Feminism in the Social Sciences of Health and Illness

Abstract

When feminism informs and shapes social scientific thinking, it often yields strongly applied perspectives. The business of engaging in the application, however, presents challenges to both feminist practice and the academic disciplines. These issues are further complicated when they are played out in an interdisciplinary setting. I offer a personal reflection on the highly ambiguous situation in a part of what has been called the ‘diaspora’ of social sciences practiced not within any particular ‘home’ discipline, but in a particular sub-field or inter-discipline such as urban studies, criminology or—in this case—population health. The emphasis in this discussion is on the mutual influences of the academic and the applied.     

Employee Commitment and Firefighters: It's My Job

The events of September 11, 2001, have led us to rethink the importance of public service and public–sector employees' commitment. In previous research, we argued that employee commitment is a construct comprising three dimensions: commitment to the boss, to the work group, and to the organization. However, this characterization cannot explain the behavior of public employees on September 11. For this article, we argue that employee commitment is a construct that comprises four dimensions: With the help of identity theory, there is reason to include commitment to a job as part of the commitment construct. Based on an analysis of an existing data set, we find that firefighters identified themselves as committed to their job, which they viewed as an honorable profession that performs a valuable service to the community.     

The New Urban Underclass and its Consciousness: is it a class?

This paper investigates whether the 22 million or so urban recipients of the Minimum Livelihood Guarantee (the zuidi shenghuo baozhang), whose per capita family income falls below a locally set poverty line, can be called a ‘class’. It also explores if they experience ‘class consciousness’. It draws on theoretical writings on class and class consciousness, and on some seven dozen unstructured interviews in households of urban dibao recipients in Lanzhou, Guangzhou, Wuhan, and three smaller Hubei cities in 2007–2010, mainly using material from 2010. It finds that, unlike the former working class, while these people do not comprise a ‘class’ as such, their consciousness of their plight, stripped bare of all the illusions that clouded it in Maoist times—again as distinguished from the bygone working class—is more faithful to their actual circumstances than it is specious.     

Willingness to Remain Friends and Attend School with Lesbian and Gay Peers: Relational Expressions of Prejudice Among Heterosexual Youth

In this study, heterosexual students’ willingness to remain friends with peers who disclose that they are gay or lesbian and their willingness to attend schools that include gay and lesbian students were examined among two large middle school and high school samples (Sample 1: n = 20,509; 50.7% girls; Sample 2: n = 16,917; 50.2% girls). Boys were less willing than girls to remain friends or attend schools with gay and lesbian peers, as were students in earlier grades than were students in later grades. Further, there was small, yet significant, variability in these scores across schools. Greater racial diversity within the school partially accounted for this school-level variability; students in more racially diverse schools reported greater willingness to remain friends and attend school with gay and lesbian peers. Findings suggest that while intervention programs must continue to address blatant and overt physical aggression against sexual minority youth, there is also a significant need for programming to address the more subtle expressions of sexual prejudice that contribute to unwelcoming and unsafe school climates.     

Prior Bullying,Delinquency, and Victimization as Predictors of Teen Dating Violence in High School Students: Evidence of Moderation by Sex

Bullying, delinquency, and teen dating violence (TDV) victimization have been found to correlate with and potentially predict TDV perpetration. It has also been noted that boys and girls differ in their levels of TDV involvement, both as victims and perpetrators. The authors tested whether sex moderates the predictive effects of bullying perpetration, delinquency, and TDV victimization on TDV perpetration in 1,716 high school students (812 boys, 904 girls) from the Illinois Study of Bullying and Sexual Violence. Because sex was found to moderate the bullying perpetration?TDV perpetration and delinquency?TDV perpetration associations, male and female data were analyzed separately. TDV victimization predicted TDV perpetration in boys and delinquency predicted TDV perpetration in girls. Results varied moderately as a function of TDV subtype (relational, verbal, threatening, physical, and sexual). It would appear that TDV perpetration varies as a function of both sex and TDV subtype. Efforts to control, reduce, and eliminate TDV perpetration in boys may be most effective when they address prior TDV victimization and depression, whereas efforts to control and eliminate TDV perpetration in girls may be maximally effective when they target prior bullying perpetration and delinquency.