Salvaging Decency: Mobile Home Residents’ Strategies of Managing the Stigma of “Trailer” Living

This paper is based on 45 ethnographic interviews conducted with residents of mobile home communities in West Central Florida between 2005 and 2008. It investigates their strategies of managing the stigma that is commonly associated with living in a mobile home. Informants routinely encounter negative stereotypes regarding their “trailer” home, community, and lifestyle in public discourse and personal interactions, and consequently have developed ways of salvaging their decency. My analysis of these strategies particularly emphasizes two versions of distancing, here called “bordering” and “fencing,” as examples of symbolic boundary work. Other techniques discussed include ignoring, passing, humoring, resisting, normalizing, upstaging, and blaming. Throughout the paper, I argue that mobile home residents’ ways of salvaging decency are both similar and different compared to how other disparaged groups deal with stigmatization. The conclusion discusses broader sociological implications of the research in enhancing our understanding of the experience of stigmatization, folk conceptions of decency, symbolic and social differentiation, as well as race and class dynamics.     

Patterns of Neighboring: Practicing Community in the Parochial Realm

This article investigates the practices and functions of neighboring. It is based on interviews and “go‐alongs” with over sixty residents and on ethnographic observation of two middle‐class neighborhoods in Hollywood, California. Building on Lofland's (1998) model of three social realms (the public, the parochial, and the private), I conceptualize neighboring as a set of interactive principles that characterize parochial or communal territories such as neighborhoods. I discuss four distinct patterns in detail: friendly recognition, parochial helpfulness, proactive intervention, and embracing and contesting diversity. While integrating previous research and theorizing on neighboring, the article contributes to the continuing debate in sociology over what constitutes community.     

Male Medical Students’ Gender-Role Conflict Is Associated With Their Discomfort With Dealing With Patients’ Sexual Health Issues

Recommendations suggest that more sexuality education be implemented in medical school curricula to increase students’ comfort with regard to dealing with sexual health issues. For male medical students the adherence to masculine gender-role norms may also contribute to discomfort regarding dealing with this intimate topic. The current study analyzed whether male medical students’ knowledge or masculine gender-role conflict (GRC) was associated with their comfort with regard to asking future patients about sexual health issues. A total of 164 male medical students (M_age = 24.4, SD = 2.4) participated. A questionnaire assessed students’ self-perceived knowledge of sexual health, how prepared they felt with regard to this topic, and their comfort with regard to asking future patients about sexual health issues. The Gender Role Conflict Scale—Short Form (GRCS-SF) was used to assess GRC. Knowledge was positively associated with comfort. Male students who indicated difficulty expressing affection toward men or expressing emotions were likely to report being uncomfortable asking patients about sexual health issues. Students should be made aware of gender-role norms. Alongside knowledge transfer, the discussion of strategies for overcoming the barriers set by gender-role norms should be part of sexuality education.     

BURDA FASHIONS - A WISH THAT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE WISHFUL THINKING: HOME-DRESSMAKING IN AUSTRIA 1950-1970

The German fashion magazine Burda epitomized the success of many pattern magazines in the immediate post-war era that aimed at providing information about creating one's own fashion clothes, as well as tips about adapting existing wardrobes. This concept proved highly topical in Austria too, as it offered women almost unlimited possibilities in their search for a new ‘feminine’ identity full of elegance and style after a period of austerity. This essay sketches opposing theoretical approaches towards the popular practice of home-dressmaking among women, linking these approaches to post-war discourse about femininity.     

Review Essay: Up Close and Personal: Locating the Self in Qualitative Research

Qualitative Sociology -