Social Constructions of Rape at Columbia University and Barnard College, 1955-90.

Sex on college campuses has fascinated scholars, reporters, and the public since the advent of coeducational higher education in the middle of the nineteenth century. But the emergence of rape on campus as a public problem is relatively recent. This article reveals the changing social constructions of campus rape as a public problem through a detailed examination of newspaper reporting on this issue as it unfolded at Columbia University and Barnard College between 1955 and 1990.

Crisis and Change: The Making of a French FDA.

Unlabelled: Policy Points: Introducing a recent special issue of The Lancet on the health system in France, Horton and Ceschia observe that "the dominance of English as the language of science and, increasingly, global health too often closes the door on the history and experiences of others." In that spirit, this manuscript presents a detailed case study of public health policy transformation in France in the early 1990s. It casts light on processes of policy change in a political and cultural environment very different from that of the United States, showing how the public health policy process is shaped by multiple contingencies of history, ideology, and politics.

Construction of a policy arena: the case of public health in France.

In this article we examine the transformation over the past two decades of public health as a policy arena in France from a backwater of little interest to politicians, bureaucrats, the media, and the public into a central preoccupation of the state. Recent dramatic health crises (the scandal over HIV-contaminated blood, mad cow disease, etc.) have substantially raised the political profile of (and corresponding state investment in) public health in France, offering opportunities and incentives for political actors not traditionally associated with public health to enter the field and challenging more traditional actors to galvanize themselves and compete for this newly attractive policy terrain.

"... But then he became my sipa": the implications of relationship fluidity for condom use among women sex workers in Antananarivo, Madagascar.

Increasing evidence indicates that sex workers use condoms less consistently with regular (i.e., nonpaying) partners than with clients.

Physical women, emotional men: gender and sexual satisfaction in midlife.

In late midlife, heterosexual women report markedly lower levels of sexual satisfaction than heterosexual men. This article explored the social factors contributing to this difference, using data from 1,035 sexually-active heterosexual adults, aged 40-59 years, who participated in the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). Conducted in 1992, NHSLS interviewed a nationally representative random sample of U.

Collective actors and corporate targets in tobacco control: a cross-national comparison.

Cross-national comparative analysis of tobacco control strategies can alert health advocates to how opportunities for public health action, types of action, and probabilities for success are shaped by political systems and cultures. This article is based on case studies of tobacco control in the United States, Canada, Britain, and France. Two questions are addressed: (a) To whom were the dangers of smoking attributed? and (b) What was the role of collective action--grassroots level organization--in combating these dangers? Activists in Canada, Britain, and France moved earlier than the United States did to target the tobacco industry and the state.

Parental perceptions of costs and benefits of children as correlates of fertility in Kuwait.

Kuwait is a high fertility country where the average number of desired children still exceeds 5. However, fertility behaviour is beginning to show a noticeable change and the current TFR is about 4.2 children.

The skeptic's guide to a movement for universal health insurance.

The social movement has become institutionalized as a form of political action. The aim of this article is to evaluate the possibilities presented by this form as a strategy to bring about universal health insurance in the United States. I draw on the work of social movement theorists, on the substantial body of empirical research on health-related social movements, and on relevant comparative work from Canada to develop a template for this evaluation.

The social constructions of sexuality: marital infidelity and sexually transmitted disease-HIV risk in a Mexican migrant community.

Objectives: This article explores the social context of the migration-related HIV epidemic in western Mexico.

Methods: Data collection involved life histories and participant observation with migrant women in Atlanta and their sisters or sisters-in-law in Mexico.

Results: Both younger and older women acknowledged that migrant men's sexual behavior may expose them to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.