Panel data have generated several insights about changes in kin relationships, yet few studies examine these shifts across multiple dimensions of time simultaneously. In this paper, we use data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (N = 5269) in classic lexis tables to examine age, period, and cohort differences in the kin-centricity of older adults' core discussion networks. We estimate population averages in discussion network size, range, kin composition, and kin co-residency across ages and periods. Results indicate that older adults' core discussion networks have become larger, more diverse, and less kin-centric over time. Comparisons of fit statistics across nested models indicate that period and age effects explain most of these changes. Our findings add nuance to concerns about a growing crisis of social isolation, suggesting that declines in core discussion network kin-centricity may be accompanied by the maintenance or addition of more alternative, non-kin close ties in later life.

In cluster randomized evaluations, a treatment or intervention is randomly assigned to a set of clusters each with constituent individual units of observations (e.g., student units that attend schools, which are assigned to treatment). One consideration of these designs is how many units are needed per cluster to achieve adequate statistical power. Typically, researchers state that "about 30 units per cluster" is the most that will yield benefit towards statistical precision. To avoid rules of thumb not grounded in statistical theory and practical considerations, and instead provide guidance for this question, the ratio of the minimum detectable effect size (MDES) to the larger MDES with one less unit per cluster is related to the key parameters of the cluster randomized design. Formulas for this subsequent difference effect size ratio (SDESR) at a given number of units are provided, as are formulas for finding the number of units for an assumed SDESR. In general, the point of diminishing returns occurs with smaller numbers of units for larger values of the intraclass correlation.

This study examines the impacts of two AmeriCorps programs, Minnesota Reading Corps and Wisconsin Reading Corps, where AmeriCorps volunteers provide literacy tutoring to at-risk kindergarten through third-grade (K–3) students utilizing a response-to-intervention framework. This evaluation replicates a prior randomized controlled trial evaluation of the program 4 years later and for the first time evaluates the program model replicated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The results of the two evaluations showed that kindergarten and first-grade students who received a single semester of Reading Corps tutoring achieved significantly higher literacy assessment scores, and demonstrated meaningful and significant effects after a full-school year of the intervention for second- and third-grade students.

The present study examines the impact of Proponte Más, a family-based, multiple gated prevention program in Honduras. The primary goal of Proponte Más is to reduce the risk factors for problem behavior associated with youth in Honduras through family-based intervention services. At risk youth were randomly assigned to a treatment and control group. Data for the study were sourced primarily from the Behavior Measurement Instrument and FACES IV instrument given to study participants prior to and following programming. Our study finds that Proponte Más succeeded in improving family functioning and decreasing risk factors and increasing protective factors. Our findings pertaining to the impact of the program on delinquency, however, were mixed. Our findings suggest that RCTs and family-based interventions can be effectively carried out in the most violent and at-risk communities in the Western Hemisphere and can result in reduced risk and improved resiliency among at-risk youth.

While scholars have long recognized that social networks impact political engagement for partisans, comparatively little work has examined the role of networks for independent voters. In this article, we contribute to existing research on social networks and politics by surveying Arizona registered voters about their political persuasion, personal networks, and media consumption habits. Our findings show that independents have networks that are structurally different from partisans. Specifically, we found that both Democrat and Republican respondents were more likely to frequently talk about politics with independents than with members of the opposing party. Independents were also less likely than partisans to end a friendship over a political dispute. Taken together these findings show that independents may be frequent and reliable discussion partners for partisans and may be able to moderate political views. We find evidence for the moderating force of independents is especially apparent in the media consumption habits of Republican respondents.

The article examines a gang-related peace initiative instituted in Greater August Town, Jamaica. Our objective was to understand the negotiation processes and determine whether the gang truce resulted in the desired outcome: a reduction in homicide. Bivariate analyses showed a significant decline in homicides immediately following the truce. Upon closer examination, however, comparing change in the target area to the balance areas in Jamaica and accounting for temporal trends, we found that the decline in homicide was part of a larger nationwide decline in violence and that the gang truce was not responsible for the decline. The only significant effect was the possibility that homicides were displaced outside the target area for a brief period of time.

Many experimental designs in educational and behavioral research involve at least one level of clustering. Clustering affects the precision of estimators and its impact on statistics in cross-sectional studies is well known. Clustering also occurs in longitudinal designs where students that are initially grouped may be regrouped in the following year and regrouped again in subsequent years. The purpose of this article is to explore the clustering effects of multiple waves of grouping on the effect sizes of downstream outcomes; that is, outcomes that are measured after one or more waves of regrouping. We center our framework on the longitudinal cluster randomized trial in which treatments are initially assigned by clusters (such as classrooms) and students are then regrouped into different clusters in subsequent years. This article illustrates how information on the intraclass correlations in longitudinal studies can be used to correct for biases in the effect sizes and variances, and how it can also be used to adjust the significance test for the effects of longitudinal clustering. This article also provides the first empirical evidence of the magnitude of longitudinal clustering effects using data from a state longitudinal data system.

PurposeDe-escalation training for police has received widespread attention as a method for reducing unnecessary and excessive use of force. There is virtually no research on de-escalation, and as a result, there is little understanding about what it is, what it includes and whether it is effective. The current study compares attitudes about the importance and use of de-escalation among officers who were randomly assigned to participate (or not) in de-escalation training.Design/methodology/approachThe current study draws from a larger randomized controlled trial of de-escalation training in the Tempe, Arizona Police Department (TPD). Approximately 100 officers completed a survey in June–July 2019 and again in June–July 2020. TPD delivered the de-escalation training to half the patrol force in February–March 2020. The authors compare treatment and control officers' attitudes about the importance of specific de-escalation tactics, how often they use those tactics and their sentiments de-escalation training. The authors employ an econometric random-effects model to examine between-group differences post-training while controlling for relevant officer attributes including age, race, sex, prior training and squad-level pretraining attitudes about de-escalation.FindingsTreatment and control officers reported positive perceptions of de-escalation tactics, frequent use of those tactics and favorable attitudes toward de-escalation before and after the training. After receiving the training, treatment officers placed greater importance on compromise, and reported more frequent use of several important tactics including compromise, knowing when to walk away and maintaining officer safety.Originality/valueOnly a few prior studies have has examined whether de-escalation training changes officer attitudes. The results from the current study represent an initial piece of evidence suggesting de-escalation training may lead to greater use of those tactics by officers during encounters with citizens.

A large number of older adults have physical and/or cognitive challenges and require help to manage everyday activities. Many older adults receive care from a spouse. Over the long term, this has adverse consequences for caregiver health and well-being. Less is known about the outcomes associated with the early transition to becoming a spousal caregiver. Nor is it clear how mild-cognitive decline worsens caregiver outcomes. The present study uses dyadic data from 588 couples in the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project to compare mental and social well-being in marital partners who became a spousal caregiver versus those who remained noncaregivers or became caregivers for someone other than a spouse between 2010 and 2015. Cognitive ability was assessed using a validated version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Moderated Actor-Partner Independence Models revealed that becoming a caregiver was associated with an increase in perceived stress in both men and women, and an increase in anxiety among men. Partners' cognitive limitations moderated, in a dose-dependent fashion, the association between becoming a caregiver and changes in well-being. Specifically, becoming a caregiver was associated with increased support from friends for wives at lower levels of husband's cognitive ability, and with increased anxiety for husbands at lower levels of wife's cognitive ability. Associations were independent of demographic characteristics and physical limitations. We discuss the value of using population-based samples to study the transition to caregiving and implications for interventions during the early transition to a caregiving role for even modestly cognitively impaired partners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Little is known about officer perceptions of body-worn cameras (BWCs), and whether perceptions change following implementation within their agencies. BWC deployment varies, with some agencies mandating officers to wear BWCs and others using volunteers. Researchers have yet to assess attitudinal differences between volunteers and mandated officers. This study addresses these gaps using data from an evaluation of BWCs in the Phoenix Police Department to examine officer perceptions of the utility of BWCs, perceptions of organizational justice, and support for using procedural justice. We use inverse propensity weighted difference-in-difference models to examine changes in officer perceptions over time between randomly selected officers who were mandated to wear a BWC, BWC volunteers, officers who resisted BWCs, and control officers. We identified limited significant differences in perceptions of BWCs over time, though effect sizes suggest that BWC volunteers and mandated officers were more subdued in their expectations about BWCs at the posttest.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-021-09482-x

States often turn to a data masking procedure called microsuppression in order to reduce the risk of disclosing student records when sharing data with external researchers. This process removes records deemed to have high risk for disclosure should data be released. However, this process can induce differences between the original data and the data that ultimately gets used in education research. This article assesses the extent to which microsuppression can bias key statistics in state education data and finds that while marginal test score means tend to be preserved in the masked data, conditional means for subgroups can exhibit bias as large as 0.3 standard deviations.

Measuring school effects has been an important inquiry for sociologists of education for at least 50 years. This chapter summarizes current research on the relationship between school poverty and student achievement, which relies heavily on cross-sectional associations. We then propose that scholars consider longitudinal approaches to estimating school effects in which changes in school outcomes are related to changes in school contexts. We present illustrative examples of both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses using a census of North Carolina students and schools. Cross-sectional models indicate a significant negative association between school poverty and achievement. Our preferred specification—a three-level model of time within students cross-nested within schools—finds no relationship between school poverty and achievement, which raises important questions about the validity of school poverty effects on student test score growth. This model does, however, suggest that variation in test score growth across schools may be greater than variation in test score growth across students, which opens important avenues for understanding the sources of this variation.

We estimate the difference in the chance of giving a socially undesirable response, one that violates social norms, by administration mode (online or in person) for a self-administered questionnaire (SAQ). We do this by evaluating open-ended responses to a photographic stimulus designed to generate undesirable responses. We test five variables: socially undesirable responses generally, blatant stereotyping, distaste, inappropriate descriptors, and the number of words in the response. The results show that, contrary to expectations, online SAQs are not more likely to produce socially undesirable responses generally, but online responses are less likely to contain blatant stereotyping. Responses from the online SAQs were longer, suggesting that respondents from the paper-and-pencil SAQs may have used stereotypes to bypass writing lengthy responses. The longer responses of online respondents enabled them to avoid stereotyping, thereby biasing their responses in an alternate way.

Recent citizen deaths involving police use of force have increased discussion surrounding police accountability and community relations. One piece of this discussion is the use of body worn cameras (BWCs) by officers. Unfortunately, little rigorous research has been conducted to estimate the effectiveness of BWCs in reducing problematic police-citizen interactions. In this paper, we estimate two measures of effectiveness of BWCs by comparing incidents that occur in a squad assigned cameras to incidents that occur in a squad assigned control. First, we estimate the effect of being assigned a BWC (but not necessarily using the camera) on reducing complaints and resistance associated with incidents. Second, we employ data on BWC use to estimate the effect of cameras if they were used with full compliance. Together, these two estimates provide a plausible range of effectiveness that policymakers can expect from BWCs. We find that BWCs have no effect on the rate of arrest or resistance, but can substantially reduce complaints.

Newly-arrived African refugees are a vulnerable group of immigrants for whom no validated acculturation measures exist. A valid measurement tool is essential to understand how acculturative processes impact health and health disparities. We adapted the Bicultural Involvement Questionnaire (BIQ) to characterize its reliability among ethnic Somali women residing in Minnesota, and Somali, Somali Bantu, and Burundian women in Arizona. Surveys were administered to 164 adult women. Analyses were conducted along socio-demographic variables of ethnicity, geographic residence, age, and length of time in the United States through t tests and one-way analysis of variance. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the modified BIQ. Exploratory factor analyses yielded five subscales: “Speak Native Language”, “Speak English Language”, “Enjoy Native Activities”, “Enjoy American Activities”, and “Desired Ideal Culture”. The subscales of the modified BIQ possessed Cronbach’s α ranging from 0.68 to 0.92, suggestive that all subscales had acceptable to excellent internal consistency. The modified BIQ maintained its psychometric properties across geographic regions of resettled Central and East African refugees.