Communicating in classical contexts: The centrality of delivery

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the apparent success of the Patriot missile defense system served as the official centerpiece of a rhetorical campaign to portray Operation Desert Storm as an unprecedented mission ushering in a new era of American military dominance based on technological superiority. Post‐war disclosures have not only cast serious doubt on Patriot's wartime performance, but have also exposed a widespread program of strategic deception employed by Pentagon officials to protect the fiction of Patriot's Gulf War wizardry. This essay explains how Gulf War audiences were misled, assesses the rhetorical windfall flowing from perceived Patriot effectiveness, and criticizes the Pentagon's campaign of strategic deception as normatively bankrupt.     

Examining the validity of office discipline referrals as an indicator of student behavior problems

Office discipline referral (ODR) data are increasingly used to monitor student behavior problems and the impact of interventions, but there has been limited research examining their validity. The current study examined the concordance of ODRs with teacher ratings of student behavior using data on 8,645 children in 335 classrooms at 21 elementary schools. The results of a variety of analyses (e.g., correlations, multivariate analysis of variance, receiver operating characteristics) suggested that ODRs are moderately valid and reliable. Multilevel analyses revealed that teacher ratings of disruptive behaviors were significantly associated with ODRs, even after controlling for other student‐, classroom‐, and school‐level factors. These findings suggest that ODRs are moderately valid indicators of student behavior problems and may be an efficient source of information for use in school‐based research and data‐based decision‐making. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Home birth matters-for all women

Although it remains rare in the United States, planned home birth has drawn increasing attention and criticism in the mainstream media and has come under attack from organized medicine. Yet, recent peer-reviewed studies contribute to the evidence base supporting home birth as a safe option for low-risk women attended by skilled midwives. The author of this editorial argues that home birth is an important cultural touchstone in the landscape of American maternity care.     

Peer contagion of aggression and health risk behavior among adolescent males: an experimental investigation of effects on public conduct and private attitudes

Peer contagion of adolescent males' aggressive/health risk behaviors was examined using a computerized "chat room" experimental paradigm. Forty-three 11th-grade White adolescents (16-17 years old) were led to believe that they were interacting with other students (i.e., "e-confederates"), who endorsed aggressive/health risk behaviors and whose ostensible peer status was experimentally manipulated. Adolescents displayed greater public conformity, more internalization of aggressive/health risk attitudes, and a higher frequency of actual exclusionary behavior when the e-confederates were high in peer status than low. Participants' level of social anxiety moderated peer contagion. Nonsocially anxious participants conformed only to high-status peers, whereas socially anxious participants were equally influenced by low- and high-status peers. The role of status-maintenance motivations in aggression and risk behavior, and implications for preventive intervention, are discussed.