The academic attitudes of American teenagers, 1990–2002: Cohort and gender effects on math achievement

Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 and the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, I compare the academic attitudes of high school students from Generation X and the Millennial Generation. I then analyze the effects these attitudes have on mathematics achievement test scores. Compared to the earlier group, students in the later cohort were less likely to indicate academic reasons for attending school and largely perceived their friends as being less engaged academically. Students in both cohorts whose friends held academic values experienced an increase in math scores. The more students in the earlier cohort disagreed that they came to school for academic reasons, the more their math scores decreased; this relationship did not appear for the later cohort. Females in each cohort showed stronger academic attitudes than males; additionally, believing that popularity was important was associated with lower test scores for females, but not males, in the Millennial cohort.     

Experiences of adolescent mothers in Costa Rica and the role of parental support

ABSTRACT

Adolescent pregnancy is often thought of as a social problem, one that can cause the adolescent mother hardship, including poverty, low-educational attainment, and housing instability. Although much research has been conducted about adolescent pregnancy in the developed world, less has considered adolescent pregnancy in the developing world. This qualitative study focuses on women who were impoverished in Costa Rica who had been pregnant in adolescence. The goal of the study was to gain a better understanding of the lived experiences of the mothers, as well as the kinds of support they received during and after the pregnancy. The research sample consisted of 22 female participants who were impoverished and had experienced an unintended pregnancy in adolescence. The key finding from this study was that parental support was the most important factor in mitigating adolescent experiences of stress and negative feelings about their choices related to the pregnancy. The study has implications for the understanding of the experiences of women who are vulnerable with respect to adolescent pregnancies in Latin America and for Latina migrants to the United States.     

Gendered Movement: Negotiating Youth,Sex and Harm in the US Carceral State

Exempt from the current bipartisan reassessment of the US carceral state are people with convictions for sex offenses. While movements against public registries for sex offenders are scant, a grassroots movement is underway. This article offers a preliminary analysis of the complex consequence of women's political work to extract their sons from the US carceral state. This gendered advocacy is mapped against shifts in the racialised US criminal justice system, where the fluid category of child/juvenile is often unavailable to youth of colour and/or queer youth, and criminalisation is offered to regulate sexuality, consent, age and potential harm.     

Ethnic ingroup friendships in schools: Testing the by-product hypothesis in England,Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden

This study set out to examine to what extent ethnic ingroup friendship in secondary school classes are a by-product of cultural and socioeconomic ingroup friendship. Based on homophily theory, we expected similar opinions, leisure activities, religion, risk behaviour and socioeconomic factors to (partly) explain ethnic ingroup preferences. Multilevel p₂ models on 13,272 pupils in 625 secondary school classes in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden showed that adolescents tend to have friends similar in ethnicity, cultural and socioeconomic characteristics. We find no evidence, however, that ethnic homophily is explained by cultural and socioeconomic homophily.     

Self‐Esteem,the Fear of Crime,and the Decision to Protect Oneself From Victimization

This research extends prior work that examines self‐esteem as an outcome of protective behaviors against crime victimization by focusing instead on the moderating influence of self‐esteem on the relationship between the fear of crime and the decision to protect oneself from victimization. The fear of crime is conceptualized as two separate components (fear of victimization and perceived risk) in accordance with prior work. Self‐esteem is conceptualized as three separate components (worth, efficacy, and authenticity), and measured with a recently designed instrument for capturing each aspect of self‐esteem separately. Data are collected through surveys of a population at high risk for victimization (undergraduate college students). Logistic regression analyses demonstrate that self‐esteem does play a role for deciding whether to engage in protective behaviors, and that the specific components of self‐esteem moderate defensive behavioral outcomes differently. Specifically, the self‐worth, self‐efficacy, and authenticity components of self‐esteem influence the decision to carry protection, but not the decision to take a self‐defense class. Implications for both the fear of crime and self‐esteem literatures are addressed.     

论聚众淫乱罪的刑事立法——以无被害人犯罪为研究视角

聚众淫乱罪属于无被害人犯罪的一种类型。我国刑法中聚众淫乱罪分为公然与秘密两种类型。从无被害人犯罪的角度,秘密的聚众淫乱行为入罪不具备法益侵害性、不符合刑法谦抑性、不符合社会需要和民意,应当除罪化。公然的聚众淫乱符合犯罪的本质,应当犯罪化。并且二人的公然淫乱也应当入罪。     

犯罪记忆心理的可测性与局限性

中国的心理测试技术,是运用现代心理学、犯罪心理学和实验心理学原理以及神经心理学、生物电子学等研究成果,通过专用测试仪器软硬件和智能化计算机系统,同时同步记录人的多项心理生物反映指标,进而评判心理痕迹对应相关程度的实验心理技术。心理测试中心近20年犯罪心理测试的研究成果、以及经过直接参与办理全国各地600多起重特大疑难案件的实践、和经过对近万人实案测试图谱的评判分析研究,得出的结论是:违法犯罪人在经历过违法犯罪事件之后的记忆违法犯罪心理痕迹是可测的。这项技术在辅助刑侦工作方面有着很大的作用,但同样,我们也要看到它的局限性。     

我国网络犯罪的刑事法对策探析

网络犯罪是高科技发展到一定阶段的产物,是一种新型犯罪。高科技的特征主要是发展快更新快,而刑事法的特征是相对的稳定性,这就必然导致刑事法的发展必然落后于高科技的发展,使网络犯罪对刑事法产生诸多冲击。解决这一问题最好的办法就是利用刑事法对网络犯罪进行规制,弥补立法滞后的不足。在我国现行刑法关于网络犯罪的规定分析的基础上,指出我国网络犯罪刑事立法的不足之处,提出规制我国网络犯罪的刑事法对策。     

论毒品犯罪中的诱惑侦查

在毒品案件侦查实践中,诱惑侦查已被大量使用,我国立法应有限度地承认诱惑侦查的合法性,并加强对其规制,建立侦查机关内部监督与检察机关外部监督相结合的监督体制。在司法实践中,应从诱惑侦查主体、适用范围、侦查对象选定、特情的建立和选派、立案及诱惑行为强度等几个方面进行规制。     

公司资本犯罪刑法规制的有限性及其抗制——兼论刑法与公司法关系之协调

我国刑事立法规定的公司资本犯罪及其刑事责任在实践中的规制作用极其有限。原因之一就是刑法因缺乏与公司法的衔接与配合而产生的立法疏漏,并进而导致司法适用上的困难和不当。而我国公司立法的不完善,构成了我国公司资本犯罪刑事立法方面的重大缺陷。这一缺陷直接影响到了刑法对公司资本犯罪行为定罪量刑的准确性、严谨性和科学性。因此,应协调刑法与民法、公司法的关系,加强刑法与公司法交流与配合,以充分发挥刑法的作用。