No abstract

To examine the long-term effects of an intervention combining teacher training, parent education, and social competence training for children during the elementary grades on adolescent health-risk behaviors at age 18 years.Design: Nonrandomized controlled trial with follow-up 6 years after intervention.Setting: Public elementary schools serving high-crime areas in Seattle, Wash.Participants: Of the fifth-grade students enrolled in participating schools, 643 (76%) were given written parental consent for the longitudinal study and 598 (93%) were followed up and interviewed at age 18 years.Interventions: A full intervention provided in grades 1 through 6 of 5 days of in-service training for teachers each intervention year, developmentally appropriate parenting classes offered to parents when children were in grades 1 through 3 and 5 through 6, and developmentally adjusted social competence training for children in grades 1 and 6. A late intervention, provided in grades 5 and 6 only, paralleled the full intervention at these grades.Main Outcome Measures: Self-reported violent and nonviolent crime, substance use, sexual activity, pregnancy, bonding to school, school achievement, grade repetition and school dropout, suspension and/or expul-Editor's Note: I think the message here is, "Start early, include everyone possible, and [I'd add] don't ever stop."

We address the role of racial antagonism in whites' opposition to racially-targeted policies. The data come from four surveys selected for their unusually rich measurement of both policy preferences and other racial attitudes: the 1986 and 1992 National Election Studies, the 1994 General Social Survey, and the 1995 Los Angeles County Social Survey. They indicate that such opposition is more strongly rooted in racial antagonism than in non-racial conservatism, that whites tend to respond to quite different racial policies in similar fashion, that racial attitudes affect evaluations of black and ethnocentric white presidential candidates, and that their effects are just as strong among college graduates as among those with no college education. Second, we present evidence that symbolic racism is consistently more powerful than older forms of racial antagonism, and its greater strength does not diminish with controls on non-racial ideology, partisanship, and values. The origins of symbolic racism lie partly in both anti-black antagonism and non-racial conservative attitudes and values, and so mediates their effects on policy preferences, but it explains substantial additional variance by itself, suggesting that it does represent a new form of racism independent of older racial and political attitudes. The findings are each replicated several times with different measures, in different surveys conducted at different times. We also provide new evidence in response to earlier critiques of research on symbolic racism.Race relations in the United States have had a long history, but one that is marked by significant discontinuities over time. The period of slavery was followed by the brief but radically 3 different window of the Reconstruction. The Jim Crow system that developed over the following century legalized racial segregation and discrimination, especially but not exclusively in the South.The civil rights revolution effectively ended that two-caste system of race relations, replacing it with a universal system of formal legal equality. Nevertheless, considerable racial inequality remains in many areas of the society, such as in income, wealth, educational attainment, health, vulnerability to crime, and so forth.The demise of Jim Crow was accompanied by a sharp decline in the prevalence of its supporting belief system, sometimes described as "old-fashioned racism," incorporating both a biologically-based theory of African racial inferiority and support for racial segregation and formal racial discrimination (McConahay, 1986). This theory of white racial superiority has now largely been replaced by general support for the abstract principle of racial equality (Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985;Sears & Kinder, 1971). However, there is much evidence that whites do not fully support the implications of these general principles of equality. They have often strongly opposed policies implementing that general principle, such as busing or affirmative action, leading to what Schuman, et al. (1985) have called the "princ...

The social development model is a general theory of human behavior that seeks to explain antisocial behaviors through specification of predictive developmental relationships. It incorporates the effects of empirical predictors ("risk factors" and "protective factors") for antisocial behavior and attempts to synthesize the most strongly supported propositions of control theory, social learning theory, and differential association theory. This article examines the power of social development model constructs measured at ages 9 to 10 and 13 to 14 to predict drug use at ages 17 to 18. The sample of 590 is from the longitudinal panel of the Seattle Social Development Project, which in 1985 sampled fifth grade students from high crime neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to examine the fit of the model to the data. Although all but one path coefficient were significant and in the expected direction, the model did not fit the data as well as expected (CFI=.87). We next specified second-order factors for each path to capture the substantial common variance in the constructs' opportunities, involvement, and rewards. This model fit the data well (CFI=.90). We conclude that the social development model provides an acceptable fit to predict drug use at ages 17 to 18. Implications for the temporal nature of key constructs and for prevention are discussed.The social development model is a general theory of human behavior that hypothesizes similar developmental processes leading to either prosocial or antisocial outcomes (Catalano and Hawkins 1996;Hawkins and Weis 1985). The model takes a developmental life course perspective (Elliott 1994), specifying four submodels for specific periods in childhood and adolescence.The model is grounded in criminological theory and incorporates research on the etiology of different forms of antisocial behavior. It seeks to explain a broad range of distinct antisocial behaviors through specification of predictive developmental relationships. Antisocial behavior is defined here as the violation of legal codes, including those relative to age. This definition thus includes both violent and nonviolent offending and the illegal use of drugs.This article presents a test of the social development model in the context of drug abuse. In the analyses reported here, the model was tested for its fit in predicting adolescent substance use. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptData from a panel of the Seattle Social Development Project were utilized in the test. Drug use measured when youth were 17 to 18 years old was predicted by social development model constructs measured when subjects were 9 to 10 and 13 to 14 years old. Overview of the TheoryThe social development model incorporates a growing body of knowledge regarding the effects of empirical predictors, or "risk factors," in the development of antisocial behavior. It is clear empirically that multiple biological, psychological, and social factors at mult...

A theory-guided preventive intervention that strengthened teaching and parenting practices and taught children interpersonal skills during the elementary grades had wide-ranging beneficial effects on functioning in early adulthood.