Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptAbstract: The Arab American experience has been characterized over the past thirty years by social and political exclusion, negative mainstream representations, widespread stereotyping, and social discrimination. This contrasts sharply with earlier periods, when Arab Americans had structural experiences closer to those of white ethnics as they were more socially, politically, and economically incorporated than racially excluded African Americans, Asians, Native Americans, and Latinos. Although officially white, Arab Americans appear to have undergone a racializing experience that differs in historical timing and pretext from that of other negatively racialized groups. Since the darkening of Arabs began in earnest after the establishment of “non-white minority” categories, scholars of race have largely overlooked their experiences and dominant theories of ethnic integration don’t fit. The deterioration in Arab American experiences is tied to the emergence of the United States as a global superpower and the use of essentialist constructions of human difference, as in the inherently violent Arab, as primary justifications for global political actions. These notions have been corporealized, as if they were about color, because race remains a powerful tool in American society and is something Americans know and understand. After the 9/11 attacks, widespread belief in negative images of Arab Americans facilitated public attribution of collective responsibility and gave rise to hate crimes against them. Theories about race and ethnic integration need to consider the impacts of processes that are more recent and global, and the consequences of discourses that appear acceptable because they hide behind ideas about cultures and civilizations.
Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: In the 1990s, policies affecting the provision of women's health care services were often at the forefront of legislative battles. It is therefore of considerable importance to investigate the process of how particular health care issues affecting women come to be seen as ‘hot button issues’ by legislators serving in state government. The purpose of this study was to examine the perspectives of state legislators serving in one Midwestern state to discover how they come to understand emerging health care issues affecting women. Findings indicate that the personal and professional life experiences that female state legislators bring to government have continued to broaden the public debate, particularly in the area of health care.
Publication Type: PosterAbstract: An increasing number of studies have shown that peer influence is the leading correlate of teenagers smoking and the cause of smoking initiation. There is limited understanding of the role of school-sponsored extra-curricular activities as an influence on the youth smoking experience among peers. This study examines the impact of the participation in school-sponsored sports activities on the variation in adolescent smoking uptake, and how gender differences influence this. Data was collected on smoking experience and friendship patterns from 2046 sixth-graders in 16 middle schools in southern California. Logistic regression was used to correlate frequency of membership in school-sponsored sports with smoking experience, controlling for demographic characteristics, network measurement of popularity and activity, prevalence on smoking in class, and clustering within class. Additionally, we ran a logistic regression analysis to correlate the frequency of membership in non-school sponsored sports with smoking experience, controlling for the identical variables. These two analyses were repeated for each gender. The results showed that students who participates more school-sponsored sports activities are more likely to experience smoking, but not for students who participate more non-school sports activities. There was a gender difference in such association, i.e., girls who participate more in school sports activities are more likely to “take a puff”, but boys are not. The implications for the study of adolescent smoking and prevention would be that there may be different social mechanism for girls and boys in their peer influence on the smoking experience through school-sponsored extra-curriculum activities.
Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: Abstract A textual analysis of the three main speeches and a prayer service/memorial President George W. Bush delivered subsequent to the September 11, 2001 bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon, show how word choices reconstitute, reinforce, and rigidify an agreed upon evil monolithic Arab stereotype. Spillman and Spillman's (1997) model of enemy image construction was applied to this rhetoric, showing how the use of particular language related to Christianity, God, good versus evil, and evil doers, has a powerful connection to deeply entrenched beliefs in dichotomies built upon a long history of mass media (mis)representations of all Arabs as Muslims, all Muslims as Arab, and now all Muslim/Arabs as terrorists. The findings have important civil rights implications for Arab Americans who have been victimized following the disaster as well as for other groups of Americans who have been similarly oppressed.
Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: Fibromyalgia is a medically vague and popularly misunderstood medical condition. In this paper we take two main routes toward gaining a social understanding of fibromyalgia. First, we explore how fibromyalgia came to be called what it is today and how medical knowledge of it has been created. Through a careful examination of the evolution of the diagnosis, we hope to shed light upon the social conditions that influence its current public understanding. Further, we explore the current medical knowledge relating to the condition: its proposed etiology, the afflicted population, and treatment approached. Finally, we explore the illness experience as it related to this condition: what a diagnosis of fibromyalgia means to those who receive it.
