Journal Publications

Early sexual activity can undermine adolescents' future school success and health outcomes. This study assessed the role of a family homework component of a comprehensive sex education intervention in delaying sexual initiation for early adolescents and to explore what social and contextual factors prevent adolescents from completing these family homework activities. This mixed-methods study included 6th- and 7th-grade survey responses from 706 students at 11 middle schools receiving a sex education intervention, as well as interviews from a subset of 33 7th-grade students from the larger sample.

Adolescents who completed more family homework assignments were less likely to have vaginal intercourse in 7th grade than those who completed fewer assignments, after controlling for self-reports of having had vaginal intercourse in 6th grade and demographic variables. Participants' explanations for not completing assignments included personal, curriculum, and family-based reasons.

Family homework activities designed to increase family communication about sexual issues can delay sex among early adolescents and contribute to school-based sex education programs. Successful sex education programs must identify and address barriers to family homework completion.

Abstract: This study fills a gap in the literature by examining how school staff members view bullying and sexual harassment and their role in preventing both. Given recent legislation, increasingly more attention is paid to bully prevention; however, student-on-student sexual harassment is less addressed. Four focus groups were conducted with 32 staff members from 4 midwestern public middle schools. Questions assessed professional development opportunities on bullying and sexual harassment prevention/intervention, personal definitions of these behaviors, and their perceptions of school norms regarding such behavior. Staff members recalled receiving more professional development on bullying than sexual harassment. They tended to define sexual harassment as something that occurs between adults and/or adults and students and did perceive their role in enforcing a "sexual harassment-free" peer-to-peer school zone. When school administrators fail to provide professional development on both bullying and sexual harassment, staff members do not understand that sexual harassment occurs between students. Thus, they are unaware of policies to protect students from harmful experiences in educational settings and are not likely to understand their own role in preventing them.

Abstract: This case study explored how adolescents were empowered through after school media production activities and, in the process, re-imagined themselves as active and engaged citizens within their community. Through analyzing interviews, participant observations, and media artifacts of 14 participants (aged 15-19) over a period of 18 months, three main themes emerged from the triangulation of data: (1) sociocultural capital through group ownership; (2) safe space for creative expression; and (3) developing a sense of community with diverse voices. These young people exercised their collective voice toward pro-social actions by writing and producing their stories and showcasing their works at community screenings. They hoped that their videos would promote individual and community transformations. Building on youth development, community psychology, and media literacy frameworks, this article discusses educational implications like advocating for the power of youth media production to bridge participants' personal and private artistry to public and political statements.

Abstract: The authors review systematic national programs that are effectively helping children break the cycle of depression and other mental health problems in families.

Abstract: Data from 1,364 children and families who participated in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were analyzed to track the early correlates and later academic outcomes of planning during middle childhood. Maternal education, through its effect on parenting quality when children were 54 months old, predicts their concurrent performance on sustained attention, inhibition, and short-term verbal memory tests. This performance predicts planning in first grade, which predicts third-grade reading and mathematics attainment, but not the rate of growth in academic skills from first to fifth grades. This path was also found when the same parenting, cognitive, and academic constructs were measured at later time points.

Abstract: The U.S. Census shows that the racial-ethnic makeup of over 9 million people (2.9% of the total population) who self-identified as multiracial is extremely diverse. Each multiracial subgroup has unique social and political histories that may lead to distinct societal perceptions, economic situations, and health outcomes. Despite the increasing academic and media interest in multiracial individuals, there are methodological and definitional challenges in studying the population, resulting in conflicting representations in the literature. This content and methods review of articles on multiracial populations provides a comprehensive understanding of which multiracial populations have been included in research and how they have been studied, both to recognize emerging research and to identify gaps for guiding future research on this complex but increasingly visible population. We examine 125 U.S.-based peer-reviewed journal articles published over the past 20 years (1990 to 2009) containing 133 separate studies focused on multiracial individuals, primarily from the fields of psychology, sociology, social work, education, and public health. Findings include (a) descriptive data regarding the sampling strategies, methodologies, and demographic characteristics of studies, including which multiracial subgroups are most studied, gender, age range, region of country, and socioeconomic status; (b) major thematic trends in research topics concerning multiracial populations; and (c) implications and recommendations for future studies.

School-based comprehensive sex education programs can reduce early adolescents' risky sexual behavior. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a 3-year comprehensive sex education program in delaying vaginal sex for middle school students and whether the family component of the intervention contributes to its effectiveness.

This longitudinal evaluation followed a cohort of 2,453 6th graders through the end of 8th grade. The design used a random assignment of 24 schools into treatment and comparison conditions. The analysis included multiple-group logistic regression to assess differences in the delay of sex between intervention and comparison groups.

In schools where the program was taught, 16% fewer boys and 15% fewer girls had sex by the end of 8th grade compared to boys and girls at comparison schools. Completing family activities during the first year of the program predicted delayed sexual debut for boys.

Theory-based, developmentally appropriate, comprehensive sex education programs that include parent involvement can be effective in delaying vaginal sex for middle school students. Parent involvement is particularly important for boys, as family activities may encourage parents to talk with their sons earlier and more frequently.

Parents, educators, youth development workers, researchers, and policymakers are increasingly concerned with internet safety as social media becomes more popular. This research paper highlights a study designed to understand how young people describe how much (or how little) their social media use is monitored at home. This includes who is doing the monitoring, when, why, and how. This study looked at 33 middle school youth (aged 11-14) who were also participating in a 9-week sexual health curriculum. Teens reported that their parents were most concerned about "friending"

Dr. Charmaraman, Chan, Price, and Richer co-authored a chapter in the book, Women of Color and Social Media Multitasking: Blogs, Timelines, Feeds, and Community. The book is an edited collection of academic work that explores and analyzes social media use by women of color. The chapters address how and why women of color use social media to navigate the world and create virtual communities.

Juveniles are more likely to come into contact with the criminal or juvenile justice systems in the U.S. as victims than as offenders. Yet, except in the case of child victims of sexual abuse at hands of a family member, juveniles as victims still receive little attention in the criminal justice literature. And, for the most part, the actors in the justice system in the U.S. have not been given the skills, tools, and resources to effectively deal with juveniles, especially teenaged youth, as victims. Furthermore, policing of domestic sex trafficking of youth has focused on police response at later stages of sex trafficking (when such a crime is clearly identified) and the role of the police in coordinated response teams and building cases against the perpetrators including 'pimps.' This article offers evidence from research on commercial sexual exploitation of adolescents to examine police interactions with youth who are at a high risk for or on the pathway into domestic sex trafficking, and identifies prevention and interdiction strategies. Notably, these strategies reflect the connection of police responses to domestic violence, youth status offenses, and homeless teens.

Funded by the William T. Grant Foundation and Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation in two phases, they describe APT's strengths as an evaluation and program quality measure for out-of-school (OST) programs, a tool that is critical for program directors and policymakers who need to identify where to improve and how to support those improvements within OST programs. In addition, the online, video-based training developed in the second phase to increase reliability of APT raters showed promise, such that the most high priority APT quality areas were found to be the most improved (i.e., most accurate) scores post training.

Focuses on out-of-school time (OST) programs where children and youth have the opportunity to build supportive relationships, test out new skills, gain valuable peer relationship experiences, and build social and emotional learning skills while supporting children's wellness and continued learning while school is not in session.

Examines components of OST programs such as staffing, leadership, communication, planning, physical and financial resources, family and school relations, and programming, which can vary in quality but collectively contribute to the delivery of experiences to children and youth. They should be well run and organized with a central focus on promoting the healthy and positive development of children and youth.

The book compiles and publicizes the best current thinking about training and professional development for youth workers. This volume is part of the series, Adolescence and Education (Series Editor: Ben Kirshner, University of Colorado Boulder), published by Information Age Publishing.

This study evaluated the acceptability, feasibility, and satisfaction associated with a newly developed online clinician training program for the Family Talk preventive intervention, both alone and together with a redesigned, shortened, face-to-face component. Fifty-eight predominately in-home therapy clinicians participated in the study. Results indicated that clinician participants found the online training to be enjoyable and comprehensive, and they reported that the most beneficial training package involved the combination of web-based and in-person training. This combined training could efficiently cover necessary didactic material online while also delivering important clinical skill practice and in-person discussion. Exceptions, limitations, and important future research questions are discussed.

The underreporting of sexual assault is well known to researchers, practitioners, and victims. When victims do report, their complaints are unlikely to end in arrest or prosecution. Existing research on police discretion suggests that the police decision to arrest for sexual assault offenses can be influenced by a variety of legal and extra-legal factors particularly challenges to victim credibility. Although extant literature examines the effects of individual behaviors on police outcomes, less is known about how the accumulation of these behaviors, attributions, and characteristics affects police decision making. Using data collected from the Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff's Department, the researchers examine one police decision point-the arrest-to fill this gap in the literature. They examine the extent to which the effects of potential challenges to victim credibility, based on victim characteristics and behaviors, influence the arrest decision, and next, how these predictors vary across circumstances. Specifically, the team examines how factors that challenge victim credibility affect the likelihood of arrest in sexual assault cases where the victim and offender are strangers, acquaintances, and intimate partners.

Policing has long been a profession dominated by white males. Yet, the organizational literature suggests that diverse public sector organizations are essential to a well-functioning democracy. Representative bureaucracy theory is the idea that public agencies should mirror the society in which it functions in order to best meet the needs of its citizens. There are three necessary conditions in order for representative bureaucracy theory to be applicable to a problem. First, bureaucrats must have discretion in decision-making. Next, bureaucrats must exercise discretion in a policy area that has important implications for the group they represent. Finally, bureaucrats must be directly associated with the decisions they make. Given that police work requires extraordinary discretion, representation holds great importance for police organizations. There has, however, been scant literature examining the interaction between representation, organizational characteristics of police agencies, and situational characteristics of sexual assault incidents. This paper builds upon previous research regarding the effect of diversity on public safety outcomes. A national sample of police organizations reporting to both Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics and National Incident-Based Reporting System are used with specific attention paid to interaction between organizational characteristics, agency innovativeness, and representation.

The neutralization theory of Sykes and Matza (1957) posits that delinquent individuals attempt to continually reintegrate with society by mentally asserting that their deviant behavior is actually normative, via an excuse. Sykes and Matza gave five excuses, or techniques of neutralization: denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, condemnation of condemners, and appeal to higher loyalties. Sykes and Matza were primarily concerned with the general concept of neutralization, rather than trying to understand the specific utilities of the different technique categories they labeled. The goal of this work is to determine which techniques may be most common, and under what circumstances (what crimes or deviant behaviors) neutralizations may be most effective. Using a factorial vignette survey design with a multinational sample of college students from Poland and the United States, we find neutralization utility varies by technique and circumstance, and the denial of responsibility technique is especially potent.

The global distribution of talent is highly skewed and the resources available to countries to develop and utilize their best and brightest vary substantially. The migration of skilled workers across countries tilts the deck even further. Using newly available data, we first review the landscape of global talent mobility, which is both asymmetric and rising in importance. We next consider the determinants of global talent flows at the individual and firm levels and sketch some important implications. Third, we review the national gatekeepers for skilled migration and broad differences in approaches used to select migrants for admission. Looking forward, the capacity of people, firms, and countries to successfully navigate this tangled web of global talent will be critical to their success.

Federal and state employment programs for low-skilled workers typically emphasize rapid placement of participants into jobs and often place a large fraction of participants into temporary-help agency jobs. Using unique administrative data from Detroit's welfare-to-work program, we apply the Chernozhukov-Hansen instrumental variables quantile regression (IVQR) method to estimate the causal effects of welfare-to-work job placements on the distribution of participants' earnings. We find that neither direct-hire nor temporary-help job placements significantly affect the lower tail of the earnings distribution. Direct-hire placements, however, substantially raise the upper tail, yielding sizable earnings increases for more than fifty percent of participants over the medium-term (one to two years following placement). Conversely, temporary-help placements have zero or negative earnings impacts at all quantiles, and these effects are economically large and significant at higher quantiles. In net, we find that the widespread practice of placing disadvantaged workers into temporary-help jobs is an ineffective tool for improving earnings and, moreover, that programs focused solely on job placement fail to improve earnings among those who are hardest to serve. Methodologically, one surprising result is that a reduced-form quantile IV approach, akin to two-step instrumental variables, produces near-identical point estimates to the structural IVQR approach, which is based on much stronger assumptions.

This paper reviews research regarding high-skilled migration. The authors adopt a data-driven perspective, bringing together and describing several ongoing research streams that range from the construction of global migration databases to the legal codification of national policies regarding high-skilled migration, to the analysis of patent data regarding cross-border inventor movements. A common theme throughout this research is the importance of agglomeration economies for explaining high-skilled migration. The authors highlight some key recent findings and outline the major gaps that they hope will be tackled in the future. 

PURPOSE: We examine whether the Shifting Boundaries (SB) intervention, a primary intervention to prevent youth dating violence and sexual harassment (DV/H), is differentially effective for girls compared with boys or for youth with a history of DV/H experiences.

METHODS: We randomly assigned SB to 30 public middle schools in New York City, enrolling 117 sixth and seventh grade classes to receive a classroom, building, combined, or neither intervention. The SB classroom intervention included six sessions emphasizing the laws/consequences of DV/H, establishing boundaries and safe relationships. The SB schoolwide/building intervention included the use of school-based restraining orders, greater faculty/security presence in unsafe "hot spots" mapped by students, and posters to increase DV/H awareness and reporting. Student surveys were implemented at baseline, immediately after intervention, and 6 months after intervention.

RESULTS: At 6 months after intervention, the SB building-level intervention was associated with significant reductions in the frequency of sexual harassment (SH) perpetration and victimization; the prevalence and frequency of sexual dating violence victimization; and the frequency of total dating violence victimization and perpetration. We also had one anomalous finding that the interventions were associated with an increase in the prevalence of SH victimization. These results were consistent for girls and boys, and those with or without a history of DV/H, with the one exception for those exposed to the SB building condition who had earlier reported perpetrating SH had a significantly lower frequency of perpetrating SH at the follow-up than those without such a history.

CONCLUSIONS: SB can provide effective universal prevention of middle school DV/H experiences, regardless of students' prior exposure histories, and for boys and girls.

Research shows that people cannot reach their full potential unless they are in healthy connection with others. Dr. Amy Banks teaches us how to rewire our brains for healthier relationships and happier, more fulfilling lives.

We all experience moments when we feel isolated and alone. A 2006 Purdue University study found that twenty-five percent of Americans cannot name a single person they feel close to. Yet every single one of us is hardwired for close relationships. The key to more satisfying relationships-be it with a significant other, a family member, or a colleague-is to strengthen the neural pathways in our brains that encourage closeness and connection. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Banks give us a road map for developing the four distinct neural pathways in the brain that underlie the four most important ingredients for close relationships: calmness, acceptance, emotional resonance, and energy. Four Ways to Click gives you the tools you need to strengthen the parts of your brain that encourage connection and to heal the neural damage that disconnection can cause.

Available for purchase at: Four Ways to Click: Rewire Your Brain for Stronger, More Rewarding Relationships

Researchers from the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College studied the physical activity levels of 112 Kindergarten and First Grade children from September 2013 through May 2014 in Natick, Massachusetts. Fifty-two (n=52) of these children were participants in the BOKS before-school physical activity program and the others (n=60) comprised the comparison group. This study specifically examined time spent in sedentary, light, moderate, and vigorous physical activity (PA) during three waves of data collection.

The research findings highlight the potential benefits to youth who regularly engage in PA through a before-school physical activity program like BOKS. Previous research recommends selected cut points for daily steps for 6-12 year olds of 12, 000 and 15,000 steps for girls and boys, respectively. Achieving 1,807 steps during program time would account for approximately 15% and 12% of girls and boys recommended daily steps, respectively. Significant differences in mean daily step count and daily MVPA minutes at Time 3 suggest prolonged participation in a program such as BOKS can stimulate noteworthy differences in physical activity for participating children, including differences which persist on non-program days.

Despite increasing extended family involvement in child-rearing, particularly in minority families, few studies investigate their role in talking with teens about sex or how this relates to teens' sexual behavior. This mixed-methods study assesses extended family sexuality communication through a survey of 1,492 diverse middle school students and interviews with 32 students. Logistic regression shows that participants who report having had sex are more likely to report talking with extended family than those who report not having had sex. Interview themes explored reasons for and content of teen sexuality conversations with extended family. More sexually active teens' reporting communication with extended family is interpreted as extended family members gaining importance in sexuality communication as teens become sexually active.

There has been a remarkable growth of high quality empirical studies in the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of mental health over the past three decades. A series of reports (Institute of Medicine (IOM), Reducing risks for mental disorders: Frontiers for preventive intervention research, 1994; National Advisory Mental Health Council Workgroup, Blueprint for change: Research on child and adolescent psychiatry, 2001; Beardslee and Gladstone, Facilitating pathways: Care, treatment and prevention in child and adolescent mental health, 2004) has documented progress in the prevention of mental illness. More recently, the Institute of Medicine issued two new reports, one focused entirely on the prevention of emotional and behavioral disorders in youth (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, Preventing mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders among young people: Progress and possibilities, 2009) and another with a specific focus on parental depression (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, Depression in parents, parenting, and children, 2009). This progress has occurred through the definition of a set of rigorous standards for the conduct of research in prevention (e.g., testing of theoretically driven hypotheses, use of valid assessment instruments, blind assessment of subjects separate from intervention delivery, evaluation of outcomes over the long term, etc.), primarily using randomized trial designs. Yet, against the backdrop of successfully conducted prevention trials and efforts to promote mental health, virtually nothing has been written about the needs of caregivers who engage in prevention and health promotion and, in particular, what kinds of special supports they need. Caring for caregivers in prevention settings is absolutely essential to the success of preventive intervention efforts to date and will be even more important if such efforts are to be widely implemented in large-scale programs.

Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299675265_Mental_Illness_Prevention_and_Promotion

This study investigated whether or not adolescents who participated in an internet-based depression prevention program experienced positive results. The study found that factors such as the amount of time participants spent on the website, the strength of the relationship with their physician, the ease with which each participant was able to use the website, and the relevance of the material on the website to each participant had an effect on the results. The study found that internet-based depression prevention programs might be of use in the prevention of depression in adolescents and should be considered.

To examine whether state child care subsidy policies can combine goals of increasing maternal employment and increasing access to quality child care for children in low-income families, we studied one state's comprehensive policy, through a cross-sectional survey of 665 randomly selected families using centers, Head Starts, family child care homes, public school preschools or informal care, including a sample of families on the waitlist for child care subsidies. We found that, in Massachusetts, families receiving child care subsidies report greater access to child care, more affordable child care, and higher quality child care, than do similar families not receiving subsidies. Lower-income families not receiving subsidies can sometimes access affordable, quality child care through Head Start programs and public preschools, but, when they have to pay for care, they pay a significantly greater proportion of their income than do families receiving subsidies. We also found that families on the subsidy waitlist are at a particular disadvantage. Waitlist families have the greatest difficulty paying for care, the least access, and the poorest quality child care. While the child care subsidy policies benefited those families receiving subsidies, families outside the system still struggled to find and afford child care. 

Abstract: This study longitudinally investigates the relationship between adolescent/mother religious discordance and emerging adult sexual risk-taking 6-7 years later. We used Social Control Theory to examine the level and direction of concordance using data from Wave I and Wave III of the Add Health Study, focusing on constructs of religious importance, frequency of prayer, and attendance at religious services. We found that higher levels of adolescent/mother discordance in religious importance were related to increased emerging adult sexual risk-taking compared to those with similar levels adolescent/mother religiosity, but this occurred only when mothers reported higher levels of religious importance than their children. In contrast, adolescents reporting higher frequency of prayer than their mothers reported lower levels of sexual risk-taking than those with similar frequency of adolescent/mother prayer. These findings suggest that the protective effects of family religious socialization can be interrupted. However, this influence of religious difference on sexual risk-behavior operates differently depending on the direction and level of religious difference. Even in emerging adulthood, a period marked by distance from childhood values and institutions, religious difference with a parent remains a meaningful influence.

Children of depressed parents are at high risk for experiencing depression themselves. The purpose of this study was to determine if the positive effects of a group cognitive-behavioral program (CBP) might last multiple years. The study found that CBP had a positive effect on children of depressed parents when compared to usual care and that these effects lasted up to 3 years.

Measures of entrepreneurship, such as average establishment size and the prevalence of start-ups, correlate strongly with employment growth across and within metropolitan areas, but the endogeneity of these measures bedevils interpretation. Chinitz (1961) hypothesized that coal mines near Pittsburgh led that city to specialization in industries, like steel, with significant scale economies and that those big firms led to a dearth of entrepreneurial human capital across several generations. We test this idea by looking at the spatial location of past mines across the United States: proximity to historical mining deposits is associated with bigger firms and fewer start-ups in the middle of the 20th century. We use mines as an instrument for our entrepreneurship measures and find a persistent link between entrepreneurship and city employment growth; this connection works primarily through lower employment growth of start-ups in cities that are closer to mines. These effects hold in cold and warm regions alike and in industries that are not directly related to mining, such as trade, finance and services. We use quantile instrumental variable regression techniques and identify mostly homogeneous effects throughout the conditional city growth distribution.