Adolescents' Peer Crowd Identification in the Netherlands: Structure and Associations with Problem Behaviors

The present paper examined the underlying structure of Dutch adolescents' peer crowd identification and its relations with delinquency, aggression, depression, and anxiety. Questionnaire data were gathered from 2,334 adolescents between ages 12 and 19. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed four clearly interpretable crowd‐identification dimensions: Alternative, Urban, Conventional, and Achievement Oriented. Identification with the Alternative and Urban dimensions was found to be positively related to depression, delinquency, and aggression. With regard to the Urban dimension, also a positive association was found with anxiety. Identification with the Conventional‐ and Achievement Oriented dimensions was found to be negatively related to delinquency. A negative associations was also found between the Achievement Oriented dimension and aggression. Roughly the same pattern of associations was found for boys and girls, and younger and older adolescents. Our results generally confirm findings from studies relating adolescent crowd identification to adjustment performed in the United States and Australia.     

Assessing small community groups

Many community groups in the UK do micro-project work to help families and young people in low-income neighbourhoods. This paper establishes a common set of criteria for assessing the effectiveness of small community groups and uses these as basis for developing an evaluation tool for community groups and those working with them. It draws on the literature to identify those factors that are seen to be important to the functioning of community groups, where necessary adapting these to smaller groups. These criteria are then ‘tested’ on a small number of community groups across the UK, using a participative approach and questionnaire to explore these issues with each group. Our framework appears to capture all the key aspects of the groups we visited, although some of the assessment criteria need to be interpreted carefully, helping to refine our own understanding of what makes a good community group. This approach is a useful way for community groups to identify their own strengths and weaknesses and, if developed further, has potential applications in the evaluation of capacity-building schemes.     

The Psychology of Enfranchisement: Engaging and Fostering Inclusion of Members through Voting and Decision-Making Procedures

Democratic systems have many advantages. They elicit perceptions of appropriateness and legitimacy, they engage the psychological investment and commitment of those participating in the system and invite the voluntary cooperation of these persons. We argue that these advantages are conferred in large part through two features of democratic institutions and societies: the participative nature of procedures used to elect leaders, and the fairness of decision-making procedures used by these leaders once in power. In particular, we emphasize the capacity of these procedures to engage community members and foster their inclusion, because they convey that members' concerns are taken seriously and that they are valued by the group that developed and employed those procedures, as well as by the leaders that utilize them. Implications for creating a sense of social inclusion in members of the population, and for encouraging public confidence among those who feel marginalized, in climates of distrust, and during times of crisis are discussed.     

POPULAR SUPPORT FOR TRADE AGREEMENTS AND PARTNER COUNTRY CHARACTERISTICS: EVIDENCE FROM AN UNEXPECTED ELECTION OUTCOME

Using quasi‐experimental data from a survey that was conducted immediately before and after the November 2016 presidential election, we analyze how the election of Donald Trump affected the willingness of Europeans to sign a trade and investment agreement with the United States. We find that the election outcome lead to an immediate and sizable negative effect on Europeans' image of the United States. But we do not find that, at the same time, there was a negative reaction in the willingness of Europeans to sign an agreement with the United States. (JEL F14, F55, C26, F50)     

Prompts,Not Questions: Four Techniques for Crafting Better Interview Protocols

Qualitative Sociology - We offer effective ways to write interview protocol “prompts” that are generative of the most critical types of information researchers wish to learn from...     

Political trust,young people and institutions in Europe. A multilevel analysis

The constant decline of political trust has been shown in political sociology. Young people in particular seem to display lower levels of political trust, which is a challenge for the sustainability of democracy. Still, these levels of political trust among youth differ greatly from one country to another. This article therefore seeks to answer the following question: How can we account for cross‐national diversity with regard to young people’s political trust? To answer this question, I performed multilevel analyses based on data from the European Social Survey. I show in the article that cross‐national diversity stems from the institutional arrangements that structure entry into adulthood, i.e., what I call ‘youth welfare citizenship regimes’: The more inclusive is the youth economic citizenship and the more individualised is their social citizenship, the higher is young people’s political trust – which could buffer the decline in political trust.     

Does The Legalization of Undocumented Immigrants in the US Encourage Unauthorized Immigration from Mexico? An Empirical Analysis of the Moral Hazard of Legalization

Does the prospect of a legalization programme in the US increase unauthorized immigration from Mexico? The logic of the moral hazard of legalization suggests that providing lawful status to undocumented immigrants has the unintended effect of incentivizing further unauthorized immigration. However, we argue and show that concerns about the moral hazard of legalization may be overstated. We conceptualize our argument using two distinct temporal dimensions: a concurrent dimension and a prospective one. Our analysis of the 2007 Mexican Migration Field Research Program (MMFRP) survey provides evidence supporting our arguments. The data show that knowledge regarding a prospective legalization programme in the US does not increase the intent to migrate among prospective migrants. Our results hold when accounting for a range of potential confounding factors, across several multivariate model specifications, and also when analysing comparable respondents who are matched using propensity score matching (PSM) techniques.     

The versatility of multi-state models for the analysis of longitudinal data with unobservable features

Multi-state models provide a convenient statistical framework for a wide variety of medical applications characterized by multiple events and longitudinal data. We illustrate this through four examples. The potential value of the incorporation of unobserved or partially observed states is highlighted. In addition, joint modelling of multiple processes is illustrated with application to potentially informative loss to follow-up, mis-measured or missclassified data and causal inference.