Schönheitschirurgie-Patientinnen als „ugly dopes“? Zur Medialität der Entscheidungsfindung für plastisch-chirurgische Eingriffe

The mass media’s view on the current practices of aesthetic surgery is typically negotiated in the social sciences within the realm of ideology critique: The claim is that the mass media culture industry encourages particularly female consumers to undergo surgical interventions in order to optimize their body and thus instructs them to better market themselves (their entrepreneurial self). Furthermore, this process is not sufficiently reflected by the patients; according to the discourse in social science, they mutate to “ugly dopes” who are not truly aware of the conditions to which their decision for physical optimization is subject. This paper proposes a different reading of the mediality of plastic surgery, based on an empirical analysis of interviews with plastic surgery patients. The media certainly play a crucial role as carriers of format templates for body images, but they also are being translated in particular practical contexts. There is no continuum between the body images that are displayed by the media and their individual acquirement. The medial format templates must be actively incorporated into the conflictual everyday contexts of decision making. The effect of the media is therefore accounted for by their connectivity to life-world and has a permanent, continuous irritation as a result, caused by body images.     

Silence and Articulation—Whiteness,Racialization and Feminist Memory Work

Racialization is a constant process of “doing race”. Critical whiteness studies make efforts to address the silencing of whiteness in mainstream white feminism. In this article memory work is explored as a possible method for studies of whiteness as an unmarked majority position. The focus is on methodological practices or “how‐to‐do” questions. Starting from feminist epistemology the author investigates ways of practising the epistemological standpoint of situated knowledges. Feminist epistemology, despite its disagreements, has pointed to the importance of positioning work for scientific knowledge production. The relationship between racialization as an analytical concept and whiteness as dominant majority position is complicated. Usually memory work is employed to address gender or more specifically femininity, but, as argued here, it is well suited to investigations of racialization, too. The analysis shows that silent avoidance of matters associated with whiteness helps keep the majority position in place; whiteness is co‐produced with silence through avoidance in concrete everyday situations. Despite a number of problematic aspects, memory work proved productive in bridging the gap between an epistemological standpoint and the nitty‐gritty work of doing empirical research. It helped clarify racialization as a relational phenomenon and shows how lack of attention to or awareness of race has implications for scientific knowledge production.     

Men and women in language change. A Swedish case study

Continuity and change in present-day Swedish . Eskilstuna revisited is a study of language change in real time. It replicates an earlier investigation of the social variation of Swedish in the medium-sized town of Eskilstuna using data collected 29 years after the original study. In my article, I focus on the rate of change in relation to gender. I have studied seven morphological and morphophonological variables which are sociolinguistically marked, and according to general linguistic opinion in Sweden, in the process of fairly rapid change towards the standard forms of the written language. Our data show that the rate of change at the level of the community is low. Social and age differences have decreased, whereas gender differences have increased. I discuss different explanations for the fact that women in Eskilstuna use more standard language than men, and attempt to analyse why the men still use so many local variants.     

Adolescent depression: Why more girls?

Although there has been evidence for some time of a sex difference in depression, relatively little research has examined the developmental process by which women come to be at greater risk than men for depression. In this paper, the developmental pattern of depressed affect is examined over early and middle adolescence, with a special focus on the patterns of boys as compared to girls. In addition, a developmental model for mental health in adolescence is tested for its power in explaining the emergence of gender differences in depression. Longitudinal data on 335 adolescents randomly selected from two school districts were used to test the hypotheses. Results revealed that girls are at risk for developing depressed affect by 12th grade because they experienced more challenges in early adolescence than did boys. The sex difference in depressed affect at 12th grade disappears once early adolescent challenges are considered.This research was supported in part by grants MH30252/38142 to A. Petersen. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of study participants and staff. Portions of this material were presented in a symposium at the 1988 meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, and one at the 1989 meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development.Received Ph.D. from University of Chicago in 1973. Research interest in biopsychosocial development in adolescence, with a focus on sex differences in mental health.Research interests include adolescent mental health, and parent and peer relationships.Received Ph.D. in psychology from The Pennsylvania State University. Research interests include development of affective and conduct disorders, especially sex differences in these problems.     

China’s environment: Foreign trade and investment and international organizations

Not only is China’s environment in decline, but China’s contribution to global environmental deterioration is significant. Because of the global implications of China’s environmental pollution, international action is needed. Foreign trade and investment should be encouraged to incorporate environmental concerns and technology transfer, especially in the area of energy efficiency. Continued and enhanced international cooperation as well as loans and investment through international and regional organizations should also contribute to improving China’s and the global environment. Finally, China should assist in this process by continuing domestic economic reform and the open door policy. Environmental and economic benefits will result from efforts in these three areas.     

Approach and avoidant coping: Implications for adolescent mental health

We conducted a short-term longitudinal study examining the structure of coping behavior and the relationship between coping style and depression during adolescence. The sample consisted of 603 adolescents in Grades 6–11 who were surveyed in the fall of 1989 and again in the fall of 1990. A two-dimensional model of coping was found using confirmatory factor analysis with the factors being approach and avoidant coping. Four cross-sectional and seven longitudinal coping groups were formed to explore group differences in depression. Approach copers reported the fewest symptoms of depression, while avoidant copers reported the most. Subjects who changed over time from approach to avoidant coping evidenced a significant increase in depressive symptoms, whereas subjects who switched from avoidant to approach coping displayed a significant decrease in depression over a one-year period. These findings imply that adolescents who are able to elicit social support, engage in problem solving, and cognitively restructure events within a positive light are more likely to successfully negotiate the challenges of adolescence.This research was supported by a grant from the William T. Grant Foundation (8912789), Anne C. Petersen, Principal Investigator. The writing of this article was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health Research Training Grant 5 T32MH18387-06 in Child Mental Health/Primary Prevention.Received Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from Pennsylvania State University. Research interests include adolescent mental health and community research.Received his Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from Pennsylvania State University. Research interests include adolescent mental health and research methodology.Received degree from the University of Chicago. Research interests are in biopsychosocial development in adolescence, with a focus on sex differences in mental health.     

Developing economics expertise for the evaluation of primary health care

Given that government budgets are increasingly stretched in the face of competing demands, there is a pressing need for evidence on the costs and benefits of public sector investments. Nowhere is this need greater than in the health field, where the benefits of programmes are typically difficult to measure. Within the health sector a key area of interest is primary health care, which is generally regarded as a central function and the most important means by which the health of the population can be improved. This paper reports the results of a recent survey of Commonwealth countries which sought to establish the extent of economic evaluation of PHC programmes, the impact on decision-making and the level of health economics expertise available in Third World countries. Based on the results of the survey, suggestions are made for improving the commissioning and conduct of economic evaluations, for interpreting and implementing evaluation results, and for developing government expertise in economic evaluation.