Silent Partners: Women in Farm Magazine Success Stories, 1934–19911

Abstract Women's contributions to the farm and farm household have historically been undervalued. An analysis of farm magazine “success” stories through six decades indicates that these stories may be a vehicle for reproducing and transmitting a traditional domestic ideology that separates farm production from the rest of the farm household and that rarely portrays women as significant contributors to the economic well-being of either. Magazine stories depict women as spouses or farm helpers, but not as producers or decision-makers. Farm magazines thus offer few models of realistic gender relations for either farm women or farm men.     

A comment on Scott's “Black Polygamous Family Formation”

This brief article takes a critical look at Joseph W. Scott's article Black Polygamous Family Formation. While Scott's research is seen as helpful, several problems in his treatment of plural mating and marriage arrangements among Black Americans are discussed. Major conceptual problems are created by Scott's use (or misuse) of the concept polygyny. Significant methodological problems are also posed by his sampling approach, operationalization of concepts, and analytic strategies. Studies such as Scott's are of optimal value when their exploratory nature, and consequent limitation, are clearly acknowledged. Authors' Note: Please address inquiries or requests for reprints to: Walter R. Allen, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109     

Public policies in the decade of the 1990's: the case of nutrition

In Venezuela, mortality related to nutritional deficiencies was low with a total of 178 cases in 1973 and 391 cases in 1981, affecting mainly children under the age of 12 months. In 1988 the System of Nutritional Surveillance (SISVAN) reported that the majority of hospital admissions with serious nutritional deficit were those with inadequate weight-height ratio: 37.0% of children under 1 year of age in 1988 and 46.4% in 1989. In 1988 SISVAN reported a decrease in the weight-height deficit in children under 10 years of age: 28,609 children in 1988 and 28,548 in 1989; whereas the age group from 2 to 6 years was the most affected by such deficit. Overall, however, there had been a slowdown in the improvement in child nutrition with the increase of grave malnutrition according to 1988 and 1989 data. 1990 and 1991 data showed an improved situation as a result of better use of state medical services by families and the milk program, indicating a decrease of the weight-height ratio deficit in children under 10 years of age: 18.0% in the first trimester of 1990 and 14.0% in 1991, along with the reduction of grave deficit from 0.9% in 1990 to 0.6% in 1991. Feeding as a determinant aspect of nutrition deals with the precarious nature of existing supplies, the diminution of acquisitive capacity, and the habits of consumption. The initiatives of the state for overcoming the situation include the basic basket of foodstuffs, direct subsidies to the low income population, and programs that fight nutritional deficiencies of children, such as the Expanded Maternal-Child Nutrition Program (PAMI). Households of daily care constitute the regional initiatives and the ability of the state to maintain these programs. The responses of urban centers before this initiative included a successful experiment, the center of education and nutritional recovery, and the child survival program.     

The Sociology of Death

The understanding of death, dying and bereavement in relation to society is indebted to a number of disciplines – anthropology, history, psychology and sociology are surveyed. Theories and methods used by sociologists of death, dying and bereavement are briefly outlined, followed by a number of key debates and challenges: denial, taboo and sequestration; death and the media; how to integrate scholarship in collective memory and Holocaust studies; theorising contemporary rites of passage; the lack of comparative research; and the need to focus on the meaning and organisation of death for those who encounter it most directly; namely, the poor, displaced and elderly. A brief discussion of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching is followed by the conclusion that any promise of a general sociology conducted in the light of mortality has been eclipsed by yet another specialism, the sociology of death.     

Risk Analysis of PCB Exposure via the Soil–Food Crop Pathway, and Alternatives for Remediation at Serpukhov, Russian Federation

A risk assessment was conducted to determine the likelihood of certain health risks resulting from exposure to soils and food crops contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs). PCBs have contaminated soils, river sediments, and air in the past as a result of industrial activities at a capacitor plant located in the City of Serpukhov, Russian Federation. This risk assessment and suggestions for remediation are designed to aid in decision-making efforts by a joint Russian–American research team developing a community, national, and international response to industrial contamination. Bobovnikova et al. ( The Science of the Total Environment 139/140 , 357–364, [1993]) have reported that PCBs are elevated in soils and sediments, breast milk, and locally grown foods in the Serpukhov area. Data from these and other investigators have been used in this risk assessment to calculate a potential cancer risk resulting from exposure to PCBs. Our assessment indicates that members of the local population may be at increased risk of cancer, and possibly other adverse health effects, as a result of PCB contamination of their environment. Because previously unassessed environmental contamination is a common problem in the former Soviet Republics, as well as many other areas of the world, we believe this type of evaluation, using known methods, can serve as a model for assessment efforts in other parts of the globe and result in remediative efforts in regions constrained by faltering economies.