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The academic literature that addresses the creation and transformation of large law firms seldom mentions the presence of legal secretaries. The absence of legal secretaries, the vast majority of whom are women, reproduces law firm hierarchies in which attorneys are important in understanding the legal profession and law firm dynamics while secretaries remain invisible. Given the lack of secondary literature on legal secretaries, much of this chapter is based upon legal secretaries' responses to a nationwide survey, which I conducted in Spring 2009. Using such data, along with other primary sources, the chapter examines how legal secretaries' roles and work have changed during the past 50 years, how legal secretaries view themselves and their roles in law large law firms, and the material conditions under which legal secretaries work. Moreover, the most significant scholarship on secretaries has depicted the secretary/boss relationship as one of personal and domestic nature – what we might call the “second-wife syndrome.” The chapter explores whether such a description remains accurate and the complicated gender dynamics that exist between legal secretaries and attorneys.

Gender and disability are intimately connected as embodied experiences that young people navigate interactionally. Disabilities scholars have theorized that men and women with chronic health conditions face uniquely gendered challenges. Theories of gender and disability centered on youth continue to gain prominence as the population of children and young adults with chronic health conditions grows. This study draws on data from 22 in-depth interviews with young adults diagnosed with chronic health conditions in childhood in the United States. Women, men, and gender nonbinary individuals report that doing disability in interactions in childhood meant doing gender in expected feminine ways. Specifically, interviewees described increased empathy, a deep understanding of their own emotions, and the ability to use adversity to connect with and benefit others as expectations. Interviewees employed or resisted doing gender in ways that reflected individuals' gender locations. Women and nonbinary individuals saw feminine performance as a sign of weakness, often resisting demonstrating it in interactions. On the other hand, feminine performance reportedly impacted men in the sample in positive ways. This study takes a life course approach to illuminate how the ableist expectations expressed to disabled children are gendered and impact how disabled young adults negotiate an ableist world.

In recent years, school districts have faced numerous questions surrounding accommodations of transgender students. Strong objections to accommodations have been voiced in public argument and litigation, primarily in the areas of athletics, bathrooms, and dress codes. As younger transgender students express their gender identity at school, however, the existing objections are weakened by considering the context of elementary rather than high school students. Greater numbers of young transgender students will likely encourage accommodation of trans students of all ages, as well as challenge the gender binary unconsciously taught in school.

Michael H. Abel is the manager for Domain Quality and Development at Western Governors University (WGU) in the United States and assists faculty in developing detailed descriptions of the domains of knowledge, skill, and ability that serve as the basis for academic program and assessment development. As a co-developer of the WGU Teachers College assessment programs, Michael designed specialized databases for standards alignment and domain development and created and administered training for test item writers and editors. He also served as senior assessment developer and editor when the WGU Teachers College assessment program went university wide. Michael received an MA in International Relations from the University of Southern California and a BA in German from Brigham Young University. He is co-author of a test item development guide, The Art of Item Development.

As numerous scholars have noted, the law takes a strikingly incoherent approach to adolescent reproduction. States overwhelmingly allow a teenage girl to independently consent to pregnancy care and medical treatment for her child, and even to give up her child for adoption, all without notice to her parents, but require parental notice or consent for abortion. This chapter argues that this oft-noted contradiction in the law on teenage reproductive decision-making is in fact not as contradictory as it first appears. A closer look at the law’s apparently conflicting approaches to teenage abortion and teenage childbirth exposes common ground that scholars have overlooked. The chapter compares the full spectrum of minors’ reproductive rights and unmasks deep similarities in the law on adolescent reproduction – in particular an undercurrent of desire to punish (female) teenage sexuality, whether pregnant girls choose abortion or childbirth. It demonstrates that in practice, the law undermines adolescents’ reproductive rights, whichever path of pregnancy resolution they choose. At the same time that the law thwarts adolescents’ access to abortion care, it also fails to protect adolescents’ rights as parents. The analysis shows that these two superficially conflicting sets of rules in fact work in tandem to enforce a traditional gender script – that self-sacrificing mothers should give birth and give up their infants to better circumstances, no matter the emotional costs to themselves. This chapter also suggests novel policy solutions to the difficulties posed by adolescent reproduction by urging reforms that look to third parties other than parents or the State to better support adolescent decision-making relating to pregnancy and parenting.

Since the development of the COVID-19 vaccinations, questions surrounding race have been prominent in the literature on vaccine uptake. Early in the vaccine rollout, public health officials were concerned with the relatively lower rates of uptake among certain racial/ethnic minority groups. We suggest that this may also be patterned by racial/ethnic residential segregation, which previous work has demonstrated to be an important factor for both health and access to health care.

In this study, we examine county-level vaccination rates, racial/ethnic composition, and residential segregation across the U.S. We compile data from several sources, including the American Community Survey (ACS) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) measured at the county level.

We find that just looking at the associations between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, both percent Black and percent White are significant and negative, meaning that higher percentages of these groups in a county are associated with lower vaccination rates, whereas the opposite is the case for percent Latino. When we factor in segregation, as measured by the index of dissimilarity, the patterns change somewhat. Dissimilarity itself was not significant in the models across all groups, but when interacted with race/ethnic composition, it moderates the association. For both percent Black and percent White, the interaction with the Black-White dissimilarity index is significant and negative, meaning that it deepens the negative association between composition and the vaccination rate.

The analysis is only limited to county-level measures of racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, so we are unable to see at the individual-level who is getting vaccinated.

We find that segregation moderates the association between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, suggesting that local race relations in a county helps contextualize the compositional effects of race/ethnicity.

COVID-19 has had remarkable impacts in rural America. Although the onset of the pandemic was in urban areas, it quickly spread to rural areas and ultimately resulted in higher mortality rates for rural populations. Due to this and other associated impacts, the pandemic has resulted in mental health issues across rural America. In this chapter, the authors first describe the state of rural America pre-pandemic, then detail the overall and mental health impacts of the pandemic on rural people. Following this, the authors report results of a case study on COVID-19 in the rural America West and conclude with recommended steps for addressing the unfolding crisis. Many of the steps the authors can take to improve rural mental health following the pandemic have long-been necessary. However, given the impacts of COVID-19, they are now needed more than ever.

Although Leutwiler's initiative in taking to the field has been well-documented by scholars and the University of Illinois alike, the role of the UPenn figure, “Benjamin Franklin” or alternately in Illinois narratives “William Penn,” has received little attention (Spindel, 2001; King & Springwood, 2001). Leutwiler's adoption of the “Chief Illiniwek” persona, which will be discussed in-depth later, was not a response to inquiries by the UPenn band who hoped to utilize their articulated personae of “Benjamin Franklin” during a halftime skit as other scholars have suggested. Leutwiler adopted the untitled personae that became the basis for the “Chief” two years earlier during experiences as a Boy Scout and for performances at his alma mater, Urbana High School.⁶ Although the University of Pennsylvania solicited the Illinois band and assistant director Raymond Dvorak in particular, to create its own figure to interact with “Benjamin Franklin” in a show of “good sportsmanship,” Lester Leutwiler was already performing as an “Indian” before the supposed 1926 inception.⁷ In fact, his performance was so well known to his classmates at Urbana High School that the yearbook contained multiple references to Leutwiler's penchant for dressing as his Indian persona at school events (Urbana High School, 1925). Importantly, then the UPenn invitation can be read as the opening of a new arena for performances of Indianness – the sports field – not as an inciting event in the creation of “Chief Illiniwek.” Focusing on “Chief Illiniwek” as a sports mascot has eroded the larger cultural context of performances of Indianness that was being undertaken in local and national venues including Urbana High School.

Purpose – This article examines the relationship between strategic sports metaphors, such as “slam dunk” and “trash talk,” and white middle-class heterosexual masculine embodiment in competitive work environments. Competitive organizations, like sports arenas are contested spaces, and in these environments employees, like athletes, work to “position” themselves to maximize their chances of winning valuable projects and clients from other employees and competing companies.

Value of chapter – Unlike previous research which finds that men's use of sports at work is primarily a feature of male networks and socializing, the argument presented here is that sports tropes are used and enacted by men to structure the production process, including intra- and inter-organizational business meetings, client projects, and committee work. Sports references are also used to construct hegemonic masculinity at work, which results in women, gays and black men being constructed as inferior.

Research implications – The issues raised in this chapter will be useful for empirical studies that examine the relationship between the importance of sports at work, and whether groups such as women, gay men and lesbians, the disabled, older, and overweight business professionals identify with sports and whether this destabilizes assumptions of embodied heterosexual able-bodied male superiority.

Approach – The data used in this analysis draw upon the my background as a Division I collegiate basketball player and 10 years of experience and observations as a marketing professional and business executive in the financial services industry in the United States.