Hope Floats: African American Women's Survival Experiences after Katrina

This article describes how 15 African American women 18 to 55 years of age coped with traumatic life events during and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The study's main question is how did African American women cope with traumatic events during and following Hurricane Katrina? Second, we explore how the intersection of race, gender, and social class influenced their experiences. An exploratory design of primary and secondary data using grounded theory methods generates a mid-level theory about resilience, spirituality and coping among Black women in the aftermath of the storm.     

Semiotic Readings of the USS Midway Museum

This article was inspired by a visit to the USS Midway aircraft carrier during the 2012 ISA Convention. Through a semiotic reading of the museum's exhibit and honoring ceremony of veterans, the article argues that while women have been increasingly included in certain combat positions within the US military, institutions that convey messages of military service continue to leave women out of the picture. This thereby renders gender-inclusive practices in war invisible to the average citizen. Through the erasure of women's performance in the armed services, war museums and memorials help ensure that war remains a male preserve in the public imagination. More broadly, the article argues that semiotics as a methodology should be given more attention by feminist scholarship that seeks to challenge mainstream conceptualizations and measurements of militarization. Doing so should provide more sophisticated and nuanced understandings of how militarism becomes embedded in societal level institutions – as previously advanced by feminist scholars.     

Reconciling Local with Global: New Zealand Muslim Women Articulating Faith in their Lives

This article explores the dynamics of personalised faith in the lives of minority and migrant Muslim women. Research that localises women's understandings of faith contrasts with the considerable literature that focuses on the transnational, politicised character of religion, as well as the discourses that examine religion as a form of gendered patriarchy. This article is a contribution to research that approaches gender and religion from a localised perspective. Drawing on the notion of ‘third space’, this discussion provides ethnographic narratives of Muslim women in New Zealand, focusing on four specific women. Each woman's story illustrates the significance of faith in her life, and demonstrates the unique, and interactive, ways that faith creates new meanings and interpretive possibilities in local contexts, as well as providing emotional solace and a source of coping with wider life stresses.     

Nonconscious processing of sexual information: A generalization to women

Sexually competent stimuli may nonconsciously activate sexual memory and set up sexual responding. In men, subliminally presented sexual pictures facilitated recognition of sexual information (Spiering, Everaerd, & Janssen, 2003). The goal of the two experiments reported here was to investigate to what extent this result can be generalized to women. A direct replication in women failed in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, besides the male‐oriented sexual picture set, pictures of two other sets were presented: female‐oriented sexual pictures and baby pictures. Effects of the menstrual cycle were also examined. In Experiment 2, only male‐oriented pictures showed a facilitation effect. Sensitivity for reproductive stimuli was enhanced during the midluteal phase. Like men, women may nonconsciously recognize a stimulus as sexual. This recognition process seems unrelated to the potential of the stimulus to elicit subjective arousal.     

Turning Sexual Science Into News: Sex Research and the Media

In this article we report on the findings of a two-part project investigating contemporary issues in sexuality researchers' interaction with journalists. The goal of the project was to explore best practices and suggest curricular and training initiatives for sexuality researchers and journalists that would enhance the accurate dissemination of sexuality research results in the media. We present the results of a survey of a convenience sample of 94 sexuality researchers about their experiences and concerns regarding media coverage and a summary of the main themes that emerged from an invitational conference of sexuality researchers and journalists. In addition, we present some preliminary recommendations for training and best practices. Topics assessed include reporting accuracy; sex researchers' comfort with various topics, media, and journalists; researchers' perceptions of the purpose and content of articles; concern about the impact of media coverage; and training for sexuality researchers.     

Foster care in India: An exploratory survey of the community perceptions and prospects for implementation of foster care in a developing nation: A study in Udaipur,Rajasthan, India

This study was conducted in order to assess the prospects for implementing foster care as an alternative to the dominant system of institutional care available to orphaned and abandoned children in India. 653 families in urban Udaipur participated in a mixed-methods based assessment of receptivity to foster and adoptive care. The majority of those who responded reported receptivity to the idea of foster care as an alternative to institutional care. However, analyses demonstrated that respondents also perceived barriers to implementing systematic foster care, particularly with regard to family recruitment due to problems securing family and community support for participation. The results are discussed in light of governmental calls for non-governmental organization and other stakeholders to institute alternatives to foster and adoptive care. The results of this study have applied significance for organizations and practitioners seeking to implement care alternatives for orphan and abandoned children in India.     

Weaving Sociology into New Zealand Social Work Education

Social work students and practitioners often struggle to apply sociological theories to practice situations. This is made difficult because the application of sociological theory for social work is still a contested area. To assist students and practitioners articulate and explain sociological theory in their social work practice, this paper introduces a practical teaching model—one that is theoretically rich and simple to use. The authors have used this model to teach sociology for first year New Zealand social work students, with pleasing results. Taught in the foundation year of degree study, we show that there is utility for this model throughout social work education, most notably in policy, research and practicum courses. Teaching sociology is not without its challenges, and these are discussed. We argue that this model offers students and practitioners a straightforward ‘nuts and bolts’ method that can easily be drawn on in class and in practice to guide sociological theorising. Further, societal and personal value tensions can be reflectively teased out. Importantly, the model allows for sets of sociological analyses to be rendered explicit for the practitioner, their colleagues and their clients.     

A MODEL OF RACIAL RESIDENTIAL HISTORY AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH SELF-RATED HEALTH AND MORTALITY AMONG BLACK AND WHITE ADULTS IN THE UNITED STATES

We construct a dynamic racial residential history typology and examine its association with self-rated health and mortality among black and white adults. Data are from a national survey of U.S. adults, combined with census tract data from 1970–1990. Results show that racial disparities in health and mortality are explained by both neighborhood contextual and individual socioeconomic factors. Results suggest that living in an established black neighborhood or in an established interracial neighborhood may actually be protective of health, once neighborhood poverty is controlled. Examining the dynamic nature of neighborhoods contributes to an understanding of health disparities.