Chinese Women:How Far Have We Come in the Past Five Years?

AT the intersection of the old and new centuries, the Eighth National Women's Congress is being convened so that Chinese women of all professions and all ethnicities can review the distance travelled in the past five years since the last congress, assess the gains made, and then define the direction to head in the future.     

Trends in Adolescent Development Impacting Practice: How Can We Catch Up?

Changes in the mechanisms of communication and advances in brain imaging technology shape understanding and interpretation of the manner in which adolescents process and respond to information and relate to others. Knowledge about how trends in adolescent development should inform practice with adolescents is limited, and yet emerging trends and new discoveries have implications for adolescent relationships, behavior, and well-being. Our purpose was to critically examine the influence of major technological innovations on adolescent development and the impacts on research and practice with vulnerable adolescent populations. We discuss strategies for researchers and practitioners.     

How Can One be a Boxer? : Pain and Pleasure in a Manila's Boxing Camp

This paper is an ethnographic account of daily life at a boxing gym in Manila in the Philippines. My book, Rokaru Boxer to Hinkon Sekai conducts a social analysis of three different topics in order to grasp the lives of Manilan boxers on both theoretical and empirical grounds—namely, daily life at a boxing gym, an international boxing market structure in which Filipino boxers are consumed as underdog roles, and the daily life in Manila's squatter areas to which the boxers are closely tied. The current study limits its examination to daily life in a boxing gym. Most of the unique characteristics that influence Filipino boxing can be found in the live-in residencies of its gyms. The gym is a place for training and living. It is not only by training but also as a result of various aspects of their life here that young men are able to become boxers. Unlike the gym in the African American ghetto described by Loïc Wacquant, participating youths in Filipino boxing come from the absolute lowest tiers of society. The youths live in boxing camps where every aspect of their daily live is strictly regulated, and thus are they inscribed with the rules that must be observed in this sport. This study is an examination of the pains and pleasures of life at one such boxing camp.     

Distance Education Alumni: How Far Have They Gone?

SUMMARY

This evaluation compared 34 distance education (DE) and 38 on-campus alumni regarding employment-related outcomes; professional activities; satisfaction with MSW program components; and development of knowledge, skills, and values. Findings showed equivalent outcomes in most respects. DE alumni were generally positive about the extent to which the program enabled them to develop professionally.     

Alcohol and Sexual Health Behavior: “What We Know and How We Know It”

Alcohol, despite salutary associations with sexuality, has been implicated in sexual health problems. This review examines the relationship between alcohol and outcomes related to sexual health. Methodological considerations limiting causal assertions permissible with nonexperimental data are discussed, as are advantages of experimental methods. Findings from laboratory experiments are reviewed evaluating causal effects of acute alcohol intoxication on a variety of outcomes, including sexual arousal, sexual desire, orgasm, and sexual risk behaviors related to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Several variables exerting mediating and moderating influences are identified. It is concluded that acute alcohol intoxication is capable of exerting a causal impact on multiple constituent components of sexual responding related to sexual health. Both alcohol expectancy and alcohol myopia theories have been supported as explanations for these causal effects. Furthermore, for sexual risk behavior, noteworthy recent developments include research highlighting the importance of women’s sexual victimization history and men’s condom use resistance. Limitations and implications associated with this body of research are also discussed.     

Feminist Phase Analysis in Public Relations: Where Have We Been? Where Do We Need to Be?

Feminist phase theory provides a classification system for analyzing any evolution in our thinking about women across the disciplines. The 2-fold purpose of this article is, first, to suggest further avenues through which to apply Tetreault's (1985) groundbreaking work and, second, to propose a sixth stage relevant to public relations research. Feminist phase theory defines 5 phases of such research: male scholarship, compensatory, bifocal, feminist, and multifocal. Now, 6 years into the new millennium, I propose adding a sixth, integrative phase. That stage, I argue, will conceptualize women and men in public relations not only as communication professionals, but as human beings often struggling to integrate their work, family, and community lives.     

“How Does She Have Time for Kids and Congress?”

Abstract

According to previous studies, women political leaders often are cast by the media as focused narrowly on matters of significance to their gender, and as being less weighty players in government than their male counterparts. This research explores the degree to which the press offices of women members of Congress perceive this to be the case, and the degree to which women representatives' communication efforts contribute to this pattern of coverage. Interviews with press secretaries to House members reveal that press secretaries find the media to be less fair in their treatment of women members, and that they believe women members are subject to sex role stereotyping. Contrary to the media's depiction, however, Congressional press secretaries and House member Web sites reveal that women members portray themselves, and seek to be portrayed, as having diverse interests and significant influence in Washington. Thus, it appears that the media, rather than the members and their staffers, are responsible for the stereotyped coverage that women representatives receive.     

Sibship and Inequality Beliefs: Do Siblings Have a Liberalizing or Conservatizing Effect?

How do individuals come to hold certain beliefs about meritocracy, individualism, and redistribution? Several sociodemographic factors are regularly used to understand variation in these beliefs, but other predictors remain untested. Meanwhile, scholars studying family dynamics are increasingly turning their attention toward the long-term social effects of distinct family features. One facet of this work focuses on the social role of siblings. We investigate the relationship at the intersection of these literatures. How does growing up with (more) siblings influence one's inequality beliefs? Do siblings promote collectivism or might these same relationships foster competition and individualism? Could trust be the mechanism connecting sibship size with inequality beliefs? Or, do sibling effects reflect a broader promotion of conservative thinking in larger families? We investigate these questions using data from the General Social Survey from 1984 to 2018. Our results indicate that siblings are associated with more conservative meritocracy beliefs. On the other hand, we find limited evidence of siblings influencing attitudes toward redistribution.     

Who Pays? Can We Pay Them Back?

This chapter is about a very old question that is thrown up again in discussion related to ANT. Do orders have necessary limits to what can belong to them? It is possible to read ANT as containing or demanding a moral commitment to the inclusion of the disenfranchised. It can often seem to be in the business of giving credit where credit is due, spreading recognition to even the most unexpected quarters. To sustain itself such a morality would depend on the possibility of infinite inclusion. By identifying this picture of 'belonging-by-assemblage' and its traditional counterpart 'belonging-by-banishment' and by finding both at play within ANT, the papers argues that ANT is an ethical rather than a moral enterprise, bringing the unanswered question of the nature of belonging to bear across domains, rather than approaching each domain with a 'cookie-cutter' moral formula. The disturbing 'unsecuring' of belonging that ANT involves continues within the philosophical tradition ANT trades on and contributes to in the form of an abiding controversy over the place of the natural world.     

Casino policies: Have Australians had a fair deal?

The introduction of commercial casinos to Australia in 1973 was arguably the most radical shift of gambling policy in Australia's history. At one level, the risk seems to have been justified, with very little organised public opposition to the promotion of casinos as a catalyst for tourism growth and regional economic development. However, recent events suggest that Australian casino policies have moved to a more politicised stage, a period in which governments could be forced to contend with new conflicts, tensions and contradictions. Now that some of the benefits and costs of casinos have become apparent, it is appropriate to evaluate existing casino policies and trends, and to reconsider other alternatives which might be available. This paper examines the broad social implications of the Australian casino boom, the economic changes which have occurred, and the social and political costs which have begun to surface.This article is an updated and modified version of a paper presented to200-UP; The Third Conference of the National Association for Gambling Studies, July ll–13th 1988, Australian National University.     

“We Don’t Have Bullying,But We Have Drama”: Understandings of Bullying and Related Constructs Within the Social Milieu of a U.S. High School

The purpose of this study was to explore students’ and staff members’ understandings of bullying and related social constructs within a U.S. high school. Students (N = 84) participated in interviews and focus groups; students (N = 797) and staff members (N = 77) completed surveys. The qualitative data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach, and the findings were used to inform the development of survey items, which were analyzed using a one-way ANOVA. Findings from both components of the study were merged during interpretation. Results suggest that the school’s social environment reflects a complicated milieu in which it is difficult to apply a research definition of bullying to problematic student social interactions. A theoretical model of how conflict, drama, aggression, and bullying are related is proposed.