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Attention to same-sex marriage has increased in the past decade. This study examines the perceptions of same-sex marriage among social work faculty. Faculty play a critical role in preparing future social workers for competent, ethical practice--including advocacy for social policies inclusive of sexual minorities. The present study investigates endorsement of same-sex marriage among teaching faculty in U.S. and English-speaking Canadian MSW programs. Twelve factors were found to be significant in the bivariate analyses; however, only four retained significance in the multivariate analysis. Specifically, the multivariate analysis found "other race" and religiosity to be negatively associated with support for same-sex marriage, whereas acceptance of same-sex relationships and understanding gender-based oppression as the root cause of domestic and sexual violence were positively associated with same-sex marriage support. The results highlight the importance of social attitudes concerning same-sex relationships and gender-based oppression for endorsement of same-sex marriage. Implications for social work education and future research are discussed.

Considerable research in the United States has established that adolescent antisocial, aggressive, and attention problem behaviors negatively influence adolescents' ability to become productive members of society. However, little is known about the development of these problems among adolescents in other countries. This study contributes to our understanding of personality and parenting factors associated with adolescent problem behaviors using an international sample. Data are from a National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded study of 884 community-dwelling adolescents in Santiago, Chile, of mid-to-low socioeconomic status. Results reveal that rule-breaking and aggressive behaviors were both associated with greater levels of adolescent drive but lower levels of parental monitoring and positive parenting by both parents. Adolescents who reported more attention problems were more likely to exhibit driven behavior and more behavioral inhibition and to report lower levels of parental monitoring and positive parenting by mother and father. Results of interactions revealed that the influences of positive parenting and parental monitoring on adolescent aggressive behaviors varied as a function of the gender of the adolescent. Helping parents build on their parenting skills may result in important reductions in adolescent problem behaviors among U.S. and international adolescents. (Contains 3 figures and 4 tables.)

This study was conducted to examine the effect of corporal punishment on antisocial behavior of children using stronger statistical controls than earlier literature in this area; to examine whether the effect of corporal punishment on antisocial behavior is nonlinear; and to investigate whether the effects of corporal punishment on antisocial behavior differ across racial and ethnic groups. The author used a nonexperimental design and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The analysis was conducted using fixed-effects methods to control for observed independent variables and unobserved time-invariant variables. Corporal punishment had a nontrivial effect on children's antisocial behavior in later years despite the strong controls introduced by the fixed-effects models. The analysis provides no evidence for differences in the effect of corporal punishment across racial and ethnic groups.

Despite extensive formal legislation designed to protect youths from engaging in health-risk behaviors, underage substance use and extreme forms of aggression are prevalent in Korea. This study examined the ways social capital--an informal relational resource--may contribute to delayed onset of health-risk behaviors among Korean adolescents. Analyses were conducted using five consecutive waves of the Korean Youth Panel Survey (N = 3,449), a nationally representative sample of adolescents in Korea. Discrete-time survival analysis captured the dynamic set of individuals who differentially experienced initiation of health-risk behaviors. Family-level social capital was significantly associated with delayed onset of smoking, drinking, aggression, and rule-breaking behaviors. Relational resources in the community were also proven important, but particularly for behaviors that often occur in public or communal areas. Successful prevention of adolescent health-risk behaviors may require facilitation of informal mechanisms of social control provided by family and community relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]