Toward a contemporary tradition for menarche

A cultural tradition to acknowledge a girl's first menstrual period is proposed in order to overcome the negative connotation of the event. Three basic questions regarding such a tradition are addressed: Who would participate? What would it mean? What type of activity should it be? A research team consisting of a psychologist, a nurse, and a social worker suggests answers based on their interviews with mothers and daughters, as well as their collection of menarche anecdotes from women psychologists.     

The state of the discipline in American political science: be careful what you wish for?

This article is an attempt to survey and analyse current developments in American political science with particular reference to the current wave of institutionalist theory. The main thrust of this article is to argue that the current concerns of the field are hardly new issues, but rather perennial. We argue that the current 'state of the discipline' is in many ways more a function of recurrent intellectual dilemmas of a general social scientific nature than they are about the particulars of the current debates in the field. Most relevant to a British journal, we shall attempt to 'step outside the hermeneutic circle', and suggest which aspects of contemporary American political science are most relevant to British political scientists.     

From Sancitity to Screening: Genetic Disabilities, Risk and Rhetorical Strategies in Wrongful Birth and Wrongful Conception Cases

This analysis scrutinises the rhetorical strategies used by judges in wrongful life and wrongful birth actions as evidence for the assertion that the judicial reading of public policy in such cases has undergone a significant shift which is likely to accelerate as genetic knowledge grows and health care resources shrink. The implications of the predicted move towards increased genetic testing of prospective parents are traversed in relation to feminist analyses of the impact of genetics on reproductive technology. These are viewed as forming a nexus with the current social constructions of disability and the contemporary cultural preoccupation with risk, in a context of the increasing commercial importance of genetic information. It is argued that women cannot make free and informed choices about genetic testing and pregnancy unless legal and social mechanisms which protect those choices are in place. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Correspondence

Negotiation Journal -     

Making civic engagement go viral: Applying social epidemiology principles to civic education

This paper explores the connections between education for youth civic engagement and theories and strategies from public health (specifically, epidemiology). We illustrate this with four applications of epidemiologic theory to youth civic engagement: social determinants and fundamental causes, vulnerable populations and cumulative disadvantage, positive spillover, and herd immunity and critical mass. Formalizing concepts of current civics, in schools and the public, as a civic epidemic, we present a case for individual‐ and group‐level interventions based around targeted, school‐based, effective civic education initiatives. Grounded in epidemiological theory, such approaches call attention to the simultaneous need to improve broad civics education and ensure that particular populations receive necessary attentions.