Chapter 8: AIDS Service Organziations:

AIDS Service Organizations (ASOs) adopted a mission that included advocacy for public policy and private service agency response to the AIDS epidemic, prevention education efforts and provision of personal social services to people with AIDS (PWAs). This mission was shaped by stigmatization and marginalization of PWAs, the inadequate response of governments and health and social service agencies, the developing relationship between ASOs and diverse populations, especially communities of color, and by developments in medical research and treatments for HIV disease. ASOs thus emerged as new contexts of helping and as such had to create organizational structures appropriate for the problems faced, arrange for constructive relationships between helpers and those receiving services, and establish and maintain constructive relationships between the ASO and the larger community. Future challenges facing these new contexts of helping are discussed.     

ADOPTION:

In this article, we focus on how understandings of the past influence the process of integrating older special needs children into family life. We present the stories of two families who adopted older special needs children as they reconstructed the past, experinced the present, and projected the future. We draw upon social, pragmatic, and postmodern theories of the past to guide our interpretations and understandings of these families' adoption experiences. The dominant ideology of family influenced their story construction, and it was against this conception that their stories were evaluated. We followed the Litners and the Becks as they used the past to create stories that enabled and disabled their family life in the present and in the future. From the Litners' and the Becks' stories, we learned that when families are too limited by a cultural conception of an ideal adoptive family, their ability to use the past to create stories to help them live in the present and to project a shared future becomes restricted.
Our adoption failed because we understimated the past and overstimated our ability to create stories with happy endings. (Mrs. Beck)     

AIDS:

A questionnaire assessing AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors was distributed in written form and administered by telephone interviews in 1988 and again in 1990. Data were collected from members of minorities throughout Alabame. The telephone survey was based on a random sample, while the written form was distributed at targeted locations including community health centers, community action agencies, state prisons, vocational schools, and predominantly black colleges. Ninety-four percent of respondents in the telephone survey were African-American, while 84% in the written sample indicated they were African-American indicated they were African-American. Over the entire sample, knowledge and AIDS transmission was relatively accurate and increased from 1988 to 1990. Knowledge was higher in the written sample than the telephone sample at both times. The youngest and oldest age groups were least knowledgeable. In addition to knowledge, other variables including concern about contracting AIDS, behavior change, interest in learning about AIDS, and issues related to stigmatization were investigated. Implications for educational and prevention programs are discussed.     

DUST:

Following the perspective of "sociological miniaturism," proposed by Stolte, Fine, and Cook (2001), we examine the significance of dust in social life in order to examine the reverberations of the micro-features of everyday life on social structure. Through the examination of the routine, the unexamined, and the commonplace, we hope to gain some insight on how the taken-for-granted aspects of lived experience fit into the larger social order. Dust, by virtue of its "smallness," provides a window through which we can explore social structural issues using microsociological analysis. Specifically we examine how dust and techniques for its control are linked to issues of gender, work, political economy and nation.     

Interview:

Anthea Stewart is President of Anthea Stewart and Associates, a Toronto based EAP consulting firm with associate offices in Halifax, Montreal, London, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver. As a member of the Metropolitan Toronto Employee Assistance Program Association and a regular speaker at the Annual American Conference on Employee Assistance Programs in Kansas City and numerous Canadian conferences, Ms. Stewart is at the forefront of EAP development. Her firm emphasizes the integration of employee assistance into the broader context of wellness promotion and organizationa/management development.     

Empowerment:

It has been twenty years since Robert Hill's seminal research on Black family strengths revolutionized the perceptions, attitudes and modalities related to the coping abilities of Black people. His findings were instrumental in effecting changes in a body of knowledge from one that focused on a monolithic, ethnocentric deficit model to one that affirmed strengths within an historical, culturally diverse conceptual framework. Much of the information available is theoretically based on the Euro-centric worldview resulting in limited use, acceptance and credibility among social work practitioners, social policy analysts and social work academicians. This paper revisits the literature relative to the strengths of Black families. Utilizing recent works of Billingsley (1990), Boyd-Franklin (1989) and others, the strengths of Black families will be re-examined for the purposes of comparing Hill's strength model with the contemporary model of African-American families and its implications for social work education, practice and policy. Additionally, new imperatives are described that possibly will insure African-Americans greater power and control over life situations in the decade of the 90s and into the twenty-first century.     

Homophobia:

For gay men and lesbians, one of the greatest obstacles to long-term sobriety in internalized homophobia- the hatred on one's homosexuality. Unless the crucial stage of self-acceptance is reached in the coming-out process in jeopardy and leave the gay, lesbian, bisexual addict/alcoholic at constant risk. Internalized homophobia can be successfully treated, but a more fundamental approach needs to be implemented in order to eliminate societal homophobia that is at the heart of the issues. To begin to do this, we need to understand the underlying nature of homophobia and how it manifests itself in everyday life. This article explores homophobia in American, how it impacts on the lives of everyone gay, lesbian and straight and how we can take action to eliminate it.     

Chapter 6: Gay Latinos and AIDS:

AIDS education, prevention strategies, and support services for gay and bisexual Latinos have traditionally been inadequate, even though surveillance data demonstrate that the risk of contracting AIDS is two and one-half times greater for gay or bisexual Latino men than for their white counterparts. Language, culture, disproportionate poverty, and different definitions of gay or bisexual identity in Latino communities must be considered when addressing AIDS issues among Latino groups in the United States. It should not be assumed that outreach, education and prevention programs which may be appropriate for whites or African Americans will be appropriate for Latinos. This article offers a theoretical framework for developing a culturally-sensitive AIDS prevention program for gay and bisexual Latino men.     

Divorce:

This article approaches divorce from a combined family systems, individual life cycle and stage theory of development perspective. It posits that the choice of what kind of therapy is apt to be most efficient and most efficacious for any patient/couple should be made after identifying at what stage in the divorce process the person(s) is/are in when they enter treatment and what their respective ego strengths, cognitive functioning, and social and resource networks are. There is an assumption of flexibility in the therapist's style and philosophic orientation. It is recommended that therapy encompass interventions that are likely to be the most effective in the various stages rather than be a rigid adherence to one dogma. Several illustrative case vignettes are presented.     

Aging:

Entry of young women into religious orders has decreased, and life expectancy of women in religious orders is above that of the general population. Thus many orders are characterized by disproportionately large aged populations. In this paper age structural problems are viewed through five major themes: retirement and value of work; career changes; housing; medical; and economic concerns. Three congregations have been investigated and each is discussed through the five themes. Current problems, attemts being made to resolve the problems, and key issues for the future are identified.     

Racism:

The problem of attracting minority group students in social work is but one aspect of the larger social problem of racism. This paper therefore defines racism, its influence on the social and psychological processes associated with career identification and selection, and its influence on interpersonal relationships. As a way of illustrating the effects of racism, case studies describing common problems experienced by minority students who decide to enter social work programs are presented. The paper closes with a set of broad recommendations that should enable social work educators to retain minority group students.     

Guardianship:

Guardianship is a legal relatinship whereby the decision-making power of one person-the ward-is transferred to another person- the guardian. Guardianship was designed to protect those who have been determined not to be competent to make their own decisions. However, in the loosely monitored guardianship system of the United States, many types of abuses have occured. The National Guardianship Rights Act, the result of eight years of research culled by the Aging Committee and of a Subcommittee hearing on September 25, 1987, was reintroduced in Congress in 1989. Its provisions are intended to prevent future abuses of the guardianship system.     

Grandparents:

Responses to measures of relationship quality and range of activity with their grandparents by young adult grandchil- dren from stepfamilies (n = 55) were different from responses of young adult grandchildren from single-parent (n = 70) and intact families (n = 266). Analysis of variance comparisons revealed sig- nificant differences with grandchildren from intact families having the lowest scores, grandchildren from single-parent families in the middle, and those from stepfamilies highest. While cross-sectional data cannot demonstrate cause and effect, a possible implication from the data is that with divorce the child's relationship becomes closer with at least one grandparent as manifest by higher scores for those from single-parent families. In tum, the even higher scores by grandchildren from stepfamilies suggest that following the child's " move from single-pareit family lifgto stepfamily life,jhe relation- ship with the grandparent takes on increasing importance. Descrip- tive insight cokemhg the distinctive charact&stbs of grandpare&/ grandchild relationships in different family forms is provided by the - grandchildren's rating of 29 reasons forclosenesiand 29 shred activities.     

Passing:

This paper seeks to examine issues and circumstances related to passing both as a function of social conditions of discrimination/oppression and in terms of the consequences for the individuals and groups who may practice it. For the purpose of this illustration, two minority groups for whom passing is an issue, "interracial blacks" and "homosexuals," will be analyzed in detail. The existence of this phenomenon clearly illustrates certain of the dynamics of oppression; the means by which this oppression is exercised; and some of the adaptations which those who endure it may adopt.     

Retirement:

Stressful life events have been proposed as a possible cause of elder abuse. This study investigates the influence of retirement status on marital conflict and physical violence using a nationally representative sample of 1238 respondents aged 55 years and older. No significant differences were found between retired men and women compared to their nonretired counterparts on measures of depression, stress, marital conflict, and violence. Future research should examine other life events, such as serious illness of one partner or changes in living situation, that might have a more significant impact on marital discord in later life.     

EAP's:

By the end of 1990, 156,024 cases of AIDS had been reported throughout the United States (CDC, 1991). Perhaps even more devastating is that 100,813 individuals, 64.6% of the reported AIDS cases have died (CDC, 1991). The AIDS crisis has now found its way into most segments of our society. Women are now the fastest growing category of people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (Stuntzner-Gibson, 1991). HIV disease is increasingly being identified with poor people, intravenous drug users and ethnic minorities (Honey, 1988; Macks, 1988).     

Routine-Work-Related-Absence:

Work-related-parental-absence is becoming more common in our society, however the literature has not kept pace with this growing trend. The routine exiting and reentry of a spouse or parent creates disruption in the family system which necessitates family coping. This paper explores the effects of work-related-absence on families and the coping mechanism commonly used by these families. A theoretical framework is developed hypothesizing relationships deduced from the literature. The framework also illustrates the importance of therapeutic intervention for families experiencing difficulty coping with routine absence of a spouse or parent.     

Perspectives: Abortion and Genocide: The Unbridgeable Gap

This article examines The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform's claimthat abortion is genocide, assessing it against legal, trait-basedand "dynamic process" definitions of genocide. The purpose ofthis exercise is not to give credence to what many consideran outrageous claim, nor is it to merely refute this claim basedupon a close reading of existing definitions of genocide; instead,by subjecting The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform's claim to anethical and performative evaluation, our goal is to illustratehow the term genocide can be "misused." In the end, we arguethat The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform uses the term genocidefor its own totalizing and essentializing purposes, and in doingso engages in practices that share an affinity with the exclusionarydiscourses that help make genocide thinkable.     

Research note: Bourdieu and Leibniz: mediated dualisms

The research note discusses similarities in theory construction between Bourdieu and Leibniz. Instead of ‘overcoming’ the Cartesian dualisms, both authors find a way to mediate between the dualistic concepts by introducing a third concept. In Leibniz' case, this is God, in Bourdieu's case, history. Reading Bourdieu thus from a Leibnizian angle, the note seeks to clarify some issues in Bourdieu's theory construction.