Background: This paper reviews recent evidence on the causes and maintenance of aggressive and disruptive behaviours in childhood and adolescence. It considers the relative merits of several different ways of conceptualising such problems, in relation to the contribution of biological, psychological and social factors. Method: It focuses on conduct problems appearing in young childhood, which greatly increase the likelihood of persistent antisocial behaviours in adolescence and adult life in association with wider interpersonal and social role impairments. It considers the contribution of individual factors, including impaired verbal skills, deficits in executive functions, and an imbalance between behavioural activation and inhibition systems. These are viewed in interaction with commonly associated environmental disadvantages such as hostile or intrusive parenting. The roles of attributional biases, unrealistic self-evaluations, and insecure attachment are considered in relation to affect regulation, and effective social action. The contributions of the wider social environments of peers, neighbourhood and socio-economic conditions are evaluated. Conclusions: The paper concludes that, although considerable progress has been made over the past ten years, there is a need to further refine our conceptualisation of the behaviours to be explained, to develop a coherent theory of the causal and maintaining processes, and to carry out prospective studies with adequate numbers of high risk children.

Social Theory and Social Structure

Biological, psychological and social processes in the conduct disorders

This paper, the third in a series on the relevance of the modernist-post modernist debate to organizational analysis (Cooper and Burrell 1988, Burrell 1988), examines the work of Jacques Derrida. Specifically, Derrida's work is viewed as a contribution to the analysis of process (as opposed to structure) in social systems. In this context, three interrelated themes of his work - deconstruction, writing, 'difference' — are described in some detail and their implications explored for social and organizational analysis. Derrida's account of the logic of writing shows it to be fundamental to the division of labour and therefore to significant dimensions (complexity, formalization) of formal organization. Since 'organization theuries' are themselves products of writing and the division of labour, their essential function is to explain and justify the structures they represent, they are therefore more concerned with maintaining their own consistency and the stability of the organized world they describe rather ...

Modernism, Post Modernism and Organizational Analysis 3: The Contribution of Jacques Derrida:

In a contextual analysis it is found that students in schools with high sex ratios have higher educational aspirations than students in schools with low sex ratios (i.e. high male-female ratios) in a population of white high-school senior in Davidson County, Tennessee. The effect of sex-ratio context persists when sex, intelligence, and father's education are controlled. The "consexual effect" is interpreted as a consequence of anticipatory socialization. The contextual interpretation is the exposed as speculative, artifactual, and substantively trivial. Covariance analysis and dummy-variable regression analysis are advocated as more suitable techniques for the measurement and interpretation of differences among groups.

Context and Consex: A Cautionary Tale

The methodological foundations of comparative-historical sociology have been transformed dramatically in recent years. Arguments against general theoretical models have proliferated, while the complexity and uniqueness of historical events and the virtues of inductive methods have been emphasized. The growing convergence of sociology and history has led to a decline in the use of general theories. This article begins with a description and analysis of the recent transformation of the methodology of comparative-historical sociology. An overreliance on inductive methods has resulted in inadequate specifications of causal relations and causal mechanisms in recent comparative-historical sociology. The concluding section discusses a nascent rational choice research program in political sociology to illustrate an alternative methodology.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2781636.pdf

The Role of General Theory in Comparative-Historical Sociology

/pdf/parameters-for-crisis-communication-4oapxg4fjr.pdf

Social Theory and Social Structure

Citations

Biological, psychological and social processes in the conduct disorders

Modernism, Post Modernism and Organizational Analysis 3: The Contribution of Jacques Derrida:

Context and Consex: A Cautionary Tale

The Role of General Theory in Comparative-Historical Sociology

Parameters for Crisis Communication

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