Susan J. Ferguson

Marriage Timing of Chinese American and Japanese American Women

Using U.S. census data, this study examines the differences in marriage rates and timing among White, Chinese American, and Japanese American women. An accelerated time model estimates the duration until marriage for each racial-ethic group while controlling for nativity, education, birth cohort, ancestry, and English proficiency. Results show that White women have the shortest duration until marriage, with a smaller percentage remaining never married. Chinese American and Japanese American women delay first marriage longer and have higher percentages of never married women.

Deformities and Diseased: The Medicalization of Women’s Breasts

For more than 30 years, medical sociologists have argued that the institution of medicine is an agent of social control. In his classic essay, Irving Kenneth Zola argues that as more of human experience becomes medicalized—that is, as natural human experiences and processes come to be seen as conditions that require medical attention—physicians enjoy increased control over people’s lives (1971). Sociologists Diana Scully and Catherine Kohler Riessman further discuss how doctors historically have exercised social control over women by medicalizing women’s experiences, such as childbirth, premenstrual syndrome, and menopause.

Introduction: Living with Breast Cancer

Breast cancer has affected the lives of millions of women as well as their families, friends, and communities. More than 175,000 women were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 1999, and approximately 44,000 died of the disease. These numbers are, quite simply, staggering. How and why this disease has reached epidemic proportions is the subject of this book. This book is not, however, a guide to the latest treatments for the disease, nor is it a journal of personal experiences with breast cancer. Instead, this book examines the social meanings of illness and the ways that society has shaped what we know about breast cancer. The title, Breast Cancer: Society Shapes an Epidemic, reflects this emphasis on understanding how society has created and shaped our knowledge of breast cancer as an illness. To say that breast cancer is socially constructed means that cultural assumptions and biases influence our knowledge, perceptions, and experiences of breast cancer in this society. The chapters in the book explore this social construction of illness by presenting a critical assessment of scientific research, breast cancer policymaking, the media, environmental factors, the changing health care system, and their effects on breast cancer. The book also looks at breast cancer’s historical roots as well as the contemporary breast cancer advocacy movement.

The Center Does Hold: The Sociological Literacy Framework.

This article provides a critique and an addition to observations raised by Ballantine et al. in this issue. After reviewing the strengths of Ballantine et al.’s article about the need for a core in sociology, I argue that this debate has gone on long enough and needs to be reframed around areas of agreement. Three major curricular projects (that have already begun to move this discussion forward) are presented, including the American Sociological Association (ASA) High School National Standards; the ASA Task Force on Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major, Updated, Third Edition; and the Measuring College Learning (MCL) Project. A critical outcome of the MCL Project in sociology is the Sociological Literacy Framework, which is already changing conversations about sociology curricula and learning outcomes. The Sociological Literacy Framework is summarized, and use of this framework is discussed.

Gendering processes in immigration for Chinese American and Japanese American women

Structural factors during Chinese and Japanese immigration and settlement processes required families to adapt in ways that altered traditional gender behaviors. This study examines how two factors – spousal immigration order and family economic structure – affected the gendered division of labor and how gender roles consequently were reconstructed for first and second generation Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans. These issues are investigated through secondary data analysis of 21 in‐depth interviews with daughters of Chinese and Japanese immigrants on the West Coast.

Conclusion: Eliminating Breast Cancer from Our Future

The chapters in this book have raised issues that are critical to advancing our understanding of breast cancer. They also provide us with a vision for ending the epidemic of breast cancer. As we have seen, breast cancer is no longer defined solely by its medical dimensions or by the narratives of individual women who have lived with the illness. The candor with which the chapters in this book were written owes much to the ever-increasing attention being paid to breast cancer. This public visibility was created by the massive efforts of thousands of breast cancer activists and by the willingness of many more women living with breast cancer to be outspoken about their illness. In addition, breast cancer’s public face and force owes much to the far too many women who have suffered and died from this terrible disease.

Contemporary Grandparenting: Changing Family Relationships in Global Contexts

usage. Second, internet usage may independently increase participation by: (1) reducing the costs of action, which directly encourages participation; (2) facilitating the use of more horizontal political structures, which may facilitate more grassroots efforts; and (3) making new forms of political engagement available (e.g., political consumerism), which may pull new actors into participating. Two final themes that run through chapters merit mention: most chapters attend, at least at a theoretical level, to digital divides. However, results do not show dramatic effects of such divides on political involvement and instead suggest that some online engagement is still better than none. Several chapters also implicitly, if not explicitly, comment on the long simmering debate in political communication over media’s reinforcement versus mobilization effects. Results support both effects: new participants are pulled into politics, but those with existing political interest also respond positively to internet usage. In terms of concerns or criticisms, I think there are very few. The volume’s theoretical concerns and much of the cited literature are drawn from political communication research from political science and communication. While some may see the disconnect with relevant sociological research as problematic, the volume provides a quick introduction for sociologists interested in understanding these debates from a political communications perspective while also delivering interesting findings and expanding research across the globe. The quality and clarity of chapters also varies, but not enough to distract from the overall high quality of the volume and the interesting array of international findings. Contemporary Grandparenting: Changing Family Relationships in Global Contexts, edited by Sara Arber and Virpi Timonen. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2012. 270pp.

Breast Cancer: Society Shapes an Epidemic

39.95 paper. ISBN: 9781847429674.