Disability at the intersections

Complete and accurate understandings of stratification depend on more regular consideration of disability. To build sociologists' recognition of disability as a socially constructed axis of stratification, we first demonstrate the construction of the disability category through classic legitimating processes: moral attributions, biological attributions, separation, and dichotomization. Expanding understandings of basic processes of stratification, we then document the centrality of disability in the social construction of class, race, gender, sexual orientation, and age. Finally, we show various ways disability functions as an axis of stratification in intersection with other key axes of stratification.     

Clinical and Supervisory Considerations for Transgender Therapists: Implications for Working with Clients

Transgender therapists have unique and valuable perspectives into how gender organizes the therapeutic process. Currently, in the MFT field, there is discussion of the cisgender therapist's experience in the therapy room, but no known articles on the transgender therapist's experience. This article provides insight into the experiences of transgender therapists around issues of self‐disclosure, social locations of both therapist and client, and clinical supervision. Drawing from our clinical experiences as transmen, we highlight special considerations for working with cisgender, queer, and transgender clients. Implications for supervision of transgender therapists are also discussed. As more gender diverse students seek MFT training, there is an urgent need to acknowledge their perspectives. This article is a call for beginning conversations in this direction.     

Evaluation of a Training to Reduce Provider Bias Toward Pregnant Patients With Substance Abuse

The objective of this article is not to present a scientific or systematic study, but to provide an initial framework for designing a training workshop to enhance health practitioners’ (nurses, social workers, physicians, etc.) knowledge regarding substance abuse treatment and to decrease their bias toward substance-abusing women, particularly pregnant women in rural communities. We incorporated the 4 Transdisciplinary Foundations from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Competencies Model, with specific competencies targeted that related to provider bias. After the conference, 52 of the 70 participants completed a questionnaire to self-assess knowledge level and confidence in skill related to substance abuse management. Participant mean scores were statistically significantly higher following the conference than 1 week prior (p < .001) in the area of “gender difference with substance abuse,” moving from an average of 2.6 to 4.5 on a 5-point Likert scale. Our conference was successful in increasing attendees’ knowledge about gender difference and substance abuse among pregnant patients.     

Visions in monochrome: families, marriage and the individualization thesis

This paper takes issue with the way in which the individualization thesis--in which it is assumed that close relationships have become tenuous and fragile--has become so dominant in 'new' sociological theorizing about family life. Although others have criticized this thesis, in this paper the main criticism derives from empirical research findings carried out with members of transnational families living in Britain whose values and practices do not fit easily with ideas of individualization. It is argued that we need a much more complex and less linear notion of how families change across generations and in time.     

Leader vision formation and forecasting: The effects of forecasting extent,resources, and timeframe

Vision formation, and vision articulation, is held to be a central component of leader performance. Less is known, however, about the variables giving rise to viable visions. In the present effort, the impact of forecasting on vision formation was examined. Study participants were asked to write a speech describing their vision for a new school. Prior to writing this speech, participants were asked to forecast the outcomes of vision implementation. It was found that the extent of forecasting, along with forecasting of temporal and resources considerations, influenced the quality of vision statements. Forecasting was improved when people thought about causes, as opposed to goals, and implications, as opposed to facts. The implications of these findings for understanding leader performance in vision formation are discussed.     

Standards for Development: Food Safety and Sustainability in Wal‐Mart's Honduran Produce Supply Chains

Public‐private partnerships between supermarket retailers and development agencies help small‐scale producers reach growing domestic markets in developing countries. Drawing on qualitative data that focuses on relationships between producers, development agencies, and Wal‐Mart‐owned supermarkets in Honduras, the research presented here demonstrates how, by introducing food safety standards to development agencies' outreach efforts, but without necessarily certifying producers or offering a price premium, Wal‐Mart uses these standards to simultaneously differentiate production practices by promoting quality, while maintaining a standardized market. As a result, the responsibility and costs for incentivizing growers to change their practices is shifted to nongovernmental organizations. Therefore, although an extensive body of literature describes standards and third‐party certification systems as the means for corporations to control production practices, this research indicates that public‐private partnerships are a new vehicle by which corporations can influence agricultural production practices. In addition, this article argues that the inclusion of food safety standards in development projects leads to the conflation of food safety and sustainability, without adequately interrogating which agroecological processes food safety standards include and exclude. Therefore, retailers' private food safety standards dominate how sustainability is perceived and practiced in the development context.     

Influence of Social Context on Children's Affect Regulation: A Functionalist Perspective

This study investigated the influence of social context (mothers, fathers, best friends, medium friends) and type of negative affect (anger, sadness, pain) on 66 second-grade and 71 fifth-grade children's goals and strategies for affect regulation. Hypothetical vignette methodology was used. Results indicated that children perceived parents to be more accepting of emotional expressivity than peers. Children endorsed instrumental, prosocial, and rule-oriented goals and verbal regulation strategies more for anger and sadness than pain. Girls endorsed affective more than aggressive strategies, whereas the opposite pattern held for boys. Older children endorsed more regulation strategies than younger children.     

Transnational Intersectionality in Family Therapy With Resettled Refugees

In this article, we discuss incorporating the transnational intersectionality framework in family therapy with resettled refugees. Transnational intersectionality is an extension of the framework of intersectionality which helps to better understand complexities of power and oppression across national contexts and their influence on refugees' lives. Adopting this framework alerts family therapists to: (a) develop critical awareness of refugee's transnational contexts; (b) understand differences in experiences of social identities across contexts; (c) acknowledge postmigration factors of oppression affecting resettlement; and (d) critically reflect upon therapist–interpreter–client intersectionalities. This shifts our conceptualization of therapy with refugees to actively consider transnational contexts which refugees uniquely occupy. We describe the framework and provide two case illustrations to highlight its usefulness.     

Region‐Urbanicity Differences in Locus of Control: Social Disadvantage,Structure, or Cultural Exceptionalism?

People with internal rather than external locus of control experience better outcomes in multiple domains. Previous studies on spatial differences in control within America only focused on the South, relied on aggregate level data or historical evidence, or did not account for other confounding regional distinctions (such as variation in urbanicity). Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study, we find differences in adolescents' loci of control depending on their region and urbanicity are largely attributable to differences in their social background, and only minimally to structural differences (i.e., differences in the qualities of adolescents' schools). Differences that persist net of differences across adolescents and their schools suggest the less internal control of rural Southern adolescents, and the more internal control of rural and urban Northeastern adolescents, may be due to cultural distinctions in those areas. Results indicate region is more closely associated than urbanicity with differences in locus of control, with Western and Northeastern cultures seemingly fostering more internal control than Midwestern and Southern cultures. These findings contribute to research on spatial variation in a variety of psychological traits.     

The inclusion of minority groups in clinical trials: problems of under representation and under reporting of data

Objective: To evaluate the representation of minority groups in randomized control trials (RCTs), and the frequency with which this information is reported. Study Design: Reviewers collected data on the racial/ethnic composition of study samples from all RCTs published in six leading medical journals in 1999. Results: Of the 280 RCTs, most (204, 71.3%) provided no information on the race/ethnicity of participants. Of the 89 U.S.-based RCTs, 50 (56.1%) reported their minority distribution. Relative to other trials, those funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) (n = 52) were more likely to report race/ethnicity data (55.8% vs. 23.7%; x2 = 20.9, p <_0.001) and to include nonwhite participants (13.5 % vs. 12.5%; x2=22.7, p<_0.001). Conclusion: Minority groups are currently under-represented in clinical trials. Information on the race and ethnicity of clinical trial participants is currently underreported in six leading medical journals. Reporting of minority group information was significantly better only in NIH funded trials, which also were more likely to include nonwhite participants. This suggests that mandatory reporting policies may have a positive effect on both reporting and representation.