Mit Goffman auf dem Drogenstrich

The drug dependent young women walking the streets in the neighborhood of Frankfurt’s main station are doubly stigmatized: as users of illegal drugs and as (unregistered and therefore) illegal prostitutes. They work in a public place and under the eyes of the police, but they try to hide their activities — as do their customers who try to remain anonymous. The ethnographic study presented here focussed on the interactions between drug prostitutes and their customers, using the models proposed by Erving Goffman as theoretical perspectives. The “view from Goffman” is certainly very useful in research on sensitive topics but also has its limitations.     

From the Receiving End

This is a study of the effectiveness of marriage counselling as reported by the clients during telephone interviews. Results compare favourably with earlier studies and overseas research.     

Improving Primary Care for Persons with Disabilities: the nature of expertise

It has been well documented that persons with disabilities (PWDs) have a more vulnerable health status than persons without disabilities; yet, they often receive inadequate primary care within the US health care system. This study explores how PWDs think about the health care they receive, particularly how primary care providers facilitate or hinder quality care for PWDs. The findings from this study expand the concept of expertise in health care, suggesting it goes well beyond technical competence of health care providers. For PWDs, expertise is multi-dimensional, not solely the domain of providers and includes having knowledge and using that knowledge within the context of the provider-patient relationship. PWDs identified three distinct areas of expertise: medical/technical, medical/biographical, and systems. Expertise can be brought to health care encounters by both PWDs and providers, and it can be developed through collaboration during interactions between providers and PWDs.     

Book reviews

As we have seen, there are great differences between the three books, both in the way demography is treated and in the way the issues are raised: the thematic outline is different, as are the methods used to tackle the many topics covered and the attitudes to the problems triggered by development trends.However, despite these differences, there is a stress throughout on the need to closely follow demographical behaviour and its importance for society as a whole. Thus, while certain trends are common to each of the three countries, future prospects are not quite the same, and there is a call for policy directions which reflect these differences. The underlying motive is not to condition trends (which past experience has shown to be little open to change) but rather to tackle promptly and effectively the problems which these give rise to.     

Positive Youth Development and Foster Care Youth: A Digital Perspective

The virtual world of the Internet may be used to support positive youth development. Accessing resources in educational, employment, health, and social domains is enhanced by the ability to effectively use digital technology. Foster youth are at risk for poor developmental outcomes and may face barriers to competent use of the Internet. We discuss the benefits and risks of Internet use and the importance of digital literacy to protect against risks, and we offer suggestions on ways that child welfare agencies, case managers, and foster parents can work with youth to support safe and effective use of digital technology.     

Spatial Aspects of the Rise of Nonmarital Fertility Across Europe Since 1960: The Role of States and Regions in Shaping Patterns of Change

This article investigates the role of states and regions in shaping spatial patterns of nonmarital fertility in Europe since 1960 using a dataset of 497 European subnational regions and smaller countries. Almost all regions registered substantial nonmarital fertility increases over the last 50 years. Prior research has shown that in the first half of the twentieth century states played a dominant role in drawing the demographic map of Europe (Watkins, From provinces into nations: demographic integration in Western Europe 1870–1960. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991). As a result, subnational regional variation decreased, while differences between countries increased. In this article, we investigate whether states continue to play such a dominant role in delineating patterns of nonmarital fertility between 1960 and 2007. We find that variation in nonmarital fertility levels increased as a whole across Europe, and states continued to be important for determining these patterns. However, the role of states relative to regions declined in the latest period examined (1990 and 2007). Possible explanations for the changes include increased supranational integration, for example, within the European Union, and decentralisation within states leading to increases in variation in subnational contextual conditions.     

The Interplay of Science, Values, and Experiences Among Scientists Asked to Evaluate the Hazards of Dioxin, Radon, and Environmental Tobacco Smoke

To investigate the extent to which personal values and experiences among scientists might affect their assessment of risks from dioxin, radon, and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), we conducted an experiment through a telephone survey of 1461 epidemiologists, toxicologists, physicians, and general scientists. Each participant was read a vignette designed to reflect the mainstream scientific thinking on one of the three substances. For half of the participants (group A) the substance was named. For the other half (group B), the substance was not named but was identified only as Substance X, Y, or Z. Knowing the name of the substance had little effect on the scientists' evaluation of dioxin, although those who knew the substance to be dioxin were more likely to rate the substance as a serious environmental health hazard (51% vs. 42%, p = 0.062). For radon, those who knew the substance by name were significantly more likely to consider it an environmental health hazard than were those who knew it as substance Z (91% vs. 78%, p less than 0.001). Participants who knew they were being asked about ETS rather than substance X were significantly more likely to consider the substance an environmental health hazard (88% vs. 66%, p less than 0.001), to consider the substance a serious environmental health hazard (70% vs. 33%, p less than 0.001), to believe that background exposure required public health intervention (85% vs. 41%, p less than 0.001), and to believe that above-background exposure required public health intervention (90% vs. 74%, p less than 0.001). These findings suggest that values and experiences may be influencing health risk assessments for these substances, and indicate the need for more study of this phenomenon.