Fighting Feelings

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey O. Sacha

This article explores the mentorship of low-income young men of color by examining amateur boxing coaches and the training techniques that they use. Studying both the actions and the intentions of boxing coaches offers insights into the increasingly rare experience of adult male mentorship for low-income young men of color. Data for this article come from a 13-month ethnographic study of a South Los Angeles boxing gym and in-depth interviews with the gym’s boxing coaches. This article explores two aspects of the training process from the coach’s point of view: the creation and enforcement of rules to differentiate the boxing gym from “the street” and the use of “emotional regimens” in training. The coaches in this study acted as “old head” mentors for their fighters and used emotional regimens to encourage a particular form of masculinity with their amateur boxers that simultaneously embraced and forbade certain expressions of “street” masculinity.

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann M. Fefferman ◽  
Ushma D. Upadhyay

This research explores how gender shapes contraceptive management through in-depth interviews with 40 men and women of color ages 15 to 24, a life stage when the risk of unintended pregnancy is high in the United States. Although past research focuses on men’s contraception-avoidant behaviors, little sociological work has explored ways men engage in contraception outside of condoms, such as contraceptive pills. Research often highlights how women manage these methods alone. Our research identifies how young men of color do help manage these methods through their engagement in contraceptive decision making and use. Men accomplish this without limiting their partners’ ability to prevent pregnancy. This is despite structural barriers such as poverty and gang-related violence that disproportionately affect low-income young men of color and often shape their reproductive goals. However, men’s engagement is still circumscribed so that women take on a disproportionate burden of pregnancy prevention, reifying gender boundaries. We identify this as a form of hybrid masculinity, because men’s behaviors are seemingly egalitarian but also sustain women’s individualized risk of unintended pregnancy. This research points to the complexity of how race, class, and gender intersect to create an engaged but limited place for men in contraceptive management among marginalized youth.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arleen F. Brown ◽  
D'Ann M. Morris ◽  
Katherine L. Kahn ◽  
Ibrahima C. Sankare ◽  
Keyonna M. King ◽  
...  

<p><strong>Objective</strong>: To describe the design and rationale of the Healthy Community Neighborhood Initiative (HCNI), a multicomponent<br />study to understand and document health risk and resources in a<br />low-income and minority community.</p><p><strong>Design</strong>: A community-partnered participatory research project.<br />Setting: A low-income, biethnic African American and Latino neighborhood in South Los Angeles.</p><p><strong>Participants</strong>: Adult community residents aged &gt;18 years.</p><p><strong>Main Outcome Measures</strong>: Household survey and clinical data collection; neighborhood characteristics; neighborhood observations; and community resources asset mapping.</p><p><strong>Results</strong>: We enrolled 206 participants (90% of those eligible), of whom 205 completed the household interview and examination,<br />and 199 provided laboratory samples. Among enrollees, 82 (40%) were aged &gt;50 years and participated in functional status<br />measurement. We completed neighborhood observations on 93 street segments; an average of 2.2 (SD=1.6) study participants<br />resided on each street segment observed. The community asset map identified 290 resources summarized in a Community Resource Guide given to all participants.</p><p><strong>Conclusions</strong>: The HCNI communityacademic partnership has built a framework to assess and document the individual, social, and community factors that may influence clinical and social outcomes in a community at high-risk for preventable chronic disease. Our project suggests that a community collaborative can use<br />culturally and scientifically sound strategies to identify community-centered health and social needs. Additional work is needed to<br />understand strategies for developing and implementing interventions to mitigate these disparities. <em>Ethn Dis</em>. 2016;26(1):123-132; doi:10.18865/ed.26.1.123</p>


Pharmacy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Edward Adinkrah ◽  
Mohsen Bazargan ◽  
Cheryl Wisseh ◽  
Shervin Assari

Background. Several publications highlight data concerning multiple chronic conditions and the medication regimen complexity (MRC) used in managing these conditions as well as MRCs’ association with polypharmacy and medication non-adherence. However, there is a paucity of literature that specifically details the correlates of MRC with multimorbidity, socioeconomic, physical and mental health factors in disadvantaged (medically underserved, low income) African American (AA) seniors. Aims. In a local sample in South Los Angeles, we investigated correlates of MRC in African American older adults with chronic disease(s). Methods. This was a community-based survey in South Los Angeles with 709 African American senior participants (55 years and older). Age, gender, continuity of care, educational attainment, multimorbidity, financial constraints, marital status, and MRC (outcome) were measured. Data were analyzed using linear regression. Results. Higher MRC correlated with female gender, a higher number of healthcare providers, hospitalization events and multimorbidity. However, there were no associations between MRC and age, level of education, financial constraint, living arrangements or health maintenance organization (HMO) membership. Conclusions. Disadvantaged African Americans, particularly female older adults with multimorbidity, who also have multiple healthcare providers and medications, use the most complex medication regimens. It is imperative that MRC is reduced particularly in African American older adults with multimorbidity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-367
Author(s):  
Stephanie Fong Gomez ◽  
Cassondra Marshall ◽  
Regina Jackson ◽  
Amani Allen

Identity is the key psychological task of adolescence, with lifelong implications on health and behavior. A holistic understanding of content and process of identity development among male adolescents and emerging adults of color may lead to more effective interventions to improve health outcomes. Men aged 18 to 24 years were recruited from a nonprofit serving predominantly low-income Black and Latino youth in Oakland, CA. This exploratory, multimethod study utilized self-portraiture, interviews, and a focus group. Procedures were approved by the University of California (UC), Berkeley Committee for Protection of Human Subjects (CPHS). Phenomenology and grounded theory principles facilitated a rich understanding of the lived experiences and meanings participants attributed to their identities. Participants used positively valenced language to describe multifaceted, intersectional identities. Despite identifying with stigmatized groups, participants were proud to be male, Black or Latino, and from Oakland. Cognitive processes and adaptive behaviors mediated the impact of environmental factors—including discrimination, family members, peers, and place—on identity development. Practitioners will benefit from recognizing the complex identities of boys and young men of color. Further research should explore the intersectional nature of identity, cumulative health effects of developing and maintaining positive identities despite pervasive discrimination, and role of positive youth development programming in positive identity formation.


Author(s):  
H. Samy Alim ◽  
Jooyoung Lee ◽  
Lauren Mason Carris ◽  
Quentin E. Williams

This chapter highlights how young men use creative, improvised linguistic performances to dialogically co-construct particular meanings of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and the body. In our analyses of two case studies (one in Los Angeles, the other in Cape Town), we demonstrate how young men of color often challenge the dominance of whiteness, while simultaneously celebrating and reifying particular kinds of “blackness/colouredness” at the expense of already marginalized gendered and sexualized bodies. These hegemonic practices reconstitute social divisions that benefit cisheteropatriarchy, an ideological system that naturalizes normative views of what it means to “look” and “act” like a “straight” man and marginalizes women, femininity, and all gender non-conforming bodies that challenge the gender binary. While our analysis offers a window into the interactional formation of cisheteropatriarchy, we conclude by emphasizing the power of language in interaction to (trans)form dominant ideologies of race, gender, sexuality, and the body.


2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roderic N. Crooks

Based on an ethnographic project in a public high school in a low-income neighborhood in South Los Angeles, this paper argues that access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) cannot be taken as helpful or empowering on its own terms; instead, concerns about justice must be accounted for by the local communities technology is meant to benefit. This paper juxtaposes the concept of technological access with recent work in feminist science and technology studies (STS) on infrastructure, maintenance, and ethics. In contrast to popular descriptions of ICTs as emancipatory and transformative, in the setting of an urban school, access produced extensive demands for attention, time, and information. This paper focuses on the labor of a group of student workers, Student Technology Leaders (STLs), and how they became responsible for the significant amount of repair and maintenance work involved in keeping hundreds of new computing devices available for use. An expanded process of accounting can more realistically frame issues of justice and its relationship to ICTs. I use a town hall meeting held with these students as an example of a processual vision of justice, one that encourages the beneficiaries of technological access to evaluate costs, benefits, and ethical concerns together.


2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marquia Blackmon ◽  
Sherry C. Eaton ◽  
Linda M. Burton ◽  
Whitney Welsh ◽  
Dwayne Brandon ◽  
...  

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