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Our analysis describes the association of depression, ADHD, and delinquency with school experiences in a national sample of U.S. adolescents (Add Health). These associations are important in their own right, but also because the negative school experiences of youth with emotional and behavioral problems are implicated in their disrupted educational trajectories. We observed significant associations of ADHD, status offenses, and major delinquency with high school completion, years of education completed, and idle status in young adulthood. Depression was significantly associated only with years of education. Youth with emotional and behavioral problems reported uniformly more negative school experiences than less troubled youth as indexed by indicators of academic performance, relations with teachers, educational expectations, and school integration. Academic performance and relations with teachers strongly mediated the effects of ADHD, status offenses, and major delinquency on educational attainment; diminished educational expectations and school integration were stronger mediators for the effects of depression. None of the school experiences significantly moderated the effects of emotional and behavioral problems on educational attainment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although numerous studies have documented enduring effects of child abuse on adult well-being as measured by mental health and physical health, little is known about the effects of child abuse on self-concept in adulthood. Using a nationally representative sample of adults, I examine the effects of parental child abuse on adult self-efficacy. Self-efficacy, the key element in human agency, is an important personal resource to construct one's life-course. Since prior research usually fails to consider other adult outcomes as potential mediators on the effect of childhood abuse, I also examine four sets of potential mediators - socio-demographics, chronic interpersonal stress, perceived social support, and economic hardship. Bivariate analysis suggests that parental child abuse has a negative effect on adult self-efficacy. In multivariate analyses, I find that among the four sets of mediators, social support mediates the effect of child maltreatment the most. While the effect of parental child abuse is still significant after considering all mediators, the direct effect of abuse substantially decreases in magnitude. These findings suggest that despite the persistent negative effect of parental child abuse on adult self-efficacy, much of its effects are via other outcomes in adulthood. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of how, if at all, social scientific ideas are communicated to the general public is a crucial one for our discipline. It is a question that addresses the relevance of our research activities and lies at the core of recent debates about the role of "Public Sociology." In this paper we address one aspect of this communication process by closely examining the diffusion of a successful public idea-Bowling Alone-to begin to theorize the development of public ideas generally. Drawing on data gathered from newspaper articles that discuss Bowling Alone (BA), we first document the diffusion of this concept and develop an explanation for its ability to become a public idea and maintain its standing as such over an extended period of time. Specifically, we argue that BA has maintained its place in public discussions because of its interpretive flexibility-a chameleon-like ability to adapt itself and be made relevant to many different issues. A second and related contribution of this paper is to demonstrate the potential value of these types of public ideas. We show that public ideas offer benefits aside from their meanings-namely, they can serve as a Trojan Horse through which other social scientific concepts to be introduced and made familiar to the public. In the case at hand, discussions of BA often served as a gateway for the concept of social capital to be introduced to the public in a way that it had not been previously. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Prior research interested in the relationship between minority status and national attitudes exclusively focuses on ethnicity. This study examines minority statuses associated with three primary sociodemographic characteristics - nationality, ethnicity, and religiosity. Methods. I analyze a nationally representative sample of American adults to test whether each of national, ethnic, and religious minority status affects positive national attitudes (e.g., national pride) net of other minority statuses, and whether each minority effect exists after further considering other sociodemographic characteristics. Results. The existence of minority status effects varies by the types of minority status and of national attitudes. National minority status is positively related to national pride but negatively related to patriotism. Ethnic minority effect barely exists after considering other minority statuses and controls. Religious minority status, however, shows consistent and negative effects on national attitudes. Conclusion. Despite the predominant emphasis on ethnicity in the literature, the analyses demonstrate the importance of religious majority-minority status in shaping individuals' favorable views on the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]