Teen Perceptions of the Promotion of Safer Sexual Practices: A Focus Group Study

Teens' own thoughts on fostering safe sexual practice are important perspectives in promoting adolescent sexual health yet are relatively absent in the literature. This focus group study explored teens' perceptions about the supports and challenges that exist as teens strive to engage in healthy sexual practices. Seventy-five teens participated in 11 focus groups using a semi-structured interview guide. School-based health centers provided the setting and facilitated sample recruitment. Focus groups were audiorecorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed using the focus group guide as a template and typologies, or clusters of concepts, were extracted to establish teen perceptions of the factors that support and challenge their ability to engage in safe sexual practices. The socio-ecological model provided the framework to identify these factors within the individual, family/parent, relational (peer/partner), community, or societal spheres of influence. Results discussed the importance of parents, the value of confidentiality, respect for teen decision-making, relationships skills, developmental aspects of the adolescent years, and social interpretations of gender. These findings revealed important considerations as adults develop policies, messages, and programs designed to promote safe sexual behavior in teens.     

Review of The Atlas of Erotic Anatomy and Arousal

The Atlas of Erotic Anatomy and Arousal is online video education that explores sexual pleasure and sexual anatomy from a sex positive perspective. Written and presented by a sex educator and therapist, Cyndi Darnell, this video is an excellent resource for adult individuals interested in learning about their bodies and having fulfilling sexual experiences with their partners. The video series provides scientifically accurate and pleasure-based information about the anatomy of the vulva, the penis, and the anus, and the physiology of orgasm and ejaculation, in an entertaining manner.     

战略采购、高管低碳态度与制造企业低碳采购

构建理论模型之后,结合问卷调查,采用结构方程模型进行假设检验。结果表明:供应商集成与供应商之间低碳协作是低碳采购顺利实施的重要因素;战略采购和高管低碳态度不仅直接促进低碳采购的实施,也间接地通过改善与供应商间低碳协作正向影响企业低碳采购的有效实施。     

公众技术伦理风险情感状况实证研究

通过对946名居民的调查,研究社会公众对技术伦理风险情感态度的状况及影响因素。数据分析结论表明,公众对技术伦理风险总体态度较积极,在对技术伦理风险的控制方面公众持有较主动的态度。克隆技术和转基因技术的伦理风险已成为公众态度最为消极的技术伦理风险。通过分析克隆技术与转基因技术伦理风险的影响因素,发现在克隆技术伦理风险方面,性别、职业和收入因素影响最大,在转基因技术伦理风险方面,收入、学历和职业因素影响最大。在对公众情感状况和影响因素分析的基础上,我们提出,深入开展科技伦理普及教育,建立健全科技伦理风险问责机制,建立健全相关行业法律法规及行业规范,促进相关政府职能转移的对策。     

经济发展、产业结构调整与城镇建设用地规模控制

马鞍山市目前正处于城市产业结构调整及功能转型过程中.该研究以马鞍山市为例,通过统计描述、定性分析,系统地考察了人口城市化水平、经济发展水平、产业结构调整与城镇建设用地规模之间的关系,研究了在经济发展过程中如何合理确定和控制城镇建设用地规模的问题,并提出了一个待验证的假说.随后,用经济计量模型:Yi=α β1X1i β2X2i β3X3i εi验证了所提出的假说,并估计人口城市化水平、经济发展水平、产业结构调整等社会经济驱动力因子对城镇建设用地规模的影响.计量模型估计结果表明,城市化水平、经济发展水平与产业结构调整对城镇建设用地规模的影响具有不同的作用方向,城市化水平、经济发展水平带动了城市用地规模的扩张,而产业结构调整则有利于城市用地的集约化和用地结构的优化.研究结果验证了所提出的假说,其结论可以有力支持当前的城市产业结构调整以及功能转型政策,对其他的转型城市而言,也具有重要的借鉴意义.     

Teachers' Voices in the Context of Higher Education Reforms in Armenia

In this article, teachers' sense-making and reasoning about higher education reforms in a post Soviet country, namely Armenia, are examined using an analytical framework with six sensitising concepts: beliefs, emotions, attitudes, change knowledge, attributions and organisational culture. The results of semi-structured interviews with 12 Armenian higher education teachers showed that they mainly felt distrust towards reforms and that the implementation initiatives caused dissatisfaction, frustration and therefore distortion. At a deeper level, the teachers mostly felt excluded from the reform process and that their role was depreciated. One striking feature was the predominant causal attribution of teachers to external, unstable and uncontrollable factors which question the success of the reforms.     

Forensic child sexual abuse evaluations: assessing subjectivity and bias in professional judgements

Objectives

Evaluators examining the same evidence often arrive at substantially different conclusions in forensic assessments of child sexual abuse (CSA). This study attempts to identify and quantify subjective factors that contribute to such disagreements so that interventions can be devised to improve the reliability of case decisions.

Methods

Participants included 1106 professionals in the field of child maltreatment representing a range of professional positions or job titles and years of experience. Each completed the Child Forensic Attitude Scale (CFAS), a 28-item survey assessing 3 forensic attitudes believed to influence professional judgments about CSA allegations: emphasis-on-sensitivity (i.e., a focus on minimizing false negatives or errors of undercalling abuse); emphasis-on-specificity (i.e., a focus on minimizing false positives or errors of overcalling abuse); and skepticism toward child and adolescent reports of CSA. A subset of 605 professionals also participated in 1 of 3 diverse decision exercises to assess the influence of the 3 forensic attitudes on ratings of case credibility.

Results

Exploratory factor analysis identified 4 factors or attitude subscales that corresponded closely with the original CFAS scales: 2 subscales for emphasis-on-sensitivity and 1 each for emphasis-on-specificity and skepticism. Attitude subscale scores differed significantly by sample source (in-state trainings vs. national conferences), gender, years of experience, and professional position, with Child Protective Service workers unexpectedly more concerned about overcalling abuse and more skeptical of child disclosures than other professionals—a pattern of scores associated with an increased probability of disbelieving CSA allegations. The 3 decision exercises offered validation of the attitude subscales as predictors of professional ratings of case credibility, with adjusted R²s for the three exercises ranging from .06 to .24, suggesting highly variable effect sizes.

Conclusions

Evaluator disagreements about CSA allegations can be explained, in part, by individual differences in 3 attitudes related to forensic decision-making: emphasis-on-sensitivity, emphasis-on-specificity, and skepticism toward child reports of abuse. These attitudes operate as predispositions or biases toward viewing CSA allegations as likely true or likely false. Several strategies for curbing the influence of subjective factors are highlighted including self-awareness of personal biases and team approaches to assessment.     

Children's disclosures of sexual abuse: learning from direct inquiry

Objectives

Published protocols for forensic interviewing for child sexual abuse do not include specific questions about what prompted children to tell about sexual abuse or what made them wait to tell. We, therefore, aimed to: (1) add direct inquiry about the process of a child's disclosure to a forensic interview protocol; (2) determine if children will, in fact, discuss the process that led them to tell about sexual abuse; and (3) describe the factors that children identify as either having led them to tell about sexual abuse or caused them to delay a disclosure.

Methods

Forensic interviewers were asked to incorporate questions about telling into an existing forensic interview protocol. Over a 1-year period, 191 consecutive forensic interviews of child sexual abuse victims aged 3-18 years old in which children spoke about the reasons they told about abuse or waited to tell about abuse were reviewed. Interview content related to the children's reasons for telling or for waiting to tell about abuse was extracted and analyzed using a qualitative methodology in order to capture themes directly from the children's words.

Results

Forensic interviewers asked children about how they came to tell about sexual abuse and if children waited to tell about abuse, and the children gave specific answers to these questions. The reasons children identified for why they chose to tell were classified into three domains: (1) disclosure as a result of internal stimuli (e.g., the child had nightmares), (2) disclosure facilitated by outside influences (e.g., the child was questioned), and (3) disclosure due to direct evidence of abuse (e.g., the child's abuse was witnessed). The barriers to disclosure identified by the children were categorized into five groups: (1) threats made by the perpetrator (e.g., the child was told (s)he would get in trouble if (s)he told), (2) fears (e.g., the child was afraid something bad would happen if (s)he told), (3) lack of opportunity (e.g., the child felt the opportunity to disclose never presented), (4) lack of understanding (e.g., the child failed to recognize abusive behavior as unacceptable), and (5) relationship with the perpetrator (e.g., the child thought the perpetrator was a friend).

Conclusions

Specific reasons that individual children identify for why they told and why they waited to tell about sexual abuse can be obtained by direct inquiry during forensic interviews for suspected child sexual abuse.

Practice implications

When asked, children identified the first person they told and offered varied and specific reasons for why they told and why they waited to tell about sexual abuse. Understanding why children disclose their abuse and why they wait to disclose will assist both professionals and families. Investigators and those who care for sexually abused children will gain insight into the specific barrier that the sexually abused child overcame to disclose. Prosecutors will be able to use this information to explain to juries why the child may have delayed his or her disclosure. Parents who struggle to understand why their child disclosed to someone else or waited to disclose will have a better understanding of their child's decisions.     

Changes in the prevalence of child sexual abuse, its risk factors, and their associations as a function of age cohort in a Finnish population sample

Objective

We examined (1) the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) experiences as a function of cohort and gender, (2) the prevalence of factors associated with CSA as a function of cohort and whether the association of these factors with CSA remained the same irrespective of cohort, and (3) whether any cohort differences could be explainable by cohort differences in reporting bias.

Method

We used the responses of 4,561 men (M = 29, SD = 7 years) and 8,361 female (M = 29, SD = 7 years) Finnish participants who responded to the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form as well as questions regarding family structure.

Results

The prevalence of CSA experiences varied between 0.7-4.6% for men and 1.8-7.5% for women depending on the item. Younger cohorts reported less CSA as well as less of the risk factors (physical neglect and abuse, emotional neglect and abuse, parental substances abuse, not growing up with both biological parents) that were positively associated with the likelihood of CSA. The effects of these risk factors did not vary as a function of the cohort. Also, the declining trend was not explainable by social desirability being higher in the younger cohorts.

Conclusions

The results suggest that there is a real decline in the prevalence of CSA and it is associated with a simultaneous decline in factors associated with CSA.     

Promoting intercultural understanding and reducing stereotypes: incorporating the cultural portfolio project into Taiwan's EFL college classes

Learning about foreign language (FL) cultures is becoming an important objective in the FL curricula and national standards of different countries throughout the world. The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of the cultural portfolio project on: (1) students' concept development in their perceptions of the target language culture and their own; (2) students' evaluation of stereotypes towards English‐speaking cultures; and (3) students' self‐awareness and perception of EFL (English as a foreign language) and cultural learning process. Data were collected from students' cultural portfolio projects, classroom observation, and interviews. Results indicate that through the cultural portfolio project, students engaged in active learning, gained insight into specific aspects of the target language cultures and became more aware of the diversity within these cultures, and developed their ability to think critically instead of automatically accepting cultural information.