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PubMed2004

The inexorable rise of gender and the decline of sex: social change in academic titles, 1945-2001.

More than 30 million titles of "academic" articles, from the years 1945-2001, were surveyed for occurrences of the words sex and gender. At the beginning of this period, uses of gender were much rarer than uses of sex, and often used in the sense of a grammatical category. By the end of this period, uses of gender outnumbered uses of sex in the social sciences, arts, and humanities. Within the natural sciences, there was now more than 1 use of gender for every 2 uses of sex. The beginnings of this change in usage can be traced to Money's introduction of the concept of "gender role" in 1955 (J. Money, 1955). However, the major expansion in the use of gender followed its adoption by feminists to distinguish the social and cultural aspects of differences between men and women (gender) from biological differences (sex). Since then, the use of gender has tended to expand to encompass the biological, and a sex/gender distinction is now only fitfully observed.

Cultural Characteristics↗

PubMed2002

Developing an understanding of gender sensitive care: exploring concepts and knowledge.

BACKGROUND: In the United Kingdom (UK), concern about inequalities in health and health care has led to interest in gender sensitivity in health policy and practice. AIM: To develop an understanding of possibilities for gender sensitive care through exploring the concepts of gender and gender sensitivity and through reviewing relevant knowledge about gender and health. METHODS: The dimensions of the concept of gender and theories explaining gender relations are explored through a review of key social science texts. A discussion of gender sensitivity draws on Bowden's analysis of gender sensitive ethics. A literature review of evidence about gender and health identifies relevant knowledge for gender sensitive care. FINDINGS: Seven features of the concept of gender are identified. Gender sensitivity involves an understanding of the socio-political context of experience and relationships. The social context also affects health. Differences in male and female mortality and morbidity rates are likely to be related to differences in economic resources, differences in men and women's position in public and private worlds, to power in social relations and to sexuality and body image. Possibilities for gender sensitive care may be supported through feminist approaches and through a postmodernist understanding of the manner in which discourses shape our understanding of gender and gender relations. Valuing care is a feature of gender sensitivity. CONCLUSION: Gender sensitive care involves recognizing the significance of research related to social influences on health and understanding nursing in its socio-political context, and care in the context of gender relations. Experiential learning can synthesize learning across varied learning modes, bridging learning through experience and formal analysis. Exploring concepts, evidence about gender and health and personal experience will all be important in the development of gender sensitive care.

Body Image↗

PubMed1989

[Public health service in the Weimar Republic and in the early history of West Germany].

The historical period of the Weimar Republik has to be looked upon as the blossom time of municipal public health care under the influence of the theory of social hygiene. This leading theory originated from the idea of a social policy and a social medicine worked out during the German revolution of 1848. Its theoretical foundation as a social science was laid by Alfred Grotjahn in the years before 1914. The article describes the practical transformation of this theory in municipal public health care during the twenties, using the capital Berlin as an example. It is shown how racial hygiene influenced this process. In 1933 the idea of racial hygiene became dominant and the progressive representatives of social hygiene either had to emigrate or they were eliminated by the Nazis. After 1945 this double break in continuity caused considerable difficulties in the practical reorganization as well as in the theoretical reorientation of public health care.

Germany↗

PubMed1979

Ekwall's method in social medicine.

The application of Ekwall's method is of considerable importance not only in medicine but also in social sciences and in all sciences concerned with man where qualitative information is used. The authors developed their own variant of Ekwall's method and used it for the evaluation of results of a survey concerned with children at risk. After an explanation of the essence of the method and principles of its application, the authors explain the variant for possible use in social medicine. An important contribution of this procedure is above all the possibility to evaluate the individual comprehensively according to defined signs and to assess accurately the distribution and also the order of comprehensively evaluated individuals of the investigated group.

Child↗

PubMedDate not supplied

An attempt at creating the structure of andrological science.

The cognition and assessment of various spheres of behaviour and vital activity of man are possible only through a systemic approach to its study. It is necessary to point out the different levels of methodological approach to the problem of a successful development of andrology and to determine their tasks and limitations. The main sections of research of andrology must include: medico-biological, philosophic-anthropological, sociological, and psychological investigations of personality. Accordingly andrology is at a junction of the natural and social sciences, i.e. an interdisciplinary science.

Humans↗

PubMed2002

The Hawthorne experiments and the introduction of Jean Piaget in American industrial psychology, 1929-1932.

The Hawthorne interview program between 1929 and 1932 was one of the most significant industrial studies in the United States. The Hawthorne researchers applied Jean Piaget's clinical method in their extensive interviews with tens of thousands of workers. Chiefly responsible for the program's methodology was Elton Mayo, an Australian who saw interviewing as a means to promote social cooperation. Previous discussions of the Hawthorne experiments have ignored the influence of Piaget in the social sciences. This article provides an account of Mayo's and the Hawthorne researchers' efforts to fuse Piaget's innovation with burgeoning American industrial psychology. The endeavor was not an isolated event but rather drew on the theories and practice of Janet-Piaget psychology, on the support of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation, and on the discourse among social scientists about Piaget's work.

France↗

PubMed2005

Transnational medicine in public arenas: AIDS treatments in the South.

This article looks at the AIDS-related controversy surrounding the experiments on and the availability of medicines in southern countries. It situates these debates in a longer-term history of transnational medicine. It highlights the rise of international therapeutic modernity at the beginning of the 1990s, based on the strict regulation of clinical trials and on the formalization of the international ethical rules governing experiments. This rise helped to change radically the reception of experiments conducted in southern countries around AIDS. With regard to this new ethics applied to clinical trials in southern countries, this article goes on to demonstrate the confrontation at the end of the 1990s between two different approaches to the universalization of healthcare. Finally, it shows how new laws on international trade have reinitiated this confrontation. Through this story, the article suggests in what sense the study of the political transformations of transnational medicine could offer a new field of investigation for the social sciences.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

PubMed1993

Personality is indeterminate.

The so-called unique environmental factor in behaviour genetics research, the longitudinal instability of personality, and the unpredictability of human creativity are all manifestations of the same process. Thus a scientific explanation of any one of them should account for them all. That process, it is proposed, is the inherently indeterminate global dynamics of the human brain. The clear implication is that all social sciences have inherently indeterminate phenomena as their subject matter. Predictions of the results of an appropriately designed psychometric study based on this hypothesis are offered.

Adult↗

PubMed1976

Is it possible to educate a psychiatrist?

The author, who served as Executive Secretary and Editorial Consultant to the Conference on Education of Psychiatrists held in June 1975, presents here in some of the major findings, concerns, and dilemmas encountered by the conferees as they considered the current status of psychiatric education and the course it should take in the coming decade. The fundamental problem is that there is no firm consensus defining what a modern psychiatrist is or what he sould be. Basically the complete psychiatrist sits on a three-legged stool of biological, psychological, and social science. But the stool wobbles because the legs are of different length and thus far no one has been able to even them out.

Community Psychiatry↗

PubMed2001

Mediterranean islands: a concept.

This article represents some of the results of my fieldwork and research on the islands of Sardinia, Corsica, Malta, Sicily, Crete and Susak between the years 1962-1986. My main field-work in Sardinia was supported by the Social Science Research Council, London and the University of Reading/Berks, and the ones in Corsica, Malta and Sardinia by the Department of Ethnology, University of Cologne (Institut für Völkerkunde, Universität Köln) forming a part of a project on the Mediterranean of which I was in charge. The above research was also related to my M.A. Course on "Mediterranean Peasant Societies and Social Structures" taught at the Graduate School of European and International Studies, University of Reading between 1978-1994. The main purpose of the article is to demonstrate the role of the islands in the Mediterranean, especially their ability in preserving their identity in spite of many incursions from outside. Islands became symbolized by their systems of values, and the ability to survive any attempt of conquest or change. In this the islands received a great help in the environment which helped these islands to remain unique and isolated until the present day.

Anthropology, Cultural↗

PubMed2006

Mapping the literature of transcultural nursing.

OVERVIEW: No bibliometric studies of the literature of the field of transcultural nursing have been published. This paper describes a citation analysis as part of the project undertaken by the Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section of the Medical Library Association to map the literature of nursing. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to identify the core literature and determine which databases provided the most complete access to the transcultural nursing literature. METHODS: Cited references from essential source journals were analyzed for a three-year period. Eight major databases were compared for indexing coverage of the identified core list of journals. RESULTS: This study identifies 138 core journals. Transcultural nursing relies on journal literature from associated health sciences fields in addition to nursing. Books provide an important format. Nearly all cited references were from the previous 18 years. In comparing indexing coverage among 8 major databases, 3 databases rose to the top. CONCLUSIONS: No single database can claim comprehensive indexing coverage for this broad field. It is essential to search multiple databases. Based on this study, PubMed/MEDLINE, Social Sciences Citation Index, and CINAHL provide the best coverage. Collections supporting transcultural nursing require robust access to literature beyond nursing publications.

Abstracting and Indexing↗

PubMed2000

Typologies of the cultural position of drinking.

OBJECTIVE: Typologies of the cultural position of drinking from the social science literature are reviewed. METHOD: The article reviews significant studies and literature on the topic. RESULTS: Starting in the 1940s, two research traditions considered variations in the cultural position of drinking as explanations of rates of drinking problems. A "holocultural" tradition coded and analyzed ethnographic data on tribal and village societies, starting in the 1940s, with each study identifying a different social dimension as crucial. A "sociocultural" tradition distinguished abstinent cultures from prescriptive cultures, in which drinking was integrated with daily life, and expected, but drunkenness was prohibited. These types were implicitly contrasted with American drinking, which was variously characterized. Other dimensional and typological approaches in the literature are considered, including a little-known Jellinek typology. Problems with the widely used distinction between "wetter" and "drier" (or "temperance") cultures are discussed. CONCLUSIONS: Four ideal types of the cultural position of drinking can be readily distinguished: abstinent societies, constrained ritual drinking, banalized drinking and fiesta drunkenness. A large residual category remains, however, and a dimensional approach to typology building may be more fruitful. Two basic dimensions are proposed--regularity of drinking and extent of drunkenness--and further dimensions are described that may be added to fit the requirements of the particular study.

Alcohol Drinking↗

PubMed2001

Anthropological perspectives on alcohol and drugs at the turn of the new millennium.

This introduction to the collection provides our thoughts on where alcohol and drug studies in anthropology are going as we enter the new millennium. After commenting briefly on each of the papers that comprise the rest of the volume, we discuss what we see as the most important and exciting issues in the future and give our views on what alcohol and drug studies can offer to medical anthropology, anthropology writ large, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research, and the realm of public policy and practical affairs. We call for a continued study by anthropologists of the whole array of pharmacologically active substances used by humans in different parts of the world, whether or not such studies are situated within medical anthropology. We note that many of these substances have received little attention from anthropologists to date, quite strikingly so in the cases of substances such as marijuana and methamphetamines. We emphasize that most scholars working in the anthropology of alcohol and drugs are concerned with the application of their findings to social problems, and we note that this has been especially true of research on alcoholic beverages and injection drugs. This leads us to a discussion of anthropology's involvement in public health intervention and policy work in a variety of settings. Such involvement is shown to have informed anthropological theory (notably political economic approaches) and to have enriched the methodological toolkits and forms of data analysis anthropologists use. Perhaps more importantly, we argue that such multidisciplinary involvement in applied work is most likely to eventuate in theoretical progress in alcohol and drug studies, since theory in the social sciences is not bound to singular disciplinary approaches. Thus we advocate for a "hybrid vigor" in this specialty area in the years ahead.

Alcohol Drinking↗

PubMed2003

The use of quantitative medical sociology.

The present article reviews, in relation to quantitative work on the social structure, papers published in Sociology of Health and Illness during its first 25 years. Each issue published during the years 1979-2002 has been examined; and quantitative papers, relating to various aspects of the social structure, have been identified. Such papers are found to have formed a minor but substantively significant theme within the Journal. These contributions situate the journal between sociology and social epidemiology. Articles in the Journal, for example, have been part of sociological debates about the measurement of social class, and of social epidemiological debates about the relationship between income distribution and population health. The contribution of Sociology of Health and Illness to a number of such debates is reviewed. The article concludes that the present situation, in particular the intellectual crisis in social epidemiology and social science investment in large data sets, gives the Journal the chance to build on this distinguished tradition by encouraging, through its publication policy, the further development of quantitative medical sociology.

Bibliometrics↗

PubMed1975

Consumer evaluation of health services: implications for methodology and health care policy.

Consumer evaluation research is defined and analyzed as an experimental model for establishing a link between social science research and public policy. The paper reports the results of an 18-month longitudinal study of an experimental citizen evaluation group. Participant observation was the method used to organize the data. The impact of the model on methodological issues, such as objectivity, researcher autonomy, and control over research decision-making are discussed. Implications of the consumer evaluation model for integrating social research and health policy formulation are analyzed and principles of citizen evaluation research are presented.

Consumer Behavior↗

PubMed2004

Applying social learning theory to childhood and adolescent firesetting: can it lead to serial murder?

Despite the fact that serial murder has existed for centuries, it has been given little academic attention in the social science literature. Existing studies have primarily examined the motivational factors involved in the commission of serial murder. However, research examining the childhood and adolescent backgrounds of serial murderers is scant. Based on three case studies of serial murderers, this study contributes to the existing literature by exploring the possible link between childhood and/or adolescent fire setting and adult serial murder by applying social learning theory.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Digging deep: using diary techniques to explore the place of health and well-being amongst older people.

To date, solicited diaries have been relatively neglected as a social science research method. This is particularly true within the field of health research. Yet, these narrative approaches can provide invaluable insights into the health behaviours of individuals and how these are played out across time and space. To illustrate this, we draw on recent research in the north west of England that investigated the potential benefits of communal gardening as opposed to other social activities in maintaining the health and emotional well-being of older people. As part of a wider study using largely qualitative techniques, our analysis revealed that, contrary to the findings of earlier studies, diaries can be used effectively over relatively long periods of time and are equally effective in exploring health issues amongst both older men and women. With the benefit of good researcher support, we argue that diary techniques can offer some unique insights into the ongoing health routines and coping strategies of older people and can prove invaluable in uncovering those, often hidden, aspects of their daily lives and routines that impact on their health histories. Through the gathering of chronologically organised data about daily activities, diaries can act as both a record and reflection of the health experiences, activities and life-worlds inhabited by older people.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2000

Flexible work schedules, older workers, and retirement.

Older workers in the United States indicate that they would prefer flexible work arrangements rather than abrupt retirement, yet management has done very little to make this possible. A review of two bodies of literature from the late 1980s is presented: social science writings including sociological, gerontological, and economic literature, and business and management literature. There is a clash between the way jobs are traditionally scheduled and the needs of growing numbers of older workers. Workers continue to be subject to obstacles to phased retirement due to the structuring of health care and pension benefits, downsizing, organizational inflexibility, and "corporate culture." Thus, general views among social scientists regarding the desirability of flexible schedules toward retirement will not produce real changes unless management becomes committed to such changes and they are securely embedded in company policies.

Aged↗