scholarly journals Constructing Drug Using Victims

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Laguna
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
The United States ◽  
Drug Laws ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Congressional Hearings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Congressional Hearing

Sociologists and political scientists examining the social construction of public anxiety surrounding drug use in the United States have argued that racial minorities are the targets of the harshest drug laws while middle-class whites are shielded. In this article, I provide further evidence that middle-class, white drug users are shielded from harsh punishment by analyzing the process through which U.S. legislators and policy makers decide which drug users need punishment and which deserve protection and treatment. Analyzing transcripts from federal Congressional hearings, I examine the rhetoric of legislators and stakeholder witnesses concerning the use of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) by middle-class whites. Building on the social construction literature, I use social identity theory to demonstrate how legislators within Congressional hearings create in- and out-groups in order to categorize different drug users and dealers. My analysis of Congressional hearing language concerning white MDMA use demonstrates that Congressional speakers use rhetoric to convince committee members and the wider public that middle-class, white drug users are different from drug users of color and that the appropriate policy response is education and treatment rather than punishment. My findings highlight how middle-class, white drug users are characterized differently from drug users of color, providing further evidence that U.S. drug policy has historically favored middle-class, white drug users.

Poor Kids versus Bad Teachers: Vergara v. California and the Social Construction of Teachers

2021 ◽  
Vol 123 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Jeanne M. Powers ◽  
Kathryn P. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Spectacle ◽  
The Public ◽  
Print News ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Social

Background In the past decade, the laws governing teachers’ employment have been at the center of legal and political conflicts across the United States. Vergara v. California challenged five California state statutes that provide employment protections for teachers. In June 2014, a California lower court declared the statutes unconstitutional because they exposed students to “grossly ineffective teachers.” Purpose The purpose of the article is to document and analyze how Vergara was presented in the print news media. It is important to understand how the print news media presents education policy debates to the public, because the print news media shapes the general public's understanding of education and other public policy debates by providing frames and themes for interpreting the issues in question and people associated with them. Research Design Using the social construction of target populations and political spectacle as conceptual lenses, we conducted a content analysis of print news media articles on the Vergara case published between June 2012 and November 2014. We provide a descriptive overview of the full corpus of articles published during this period and a thematic analysis of the 65 unique news articles published in the aftermath of the decision. The latter focuses on news articles because they are intended to provide more objective coverage of the case than opinions or editorials. Findings In the print news media coverage, the word “teacher” was often paired with a negative qualifier, which suggests that Vergara was an effort to change the relatively advantaged social construction of teachers. Similarly, metaphors and the illusion of rationality associated with political spectacle were used in ways that bolstered the plaintiffs’ claims. While Vergara consumed a substantial amount of philanthropic and public dollars, ultimately it did not change the policies that govern teachers’ employment in California. Vergara may have been more successful in shaping the general public's perceptions of teachers and the conditions of teachers’ employment in the period following the trial.

The Thought of Peter Berger

1974 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-197
Author(s):  
David Cairns
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Construction Of Reality ◽  
Peter Berger ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sacred Canopy ◽  
Selection Of

This paper proposes to give some account and critique of Peter Berger's thought as contained in a selection of his books. No note will be taken of his witty and mordant critique of the Protestant Churches in the United States, The Noise of Solemn Assemblies (1961), nor yet of The Social Construction of Reality (1966), which is a more technical book than the others which will be dealt with here. These are The Precarious Vision (1961), Invitation to Sociology (1963), The Social Reality of Religion (1967) (more entertainingly entitled in its original American edition, The Sacred Canopy), and A Rumour of Angels (1968).

scholarly journals Out-of-Class Project: American Teachers' Summertime Activities, 1880s–1930s

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-35
Author(s):  
Christine A. Ogren
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
New York State ◽  
The United States ◽  
York State ◽  
Class Project ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chautauqua Institution ◽  
Previous Summer

In March 1887, Eva Moll wrote about the previous summer in her diary: “The season was fall of rich things of course. Heard some fine violin and harp playing by two Italians. I never expect to hear ‘Nearer my God to Thee’ sweeter on this earth, than it was played by the violinist. We first went to Niagara, visiting all the points.” Moll was not a wealthy person of leisure. She was a single Kansas schoolteacher in her late twenties who struggled to make ends meet, and yet had spent nine weeks at the quintessentially middle-class Chautauqua Institution in western New York State. A slice of my larger investigation of the history of teachers' “summers off,” this essay will explore the social-class dimensions of their summertime activities during a distinctive period for both the middle class and the teaching force in the United States, the decades of the 1880s through the 1930s.

On a Few of Ann and Rud Turnbull's Many Contributions as Public Intellectuals

Inclusion ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 212-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
George H. S. Singer ◽  
Mian Wang
Keyword(s):  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
Measurement Instruments ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Academic Fields ◽  
The Social ◽  
Impact On Family ◽  
State Of Affairs

Abstract This article reflects on a few of the major intellectual contributions Ann and Rud Turnbull and their colleagues at the Beach Center on Family and Disability have made to their academic fields and to the wider society. The focus is on some of their key ideas that have been particularly innovative and important in changing the way scholars, policy makers, practitioners, and parents understand families of children with disabilities. The state of affairs in 1960 for a family of a newborn with an intellectual disability is compared to present conditions in order to highlight the extent of the historic shift in how the United States addresses the needs of families of children with disabilities. Four key intellectual contributions by the Turnbulls are discussed, with attention given to the social context in which they were developed and their subsequent impact on family research, policy, and professional practices. The importance of the development of new measurement instruments is emphasized and their value is discussed in both redirecting research and bridging the gap between academic audiences and the families who are meant to benefit from this work.

scholarly journals The Social Construction of Global Health Priorities: An Empirical Analysis of Contagion in Bilateral Health Aid

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Baccini ◽  
Mirko Heinzel ◽  
Mathias Koenig-Archibugi
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Health Priorities ◽  
Advocacy Networks ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Health Aid ◽  
The Social ◽  
Aid Policy

Abstract Donors of development assistance for health typically provide funding for a range of disease focus areas, such as maternal health and child health, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other infectious diseases. But funding for each disease category does not match closely its contribution to the disability and loss of life it causes and the cost-effectiveness of interventions. We argue that peer influences in the social construction of global health priorities contribute to explaining this misalignment. Aid policy-makers are embedded in a social environment encompassing other donors, health experts, advocacy groups, and international officials. This social environment influences the conceptual and normative frameworks of decision-makers, which in turn affect their funding priorities. Aid policy-makers are especially likely to emulate decisions on funding priorities taken by peers with whom they are most closely involved in the context of expert and advocacy networks. We draw on novel data on donor connectivity through health IGOs and health INGOs and assess the argument by applying spatial regression models to health aid disbursed globally between 1990 and 2017. The analysis provides strong empirical support for our argument that the involvement in overlapping expert and advocacy networks shapes funding priorities regarding disease categories and recipient countries in health aid.

scholarly journals Forever young? An analysis of the factors influencing perceptions of ageing

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (8) ◽  
pp. 1669-1693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeria Bordone ◽  
Bruno Arpino ◽  
Alessandro Rosina
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Logistic Models ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Unique Data ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
The Social

AbstractDrawing on the revived literature on the subjective dimension of ageing, this paper investigates whether people aged 65+, usually defined as old, do actually feel old and which events they associate with feeling old. Logistic models are used on unique data from the 2013 survey called ‘I Do Not Want to Be Inactive’, conducted on individuals aged 65–74 in Italy (N = 828). It is found that a large proportion of respondents do not feel old at all. The analyses show that women are more likely than men to feel old and to think that society considers them old. While men feel old mainly when they retire, women associate this feeling with loneliness, loss of independence and death of loved ones. Higher-educated people are less likely to associate feeling old with loneliness and boredom than their lower-educated counterparts. The findings have important implications for the conceptualisation of ageing. Most people who are old according to the standard threshold of 65 do not consider reaching this age as a distinctive marker of old age in their lifecourse. This suggests that absolute thresholds for setting the start of old age are questionable. Feeling old seems to be mainly influenced by events, such as retirement and death of loved ones, hinting to the importance of the social construction of ageing in addition to its biological dimension. Researchers and policy makers are encouraged to give more attention to layperson views on ageing.

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