SAGE Podcast

Journal of Planning Education and Research co-editor Michael Brooks interviews authors Heather Campbell, Matti Siemiatycki, Ann Forsyth, and Bent Flyvbjerg about their articles for the Symposium in the June 2012 issue.

Dr Tsachi Ein-Dor at the School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel talks about how sex can alleviate stress, for both men and women in satisfying relationships (volume 29 issue 1)

This article investigates the determinants of orgasm and sexual enjoyment in hookup and relationship sex among heterosexual college women and seeks to explain why relationship sex is better for women in terms of orgasm and sexual enjoyment. We use data from women respondents to a large online survey of undergraduates at 21 U.S. colleges and universities and from 85 in-depth interviews at two universities. We identify four general views of the sources of orgasm and sexual enjoyment-technically competent genital stimulation, partner-specific learning, commitment, and gender equality. We find that women have orgasms more often in relationships than in hookups. Regression analyses reveal that specific sexual practices, experience with a particular partner, and commitment all predict women's orgasm and sexual enjoyment. The presence of more sexual practices conducive to women's orgasm in relationship sex explains some of why orgasm is more common in relationships. Qualitative analysis suggests a double standard also contributes to why relationship sex is better for women: both men and women question women's (but not men's) entitlement to pleasure in hookups but believe strongly in women's (as well as men's) entitlement to pleasure in relationships. More attention is thus given to producing female orgasm in relationships.

Chris Rhomberg of Fordham University discusses the Detroit Newspaper Strike of the late 1990s and material from his book about the strike, 'The Broken Table.'

Despite fascination with Muslim, and especially Arab, women s influence and priorities in the United States, the majority of studies focused on Islam and gender have missed their voices. This study highlights the narratives of 20 Yemeni-American second-generation women who described their unique ways of belonging to two cultures. This study found that religious women who practiced hijab challenged biased gender practices within their communities by bringing to light progressive notions in Islam. Moreover, and through expanding their roles inside and outside their families, they crafted a balance between achieving as individuals and maintaining communal bonds. In doing so, they gained self-confidence and critical family support to go beyond the local community's narrow “boarders” (and low expectations for women) and pursue academic, economic and political empowerment in the mainstream. In short, in the latter part of the 20th century and early 21th century, our Yemeni respondents developed hybridized identities as a result of multiple processes: their understanding of Islam, the isolated history of Yemen, chain migration patterns to the US from Yemen, the dynamics of the Southend enclave in Detroit, MI, as well as multicultural spaces that had previously opened in the mainstream American institutions in Detroit.

This research investigates how participation in college-based science-training programs increases student intention to pursue a scientific career. Using identity theory, we delineate three levels of social structure and conceptualize science-training programs as proximate social structures. Results from a sample of 892 undergraduate science students are supportive of identity theory and indicate that participation in proximate social structures leads to increased commitment to a science identity, increased salience of a science identity, and increased intention to pursue a scientific career. This study contributes to the literature on identity theory by demonstrating how participation in proximate social structures can lead to subsequent identity processes, thus refining the understanding of how society shapes the self and clarifying how social positioning affects choices for behavior. Additionally, the conceptualization of proximate social structures provides an avenue for applications of identity theory to investigations of other social interventions as well as mechanisms leading to social inequality.

Scholars understand shopping malls as central commercial and social settings. Some argue that malls' designs attract and seduce consumers, while others contend that mall authorities exclude vulnerable groups and prohibit free expression. Ethnographic studies, by contrast, document how consumers interpret and shape malls as social settings. Drawing on qualitative research in two Santiago, Chile, malls, we contend that Santiago's patterns of socioeconomic segregation and ample public transport facilitate cross-class interactions in malls. These characteristics encourage visitors to transpose practices and meanings from other public settings to the mall, drawing on rules for public interaction. Residents adapt mall infrastructures for noncommercial uses and engage in informal and formal resistance, reflecting conflicts between abstract and social space. The analysis shows that distinctive urbanization patterns significantly shape how consumers access and use malls as social spaces.

Arnold Danzig, co-editor for the March 2012 volume, interviews Lisa Garcia Bedolla, University of California, Berkeley, about her article, "Latino Education, Civic Engagement, and the Public Good."

A key argument of Massey and Denton's (1993) American Apartheid is that racial residential segregation and non-white group poverty rates combine interactively to produce spatially concentrated poverty. Despite a compelling theoretical rationale, empirical tests of this proposition have been negative or mixed. This article develops a formal decomposition model that expands Massey's model of how segregation, group poverty rates, and other spatial conditions combine to form concentrated poverty. The revised decomposition model allows for income effects on cross-race neighborhood residence and interactive combinations of multiple spatial conditions in the formation of concentrated poverty. Applying the model to data reveals that racial segregation and income segregation within race contribute importantly to poverty concentration, as Massey argued. Almost equally important for poverty concentration, however, is the disproportionate poverty of blacks' and Hispanics' other-race neighbors. It is thus more accurate to describe concentrated poverty in minority communities as resulting from three segregations: racial segregation, poverty-status segregation within race, and segregation from high- and middle-income members of other racial groups. The missing interaction Massey expected in empirical tests can be found with proper accounting for the factors in the expanded model.

Stephen Lyng's concept of edgework represents a crucial shift in understanding particular kinds of risk taking, as intrinsically and phenomenologically rewarding. Although it has been widely and usefully used since then, scholars have observed limitations in its applicability across class, race, and gender lines. A good deal of recent work has endeavored to address this problem. However, a critical feminist perspective reveals the levels on which this issue is not merely one of scope but a paradigmatic issue. I offer a deconstruction of the edgework concept in order to illustrate this, and an expansion of the model in order to render it more applicable for a wider range of thrill-seeking behaviors. Drawing on four years of ethnographic field work in an SM (sadomasochism) community, I provide an empirical example of the applicability of this amendment for the study of voluntary risk taking across gender boundaries.

Editor David Barkin talks with Professor Michael Perelman about his article, "What Went Wrong: An Idiosyncratic Perspective on the Economy and Economics," forthcoming in the December 2012 issue of RRPE.

Violence against women (VAW) in India is commonly attributed to an overarching metacultural patriarchal framework. Focusing on this national culture of violence obscures the experiences of VAW among ethnic minority women. This article focuses on VAW in Northeast India, a region populated by large numbers of Scheduled Tribes with different cultural norms, and where society has become militarized by ongoing insurgency and counterinsurgency. Though tempting, militarization alone is not a sufficient explanation for VAW; instead, this article focuses on the interplay between nonfamilial and familial contexts in creating a “frontier culture of violence” in which VAW is experienced and contested.

Professor Cliff Shultz, guest editor of the March 2012 special issue, interviews award-winning JMK scholar Dr. Tony Pecotich, who shares his expertise and reflections on a macromarketing journey.

Hypertension is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases among older adults, but rates of blood pressure control are low. In this article, we explore the role of social network ties and network-based resources (e.g., information and support) in hypertension diagnosis and management. We use data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project to identify older adults with undiagnosed or uncontrolled hypertension. We find that network characteristics and emotional support are associated with hypertension diagnosis and control. Importantly, the risks of undiagnosed and uncontrolled hypertension are lower among those with larger social networks-if they discuss health issues with their network members. When these lines of communication are closed, network size is associated with greater risk for undiagnosed and uncontrolled hypertension. Health care utilization partially mediates associations with diagnosis, but the benefits of network resources for hypertension control do not seem to stem from health-related behaviors.

This article describes and evaluates an activity designed to demonstrate how biological factors (e.g., genetics), individual-level behaviors (e.g., smoking), and social factors (e.g., socioeconomic status) shape health status and access to health care. Active learning techniques were utilized to introduce the sociological imagination as it pertains to health, as well as to physically demonstrate stratification processes. A pretest-posttest design was implemented to evaluate the activity's impact on student learning outcomes (N = 305). Analysis suggests that after the activity students regarded society as important for influencing health, including a shift in responsibility for one's health away from the individual, and that students gained a greater understanding of the importance of social class in shaping health. In open-ended responses, students indicated that the physicality of the approach provided further clarity of abstract concepts. Implications of these findings and broader directions for advancing students' understanding of disparities related to health are discussed.