脑科戒毒手术被叫停的医学伦理学思考

曾被大力推广的脑部手术戒毒项目,最近被卫生部紧急叫停。手术被“叫停”的原因主要是:防止违背生命伦理学原则,采用优后原则和遵循手术的临床验证原则。医学科研工作者在科技和利益面前首先应充分考虑到生命伦理学的基本原则。     

Assessing reporting patterns of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church using discontinuities in model parameter timeseries

Prior to 2002, little was known about sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. After the Boston Globe broke the story about John Geoghan - a priest in the Boston Archdiocese who was accused of abusing numerous children, convicted of one count of indecent assault, and eventually murdered in prison - the Church had many questions to answer. To this end, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commissioned John Jay College of Criminal Justice to research the nature and scope, as well as the causes and context of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.This research analyzes the data from the John Jay studies using a new quantitative technique, capable of adjusting for distortions introduced by delays in abuse reporting. By isolating discontinuities in model parameter timeseries, we determine changes in reporting patterns occurred during the period 1982-1988. A posteriori to the analysis, we provide some possible explanations for the changes in abuse reporting associated with the change-point. While the scope of this paper is limited to presenting a new methodological approach within the frame of a particular case study, the techniques are more broadly applicable in settings where reporting lag is manifested.     

Material hardship and 529 college savings plan participation: The mitigating effects of Child Development Accounts

Experience of material hardship can adversely affect a family’s ability to make long-term investments in children’s development. We examine whether material hardship is associated with one indicator of such investments: participation in a tax-advantaged college savings plan (529 plan). Data for this study come from the SEED for Oklahoma Kids (SEED OK) experiment, an intervention that offers Child Development Accounts with financial incentives to encourage the accumulation of college savings for children from the time of their birth. Results show that material hardship is negatively associated with 529-plan participation, and this association varies by treatment status. At all levels of material hardship, treatment-group mothers are more likely to hold accounts than control-group mothers. These findings suggest that CDAs can be a useful policy tool to support families’ financial preparation for college.     

《我妻我女》:一个教育与影视人类学的研究展示

家庭教育、学校教育和独生子女教育是目前比较热门的话题,人类学有其独特的考察视角。影片《我妻我女》通过捕捉一对母女生活中的交往过程,展示了独生子女家庭在应对急剧变化的外在世界时所面临的矛盾和困惑。这一作品展示了教育人类学观察世界的独特视角、独特维度。     

生育政策调整及其风险规避

现行生育政策对遏制中国人口过快增长作出了历史性贡献,但是政策本身具有阶段性和局限性,不宜长期实行,否则会因下一代人口的过快衰减而影响家庭、社会甚至国防安全。为了让公民满足在生育上的刚性需求和实现平等的生育权利以及降低政策的负面影响,建议将现行生育政策调整为全国统一的“补偿一孩,允许二孩,控制三孩”,并将这一政策延续到2033年前后。调整生育政策可能会出现生育率波动、推迟和抬高人口峰值、计划生育工作滑坡、独生子女家庭总负担加重、人口与资源生态环境关系更加紧张等风险,需要切实规避。     

Parental divorce, sibship size, family resources, and children’s academic performance

Using data from 19,839 adolescents from the National Education Longitudinal Study, this study investigates whether the effects of parental divorce on adolescents’ academic test performance vary by sibship size. Analyses show that the negative effect of divorce on adolescent performance attenuates as sibship size increases. On the other side of the interaction, the inverse relationship between sibship size and test performance is weaker in disrupted than in two-biological-parent families. Trends of such interactions are evident when sibship size is examined either as a continuous or a categorical measure. Finally, the observed interactions on adolescents’ academic performance are completely explained by variations in parental financial, human, cultural, and social resources. In sum, this study underlines the importance of treating the effect of parental divorce as a variable and calls for more research to identify child and family features that may change the magnitude of such an effect.     

Pathways of disadvantage: Explaining the relationship between maternal depression and children’s problem behaviors

A large body of literature documents that children of depressed mothers have impaired cognitive, behavioral, and health outcomes throughout the life course, though much less is known about the mechanisms linking maternal depression to children’s outcomes. In this paper, I use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate and explain the consequences of maternal depression for 5-year-old children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Ordinary least squared (OLS) regression models and propensity score models show that children exposed to both chronic and intermittent maternal depression have more problem behaviors than their counterparts with never depressed mothers. Results also show that economic resources and maternal parenting behaviors mediate much of the association between maternal depression and children’s problem behaviors, but that relationships with romantic partners and social support do little to explain this association. This research extends past literature by illuminating some mechanisms through which maternal depression matters for children; by utilizing longitudinal measures of depression; by employing rigorous statistical techniques to lend confidence to the findings; and by using a large, diverse, and non-clinical sample of children most susceptible to maternal depression. Given that early childhood problem behaviors lay a crucial foundation for short- and long-term life trajectories, the social consequences of maternal depression may be far-reaching.     

儒学与市场经济兼容——现代新儒家的新视角

中国在现代化进程中遇到的问题,并不是开启现代性,而是批判地接纳现代性,并且同时避免现代病,避免价值世界的迷失。在这种情况下,可以把儒学的普适性发掘出来,使之与市场经济相适应,从而成为促进中国现代化的精神动力。认同儒学与市场经济的兼容性,可以说是现代新儒家的共识。在他们之中,对这一观点阐述最为充分的人,当属贺麟。他突破了重农抑商、存理灭欲等旧观念,主张儒工儒商做现代社会的柱石。     

Life-course changes in the mediation of cognitive and non-cognitive skills for parental effects on children’s academic achievement

We assess life-course changes in how cognitive and noncognitive skills mediate the effect of parental SES on children's academic achievement using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort. Our results show: (1) the direct effect of parental SES declines while the mediating effect of skills increases over time; (2) cognitive and non-cognitive skills differ in their temporal sensitivities to parental origin; and (3) in contrast to the effect of cognitive skills, the mediating effect of non-cognitive skills increases over time because non-cognitive skills are more sensitive to changes in parental SES. Our results offer insights into the dynamic role skill formation play in status attainment.     

涟水县,锡山市生育率影响因素的调查分析

从统计事实出发,比较锡山市、涟水县两个地区的生育差异、分析造成生育差异的经济社会文化因素,用理论模型来揭示文化和生育的本质联系和文化对生育的影响机制和途径。