Sally K. Ward

Acquaintance Rape and the College Social Scene.

This article provides estimates of the incidence of unwanted sexual experiences on one college campus. Based on a selfadministered survey, it is estimated that 34% of the women had experienced contact; 20% experienced attempted intercourse; and 10% experienced completed intercourse. It is argued that the stranger-acquaintance dichotomy should be abandoned in favor of a typology that explicitly includes reference to the context which brings the victim and perpetrator together. Different types of policies are required for different types of unwanted experiences.

Disclosure and service use on a college campus after an unwanted sexual experience

In order to continue to facilitate the disclosure of sexual assault to professional support services, the current study examined the extent to which survivors report using campus services and whether friends who had disclosed to participants used the services. We also compared knowledge of a campus sexual assault center and likelihood of using the center among college men and women. Surveys were completed by 1,230 students, including victims of unwanted contact (n = 127), victims of unwanted intercourse (n = 26), and friends of victims (n = 253). Students who reported being victims of unwanted sexual experiences were reluctant to use services, expressing concerns that they would not be believed and that they would be blamed for what had happened to them. College men were significantly less likely to know where the sexual assault center was located, to report that they would use the center, and to report that unwanted sexual experiences were a problem on campus. Results indicate that much needs to be done to educate the campus community about the value of using professional support services after a sexual assault.

Friends of Survivors: The Community Impact of Unwanted Sexual Experiences

Since sexual assault survivors are most likely to disclose their experiences to a friend; prevention efforts increasingly focus on friends as informal helpers. The current study examined friends’ perceptions of the disclosure experience. Undergraduates (N=1,241) at the University of New Hampshire completed a shortened version of the Ahrens and Campbell (2000) Impact on Friends measure. Results found that about 1 in 3 female undergraduates and 1 in 5 male students were told by a friend that they were a victim of an unwanted sexual experience. Gender differences were found in friends’ responses to disclosure. Women reported greater emotional distress in response to a friends disclosure, greater positive responses and lesser-perceived confusion/ineffectiveness as compared to men. Implications include the need to develop specific and clear educational material to help the community cope with and effectively respond to unwanted sexual experiences on college campuses.

A spatial autocorrelation model of the effects of population density on fertility.

The relationship between fertility and population density that has been demonstrated with aggregate data is discussed and reexamined here. We argue that models which exclude considerations of spatial processes are incomplete and that therefore parameter estimates for such models are misleading. We then develop a model which incorporates spatial autocorrelation and reanalyze data from one well-known study of the effects of density on fertility using our model. The results show that with one exception the effects of density on fertility are trivial a finding that is quite different from previous research. We conclude that spatial mechanisms are an important consideration in the modeling of social processes that involve geographically defined units. (excerpt)

Physical Dating Violence, Sexual Violence, and Unwanted Pursuit Victimization A Comparison of Incidence Rates Among Sexual-Minority and Heterosexual College Students

The purpose of this study was to estimate the 6-month incidence rates of sexual assault, physical dating violence (DV), and unwanted pursuit (e.g., stalking) victimization among sexual-minority (i.e., individuals with any same-sex sexual experiences) college students with comparison data from non-sexual-minority (i.e., individuals with only heterosexual sexual experiences) college students. Participants (N = 6,030) were primarily Caucasian (92.7%) and non-sexual-minority (82.3%). Compared with non-sexual-minority students (N-SMS; n = 4,961), sexual-minority students (SMS; n = 1,069) reported significantly higher 6-month incidence rates of physical DV (SMS: 30.3%; N-SMS: 18.5%), sexual assault (SMS: 24.3%; N-SMS: 11.0%), and unwanted pursuit (SMS: 53.1%; N-SMS: 36.0%) victimization. We also explored the moderating role of gender and found that female SMS reported significantly higher rates of physical DV than female N-SMS, whereas male SMS and male N-SMS reported similar rates of physical DV. Gender did not moderate the relationship between sexual-minority status and victimization experiences for either unwanted pursuit or sexual victimization. These findings underscore the alarmingly high rates of interpersonal victimization among SMS and the critical need for research to better understand the explanatory factors that place SMS at increased risk for interpersonal victimization.

Revisiting Unwanted Sexual Experiences on Campus: A 12-Year Follow-Up

The current study examines patterns of stability and change in reports of unwanted sexual experiences in one campus community in two similar cohorts of undergraduates studied 12 years apart. A sample of 417 women completed a questionnaire in 2000, and this sample is compared to a sample of 524 women who completed the same questionnaire in 1988. Results indicate a reported decrease in unwanted sexual contact but indicate stability in reported rates of unwanted intercourse. Across forms of unwanted sexual experiences, more patterns of similarity than difference in abuse characteristics, such as relationship to perpetrator and location of the experience, are noted.

Methodological Considerations in the Study of Population Density and Social Pathology

A previous study of the effects of overcrowding on social behavior is discussed and replicated in this article. Consideration of two major methodological problems — the construction of the class and ethnicity indices and the measurement of social class — leads to reanalysis of the data and to results differing in several significant respects from the original results. Although these new results do not provide a definitive answer to the question of the effects of population density on social pathologies, they do show that studies of the problem are subject to several, possibly severe, measurement problems. Until these are more adequately dealt with, conclusions regarding the relation between density and human behavior must be both cautious and tentative.

The Politics of urban fiscal policy

Introduction - Terrence J McDonald and Sally K Ward Socioeconomic Change, Political Culture, and Fiscal Politics in San Francisco, 1870-1906 - Terrence J McDonald Bosses, Reform, and the Socioeconomic Bases of Urban Expenditure, 1890-1940 - M Craig Brown and Charles N Halaby Conflict, Crime, and Budgetary Constraint - David McDowall and Colin Loftin Police Strength in Detroit, 1927-1976 The Politics of Municipal Indebtedness and Default, 1850-1936 - Eric H Monkkonen

Program Evaluation and Family Violence Research

Contents * About the Contributors * Introduction * Program Evaluation and Family Violence Research * Overviews of Research on Family Violence Interventions * How Evaluation Research Can Help Reform and Improve the Child Welfare System * Assessing Family Violence Interventions: Linking Programs to Research-Based Strategies * Research Synthesis in Family Violence: The Art of Reviewing Research * Experimental Designs and Alternatives * What Are the Lessons of the Police Arrest Studies? * Linking Research to Practice: Challenges and Opportunities * Outcomes Research * Treatment Research in Child Maltreatment: Clinical and Research Directions * Canadian Child Welfare Outcomes Indicator Matrix: An Ecological Approach to Tracking Service Outcomes * Evaluating Interventions in Specific Institutional Settings * Evaluating Interventions for Children Exposed to Family Violence * Strategies for Evaluating Dating Violence Prevention Programs * Collaboration and Activist Issues * Community Collaboration to Develop Research Programs in Partner Violence * Ethical Issues in Evaluating Interventions * Human Subject Issues in Batterer Program Evaluation * Index * Reference Notes Included

Spatial Autocorrelation Models for Galton's Problem

The effects of Galtons problem are discussed within a framework provided by the linear regression model. We examine five illustrative diffusion models and evaluate alternative estimation procedures (es pecially Narolls linked pairs test and Wirsings second order partial correlation). While no one procedure is adequate for all models, the specification of a diffusion model provides guidance in the selection of an appropriate estimation procedure.