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The Wraparound approach aims to prevent and interrupt gang activity by "wrapping" youth with individualized supports to increase prosocial connections and reduce the risks for gang involvement. The current study examines 38 interviews with program staff and external stakeholders to assess implementation strengths and challenges of a Wraparound program in British Columbia, Canada. Thematic analysis resulted in seven strengths-related themes concerning program structure, team, and youth engagement strategies, and seven challenge-related themes regarding youth interactions, resources, and communication. Findings highlight the benefits of an individualized approach, with consideration of enhanced communication and outreach strategies, resource allocation, and case manager training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scores from student evaluation forms are often used to construct assessments about the quality and effectiveness of course instruction. These assessments, in turn, can have serious professional impacts on instructors with respect to future course assignments, grants, promotion and hiring decisions. Previous research suggests that scores from student evaluations can be significantly predicted by factors other than teaching quality, in particular, the gender of teaching staff. However, most existing research is challenged by logistical constraints of separating gender from teaching quality in face-to-face courses. The goal of the current study was to examine gender-neutrality in students' assessments of teaching assistants, by manipulating perceived teaching assistant gender for an online course. Using a mixed methods approach across nine semesters in which teaching assistants posed as both male and female, findings from 232 students suggest mixed evidence concerning gender bias in evaluations of teaching assistant performance. Highlights include no significant differences for the overall mean performance scores between the perceived male versus perceived female subgroups; individual item analysis suggests that students were more likely to rate the perceived male teaching assistant as having high expectations and the course as having a more challenging workload. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Objective: To synthesize research examining the effectiveness of the sexual violence bystander program Bringing in the Bystander (BitB). Participants: The analytic sample included 2083 youth in the treatment group and 969 in the comparison group. Method: A search strategy that included a total of 45 search terms was applied to 28 electronic databases. Results: The systematic search yielded a final analytic sample of 14 evaluations, with 38 independent effect sizes calculated across four outcome measures: rape myth attitudes (n = 11), bystander efficacy (n = 11), bystander intentions (n = 11), and bystander behavior (n = 5). The BitB program produced significant, positive pooled effects on measures of rape-supportive attitudes, bystander efficacy, and bystander intentions. Conclusions: The overall results are promising and suggest that the BitB education program may be an effective tool for targeting sexual violence on campuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual assault on university campuses is a pervasive problem that affects approximately 25% of female students and has wide-reaching negative outcomes [DeKeseredy, W., and K. Kelly. 1993. 'The Incidence and Prevalence of Woman Abuse in Canadian University and College Dating Relationships.' "The Canadian Journal of Sociology" 18 (2): 137-59; Krebs, C. P., C. H. Lindquist, T. D. Warner, B. S. Fisher, and S. L. Martin. 2009. 'College Women's Experiences with Physically Forced, Alcohol- or Other Drug Enabled, and Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault Before and Since Entering College.' "Journal of American College Health" 57 (6): 639-49]. It is important that universities develop and implement comprehensive policies and procedures to address this complex issue. This research explores sexual assault-related policies (N = 119) at all public universities in Canada (N = 72). We examine four elements suggesting comprehensiveness of a university's sexual assault response (policy comprehensiveness, availability of campus support resources, and sexual assault information webpage presence and comprehensiveness), and test whether these elements are related to various institutional features. Results show significant differences related to university characteristics across the measures of comprehensiveness, and indicate a need for increased focus at the institutional level to ensure that policies are sufficiently comprehensive to handle the complexities that arise in sexual assault cases.

Recidivism is a multidimensional construct that is operationalized in a variety of ways. We explored the impact of using aggregated measures of recidivism (i.e. multiple measures combined) versus disaggregated measures (i.e. defined specifically as parole violation, arrest, conviction, incarceration) in meta-analytic analyses of correctional intervention effectiveness. Using a sample of 20 meta-analyses, we compared within-study findings between aggregated and disaggregated measures. Over half (60%) of the studies differed with respect to the statistical significance of their aggregated versus disaggregated findings, suggesting that aggregated measures of recidivism may give an incomplete picture of treatment effectiveness. Disaggregating measures of recidivism in meta-analysis is recommended for a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of intervention approaches. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores migrant presentation in newspaper articles containing migrant crime. Thematic content analysis is employed to examine the narratives used in generalized negative discussion of migration in 100 randomly sampled articles from 6 newspapers in Canada, the UK, and the U.S. in 2018. We uncovered 13 themes, such as failure of the state, rapists and criminals, and terrorism. The findings highlight the type and variety of generalized negative narratives found in migrant crime reporting, and suggest the ongoing presentation of these stereotypes. Implications include the influence on public and political attitudes amidst an increasing need for media accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While assessments of transparent reporting practices in meta-analyses are not uncommon in the field of health sciences interventions, they are limited in the social sciences and to our knowledge are non-existent in criminology. Modified PRISMA 2020 checklists were used to assess transparency and reproducibility of reporting for a sample of 33 meta-analyses of intervention/prevention evaluations published in scholarly journals between 2016 and 2021. Results indicate that the average rate of transparent reporting practices was 63%; adherence varied considerably across studies and subscales, with low rates of adherence for some core checklist items. Overwhelmingly, studies were not reproducible in their entirety; article word count was significantly correlated with reproducibility (r = 0.4028, p <.03). These findings suggest that substantial changes to reporting practices are necessary to meet traditional meta-analytic claims of transparency and reproducibility. Study limitations include sample size, coding instruments, and coding subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due in part to their involvement with social activities on campus, college students experience an increased risk of dating violence. Recent legislation such as the Campus SaVE Act (which requires U.S. colleges to offer training on sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and sexual harassment to all incoming students) has contributed to the increase in prevention programming offered across postsecondary campuses, as well as subsequent research examining the effectiveness of these prevention efforts. The current study provides a systematic review and meta-analysis of college dating violence prevention programs. A systematic search of 28 databases and numerous gray literature sources identified an initial 14,540 articles of which 315 were deemed potentially eligible for inclusion. Studies were selected if they (1) evaluated a college dating prevention program/campaign, (2) reported one of five outcomes (knowledge, attitudes, or bystander efficacy, intentions, or behavior), (3) had a minimum sample size of 20 in the treatment group, (4) used a pre/post and/or comparison group design, and (5) were published in English or French between January 2000 and October 2020. We calculated 53 effect sizes from 31 studies and conducted separate meta-analyses on various categories of outcome measures. Findings suggest that college dating violence prevention programs are effective at increasing knowledge and attitudes toward dating violence, as well as bystander skills, but are not effective at increasing bystander behaviors. Findings from moderator analyses suggest that several program components influence the strength of treatment effects. Implications for improving the effectiveness of college dating violence prevention programs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norms are presented for persons ages 56 to 93 years for each story from the Logical Memory subtests of the revised edition of the Wechsler Memory Scale following the methods used for other Mayo's Older American Normative Studies. Means and standard deviations are presented for 3-year interval age groups from age 61 to 88. (SLD)

College campuses continue to face high rates of sexual violence and social marketing campaigns have emerged as a common prevention strategy. However, there exists no summative research examining the effectiveness of this approach. A systematic search yielded 15 evaluations of eight unique prevention campaigns, which contributed to 38 individual outcome measures across four outcome categories (i.e., knowledge, attitudes, intentions/efficacy, and behavior). Summative results are mixed, but show promising campaign effects for increasing knowledge, modification of some attitudes toward sexual violence, intentions to participate, and actual participation in prevention activities. More evaluative research is needed for a comprehensive understanding of campaign effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]