Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Literatures on ethnic identity take traditional “adult-centered” socialization theory for granted, and often overlook the actual process of children’s (re)creation of ethnic identity. This study breaks away from such perspective, and instead uses original ethnographic data on children’s food exchange during lunchtime in two predominantly Korean (-American) elementary schools to explore how children, as creative agents, use food as symbolic resource to construct and negotiate group boundaries and its ethnic meanings in interaction. The study finds children engaging in “hidden social exchange” of “dry food (chips and other mass consumed products)” and “wet food (home-made)” that takes three different forms—gift-giving, sharing, and trading—each of which have different relevance for marking, maintaining, and muting ethnic group boundaries. The findings from the observation suggest that children construct and negotiate their ethnic identity by actively appropriating not only ethnic culture (eg. food) available to them but also their local peer culture that emerges from interaction. They also imply that children’s ethnic identity is a flexible on-going process that should be understood in conjunction with the formation of other local categories such as gender, friendship, classroom, and age-grading.

Publication Type: Symposium Paper
Abstract: There is anecdotal evidence that some police espouse the belief that “the kids I interrogate are more savvy than normal kids.” Goals are to understand whether youth with prior legal experience are indeed more savvy, and to document the relationship between espousing this belief and using coercive interrogation techniques. Results from Study 1 indicate that there are no consistent group differences in understanding of the interrogation process between youth with and without legal experience. The results from Study 2 indicate that this belief among police is related to an increased likelihood in reporting the use coercive interrogation techniques with children.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Newspapers coverage of the controversial CBS reality series Kid Nation was qualitatively studied through framing analysis and attribution theory. Findings indicated news writers framed Kid Nation as a child labor issue. Blame was heavily laid on CBS, the parents, and to a lesser extent, society as a whole for the children’s plight. Participants were usually absolved from responsibility. Implications are discussed in terms of societal notions of child labor and parental responsibility.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study investigates physiological and self-reported responses of children and adolescents to pictures of products associated with risky behavior. The study replicated previous results showing that participants were more aroused and remembered more risky compared to nonrisky pictures with children and adolescents. Of more interest, however, were the significant differences they found in responses as a function of negativity bias and positivity offset. Individuals high in positivity offset tended to have stronger appetitive reactions to risky products compared to those low in positivity offset and those high in negativity bias tended to have more aversive reactions to risky products compared to those low in negativity bias. Overall, the results suggest that emotional and cognitive responses to risk are modified both by age and by individual differences in motivational activation. The overall patterns of difference between risky and nonrisky pictures seen in previous studies were replicated here.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper presents findings from an ethnographic project on staff decision-making practices in a juvenile drug court in southern California. Based on 12 months of participant observation of staff meetings, court hearings, and staff field-based work as they check on youth in their schools, homes and drug treatment programs, the project traces how staff gathers information and makes decisions about youth participants and how youth and their parents try to influence and shape that decision-making process. In short, the objective of the project is to discern variations in a drug court client’s institutional career and to show how the different actors (e.g. staff, youth, parents) all have a role in creating and shaping those variations.

This paper will focus on one aspect of the project: staff strategies in decision-making. The paper specifically discusses how staff presents and discusses information about youth during their pre-court hearing meetings. In these meetings, the staff must decide by consensus whether the youth is compliant with the program and if not, what corresponding sanction should be imposed. This paper will trace how staff members try to transform a specific “bad” action committed by the youth into a significant or irrelevant event that merits a court response (or not).