of Lopez's performances by racialized, marginalized, displaced and economically outcast youth in Germany speaks to an identification with Chicana/o struggles that is not based on a specific ethnicity, but instead on an articulation of oppositional politics. In this context, Lopez's music enables the possibility of building coalitions beyond the constraints of the nation-state.