George P. Knight

Theory and Research on Desistance from Antisocial Activity among Serious Adolescent Offenders

Improving juvenile court decision making requires information about how serious adolescent offenders desist from antisocial activity. A systematic research agenda on this topic requires consideration of several processes, including normative development in late adolescence, what constitutes desistance, and the factors likely to promote the end of involvement in antisocial behavior and successful adjustment in early adulthood. This article presents an overview of the major points to consider in pursuing this research agenda.

The Mexican American cultural values scale for adolescents and adults

This research evaluates the properties of a measure of culturally linked values of Mexican Americans in early adolescence and adulthood. The article discusses the items derived from qualitative data provided by focus groups in which Mexican Americans’ (adolescents, mothers, and fathers) perceptions of key values were discussed. The focus groups and a preliminary item refinement result in the 50-item Mexican American Cultural Values Scale (MACVS; identical for adolescents and adults) that includes 9 subscales. Analyses of data from two large previously published studies sampling Mexican American adolescents, mothers, and fathers provide evidence of the expected two correlated higher order factor structures, reliability, and construct validity of the subscales of the MACVS as indicators of values that are frequently associated with Mexican/Mexican American culture. The utility of this measure for use in longitudinal research and in resolving some important theoretical questions regarding dual cultural adaptation is discussed.

Operational Lessons from the Pathways to Desistance Project

Implementing a large, longitudinal study of any sample is a major undertaking. The challenges are compounded when the study involves multiple sites and a high-risk sample. This article outlines the methodology for the Pathways to Desistance study, a multisite, longitudinal study of serious juvenile offenders, and discusses the key operational decisions with the greatest impact on the study design.

The Development of Ethnic Identity in Mexican-American Children

Aspects of cognitive social learning, cognitive developmental, and self-system theories were integrated into a theoretical framework for the study of ethnic identity and its development in Mexican-American children. Two studies were conducted, one with preschool children attending Head Start, and another with elementary school children age 6 to 10 years. The second study incorporated methodological refinements based on the first study. The research was designed to assess an instrument for measurement of childrens ethnic identity and to evaluate developmentalfeatures of the data. Parts of the theoretical model of ethnic identity and its components also were assessed. The children s responses to an Ethnic Identitv Questionnaire showed age-related improvements that were consistent with the conceptual framework guiding the research.

Studying ethnic minority and economically disadvantaged populations : methodological challenges and best practices

Ethnic minority and economically disadvantaged populations have been historically underrepresented in social science research, and despite improvements in recent years, this trend continues today. Given the rapidly changing demographics of the United States, there is an acute need for more targeted research on these populations, which requires an understanding of diversity and a more nuanced understanding of human behavior and outcomes. Unfortunately, there is a relative dearth of information in standard research texts regarding the unique methodological challenges associated with conducting research with these populations. George P. Knight, Mark W. Roosa, and Adriana J. Umana-Taylor have filled that gap with a book that identifies strategies for overcoming the obstacles social scientists routinely face in these situations. In this volume, the authors: discuss strategies for resolving typical problems in sampling, recruitment and retention; address ethical issues associated with researching these populations; examine issues associated with measurement and the importance of measurement equivalence; describe potential linguistic problems with translated measures and provide solutions to maintain the credibility of scientific inferences based on those measures, and; present strategies for adapting previously published preventive interventions for use with ethnic minority and low-income populations. Throughout, the authors combine firsthand experience with a thorough and incisive understanding of the literature. The result is a vital, comprehensive resource that will be a great help for students and experienced researchers alike.

Concerns about drawing causal inferences from meta-analyses: an example in the study of gender differences in aggression.

Meta-analysis has increasingly been used as an explanatory research tool. The present investigation was designed to illustrate the potential limitations of meta-analysis for making causal inferences. Several meta-analytic investigations have led others to conclude that gender differences are getting smaller over time, however, there has been little concern regarding changes in research methodology over time. The present findings indicate that the gender differences in aggression appear to be remarkably stable when changes in study characteristics over time are controlled. The authors discuss the implications for the use of meta-analytic procedures to make causal inferences and the implications for understanding the causes of gender differences.

An examination of the cross-ethnic equivalence of measures of negative life events and mental health among Hispanic and Anglo-American children

Recently there has been concern over the need for mental health research within ethnic minority populations, particularly Hispanic populations. Although there has been research focusing upon the similarity of mental health problems among Hispanic and Anglo-American samples, the absence of information regarding the cross-ethnic measurement equivalence of the assessment tools used in these comparisons seriously limits the interpretability of these findings. The two reported studies were designed to (a) examine the cross-ethnic functional and scalar equivalence of several mental health measures by examining the interrelations of these mental health indicators and examining the regression equations using negative life events to predict mental health outcomes; and (b) compare several mental health indicators among Hispanic and Anglo-American 8- to 14-year-old children. Findings suggest considerable cross-ethnic functional and scalar equivalence for the measure of depression, conduct disorders, and negative life events. In addition, findings indicate that the Hispanic children scored higher in depression than did the Anglo-American children, but this difference could be a function of differences in SES. The reader is cautioned that the present samples included only English-speaking and primarily Mexican American children.

Economic hardship, neighborhood context, and parenting: Prospective effects on Mexican American adolescent’s mental health

This study examined family and neighborhood influences relevant to low-income status to determine how they combine to predict the parenting behaviors of Mexican–American mothers and fathers. The study also examined the role of parenting as a mediator of these contextual influences on adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Study hypotheses were examined in a diverse sample of Mexican–American families in which 750 mothers and 467 fathers reported on their own levels of parental warmth and harsh parenting. Family economic hardship, neighborhood familism values, and neighborhood risk indicators were all uniquely associated with maternal and paternal warmth, and maternal warmth mediated the effects of these contextual influences on adolescent externalizing symptoms in prospective analyses. Parents’ subjective perceptions of neighborhood danger interacted with objective indicators of neighborhood disadvantage to influence maternal and paternal warmth. Neighborhood familism values had unique direct effects on adolescent externalizing symptoms in prospective analyses, after accounting for all other context and parenting effects.

Ethnic Identity and Adaptation of Mexican American Youths in School Settings

The theoretical and research literature on school performance and attrition in Mexican American youths was reviewed in order to examine how their membership asAmericans of Mexican descent, and the social, cultural, and political contexts of their school settings, affect their psychological adaptation in schooL Traditional theoretical views about school achievement in ethnic minority youths were compared and contrastede It was concluded that the empirical research fails to differentiate among Hispanic groups in ways that could result in better predictions of dropout, and that prevailing theoretical views of underachievement have neither arrived at a theoretical synthesis nor explored the processes that lead to dropout. A social identity framework was proposed for achieving such a synthesis, and for promoting the understanding of ethnic and other social identity changes as mediators of the effects of environmental and individual variables on school achievement. Available theory and findings were reconceptualized in terms of social identity theory, and developmental issues were considered.

A multiplicative model of the dispositional antecedents of a prosocial behavior: predicting more of the people more of the time.

Researchers have demonstrated that individual differences in prosocial behavior may be a function of dispositional or person variables. However, the observed empirical relations have been relatively modest, perhaps because researchers have most often examined simple additive or single predictor models. The present investigation examined a multiplicative model of the relation of dispositional variables to a prosocial behavior. Eighty-six children between 6 and 9 years old completed a monetary donation task and measures of the general tendency to understand and reason about the affective state of others, to be sympathetic, and to understand the units and value of money. As expected, children who scored high in affective reasoning, sympathy, and money knowledge donated considerably more than children who scored low in any of these dispositional variables.