Young Adult and Parent Perceptions of Facilitation: Associations with Overparenting,Family Functioning,and Student Adjustment

Overparenting occurs when parents engage in developmentally inappropriate involvement in their children’s lives. This topic is salient in the context of young adults attending college, as this developmental stage necessitates independent decision-making and adjustment on the part of these students. At the same time, the turbulence involved in this transition might engender parental interference and facilitation that could impact young adults’ adjustment and perceived family functioning. This study used structural equation modeling to examine overparenting, perceived interference, facilitation, student adjustment, and family functioning in 302 parent–young adult dyads. Results indicated that overparenting was associated with facilitation, but not interference. Whereas this association was negative for young adults, it was positive for parents. This pattern was also reflected in the indirect effects of overparenting on student adjustment through young adults’ versus parents’ perceived facilitation. Young adults appear to have better outcomes when they perceive their parents to be facilitating their goals.     

Assessing the Validity and Reliability of the Perceptions of the Consent to Sex Scale

Although sexual assault prevention education tends to focus on consent promotion as a means to reduce rates of sexual assault, little is known about how college students consent to sexual activity. The current study aimed to better understand college students' consent via the systematic development of the Consent to Sex Scale (CSS), utilizing mixed methods via three phases and two waves of data collection. In Phase 1, qualitative data were collected from college students (n = 185) to provide a foundation for item writing. In Phase 2, closed-ended items were written for a quantitative instrument and reviewed by a team of experts. In Phase 3, a quantitative survey, including items written in Phase 2, was administered to college students (n = 685); the measure was assessed for its psychometric properties. Exploratory factor analysis was utilized, resulting in a five-factor solution. The CSS and corresponding factors demonstrated high internal consistency reliability and expected gender differences, supporting the construct validity of the measure. The CSS assesses college students' cues for indicating consent to sex, a construct not addressed by previous measures. The validated scale may be useful in future research to better understand how consent relates to other behaviors or constructs.     

“Newsworthy” Victims?

More than 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing or been murdered in Canada since the 1980s yet press attention to this violence is relatively minimal. This paper compares local press coverage of matched cases: three missing/murdered Aboriginal women from Saskatchewan and three missing/murdered White women from Ontario. Quantitative and qualitative content analyses indicate stark disparities in the amount and content of coverage between groups. The Aboriginal women received three and a half times less coverage; their articles were shorter and less likely to appear on the front page. Depictions of the Aboriginal women were also more detached in tone and scant in detail in contrast to the more intimate portraits of the White women. Drawing on feminist media studies and theories of intersectionality, this paper argues that the simultaneous devaluation of Aboriginal womanhood and idealization of middle-class White womanhood contributes to broader systemic inequalities which re/produce racism, sexism, classism, and colonialism. This paper raises concerns about the broader implications of the relative invisibility of missing/murdered Aboriginal women in the press, and their symbolic annihilation from the Canadian social landscape.     

Throughput and delay analysis of an opportunistic tree algorithm

Tree algorithms are a well-known class of random access algorithms with a provable maximum stable throughput under the infinite population model (as opposed to ALOHA or the binary exponential backoff algorithm). In this article, we propose a tree algorithm for opportunistic spectrum usage in cognitive radio networks. A channel in such a network is shared among so-called primary and secondary users, where the secondary users are allowed to use the channel only if there is no primary user activity. The tree algorithm designed in this article can be used by the secondary users to share the channel capacity left by the primary users.

We analyze the maximum stable throughput and mean packet delay of the secondary users by developing a tree structured Quasi-Birth Death Markov chain under the assumption that the primary user activity can be modeled by means of a finite state Markov chain and that packets lengths follow a discrete phase-type distribution.

Numerical experiments provide insight on the effect of various system parameters and indicate that the proposed algorithm is able to make good use of the bandwidth left by the primary users.     

An evaluation of retail outlets as part of a community prevention trial to reduce sales of harmful legal products to youth

Communities across the nation have become increasingly concerned about inhalant use and use of harmful legal products among youth because of increasing prevalence rates and deleterious health consequences from abusing these products. The increasing concern of communities about inhaling and ingesting legal products has been coupled with increasing awareness and concern about ability of youth to access and abuse a variety of other legal retail products. There are few examples of scientifically designed community prevention projects that seek to reduce youth abuse of such legal products. This article describes a community prevention trial that is designed to reduce sales of inhalants and other harmful legal products to youth and demonstrates how the retailer component of the trial can be rigorously evaluated. It also shows how data from youth purchase attempts can complement survey data from retailers.     

What’s in a yardscape? A case study of emergent ecosystem services and disservices within resident yardscape discourses in Minnesota

Urban Ecosystems - Residential yardscapes are at the forefront of human interaction with nature for those living in urban areas across Europe and North America. In recent years a significant amount...     

Ending Sexual Harassment: Protecting the Progress of #MeToo

ABSTRACT

How can we best protect and safeguard the progress of the #MeToo movement? This article presents 11 reforms designed to ensure the movement’s drive toward justice. These fall into three areas. The first concern process reforms designed to (a) protect all those involved—accusers and the accused—in investigations of sexual harassment, (b) end differential treatment of those found guilty, and (c) ensure punishments are commensurate with the crime and proportional in terms of other transgressors. The second set of reforms focus on transparency of the process, including clarifying (a) how to file charges, (b) who makes decisions, (c) relevant public information on how charges and procedures are followed, (d) what transgressions result in which punishments, and (e) how complaints are investigated to protect the rights and privacy of all. Finally, I address cultural issues that address (a) our portrayal of women, (b) our societal attempts to prepare young people so they can better protect themselves, and (c) attempts to encourage bystanders to intervene in the face of sexual harassment of others.