Policies as Gendering Practices: Re-Viewing Categorical Distinctions

ABSTRACT

For some time feminist scholars have been concerned with rethinking the constraints imposed on feminists’ strategies by categorical distinctions, such as the distinction between “women” and “men.” This issue has become more pressing due to a political commitment to recognize diversity among women and among men (consider here discussions of masculinities and intersectionality). This article offers the conceptualization of policies as gendering practices as a way to rethink categorical distinctions and to direct attention to how inequality is “done.” In this approach the focus shifts from considering how policies impact on women and men to asking how they constitute or make them come to be. More broadly, this contribution recommends the need to examine policies for their interacting, constitutive effects, asking how they are potentially gendering, racializing, heteronorming, classing, disabling, third-worldizing, etc.     

Disclosure among victims of elder abuse in healthcare settings: a missing piece in the overall effort toward detection

Elder abuse remains a largely hidden problem in our society and only a small minority of victims are connected to formal support/protective services. Healthcare settings have been identified as a critical milieu to uncover cases of elder abuse; however, under-detection in these settings is a major issue. Victimization disclosure is an important component within the overall detection effort, yet it has received little attention in the elder abuse literature. Drawing on relevant literature from other domains of family/interpersonal violence, this article highlights the disclosure process, as well as disclosure barriers, facilitators, and competencies to consider when working with older adults.     

MINORITY CONCENTRATION, DISADVANTAGE, AND INEQUALITY IN THE NONMETROPOLITAN UNITED STATES

The implications of the residential concentration of minority populations are issues of vital concern in the United States. Much of the previous minority concentration literature has focused on African-American residents of metropolitan communities. This article expands on this literature by exploring a variety of minority groups in nonmetropolitan communities. It was found that the minority residents of communities with large minority populations were in worse socioeconomic conditions than the minority residents of predominately white communities. Further, for most socioeconomic variables, it was found that as minority concentration increased, white residents tended to do better. In addition, the extent of racial inequality between minority and white residents was greater in communities with larger minority populations. Implications of the above findings are discussed.     

Hispanic Adolescent Girls’ Attitudes Toward School

Hispanic adolescent girls are at elevated risk for dropping out of school. The authors interviewed 54 Hispanic adolescent girls who were attending after-school programs in the New York metropolitan area. The study investigated how the multiple factors of mother–daughter and friend mutuality, coping, acculturation, self-esteem, depression and family environment influenced the way these girls felt about school. The final logistical regression analysis appeared to support our hypothesis that girls who have a higher degree of mutuality with their mothers will be more likely to like school a lot. In addition, girls who liked school a lot were significantly more likely to have higher overall grades and to be somewhat religious. Findings are discussed within the context of the empirical and theoretical literature and implications for prevention of school drop-out are considered.     

Are partnership boards really valuing people?

Observations were conducted in three county councils to find out whether the government’s ambition to develop Learning Disability Partnership Boards (as expressed in the White Paper Valuing people) are being realized. All the partnerships practiced various inclusive activities in order to involve people with learning disabilities in public service strategies. However, there appeared to be limited opportunities for citizens to be involved in recommendations or decision‐making for their area. This concurs with other research elsewhere on the involvement of citizens in state provision, i.e. public participation in civic affairs remains in the control of public sector managers. The lack of opportunities for citizens to direct the allocation of resources and strategies at a local level, regardless of their ability to process information, emphasises the limits of New Labour’s citizen–public sector partnerships.     

Socialization Ambiguity in Samoan Adolescents: A Model for Human Development and Stress in the Context of Culture Change

Rapid globalization is forcing youth around the world to confront new developmental challenges, and conceptual models are needed that can capture this experience and its developmental implications. Exposure to nontraditional lifestyles opens up new socialization opportunities and raises the possibility of stress‐inducing dissonance between participating socializing agents and the messages they deliver. Socialization ambiguity is introduced as a model for culture change and adolescent stress, and it is applied to a sample of 10‐ to 20‐year‐olds (N=295) in the islands of Samoa. A physiological marker of stress (antibodies against the Epstein‐Barr virus) is employed to overcome some of the difficulties associated with measuring stress outcomes. Socialization ambiguity is found to be a significant source of stress on the remote island of Savai'i and the transitional area of rural Upolu, although the direction of the association is different, possibly reflecting divergent socialization goals in these two regions.