Women among Women: Anthropological Perspectives on Female Age Hierarchies

Women among Women: Anthropological Perspectives on Female Age Hierarchies. Jeanette Dickerson-Putman and Judith K. Brown. eds. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1998.148 pp.     

Students and a "Culture of Resistance" in Provincetown's Schools

Provincetown, Massachusetts is a popular multigendered tourist destination where openness to diversity is part of the school and wider community ethos. Youth encounter their hometown as a place whose cultural ethos they do not always embrace. Based on participant-observation fieldwork from 1995 to 2002, this article explores how students have developed a "culture of resistance" to dominant discourses of tolerance and acceptance. By deconstructing how schools are sites of intergroup conflicts over gender tolerance and public school ownership, student-resistance conduct is shown to be a response to perceived alienation from mainstream social norms and discourses.     

Microcosmic Histories: Island Perspectives on "Global" Change

The Pacific Islands, particularly the Polynesian islands, provide excellent model systems for understanding the human dimensions of global change. This is due to their uniquely microcosmic aspect. Little worlds unto themselves, islands are natural history's best shot at something approaching the controlled experiment. The human choices that have led to particular outcomes on these islands teach us that nothing is inevitable or predetermined. The more we understand how our predecessors fashioned the earth we have inherited, the better we may be able to achieve a "sustainable" relationship with our planet, our own little microcosm within the cosmos.     

Deer mice: "The Drosophila of North American mammalogy"

Summary: Oocyte‐somatic cell communication is necessary for normal ovarian function. However, the identities of the majority of oocyte‐secreted proteins remain unknown. A novel cDNA encoding mouse oo cyte‐s ecreted p rotein 1 (OOSP1) was identified using a modified subtractive hybridization screen. The Oosp1 cDNA encodes a 202‐amino acid protein that contains a 21‐amino acid signal peptide sequence, 5 putative N‐linked glycosylation consensus sequences, and 6 cysteines that are predicted to form 3 disulfide bonds. OOSP1 shares amino acid identity with placental‐specific protein 1 (PLAC1), a secreted protein expressed in the placenta and the ectoplacental cone. The Oosp1 mRNA is approximately 1.0 kb and is present at high levels in the oocytes of adult ovaries and at lower levels in the spleen. The mouse Oosp1 gene is 5 exons, spans greater than 16.4 kb, and localizes to chromosome 19 at a position that shares synteny with human chromosome 11q12–11q13. The identification of OOSP1 as a new oocyte‐secreted protein permits future in vitro and in vivo functional analyses to define its role in ovarian folliculogenesis. genesis 31:105–110, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Measles, Hmong, and Metaphor: Culture Change and Illness Management under Conditions of Immigration

When 19 Hmong families and three healers in St. Paul, Minnesota, were interviewed regarding their understanding of measles and the ways in which they cared for children with the disease, their responses spanned the range between Hmong animistic cosmology and Western theories of disease. The metaphors of growth that were used to describe the disease link language, cosmology, causation, body processes, and illness management practices. This study discusses the themes of cyclical time, disease-causing spirits, the natural/supernatural dichotomy, and agricultural metaphors as applied to disease, as well as the growing adaptation to, use of, and interpretation of Western medicine by these immigrants.     

Liking Food Less: The Impact of Social Influence on Food Liking Evaluations in Female Students

Social factors are known to influence food intake and choice. However, whether social influence acts on evaluations of food and drink liking has not been studied. Across two studies, we tested whether leading a participant to believe that other people do not like a food affects food liking evaluations. In Study 1, we exposed participants to social normative information suggesting a) that an in-group disliked orange juice, b) that an out-group disliked orange juice or c) that an in-group were neutral about orange juice. We then examined how much participants believed they liked orange juice. In Study 2, participants consumed a snack food before being led to believe that two previous participants had also eaten the food and either disliked or quite liked it. We asked participants to rate how much they had enjoyed eating the snack food. Across both studies, social influence was observed, as underlined by decreases in liking evaluations. In Study 1, beliefs about liking were only influenced by social normative information when the norm was expressed by an in-group. In Study 2, exposure to others'' accounts of a negative experience with a food decreased evaluated liking of the recent consumption experience. These results suggest that social influence can act upon food liking evaluations.     

The Health Policy Attitudes of American Medical Students: A Pilot Survey

Background

Relatively little is known about American medical student’s attitudes toward caring for the uninsured, limiting physician reimbursement and the role of cost-effectiveness data in medical decision-making. We assessed American medical student’s attitudes regarding these topics as well as demographic predictors of those attitudes, and compared them to practicing physicians.

Methods and Findings

A survey instrument was explicitly designed to compare medical student attitudes with those previously reported by physicians. Between December 1st 2010 and March 27th 2011 survey responses were collected from more than 2% of the total estimated 2010–2011 US medical student population enrolled at 111 of 159 accredited US medical schools within the 50 United States (n = 2414 of possible 98197). Medical students were more likely to object to reimbursement cuts, and more likely to object to the use of cost effectiveness data in medical decision making than current physicians according to the literature. Specialty preference, political persuasion, and medical student debt were significant predictors of health policy attitudes. Medical students with anticipated debt in excess of $200,000 were significantly less willing to favor limiting reimbursement to improve patient access (OR: 0.73 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.59–0.89]), and significantly more likely to object to using cost effectiveness data to limit treatments (OR 1.30, 95% CI 1.05–1.60) when compared to respondents with anticipated debt less than $200,000.

Conclusions

When compared to physicians in the literature, future physicians may be less willing to favor cuts to physician reimbursements and may be more likely to object to the use of cost effectiveness data. Political orientation, specialty preference and anticipated debt may be important predictors of health policy attitudes among medical students. Early career medical providers with primary care ambitions and those who anticipate less debt may be more likely to support healthcare cost containment.     

Ancestry and Beginnings: The Early History of the American Society of Zoologists

SYNOPSIS. The American Society of Zoologists as we know it todaydescended from two immediate progenitors, the American MorphologicalSociety and the Western Branch of the American Society of Naturalists.The latter group was known during 1901 and 1902 as the Societyof American Zoologists. The two organizations formed the AmericanSociety of Zoologists at the American Society of Naturalists'1902 meeting in Washington, D.C. The American Society of Zoologistsfirst formed with two Branches, the Eastern and the Central.These two Branches merged into a single Society after the 1913meeting in Philadelphia.     

Celebrating Ethnicity and Nation: American Festive Culture from the Revolution to the Early 20th Century.

Celebrating Ethnicity and Nation: American Festive Culture from the Revolution to the Early 20th Century. Jurgen Heideking. Genevieve Fabre. and Kai Dreisbach. eds. New York: Berghahn Books, 2001. 316 pp.     

Exploring and Explaining the Variability: Cross-National Perspectives on the School Performance of Minority Students

This article introduces the theme issue on ethnicity and school performance and provides an overview of five international case studies—from the Netherlands, France, Britain, Israel, and Canada—each of which examines the variability in the school performance of ethnic minority youth in their respective countries.