What really happened? Incidence and factor assessment of abused children and adolescents

Abuse of children and adolescents is a societal problem. If health-care providers are to intervene adequately in abuse, they must identify the occurrence, elicit all pertinent information surrounding the abuse and the patient's response, and integrate pertinent abuse issues in the overall treatment plan for the patient. This study has conclusively demonstrated the failure of health-care providers to assess and plan treatment based on the comprehensive documentation of sexual and physical abuse factors. Findings clearly indicate a need for education of health-care providers in the development of comprehensive and integrated treatment plans for abused psychiatric patients based on documentation of all factors related to trauma learning and replay. Service agencies must be willing to implement in-service programs that provide nurses and other health-care providers with the cognitive and affective knowledge and skills necessary to feel comfortable in the management of abuse issues.     

How race affects dismissals of college football coaches

We employ a discretetime hazard model and a Blinder-decomposition approach to explore the possibility of racial discrimination in the dismissal and retention of college football coaches by university administrations. A rich data set consisting of 81 institutions over an 11-year period (1990–2000) that contains, in addition to a coach's race, variables on cumulative winning records, annual on-the-field improvements, and pre-/post-season game participation by institutions and their coaches is employed. Our study finds that black coaches, on average, face a dismissal probability that is 9.6 percentage points below that of their nonblack counterparts, ceteris paribus, suggesting that black head coaches may be the beneficiaries of favorable treatment by university administrators. Such a result likely stems from universities ' approach to social concerns involving race and gender issues. This finding also fits a construct that considers workplace discrimination as multi-dimensional. For example, black representation in the college football coaching ranks may be disproportionately low, possibly as a result of discrimination. However, once hired, black coaches are given more time to succeed than nonblacks, other things constant.     

Review Essay: Power and Culture in Organizations: Two Contrasting Views

Sociological Forum -     

Presidential Address on ALTRUISM AND SOCIOLOGY

This article concerns the study of altruism. Highlights of the research history of altruism in sociobiology, psychological social-psychology, and sociology are reviewed. Examples from the author's work on kidney and bone-marrow donation are interwoven with this history. The sociological mechanisms producing altruism, particularly normative obligation, are emphasized along with the psychological mechanisms (e.g., empathy). The need for better integration across subareas in sociology is discussed. In addition, it is concluded that some scientific work significantly trivializes altruism.     

DETECT

DETECT is an inexpensive, easy to use, general-purpose, Monte Carlo simulation program for IBM and compatible personal computers. It can be used to quickly analyze fault trees or functions of random variables. DETECT provides a wide variety of input distributions to choose from and a dependency (correlation) option. The result of the analysis is a probability distribution over the variable of interest. We look forward to further improvements (e.g., graphics, full-screen editing, ability to inspect intermediate results) that will make DETECT even more useful and attractive.     

Campus–Community Partnerships: The Terms of Engagement

The emergence of service–learning in higher education and the renewed emphasis on community involvement presents colleges and universities with opportunities to develop campus–community partnerships for the common good. These partnerships can leverage both campus and community resources to address critical issues in local communities. Campus–community partnerships are a series of interpersonal relationships between (a) campus administrators, faculty, staff, and students and (b) community leaders, agency personnel, and members of communities. The phases of relationships (i.e., initiation, development, maintenance, dissolution) and the dynamics of relationships (i.e., exchanges, equity, distribution of power) are explored to provide service–learning instructors and campus personnel with a clearer understanding of how to develop healthy campus–community partnerships.     

Peer influence and drug use among adolescents in rural areas

A sample of 1,004 eighth and tenth grade students in twenty-three small Central/East Texas communities was assessed to determine 1) their perception of the number of their friends who use drugs, 2) the amount of information they received about drugs from their friends, and 3) the connection between those perceptions and drug use. A multiple regression model which included grade, gender, the degree to which friends are perceived to use drugs and the amount of information about drugs received from friends explained 39 percent of the variance in the degree to which rural adolescents were involved in drug use. An item specific analysis of the subcomponents of these composite variables explained 44 percent of the variance in the degree to which rural adolescents were involved in drug use. This same four-factor model accurately classified over 81 percent of non-drug-users and 67 percent of users using discriminant analysis. Students who perceived a higher degree of drug use among their friends and who received more information about drugs from their friends used drugs more frequently. Lower marijuana use in these rural areas as compared to the nation, both as a peer perception and as a fact, may protect these students to a degree from broader patterns of drug use. The findings of this study support the theory that peer pressure is related to drug abuse, even in rural areas.