Search results

This paper explores four works of contemporary fiction to illuminate formal and informal regulation of sex. The paper’s co-authors frame analysis with the story of their creation of a transdisciplinary course, entitled “Regulating Sex: Historical and Cultural Encounters,” in which students mined literature for social critique, became immersed in the study of law and its limits, and developed increased sensitivity to power, its uses, and abuses. The paper demonstrates the value theoretically and pedagogically of third-wave feminisms, wild zones, and contact zones as analytic constructs and contends that including sex and sexualities in conversations transforms personal experience, education, society, and culture, including law.

Popular self-help pregnancy literature suggests a “generational disconnect” between pregnant women and their mothers, emphasizing the incommensurate experiences of the two generations. Based on longitudinal, in-depth interviews with a diverse group of 64 pregnant women and 23 grandmothers-to-be, this chapter explores how different generations of women negotiate the idea of a disconnect and its implications for the medicalization of pregnancy. My findings showed limited support for the generational disconnect. Nearly all of the pregnant women I interviewed who were in contact with their mothers consulted them to assess issues related to pregnancy embodiment. Black and Latina women and white women with less than a college degree disregarded or even rejected the disconnect; they tended to frame their mothers’ advice as relevant. Their mothers attended prenatal care appointments and frequently expressed skepticism about medical directives. By contrast, I found that highly educated white women tended to endorse the generational disconnect when it came to matters related to pregnancy health behaviors – what to eat, how much to exercise – and their obstetric care. The mothers of these women not only largely supported the generational disconnect, but also bonded with their daughter over a shared appreciation for scientific understandings of pregnancy. Foregrounding women’s perspectives provides insights into meaning-making in pregnancy and the ways that mothers of pregnant women can both stymie and deepen medicalization of childbearing.

Encouraging patient involvement is a cornerstone of many healthcare interventions and decision-making models to ensure that treatment decisions reflect the needs, values, and desires of patients. Involved patients are thought to be empowered patients who feel a sense of efficacy in regards to their own health. However, there is a lack of understanding of how patients relate to empowerment and involvement and, most importantly, how these constructs relate to one another in patients’ decision-making experiences.

Through an inductive analysis, this chapter draws on qualitative interviews of women diagnosed with breast cancer prior to 40 years of age (n = 69).

By examining the intersection of how patients define their own involvement in treatment decisions and their sense of empowerment, we find four orientations to decision-making (Advocates, Bystanders, Co-Pilots, and Downplayers) with involvement and empowerment being coupled for some respondents, but decoupled for others.

Our findings suggest expanding what it means to be an “active” patient as respondents had multiple ways of characterizing involvement, including being informed or following their doctor’s advice. Our findings also suggest a more critical examination of the origins and potential downsides of patient empowerment as some respondents reported feeling overwhelmed or pushed into advocacy roles. The sample was disproportionately higher socioeconomic status with limited racial/ethnic diversity. Empowerment and involvement may be enacted differently for other social groups and other medical conditions.

By examining first-person patient narratives, we conclude that patients’ experience may not fully align with current academic or clinical discussions of patient involvement or empowerment.

Population ageing, coupled with economic uncertainty and a shifting workforce structure, has directed the attention of public and organizational policy makers toward the potential contribution of older workers and skilled migrants in meeting labor supply shortages in ageing populations. This chapter presents labor supply and demand scenarios for 10 OECD countries and examines trends in the labor force participation of older workers against the backdrop of changes to the nature of work in an era of globalization, casualization, and, increasingly, automation. Brief analysis of each country’s situation and policy responses indicates that China, Japan, and Korea stand out as being at particular risk of being unable to maintain growth without undertaking drastic action, although their areas of focus need to differ. A limitation of the study is that GDP projections used in labor demand analysis were based on historical rates and represented past potential and a long-run average of historic economic output. Future research might also undertake comparative analysis of case studies addressing different potential solutions to workforce ageing. A key implication of the study is that there is a need to take a blended approach to public policy regarding older workers in a changing labor market. Where migration has historically been a source of labor supplementation, this may become a less viable avenue over the near future. Future shortfalls in labor imply that economies will increasingly need to diversify their sources of workers in order to maintain economic growth. For public policy makers the challenge will be to overcome public antipathy to migration and longer working lives.

Young people are widely known to have poorer outcomes, social status and political representation than older adults. These disadvantages, which have come to be largely normalized in the contemporary context, can be further compounded by other factors, however, and are particularly amplified by coming from a lower social class background. An additional challenge for young people is associated with place, with youth who live in more remote and less urban areas at a higher risk of being socially excluded (Alston & Kent, 2009; Shucksmith, 2004) and/or to face complex and multiple barriers to employment and education than their urban-dwelling peers (Cartmel & Furlong, 2000). Drawing upon interviews and focus groups in a qualitative project with 16 young people and five practitioners, and using Nancy Fraser’s tripartite theory of social justice, this paper highlights the various and interlocking disadvantages experienced by working-class young people moving into and through adulthood in Clackmannanshire, mainland Scotland’s smallest council area.