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Design for dementia has, to date, focused on the internal, generally institutional environment of care homes and dementia care facilities. Yet the majority of older people with dementia live at home, around one third of these on their own. Unless outdoor environments are designed to help older people with dementia continue to use their local neighbourhoods they will become effectively housebound. This paper presents the findings of a three‐year research project conducted by the WISE (Wellbeing in Sustainable Environments) research unit of the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development at Oxford Brookes University. The researchers were funded by the EPSRC EQUAL initiative to examine how the outside environment could be made dementia friendly. This unprecedented research investigated the perceptions, experiences and use of the outdoor environment by older people with dementia and identified design factors that influence their ability to successfully use and negotiate their local neighbourhoods. The research found that dementia‐friendly outdoor environments are places that are familiar, legible, distinctive, accessible, comfortable and safe. The findings have enabled the researchers to provide some preliminary recommendations for designers, at all scales from urban design to the design of street furniture, on the criteria to consider in developing dementia‐friendly urban areas.

Why does bioethics need to be re-imagined? And what would a re-imagined bioethics look like and do? These questions are at the heart of this section. The bioethics enterprise in the United States has taken a very particular form, as many sociological commentators have pointed out. At the center of bioethics is autonomy as the dominant feature of the bioethics landscape. This emphasis on autonomy has its roots in American individualism, as well as the congruent history of bioethics and the civil rights movement in the United States. With autonomy at the center of the frame, many other features of the landscape loom large: attention to the individual as the epicenter of the bioethical dilemma, a concordant emphasis on rights, an enduring inattention to the social relationships in which individuals are embedded, the institutions that constrain individual action, and the social structures that channel individual lives, and, finally, the heavy weight accorded to the provision of information to enable patient-directed decision making as the ultimate ethical duty of the clinician. Relegated to the background – indeed more often than not barely visible on the far horizon – are welfare, care, justice, kin, culture, and society itself. While the sociological critique of bioethics for this peculiarly narrow and microscopic view is not new, the three chapters in this section prove that it remains as relevant as ever. More importantly, they demonstrate how expanding the borders of bioethics to encompass the social context actually affords us a stronger vantage point to assess the moral significance of our actions.

Focuses on achievement motivation in part‐time students. Although the research has focused on teachers, it is felt that findings have a general application. Increasingly, employers in all fields are expecting staff to undergo periods of part‐time training. Obviously, it is extremely advantageous to both employer and employee if a high achievement drive is maintained. Special coping strategies are needed. Considers many different issues involved, and highlights ways in which an achievement culture may be fostered.

Like all tribes, bioethics has its own origin myths. According to these myths, bioethics emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century when new technologies and scientific developments challenged the norms that had traditionally governed clinical practice. Theologians, philosophers, clergy, judges, lawyers, journalists and ordinary people – the “strangers at the bedside” in David J. Rothman's memorable phrasing – began to take an interest in moral matters that previously had been the realm of physicians alone. Codes of research ethics were formulated in response to the Nazi atrocities; hospital ethics committees were established in sensitivity to the emerging notion of “patients’ rights.” Bioethics was born.

The design and maintenance of the physical external environment facilitate people's ability to get out and about. In particular, effective design of the neighbourhood street can support older people's independence (such as being able to go shopping) and increase social interaction and community engagement, reducing reliance on care in the home. Interviews were conducted with 200 people aged 65+ to assess their preferences for a range of street attributes. A structured questionnaire was used, in conjunction with photo elicitation. The analysis identified the components of a street that make a person feel safe and influence their decision to go out, such as adequate seating and smooth pavements. The results found that if these components are absent, some older people limit outdoor activity for a range of reasons. The implications are that older people's quality of life can be significantly improved by good street design.

I am a sociologist. It is the way I think, the way I work, and the methods and the theory and the imagination I bring to the world.

Prenatal comes from the Latin words ‘prae’ and ‘natalis’ meaning ‘before’ and ‘to be born’, respectively (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1995). This word is semiotically loaded because ‘prenatal’ connotes the time before being born. The word itself signifies the foetus (who is ‘before being born’) not the pregnant body within whom the foetus grows. If medical experts working within the discipline of reproductive medicine concentrate more on the foetus and its health than the pregnant woman, they take this meaning to heart. Experts argue that ‘a multidisciplinary approach to the foetus is essential part of antenatal screening’ (Malone, 1996, p. 157), a view suggesting that the foetus, more than a pregnant woman, is the physician's main focus during the prenatal period.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

Because discussions of bioethical decision making often take place around specific cases that highlight the individual, the ethical issues these instances bring to the fore are often framed as problems of a deeply personal – and hence individual – nature. While the decisions of ethical bodies located at the intersection of the individual and the biomedical establishment have ramifications at the level of the individual, often constructed as a patient, discussions of bioethics directly inform policy in ways that affect large numbers of people – both as participants in the discussions around issues defined as bioethical in nature and as recipients of policies meant to reflect prevailing bioethical norms.