Adult Authority Research Articles

Reconfiguring Nurture in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials

"Reconfiguring Nurture in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials " argues that effective nurture cannot be circumscribed by biological bonds, nor accomplished by isolated individuals. The novels present nurturing relationships grounded in the willing assumption of responsibility for Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry by surrogates in both stable and temporary relationships, providing alternate structures to compensate for those that have failed. At the same time, the novels do not deny the need for nurture grounded in a mature wisdom. Pullman's critique of parental and institutional failures stops short of a radical subversion of adult authority.

Practice Parameter for the Assessment and Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Depressive Disorders

Practice Parameter for the Assessment and Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Depressive Disorders

The Basis of Epistemic Trust: Reliable Testimony or Reliable Sources?

ABSTRACTWhat is the nature of children's trust in testimony? Is it based primarily on evidential correlations between statements and facts, as stated by Hume, or does it derive from an interest in the trustworthiness of particular speakers? In this essay, we explore these questions in an effort to understand the developmental course and cognitive bases of children's extensive reliance on testimony. Recent work shows that, from an early age, children monitor the reliability of particular informants, differentiate between those who make true and false claims and keep that differential accuracy in mind when evaluating new information from these people. We argue that this selective trust is likely to involve the mentalistic appraisal of speakers rather than surface generalizations of their behavior. Finally, we review the significance of children's deference to adult authority on issues of naming and categorization. In addition to challenging a purely inductive account of trust, these and other findings reflect a potentially rich set of tools brought by children to the task of learning from people's testimony.

The Basis of Epistemic Trust: Reliable Testimony or Reliable Sources?

What is the nature of children’s trust in testimony? Is it based primarily on evidential correlations between statements and facts, as stated by Hume, or does it derive from an interest in the trustworthiness of particular speakers? In this essay, we explore these questions in an effort to understand the developmental course and cognitive bases of children’s extensive reliance on testimony. Recent work shows that, from an early age, children monitor the reliability of particular informants, differentiate between those who make true and false claims and keep that differential accuracy in mind when evaluating new information from these people. We argue that this selective trust is likely to involve the mentalistic appraisal of speakers rather than surface generalizations of their behavior. Finally, we review the significance of children’s deference to adult authority on issues of naming and categorization. In addition to challenging a purely inductive account of trust, these and other findings reflect a potentially rich set of tools brought by children to the task of learning from people’s testimony.

The Metamorphic Book: Children's Print Culture in the Eighteenth Century

Gillian Brown argues that the eighteenth century witnessed important transformations in the conception of the nature and status of the child. John Locke's philosophy of education, presenting the child as a prototypical agent rather than the mere subject of adult authority, was a key factor in registering and promulgating these changes. The children's literature publishing industry that emerged during this period both incorporated and advanced these reconceptions through the very form in which books were published.

Mixed messages: Contributions to adolescent drinking and driving

This qualitative study focused on the discrepancies in messages concerning alcohol use presented by adults to young people. The purpose was to investigate how these discrepancies might impact adolescents’ drinking, and drinking and driving behavior. The data consisted of semi-structured interviews with 44 adolescents who in a previous survey had admitted having been involved in drinking and driving, riding with a drunk driver, or both. The analysis of the interviews focused on the discrepancies between messages presented by adult authorities and the respondents’ experience of actual behavior from these authorities. The findings indicate that there are serious problems in the communication between adult authorities and adolescents. Parents, schools, and police are not consistent and persistent in their communication with adolescents concerning alcohol and drinking and driving. This inconsistency seems to prevent teenagers from understanding the extent of the problem of drinking and driving. Implications for research and prevention are discussed.

From Snow White to Digimon

Parents, educators and social commentators have repeatedly claimed that passive media consumption can harm children. Building on recent attempts to understand how children actively interpret media, the authors use an interpretive model of socialization to analyze fieldnote excerpts from a Taiwanese kindergarten and first grade. Contrary to popular opinion, the findings demonstrate that young children did not simply internalize and reproduce the messages received from media or adult authority figures. Instead the authors found that children actively incorporated popular media into their peer cultures through knowledge displays, play planning episodes and collective play. Further, the children in this study used popular media to enact, explore and resist the Confucian values of being a good student, a good family member and a good peer.

Street-Rats and Gutter-Snipes: Child Pickpockets and Street Culture in New York City, 1850-1900

For over half a century, the street child was an inescapable fixture of the nineteenth-century industrial city. Lacking formal education, adult supervision, and sometimes even a home, such youths were derided as rats, gamins, Arabs, urchins and gutter-snipes. In a country which identified geographic mobility and physical movement as freedom, the street kid represented the logical nightmare---the replacement of community, familial and even spiritual bonds with the rootless individualism of the nomad. Street children by necessity developed a confrontational and oppositional subculture relative to adult authority, while simultaneously adopting certain entrepreneurial behaviors as a survival strategy. Struggling to negotiate a terrain between personal autonomy and adult authority, between self-sufficiency and economic dependence, child pickpockets thus cultivated their own conception of freedom and independence.

Bridging the chasm between muteness and cheek: the street-sweeper of the nineteenth century is granted his say

Mid-nineteenth-century representations of childhood varied enormously according to the audience—adult or child—at which they were aimed, but one element they all had in common was the problem of creating a voice for the protagonist child that would promote a degree of autonomy, while retaining at the same time the sense of the child as domestic and subject to adult authority. This problem was exacerbated when the child figure in question was also the focus of public discourse. One such figure was the young crossing-sweeper whose occupation of public territory was productive of much adult unease. This paper considers a range of representations of the street-sweeper as expressed through the mute inadequacy of Dickens's Jo in Bleak House, the incisive verbal impudences of Punch's cartoon constructions and the idealised, domesticised voice of Froggy in Froggy's Little Brother, by ‘Brenda’. The paper contends that the tension between the public and the domestic lives of these children was played out through reassessment of the child voice, whereby domesticity promoted muteness as much as it protected childhood, but that survival in the public sphere necessitated the adoption of a voice at the expense of being accepted as a ‘real’ child.

Sluts and wiggers: a study of the effects of derogatory labeling

This research investigated how poor teenage girls from the marginal teenage subculture react to persistent derogatory labeling from higher status teenagers and adult authorities. The research found that a supportive emotional bond with a mother or grandmother insulates a girl from the harmful effects of derogatory stereotyping. Girls, who had an adult to trust for emotional support, did not engage in promiscuous, unprotected sex and less frequently used alcohol and other drugs. A second finding was that the experience of derogatory labeling did not cause most of the girls to develop persistent low self-esteem.

Ethical issues in psychotherapy with adolescents.

Treating adolescents in psychotherapy presents a number of unique ethical challenges. Because many adolescents who enter treatment have not yet attained the age of majority, reside in families that include other people with emotional difficulties, attend school, become involved with community agencies (e.g., the courts), and must generally take direction from adult authority figures, the role of the therapist becomes particularly complex. The unique dilemmas include developing specialized clinical competence, treatment contracting, choice of treatment modality, direction of the therapeutic process, and confidentiality. This article discusses the range of ethical concerns involved in treating adolescents and suggests strategies for optimal ethical care.

Chinese adolescents' reasoning about democratic and authority-based decision making in peer, family, and school contexts.

This study explored the judgments and reasoning of Chinese adolescents (13-18 years of age) from 3 regions of mainland China (N = 574) regarding procedures for making decisions involving children in peer, family, and school contexts. Participants evaluated 2 democratic decision-making procedures (majority rule and consensus) and decision making by adult authorities for 2 decisions embedded in each social context. Judgments and reasoning about decision-making procedures varied by social context and by the decision under consideration, and evaluations of procedures became more differentiated with increasing age. The findings reveal that concepts of rights, individual autonomy, and democratic norms (majority rule) are salient aspects of Chinese adolescents' social reasoning and are used to evaluate critically existing social practices.

Validity of Rogerian Therapy in Turkish Culture: A Cross‐Cultural Perspective

Rogerian therapy is highly regarded and popular in Turkey. The model, however, represents individualistic Western culture. In this article, the author focuses on and discusses the validity of the model in Turkish culture and provides suggestions for counseling Turkish clients.

Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Youth in South Africa

This article provides an overview of commercial exploitation, with a focus on commercial sexual exploitation of Black children and youth in South Africa. A literature review on research on the labor exploitation among youth globally and in South Africa and on the commercial sexual exploitation of South African youth is presented first. International and national policy proclamations related to South African youth are highlighted. Second, findings from a study of Black South African youth who engaged in commercial sexual activities in Cape Town are presented. Third, conclusions and recommendations to consider the complex social, educational, economic, and political aspects of child exploitation are offered. This includes implications for further research, policy, and programs to assist this group of youth and their families. The benefits of economic globalization, internationalization, and free trade have brought with them an unanticipated set of social problems. Among them is a dramatic rise world-wide in the incidence of child exploitation. Child sexual exploitation is one of the most virulent forms of this exploitation and includes child sexual abuse. Commercial sexual exploitation of children, is the other, and includes child pornography, juvenile prostitution, trafficking in children for sexual purposes, and child sex tourism (Estes, 2002). This article provides an overview of commercial exploitation of Black children and youth in South Africa, with an emphasis on commercial sexual exploitation. First, it includes a literature review in three areas: (a) labor exploitation among youth globally and in South Africa; (b) commercial sexual exploitation of South African youth; and (c) international and national proclamations related to South African youth. This includes abbreviated information from policy proclamations such as the South African Constitution, the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, World Declaration of the Survival, Protection, and Development of Children, and the Declaration and Agenda for Action by the World Congress against Commercial Exploitation of Children. Second, selected findings from ethnographic research on Black urban street youth who engaged in commercial sexual activities in Cape Town, South Africa, are presented. Third, conclusions and recommendations to consider the complex social, educational, economic, and political aspects of child exploitation are offered. Major findings indicate that limited knowledge about HIV/AIDS did not translate into safer sexual practices. This includes implications for further research, policy, and programs to assist this group of youth and their families. LITERATURE REVIEW Labor Exploitation among Youth Globally and in South Africa The International Labor Organization (ILO) in May 2002 found that 179 million children worldwide are exposed to the worst forms of child exploitation-labor, slavery, debt bondage, prostitution, pornography, drug trafficking, forced armed military conflict, and other illicit activities. These activities are self-explanatory although debt bondage may not be widely known. It refers to payment to an adult authority figure in a child's life in exchange for a child with the proviso that the child will have to earn the money back. The expectation of both child and parent (or guardian) is usually that the child will be released once the debt has been paid. Regarding child labor, the widespread exploitation of millions of children in the workplace has become a global concern resulting in a worldwide effort to abolish child labor. The ILO reports that 250 million children, globally, between the ages of 5 and 14 are forced to work. Child labor is most widespread in Asia, an area where nearly 153 million children, over half of the global total, are forced to work under hazardous conditions (Budlender & Bosch, 2002). South Africa has approximately 44 million people with one-third under 15 years of age, the age at which, legally a child in South Africa may begin work (United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, n. …

The behavioral risks and life circumstances of adolescent mothers involved with older adult partners.

To investigate behavioral risks and life circumstances of adolescent mothers with older (> or =5 years) adult (> or =20 years old) vs. similar-aged (+/-2 years) male partners at 12 months' postpartum. Nine hundred thirty-one adolescent females were interviewed after delivery and were mailed surveys to complete at 12 months' postpartum. Analysis by chi(2) and t test was used to identify differences in behavioral risks (planned repeated pregnancy, substance use, and intimate partner violence) and life circumstances (financial status, school enrollment, and social support) for adolescent mothers with older adult vs similar-aged partners. Additional stratified analyses were conducted to evaluate the extent to which living with an adult authority figure or being with the father of her infant born 12 months previously might alter observed relationships. At 12 months following delivery, 184 adolescent mothers (20%) reported having an older adult partner, whereas 312 (34%) had a similar-aged partner. The remaining adolescent mothers (n = 239) were excluded from further analyses. Adolescent mothers with older adult partners were significantly less likely to be employed or enrolled in school and were more likely to report planned repeated pregnancies. These adolescent mothers also received less social support. No differences were observed in intimate partner violence or the mother's substance use. Adolescent mothers with older adult partners who did not live with an adult authority figure seemed to be at greatest risk. The negative educational and financial impact of coupling with an older vs. similar-aged partner seems greater for those mothers who no longer reside with an adult authority figure. These adolescent mothers are also at greater risk of planned rapid repeated pregnancy. Given their limited educational attainment and family support, a subsequent pregnancy may place these young women at considerable financial and educational disadvantage.

Narrating Transgressions in Longwood: The Discourses, Meanings, and Paradoxes of an American Socializing Practice

The goal of this study is to deepen our understanding of a set of narrative practices in European‐American families in which young children's transgressions are downplayed or erased, a pattern that is cast in relief by the frequent, foregrounded narration of young children's transgressions in Taiwanese families. Evidence from the mothers'folk theories is used to illuminate these patterns, revealing that the pattern is reversed with respect to the narration of parental transgressions. The Taipei mothers treat parents' past misdeeds as undermining of adult authority and thereby not narratable to children, whereas the Longwood mothers regard parental misdeeds, including "hell‐raising," as highly repor table for their humor and their power to humanize parents. These findings are discussed in relation to contrasting ideals and understandings of the dynamics of selves over time.

Fast food: roadside restaurants in the automobile age

Eating on the run has a long history in America, but it was the automobile that created a whole new category of dining: food. In the final volume of their Gas, Food, Lodging trilogy, John Jakle and Keith Sculle contemplate the origins, architecture, and commercial growth of fast food restaurants from White Castle to McDonald's. Illustrated with 217 maps, postcards, photographs and drawings, Fast Food makes clear that the story of these unpretentious restaurants is the story of modern American culture. The first roadside eateries popularized once-unfamiliar foods - hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, milkshakes, burritos - that are now basic to the American diet. By the 1950s, drive-ins and diners had become icons of rebellion where teenagers sought freedom from adult authority. Like the gas station and the motel, the roadside restaurant is an essential part of the modern American landscape - where intentional sameness of design welcomes every interstate driver.

Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth-Century America.

America has long been fascinated by and its cultural expressions. The notion of youth has played a central role in processes of social reproduction and historical change throughout the twentieth century. But when we turn a critical eye to culture, we too often focus on as a passive and unchanging concept. In Generations of Youth, Joe Austin and Michael Willard have brought together leading cultural critics from history, sociology, and cultural studies to explore the cultural expressions of twentieth- century youth. The contributors to the volume explore diverse popular culture practices such as Chicano rock-and-roll dancing; the Boy Scouts and heroism; 'zines and community; Native American boxing; African American hip-hop; fan clubs and femininity; Malcolm X's zoot suit; Filipino Mcintosh suits; lesbian, bisexual, and gay Internet culture; Chicano lowriding; skateboarding and the production of urban space; graffiti and spatial mobility; Native American pow wows; and post-punk, Generation X, and downward mobility. Generations of Youth considers the ways in which young people's autonomy and youth itself is produced in negotiation with adult authority and institutions of socialization. The definitive volume on American cultures past and present, Generations of Youth traces the central ways in which historical meanings and experiences of intersect with other axes of the U.S. social hierarchy. We learn how race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class, and space intersect to affect our notions of and youth's notions of itself. Essays focus on the ways in which young people have appropriated and created cultural forms, practices, and social ideologies that are connected to changes in consumer and labor markets, to economies of prestige, and to received social hierarchies and traditions. Contributors to the volume include Victoria Getis, Jay Mechling, Mary Odem, John Bloom, Georganne Scheiner, Paula Fass, Linda N. Espana-Maram, Robin D. G. Kelley, Matt Garcia, James T. Sears, Beth Bailey, Ernesto Chavez, Jeffrey Rangel, Ryan Moore, Kyra Gaunt, Robert Walser, William Wei, Susan Willis, David Roediger, Joanne Addison and Michelle Comstock, Rachel Buff, George Lipsitz, Brenda Bright, Stanley Aronowitz, and Steve Duncombe.

Culture, Coping, and Context: Primary and Secondary Control among Thai and American Youth

Do cultural values and traditions influence the development of coping styles ? To address this question, we compared self-reports of coping by 6-14-year-olds in Thailand and the U.S. One hundred and forty-one children were interviewed about six common stressors: separation from a friend, injection in a doctor's office, adult anger, peer animosity, school failure, and physical injury. Children's self-reported coping methods were coded as overt or covert. Coping goals were coded as reflecting primary control (attempts to influence objective conditions), secondary control (attempts to adjust oneself to objective conditions), or relinquished control. Although findings revealed numerous cross-national similarities, there were also multiple main and interaction effects involving culture, suggesting that sociocultural context may be critical to our understanding of child coping. Consistent with literature on Thai culture, Thai children reported more than twice as much covert coping as American children for stressors involving adult authority figures (i.e. adult anger, injection in doctor's office). Thai children also reported more secondary control goals than Americans when coping with separation, but American children were five times as likely as Thais to adopt secondary control goals for coping with injury. The findings support a model of coping development in which culture and stressor characteristics interact, with societal differences most likely to be found in situations where culture-specific norms become salient.

Children's Evaluations of Decision‐Making Procedures in Peer, Family, and School Contexts

Children's evaluations of decision‐making procedures were examined in applications in different social contexts. Seventy‐two children evenly divided into three grade levels (grades 1 – 2, 3 – 4, 5 – 6) were administered a structured interview requiring them to evaluate three decision‐making procedures (consensus, majority rule, and authority‐based) embedded in three social contexts (peer group, family, and school classroom) and to select the most appropriate decision‐making procedure for two specific decisions: one expected to pull for procedures emphasizing children's autonomous decision making, and one expected to pull for adult authority. Judgments of decision‐making procedures at all grade levels did not show a heteronomous acceptance of adult authority but rather were influenced by social context and type of decision. In general, consensus was preferred in peer and family contexts and authority‐based procedures were preferred for school decisions about curriculum. Older children were more likely than younger children to consider how children's limited knowledge and competence may constrain their autonomous decision making.