Deviant Peer Factors During Early Adolescence: Cause or Consequence of Physical Aggression?

This study investigated reciprocal relations between adolescents' physical aggression and their perceptions of peers' deviant behaviors and attitudes. Analyses were conducted on four waves of data from 2,290 adolescents (ages 10–16) from three urban middle schools. Autoregression models revealed reciprocal relations between peer factors (i.e., friends' problem behavior, peer pressure for fighting, friends' support for fighting) and adolescents' reporting of their aggressive behavior. Bidirectional relations were also found between peer pressure for fighting and adolescents' frequency of physical aggression based on teacher ratings. Findings were consistent across sex, grade, and time. Findings suggest that multiple dimensions of peers' behaviors uniquely play a role in the development of adolescents' aggression and have important implications for interventions to reduce problem behaviors.     

The social condition of higher education: globalisation and (beyond) regionalisation in Latin America

This article aims to discuss the relationship between higher education (HE), globalisation and regionalism projects focusing on HE in Latin America and Brazil. It is claimed that HE has predominantly taken the diverse, yet concerted and co-ordinated routes of globalisation and regionalisation and, by doing so, been profoundly transformed. The first section considers a set of theoretical categories in relation to the phenomena of globalisation and regionalisation. The second section analyses the global and regional dimensions of HE in Latin America, exploring: (1) the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), along with the processes and mechanisms put into place to settle MERCOSUR's Educative Sector. It is argued that despite the political relevance of this regional project, its major developments are still harbouring important but preliminary preparations for future regional positioning and empowerment; (2) it is argued that the commodification, privatisation and ‘marketisation’ of HE, having occupied the centre stage in determined nations of the world, have become the founding conditions of a global market in HE; and (3) the Brazilian HE policies are examined in order to develop an argument about the decisive role played by national government in promoting and adjusting the process of globalisation and the regionalism project for HE.     

Publication productivity in doctoral research departments: Interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary factors

Examination of a national data set reporting departmental levels of publication productivity in 23 disciplines revealed very large differences between disciplines, with the mean departments in the most productive disciplines averaging more than 10 times the number of publications of the mean departments in the least productive disciplines. The differences within disciplines were also very large. Analyses of the characteristics of departments associated with productivity showed great variation across disciplines. Regression analyses indicated the importance of size and internal university support rather than federal support. Similar results are reported for the number of citations to the work of departments. The implications of these results for program review and the reputations of departments are reviewed.     

Communicative adaptability: A measure of social communicative competence

The purpose of this research was to reassess the validity and increase the variance accounted for by the Communicative Adaptability Scale (CAS). Previous research produced two factors, social confirmation and social experience, accounting for 28% of the variance. The present study tested the inclusion of four additional dimensions: social composure, articulation, wit, and appropriate disclosure. The Communicative Adaptability Scale was administered to adult and student populations. The relationships among the dimensions of the CAS, self‐esteem, and communication apprehension were investigated. This project indicated a stable factor structure and consistent results across samples.