The current study examined the protective effect of parenting-adolescent communication about sex on four risky sexual behaviors (age of onset of sex, number of sex partners, condom use, and STDs) among youth, framed by the Theory of Planned Behavior. It also tested for potential mediation effects between parent-adolescent communication and risky sex measures by sexual cues, date rape attitudes, and acceptance of dating violence in a sample of 2,245 college students from Japan, Slovenia, Spain, and the United States. Results provided evidence of a weak effect of parent-adolescent communication about sex on risky sexual behaviors across samples. A number of cultural influences were also found in the effects by mediators: sexual cues predicted risky sexual behaviors only in the Japanese sample; date rape attitudes was a predictor in the American and Slovenian samples; acceptance of dating violence predicted more risky sexual behaviors only in the American sample; and no significant effects were found in the Spanish sample. Several competing explanations were examined in the discussion to better understand the complex and dynamic interaction between parents and their adolescents as well as the role of culture. More studies are needed to better understand the associations between parent-adolescent communication about sex and risky sexual behaviors.

Scholarly work on international mediation suggests that how third parties mediate influences the resolution of armed conflicts. However, our understanding of what explains mediator style is limited. This dissertation addresses this gap by offering the first systematic study on explanations for mediator styles at the level of the individual. It explores the research question: what explains mediator styles of individuals mediating for peacemaking organizations in armed conflicts? Mediator style is studied as themes in goals and behaviors along two dimensions: directiveness and orientation. Directiveness covers a mediator's use of leverage and varies from non-directive to directive, while orientation covers a mediator's prioritized type of outcome and varies from relationship-oriented to settlement-oriented. The dissertation develops a theoretical framework on the effects of conflict context and mediator characteristics on mediator style. It formulates a set of theoretical expectations concerning how context in the form of conflict intensity, and characteristics such as the mediator's background profile and personality, influence mediator style. The framework is evaluated and developed based on the findings of a mixed-method design combining a survey experiment and 46 semi-structured in-depth interviews with a broad variety of IGO and NGO mediators. The results on context suggest that high-intensity conflicts make mediators on average more directive than low-intensity conflicts as a result of heightened humanitarian concerns. Furthermore, on characteristics, high-profile mediators are shown to be overall more settlement-oriented than low-profile mediators as a result of their views on conflict causes and mediator accountabilities. These findings are complemented with evidence for contingent relationships between conflict intensity, mediator personality and directiveness as well as conflict intensity, mediator profile and orientation. The study thus contributes with a refined understanding of the mediator styles of international mediators that both facilitates its further scholarly exploration and provides input to the practice of peacemaking.

High prevalence rates exist for physical (i.e., threatened or actual physical force) and relational (i.e., actions meant to harm another’s social relationships) aggression within early adolescence, and these behaviors lead to detrimental social, physical, and mental health outcomes. Thus, there is a need to identify risk and protective processes related to these subtypes of aggression, especially those that can inform violence prevention efforts. Prior studies including early adolescents have shown emotion dysregulation to be a risk factor for aggression. However, few studies have incorporated the emotional competence process of poor emotional awareness, which may be a risk factor for emotion dysregulation and, in turn, for aggression. Furthermore, little research has assessed relations between subtypes of emotion dysregulation (i.e., anger and sadness) and physical and relational aggression. The current study examined longitudinal relations between poor emotional awareness and these subtypes of emotion dysregulation and aggression, as well as concurrent pathways between the emotion dysregulation and aggression variables. Exploratory tests for gender differences were also conducted. Rating scales were collected from 528 sixth graders (51% girls, 49% boys; missing data n = 8) and their teachers over a six month period in the fall and spring of the school year. Across the full sample, 65% of students identified as African-American, 19% European-American, 2%, Hispanic Latino, 11% Multiracial, and 3% as “Other”(missing data n = 8). Results indicated no significant differences by gender in the strength of relations between study variables. Poor emotional awareness was not directly related to changes in subsequent frequency of physical or relational aggression. However, poor emotional awareness at Time 1 was associated with later rates of anger and sadness dysregulation. Furthermore, an indirect effect was found for poor emotional awareness on both physical and relational aggression via anger dysregulation, and this was true for student- and teacher-rated outcomes. Sadness dysregulation showed a negative concurrent association with teacher-rated physical aggression; and there was an indirect effect of poor emotional awareness on teacher-rated physical aggression via sadness dysregulation. Study findings have important implications for theoretical treatises, youth violence prevention programs, and future directions for research, which are all discussed.

It is widely recognised that parents play an important role in children’s emotional and intellectual development, including their success at school. Recently, there has been a growing awareness of the potential of parents to support and enhance children’s English foreign language learning, especially since English learning resources are easily accessible through electronic media. In appreciation of this, there has been an increased interest in recent years in finding ways to harness parental potential through the creation of home-school partnerships in many parts of the world, including in the field of teaching English as an additional language. An important point of departure for developing effective home-school dialogues is an informed understanding of what parents are already doing to support their children’s learning, as an awareness of this can help schools and governments provide parents with targeted input to assist and improve their efforts. However, to date, this remains under researched. Of the limited research that has been undertaken, very little has examined parental efforts to support their children’s learning at home in non-western settings, and research into parental support for children’s foreign language learning is virtually non-existent. In order to address this research gap, the study reported in this thesis examines parental support for young children’s foreign language learning in Saudi Arabia with respect to English T.V. viewing. Drawing upon Vygotsky’s concepts of mediation and the ZPD, it aims to examine the extent and the ways in which parents currently mediate their children’s viewing of English T.V. programmes in Saudi Arabia, the factors which impact on their mediation practices, and how this is seen to contribute to their children’s experience of English language learning. The study is comprised two stages. The first stage entails the distribution of a questionnaire to 500 parents of children aged 6-8, who are currently learning English in a number of private schools in Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia in order to gain a global overview of parental perspectives on mediation. This is followed by stage 2, which aims to examine the features and quality of parent-child mediational dialogues. This is achieved by collecting recordings of the dialogues of two parent-child dyads watching DVDs of English T.V. programmes over a four-week period as well as interviewing parents and their children on the experience. The results of the study show that parents believe in the importance and value of supporting their children’s learning (both in general and with regard to their EFL learning). Moreover, they show that they are actively engaged in trying to do so. However, they also highlight a number of ways in which their mediational practices could be improved so that these are less directive and more responsive to their children’s learning needs and growing ability to self-regulate. More broadly, they highlight the need to engage with the complexity of parental mediation as an activity system in discussions of the quality of mediational practice. That is, to understand that parental efforts to mediate need to be considered alongside task, sociocultural setting and, most importantly, the child’s engagement with parental efforts. A number of implications are drawn from the results of the study. Chief among these is that research into parental mediation should look at the inter-relationship between the different elements of the parental mediational system identified and that this provides richer in-depth understandings of parental efforts to support their children than are currently available from those who seek to understand this merely as parental scaffolding. In addition, it is argued that the picture this in-depth analysis revealed provides valuable information which can be used to inform the need for home-school partnerships and the support parents need to make sure they engage in these effectively in settings such as Saudi Arabia where there is currently little appreciation of the importance of parental involvement and the concept of home school partnerships remains in its infancy. In line with the emphasis on the complex multidimensional understanding of mediation as activity as illustrated by the results of the study, it is argued that efforts to promote parental involvement should primarily focus on how parents can help promote quality learning experiences for their children.

The purpose of this thesis is to introduce the mediation as one of the methods of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). The main reason for choosing this topic was topicality of issues because in the last years the mediation has been developing in our country. A relatively recent adoption of The Mediation Act No. 202/2012 Sb., which is effective since 1st September 2012, contributed to this development. The thesis involves seven chapters that are further subdivided. In the Chapter One, basic information relating to an alternative dispute resolution are summarized. Characteristic features are shown there and there are more details of each method of ADR. Chapter Two examines basic characteristic of the mediation as a method of ADR. This chapter consists of four subchapters that analyze in more detail historical development of the mediation, basic characteristic features of the mediation, basic principles of the mediation and finally also advantages and disadvantages of the mediation. The status of the mediator is discussed in the Chapter Three of this thesis. The main focus is on the question of impartiality and independence of the mediator, as well as its duty of confidentiality. Chapter Four includes basic information about the status of parties to the conflict because they are the ones who have...

Cette recherche repose sur l’interrogation suivante : qu’est-ce qui fait être amateur d’art contemporain ? Les amateurs d’art contemporain constituent un public envers lequel les études, même si elles sont porteuses d’indications utiles, sont peu nombreuses. On constate que la plupart des études présentent un profil qui rend compte du caractère solitaire, assidu, souvent diplômé du visiteur amateur d’art contemporain et de son comportement peu interactif. Nous savons ainsi très peu de choses sur ce rapport qui pourtant est souvent à la source de débat important sur l’art contemporain et notamment sur la question de l’accessibilité. Partant de la définition pragmatique, selon laquelle l’amateur est celui qui entretient un rapport suivi quels qu’en soient les médiums ou les modalités, notre recherche consiste à se démarquer d’une méthode quantitative qui se délimiterait à une pratique, à un type de public et à un seul lieu. Cette recherche repose sur une méthode qualitative dont l’objectif est de reconsidérer l’amateurisme en art à travers l’analyse d’entretiens. La position communicationnelle permet d’analyser ce rapport sous un rapport pluriel à l’objet. L’amateurisme est ainsi étudié, en dépassant d’une part le rapport sujet/objet, décrit et analysé par la philosophie esthétique, mais aussi la relation objet /système sur laquelle reposent de nombreuses études sociologiques, centrées sur le système des mondes de l’art. Dans cette optique nous avons cherché à observer cette pratique en mettant en lumière son caractère construit. En témoigne notamment les activités formelles, mais aussi celles issues des expériences anecdotiques et circonstancielles, liées à des processus d’appréhension qui révèlent la spécificité de cet attachement pour l’objet d’art et d’un goût toujours en exercice / This research rests on the principal interrogation: what makes contemporary art lover ? There is not a lot of studies on the practices of the art contemporary lovers. The art contemporary lovers constitute a public towards which the studies are very few but carrying useful indications. Most of the studies present a profile which presents the art contemporary lovers as a solitary character, assiduous, often graduate and not having a very interactive behaviour. On the basis of the pragmatic definition, according to which the amateur is someone who maintains, whatever are the mediums, a followed relation, our research consists in being dissociated from a quantitative method which would delimited too much a practice, a type of public and a place. In this purpose practices and specific posture in contemporary art are considerate differently. The discipline of communication makes able to analyse this practice by according a plural relation. The object of this research is too analyse different practices through a passion for contemporary art and to reconsider an experiment, not only according to a relation as subject/object, study by the aesthetic, but not also to a relation place/object, like in the sociologies research which analyse the worlds of art Accordingly, the purpose is to revaluate the taste like a construct movement. The lover’s formal and non formal practices demonstrate the presence of procedures revealing the specificity of this attachment and of a taste which is always in exercise

In peace and conflict research the study of peace agreement implementation has often focussed on the duration of peace. This however risks overlooking the implementation of the peace agreement as a whole. Simultaneously, the relationship between biased versus neutral mediators and the degree of agreement implementation has not been systematically investigated. This study addresses this gap by asking: how does biased mediation affect the implementation of peace agreements? I apply the logic of theories on artificial incentives for peace (Beardsley 2008) and argue that biased mediators will create and use more temporary incentives to induce the warring parties towards a negotiated settlement. Once a peace agreement is signed and the mediator’s influence wanes, it is argued that these artificial incentives ultimately result in reduced momentum for implementation and a lower degree of implementation overall. This leads to the expected hypothesis that if a mediator is biased peace agreements will be implemented to a lower degree. Using the methods of structured, focussed comparison and process tracing, this paper will compare the mediation and implementation processes in the Tajikistan and Burundian civil wars. The findings display partial support for the hypothesised causal mechanism, although the hypothesis overall is not supported.

This dissertation is focused on role of probation and education programs in area of tertiary prevention of social deviation. Large amount of youngsters usually fail or break the rules during the program. It was my goal to look over a point of view of adolescents to another implication of probation programs for their lives. My dissertation objective was to reveal the reason of probation programs for youngsters, who attend these programs either voluntarily or obligatorily.Probation officers, who choose the youngsters for program, haven't information about how big importance their clients attribute to sense of probation program and what experience they get. My dissertation is divided into two parts. For first theory. Theory is based on study of available literature, which deals with youth crime. Important part is explanation of the fact, what probation programs are and what is the sense and purpose of them. I will describe current experiences but also new knowledge about research of work with youth and successful foreign projects. The theoretical part is followed by empirical part. I've decided to make this research by form of interviews with clients of PMS, who ended the program successfully. I realize that I can not to draw general conclusions from their statements but I think that you can...

- Agency Employment For my thesis topic, I have chosen "Agency Employment". It's a relatively young institute, which was incorporated into our legal system only on October 1st, 2004. I believe that Agency Employment topic can be always considered current and positive, because it allows us to flexibly react to the needs of the job market. Since the topic is very broad, the goal of this paper is not a detailed analysis of all aspects of this institute, but only a few of them that I consider to be most important. I shall present and evaluate current law governing the subject and also try to point out its flaws. I have structured the thesis into 4 chapters, further divided into subchapters. The conclusion contains summary and de lege ferenda reflections. At the beginning it is appropriate to introduce the topic, therefore the first chapter is dedicated to the Agency Employment concept and other connected topics. That includes employment mediation, license for employment mediation and dependent work. In the second chapter I examine the progress of Agency Employment law in the Czech Republic. Firstly I present the state, when this institute wasn't included in our legal system, then I put mind to the current law. This chapter includes also a detailed analysis of the International Labour Organisation...

The purpose of my thesis called Mediation in Family law disputes is to analyse benefits between mediation process and judicial proceedings and also point out to references of mediation usage in foreign countries. Another motivation to select this thesis subject is new Act n. 202/2012 Collection of Laws., about mediation. This thesis is divided into eight chapters. Opening chapter is focused on family basic function, especially society influence on family as a basic social unit. The further analysis describes bound of marriage from historical point of view, basic principles of Family law and specific position of Family law subjects. Second chapter defines term conflict, treats of conflict description based on main characteristics. Further analyze is about ways how to resolve conflicts and their justification to have minimum impact on relationships. At the conclusion of this chapter are described conflict mutual influence, communication and mediation. Third chapter deals with basic mediation aspects, description of basic mediation term, historical evolution from ancient time to the present days and shows different characters between mediation and judicial settlement. End of third chapter is focused on three specific principles in mediation, especially pointing out the benefits which are bringing...