Understanding gender differences in older people's attitudes towards life-prolonging medical technologies

The power of medical technologies to extend the final stages of life has heightened the need to understand what factors influence older people's wish to use such medical technologies. We analyse gender differences in such views, based on audio-recorded interviews with 33 men and 36 women (aged 65–93) in south-east England. Older women were twice as likely as men to oppose using medical technologies to extend life. More older women voiced ‘other-oriented’ reasons for their opposition, particularly not wanting to be a burden on others. Older men's attitudes were primarily ‘self-oriented’, reflecting a concern to stay alive for as long as possible, with fewer expressing concern about consequences for others. Women's greater life course involvement in caring and empathising with the wishes and concerns of others underlay these gender differences. Thus, women were ‘performing gender’ by putting others before themselves, even at this critical juncture in their lives.     

A Window on the 'New' Sociology of Childhood

This article is intended as a window on the body of research that has come to be known as the 'new sociology of childhood'. To elucidate its underlying tenets I identify three major weaknesses that scholars in the 'new' sociology find in the 'old' conceptualization – socialization – and discuss implications for doing research on children and childhood. I suggest that scholars in the United States are on a somewhat different path than their colleagues in other Western countries. Finally, I argue that the view that children are not yet members of their societies is one that is difficult to undermine.     

Heterogeneity in Two‐Parent Families and Adolescent Well‐Being

This study highlights the heterogeneity in two‐parent families and examines how adolescents fare when they reside in simple two‐parent, blended, and stepfamilies. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N= 1,769), we find that shared biological children in blended families have worse outcomes than children in simple two‐parent families, even though they reside with both of their biological parents. These differences occur for academic performance, delinquency, school detachment, and depression. Current explanations in the family literature do not account for the poorer outcomes of shared children in blended families. We suggest that the presence of half‐siblings creates a unique family situation that is not accurately represented in the current family literature.     

Toward a Critical Phenomenology of "Illegality": State Power, Criminalization, and Abjectivity among Undocumented Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel

Given the vast scope and magnitude of the phenomenon of so‐called “illegal” migration in the present historical moment, this article contends that phenomenologically engaged ethnography has a crucial role to play in sensitizing not only anthropologists, but also policymakers, politicians, and broader publics to the complicated, often anxiety‐ridden and frightening realities associated with “the condition of migrant illegality,” both of specific host society settings and comparatively across the globe. In theoretical terms, the article constitutes a preliminary attempt to link pressing questions in the fields of legal anthropology and anthropology of transnational migration, on one hand, with recent work by phenomenologically oriented scholars interested in the anthropology of experience, on the other. The article calls upon ethnographers of undocumented transnational migration to bridge these areas of scholarship by applying what can helpfully be characterized as a “critical phenomenological” approach to the study of migrant “illegality” (Willen, 2006; see also Desjarlais, 2003). This critical phenomenological approach involves a three‐dimensional model of illegality: first, as a form of juridical status; second, as a sociopolitical condition; and third, as a mode of being‐in‐the‐world. In developing this model, the article draws upon 26 non‐consecutive months of ethnographic field research conducted within the communities of undocumented West African (Nigerian and Ghanaian) and Filipino migrants in Tel Aviv, Israel, between 2000 and 2004. During the first part of this period, “illegal” migrants in Israel were generally treated as benign, excluded “Others.” Beginning in mid‐2002, however, a resource‐intensive, government‐sponsored campaign of mass arrest and deportation reconfigured the condition of migrant “illegality” in Israel and, in effect, transformed these benign “Others” into wanted criminals. By analyzing this transformation the article highlights the profound significance of examining not only the judicial and sociopolitical dimensions of what it means to be “illegal” but also its impact on migrants' modes of being‐in‐the‐world.     

THE RHETORIC OF DEMOCRACY IN INTERNATIONAL ON-LINE EDUCATION

On-line education has been heralded as the next democratizing force in education, particularly in higher education (Daniel 1996; Jones 1997). By opening access to populations which have not had access either because of geographical location, job status, or physical handicap, the rhetoric of on-line education suggests that this new technology will democratize education, breaking down the elitist walls of the ivory tower. However, it is not at all clear that the reality of implementing distance learning solutions have in fact any potential, much less actual value for democratizing higher education. Much the opposite, founded on the myth of the meritocracy, on-line education has the potential to exacerbate already intractable views of individual achievement through education as rectifying failures to meet disadvantaged populations' needs. This paper presents several cases of international on-line education and the rhetoric that surrounds its introduction. In some cases we are able to share stories of implementation of distance learning programmes or governmental promises made to those interested in distance learning. In each case, we attempt to tell a story that sheds light on the ways in which the noble goals of democracy are and aren't met in the harsh reality of on-line learning.     

Elite Interlocks in Three U.S. Sectors: Nonprofit, Corporate, and Government

This study traces elite interlocks between the economic, political, and civil sectors of the United States in the late 1990s. We assess integration and fragmentation through analyzing patterns of overlap and interaction among influential organizations and leaders in these sectors. Network analyses are conducted with UCINET 5 on the Elite Directors Database, a new data set composed of the directors/trustees for the largest organizations in the business and nonprofit sectors in addition to individuals holding positions on federal advisory committees. The complete data set contains individuals holding 3,976 seats from 100 businesses, 109 nonprofit organizations, and 98 government committees. The network structure reveals substantial linkages between organizations and elites within and across the three sectors. Major corporations and their directors are the best integrated in the intersectoral networks. In spite of the tremendous growth of the nonprofit sector, nonprofit organization linkages fail to offer compelling evidence of elite pluralism in the United States.     

Has the Price of Motherhood Declined Over Time? A Cross‐Cohort Comparison of the Motherhood Wage Penalty

Several recent studies have shown a negative association between motherhood and wages. However, an analysis of change over time in the motherhood penalty has not been conducted. Using two cohorts of young women drawn from the 1975–1985 National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women and the 1986–1998 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we explicitly test the relationship between motherhood and wages across two cohorts and examine whether that relationship has changed. Even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity and human capital variables, each additional child is associated with a negative effect on women's wages. Moreover, our findings suggest that the penalty has not diminished over time.