Beauty Is Skin Deep; The Self-Perception of Adolescents and Young Women in Construction of Body Image within the Ankole Society

Introduction: Adolescents and young women become increasingly aware of their bodies through images presented to them through social structures during their developmental stage. These images may drive them toward unhealthy behaviors including overeating, starving, and skin bleaching. This paper is part of a study that examined the Older Adolescent Banyankole Girl’s Response to the socio-cultural constructions of body image in The Ankole Region, Uganda. It aimed to understand the self-perceptions of adolescent girls of their body image within Ankole society. Methods: The study collected narrative interviews of 30 adolescent and young adult females (16–24) recruited from various institutions of learning as well as the Ankole community of southwestern Uganda. Results: Adolescent girls’ perceptions of beauty were influenced by pull and push factors that included beauty expectations, beauty comparisons, relationships, and dietary habits that keep them oscillating between traditional and contemporary beauty ideals. Findings suggest that young women could benefit from social shifting of focus from physical appearance to other valuable developmental assets. Conclusion: Government-sponsored programs that provide education and positive media messages may be beneficial to building the self-esteem of young women.

Seeing Social Change Through the Institutional Lens: Universities in Egypt, 2011–2018

This chapter explores the possibilities offered by the ethnographic study of institutions when addressing the question of social change, taking Egyptian universities during the revolution and its aftermath as case study. Discussing how different actors address the issue of change, the chapter cautions against adopting explanatory schemes too easily, particularly when building narratives. Instead, it suggests looking at institutional constraints to see how contradictory and overlapping notions of change are created, enforced, and contested across competing networks of power, both during an uprising and in times of political repression. Furthermore, it shows how changes in an institution can reveal hints of transformation processes in the broader society. This chapter offers an alternative reading of the revolutionary changes that transformed the country in and after 2011. Focusing on two major perspectives on the change in Egypt’s higher education sector the article discusses some of the complexities of accounting for change through an institutional lens. The first, coming from those more actively involved in the 2011 revolution, is one of struggle, emancipatory will, and depression and silence as a consequence of the 2013 backlash. The second perspective stems from state-sponsored programs promoting higher education as a globally competitive object, subject to reform and geared toward innovation and quality. As a consequence of these different perspectives the university has become the site of a major battle between forces competing for power within society, demonstrating how such metanarratives of change shape the temporalities according to which university actors consider their action. By combining participatory observation, interviews, and the study of documents stating internal university regulations and reform programs, the author shows the importance of universities as privileged sites for the implementation of change, uncovering balances of power, beyond slogans and discourses.

Higher Education Loans Board in Kenya from the Islamic Sharia Perspective

Education loans were introduced in 1952 in Kenya under higher education loan fund board (HELF). The number of applicants increased consequently causing problems in provision of loans by the government; in this regard, the government introduced Students Loans Scheme (USLS), which was governed by the Ministry of Education. USLS noted problems in recovering matured loans from the beneficiary. To deal with this problem, in July 1995 the Government of Kenya through Parliament established the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) to control the Student Loans Scheme. However, due to financial constraints, education loans do not cater for students studying abroad and those on self-sponsored programs. The scheme contains the element of interest which makes the product non sharia compliant, this is the research problem. Therefore, there is a need to seek an Islamic alternative model based on Islamic sharia. The research methodology to be applied in this study is the inductive and descriptive analysis methods. The Islamic alternative model are expected to help Muslims students to finance their higher education without destroying their faith, likewise HELB will continue funding education loan without hardship thus promoting financial system development and investment in human capital.

Using O*NET to Identify and Design Career Pathways

Current, reliable occupational information is critical to the identification and design of pathways to and through careers. Data on more than 200 worker- and job-oriented descriptors in the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database provide the foundation for career pathway construction by a variety of users. This chapter describes ways in which the O*NET database, products, and tools may be used on their own to identify and refine career pathways, as well as ways that workforce agencies, education systems, and federally sponsored programs have integrated the O*NET Content Model, database, and taxonomy in their career pathway systems, tools, and programs. The chapter concludes by describing planned efforts to enhance the value of the O*NET program for career pathway development.

Songs Instead of Missiles: Agency and Subversive Complicity

This chapter discusses how US hip hop artists justify their participation in State Department–sponsored programs given hip hop’s traditional oppositional, anti-government stance. Many factors motivate artists to participate. Artists cite this work as an opportunity to travel; teach; encounter different cultures; represent their country, culture, gender, race, ethnicity, etc.; and build global hip hop community. This chapter considers whether these artists can be considered complicit with the actions of the government, whether they can act subversively, and whether they can do both at the same time, embodying what can be called subversive complicity.

Spinal cord stimulator education during pain fellowship: unmet training needs and factors that impact future practice

Background and objectivesWith a growing need for non-opioid chronic pain treatments, pain physicians should understand the proper utilization of neuromodulation therapies to provide the most comprehensive care. We aimed to identify the unmet training needs that deter physicians from using spinal cord stimulation (SCS) devices.MethodsInternet-based surveys were fielded to fellows enrolled in pain fellowships during the 2016–2017 academic year accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and past pain fellows identified through pain medicine societies and SCS manufacturers.ResultsCurrent fellows were more likely to have received SCS training during fellowship compared with past fellows (100.0% vs 84.0%), yet there was variability in fellows’ SCS experiences with a wide range of trials and implants performed. Forty-six percent of current fellows felt there was an unmet training need regarding SCS. Deficiency in SCS case volume was the most common barrier that was noted (38.5%), followed by lack of SCS curriculum (30.8%) and lack of faculty with SCS expertise (23.1%). Lack of training was a predominant reason for past fellows choosing not to use SCS devices postfellowship. The majority of current and past fellows (79.5% and 55.4%, respectively) strongly supported direct training of fellows by SCS manufacturers.ConclusionsWhile SCS training during pain fellowship has become more universal, the experiences that fellows receive are highly variable, and most rely on industry-sponsored programs to supplement training deficiencies. Standardization of SCS procedures may also enable less experienced providers to navigate the SCS treatment algorithm.