The Socialization of Human Rights and The African Human Rights Action Plan: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities

This article critically analyzes human rights socialization in Africa through the lens of the draft African Human Rights Action Plan (AHRAP). It argues that the AHRAP presents a framework for human rights socialization, and it speaks to human rights socialization in distinctive ways. The article demonstrates that the AHRAP relies on African and international influences and seeks to propagate norms inspired by these influences. It analyzes three key issues from the AHRAP and discusses how those issues shape understanding of continental human rights socialization in Africa. These issues are the multiple roles and positions of the African Union, the identity of actors to whom socialization processes apply or ought to apply, and the nature of norms which are the focus of socialization efforts. The article’s analysis of these issues along with the AHRAP’s reliance on African and other influences reveal a path for human rights socialization in Africa that is both challenging and promising.

Cultural Orientation, Parental Emotion Socialization, and Adolescents’ Socio-Emotional Functioning Across Three Asian Cultures: India, China, and Singapore

Limited research has examined parental emotion socialization across Asian cultural contexts. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of family change and self-construal, this study examined cultural orientation toward independence-interdependence, parental emotion socialization processes, and their relations with adolescents’ psychological adjustment across three Asian cultural contexts—rural families in South India, suburban families in China, and families in Singapore. Participants included 300 Indian adolescents ( Mage = 15.58 years; 57.3% male) and their parents, 310 Chinese adolescents ( Mage = 13.04 years; 46.3% female) and their parents, and 241 Singaporean adolescents ( Mage = 14.44 years; 48.3% female) and their parents. Both adolescents and parents completed self-report measures of cultural orientation and emotion socialization, and adolescents completed a measure of their psychological adjustment. We first established construct validation for two emotion socialization processes and found that the factor structure for parental reactions varied across Asian contexts and parent versus adolescent reports, while the factor structure for parental emotion expressivity varied only across informants. Second, we tested whether the two parental emotion socialization processes mediated the association between cultural orientation toward independence-interdependence and adolescent behavior problems, and found differential relations across the three Asian contexts. Our data supported the model of family change and showed that across the Asian societies, the variations in independence-interdependence orientation provide different models of parental emotion socialization with nuances in meaning and function, as revealed by the construct validation of parental reactions and emotional expressivity and their implications for adolescents’ socio-emotional functioning.

The deliberated decision in children’s mainstream cinema: On socialization in the discourse of freedom

The purpose of this article is to highlight a trend in the narrative use of decisions that reinforces a widely accepted discourse of freedom. Through a discursive analysis focusing on contemporary mainstream screenwriting, it explores the relationship between the protagonist’s decision and the climax of the story. This relationship is shaped by the need for a change between the darkest moment and the climax, and causality between the events and the conflict that triggers them. The decision is a standardized possibility compatible with these principles, reproducing a discourse of freedom upheld by numerous social institutions despite the problems and dysfunctions pointed out by its critics. This freedom is underpinned by the notion of individual authenticity, which promises that anything can be achieved as long as nothing hinders the individual or his/her power to make decisions. Specifically, the article highlights a channel through which this discourse influences the sector of the public that is most sensitive to socialization processes: children and youth. With the normalized practice of screenwriting and without necessarily being aware of the fact, screenwriters can reproduce this discourse of freedom and thereby take part in reinforcing its social legitimacy.

Gender differences in inhibitory control as assessed on simple delay tasks in early childhood: A meta-analysis

Bjorklund and Kipp (1996) hypothesized that due to selection processes operative during human evolution, females have an inborn advantage over males in the ability to suppress inappropriate responses on tasks in the behavioral and social domains. To test this hypothesis, a meta-analysis was conducted on gender differences on simple delay tasks in which the participant is required to wait for a “go” signal before making an approach response to an enticing stimulus. The meta-analysis was performed on 113 effect sizes derived from 102 studies of 21,378 children who ranged in age from 1 year to 9 years and who lived in at least 15 countries. As hypothesized, girls exceeded boys in delay ability, with the gender differences being small in magnitude (Hedges’ g = .25–.26). The female advantage in delay ability held for both U.S. and non-U.S. samples of children. Further analyses found that girls outperformed boys on each of four simple delay tasks. Although the magnitude of the gender difference on the individual simple delay tasks did not differ as a function of age, the age ranges covered were narrow. Discussion focuses on two issues: (a) whether gender differences in delay ability can be explained by a factor other than inhibitory control and (b) whether parental socialization processes can explain the gender differences in delay ability. The evidence reviewed does not provide substantial support for either of these possibilities.

Socialization processes within adolescents’ relationships with parents and peers predicting couples’ intimate partner violence in adulthood: A social learning perspective

Previous studies have established that individual characteristics such as violent behavior, substance use, and high-risk sexual behavior, as well as negative relationships with parents and friends, are all risk factors for intimate partner violence (IPV). In this longitudinal prospective study, we investigated whether violent behavior, substance use, and high-risk sexual behavior in early adulthood (ages 22–23 years) mediated the link between family conflict and coercive relationship talk with friends in adolescence (ages 16–17 years) and dyadic IPV in adulthood (ages 28–30 years). A total of 998 individuals participated in multimethod assessments, including observations of interactions with parents and friends. Data from multiple reporters were used for variables of interest including court records, parental and self-reports of violence, self-reports of high-sexual-risk behaviors and substance use, and self- and romantic partner-reports of IPV. Longitudinal mediation analyses showed that violent behavior during early adulthood mediated the link between coercive relationship talk with friends in adolescence and dyadic IPV in adulthood. No other mediation paths were found and there was no evidence of gender differences. Results are discussed with attention to the interpersonal socialization processes by which IPV emerges relative to individual risk factors.

INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF ONLINE LEARNING ON ENGINEERING STUDENTS’ SOCIALIZATION EXPERIENCES DURING THE PANDEMIC

The global shift to online learning prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated how learningonline alters postsecondary students’ socialization experiences and learning outcomes. In December 2020, alarge Canadian engineering faculty surveyed its undergraduate students to assess their learning experiences in the exclusive online environment during the pandemic. This paper used qualitative data from the survey, as complemented by descriptive quantitative results, to explore how the online environment impacted engineering students’ socialization processes and their perception of learning. Using Weidman’s model of socialization, this paper contributes to better understandings of the individual and particularlyenvironmental factors that have influenced engineering students’ socialization processes while they learn online during the pandemic, and the importance of social interactions to student learning in engineering education.

I Only Want Passionate Relationships: Are You Ready for That?

Research shows the existence of a coercive dominant discourse that associates attraction with violence and influences the socialization processes of many girls and women. According to previous studies, the coercive dominant discourse constitutes a risk factor for gender violence, as men with violent attitudes and behaviors are socially presented as attractive and exciting while egalitarian and non-aggressive men are considered “not sexy.” Yet fewer evidences indicate that men acting from the New Alternative Masculinities (NAM) model overcome this double standard through verbal and non-verbal communicative acts, which tell that they do not choose women acting under the coercive dominant discourse for a relationship because they are not “jumping for joy” when meeting them. Drawing from communicative daily life stories conducted to men and women from diverse sociocultural backgrounds and ages, this article presents how language is used in concrete heterosexual sexual-affective relationships. The analysis resulting from the fieldwork focus on how NAM men’s communicative acts with women set conditions of desire. This article shows evidence on how communicative acts of NAM empowerment incorporate “language of desire,” taking a clear position for egalitarian and passionate relationships. Implications for gender violence prevention are presented.