In the last 8 years, several studies have documented that many adolescents acknowledge having exchanged sexually explicit cell phone pictures of themselves, a behavior termed sexting. Differences across studies in how sexting was defined, recruitment strategies, and cohort have resulted in sometimes significant differences in as basic a metric as what percentage of adolescents have sent, received, or forwarded such sexts. The psychosocial and even legal risks associated with sexting by minors are significantly serious that accurate estimates of its prevalence, including over time, are important to ascertain. In the present study, students (N = 656) from a single private high school were surveyed regarding their participation in sexting. Students at this same school were similarly surveyed four years earlier. In this second survey, reported rates of sending (males 15.8%; females 13.6%) and receiving (males 40.5%; females 30.6%) sexually explicit cell phone pictures (revealing genitals or buttocks of either sex or female breasts) were generally similar to those reported at the same school 4 years earlier. Rates of forwarding sexts (males 12.2%; females 7.6%) were much lower than those previously acknowledged at this school. Correlates of sexting in this study were similar to those reported previously. Overall, our findings suggest that sexting by adolescents (with the exception of forwarding) remains a fairly common behavior, despite its risks.

While there is substantial research on community-police relations, most studies examine the abstract outcome of “negative perceptions of police.” This study, however, examines over- and under-policing as two distinct, yet not mutually exclusive, constructs, suggesting that there is more to strained police-community relations than citizens perceiving the police “negatively.” Using the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey, we assess the relationship between race and ethnicity and perceptions of over- and under-policing and explore how these associations are conditioned by neighborhood characteristics. Results reveal racialized perceptions of over- and underpolicing. Furthermore, while levels of both under- and over-policing vary across neighborhoods, the relationship between these outcomes and individual-level race/ethnicity was robust. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

Employing a racialized gendered lens, we explore the perceptions of status threat and victimhood among a sample of White Americans following the 2016 presidential election. Specifically, we draw upon such theoretical and empirical work to frame our analyses of the associations between perceptions of a white “victim” ideology and anti-Black Lives Matter (BLM) sentiments and how such associations may be conditioned by support for Trump and holding patriarchal gender normative beliefs. We propose that the BLM movement may be perceived as a “threat” to many White Americans. Furthermore, we believe Whites’ anti-BLM sentiments will be enhanced by support for Trump, given his racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and oppressive tendencies. Moreover, we believe that these associations will differ based on gender and beliefs in patriarchal gender norms, as White men and women are likely to feel status threat in varied ways. Mix support for our propositions and complex gendered differences are revealed. Implications are discussed.

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