Women's sexual desire: A feminist critique

This article offers a critical feminist analysis of the biomédical conceptualization of women's sexual desire. The five major features of the biomedical model of female sexual desire examined and critiqued are (a) use of the male model as the standard, (b) use of a linear model of sexual response, (c) biological reductionism, (d) depoliticalization, and (e) medicalization of variation. A “New View,” an alternative to the biomédical model, is offered for reconceptualizing women's sexual problems. This analysis concludes with recommendations for feminist‐based biopsychosocial research.     

Determinants of Priority for Risk Reduction: The Role of Worry

One hundred twenty-two members (experts) of the Society for Risk Analysis completed a mailed questionnaire and 150 nonexperts completed a similar questionnaire on the World Wide Web. Questions asked included those about priorities on personal and government action for risk reduction, badness of the risk, number of people affected, worry, and probabilities for self and others. Individual differences in mean desire for action were largely explained in terms of worry. Worry, in turn, was largely affected by probability judgments, which were lower for experts than for nonexperts. Differences across risks in the desire for action, within each subject, were also determined largely by worry and probability. Belief in expert knowledge about the risk increased worry and the priority for risk reduction. A second study involving 91 nonexperts (42 interviewed and 49 on the Web) replicated the main findings for nonexperts from the first study. Interviews also probed the determinants of worry, attitudes toward government versus personal control, and protective behaviors.     

Pyramid Power: Searching for an Error in Test Scoring with 830,000 Helpers

A mathematics question that was asked on the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test was scored incorrectly. This subsequently was discovered and became the subject of national attention. In this article we examine the data generated by this item from almost 830,000 examinees and find that detailed statistical analysis with even this enormous sample size would not have yielded clues to the blunder. The epistemological and practical consequences of this are also discussed.     

Engaging undergraduate social work students in research through experience-based learning

Social work programmes internationally have taken diverse approaches to research training in their curricula. This paper presents an Australian case study of engaging undergraduate social work students in research using experience-based learning. The case study explores the potential of experience-based learning to assist in overcoming the ‘anxiety’, students are observed to report in relation to research training and education. The social work programme at the University of Newcastle, Australia has embraced an experience-based learning model since 1991. Despite a research active and engaged staff and a commitment to research-informed pedagogy, educators continue to observe students as indifferent and reluctant to engage in research training. To address this, work-integrated learning was strengthened in the research course to enable students to design, develop and deliver practice-relevant research in partnership with local support services. Preliminary evaluation of the course highlights both potential and the pitfalls of experience-based learning approaches to research training. While found to enhance research engagement and demystify its role in practice, experience-based learning was associated with significant resource and time imposts. These findings suggest cautious consideration of structure and scope is essential for experience-based learning to be a feasible approach to research training at the undergraduate level.     

Inequality in the “Cradle of Liberty”: Race/Ethnicity and Wealth in Greater Boston

New data collected for the Boston Metropolitan Statistical Area provide detailed information on financial assets that allow analysis to extend beyond the traditional black–white divide. Targeting US-born blacks, Caribbean blacks, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and other Hispanics, findings from the National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color survey underscore the large racial and ethnic disparities in financial wealth, even after controlling for demographic and socioeconomic status. Further, some notable differences between Boston’s communities of color highlight the importance of detailed analyses for research on the racial wealth gap. In particular, among non-white communities Dominicans report comparatively low asset and high debt amounts, while Caribbean blacks report relatively higher levels of wealth. Altogether, these findings point to the need for wealth building opportunities in communities of color and further investigation of the causes and consequences of financial disparities between groups of color disaggregated by specific ancestral origin.