Suchergebnisse

AbstractTheodori et al. (2016) take issue with our presentation of the interactional field theory of community, asserting that, according to interactional field theory, (1) community does not equate with community field; (2) community does not emerge out of the community‐oriented actions of individuals; as well as making various other charges. In our reply, we refute their points, and demonstrate how Theodori et al., themselves, often provide the best evidence against their own arguments.

AbstractSince the passage of the Rural Veterans Care Act of 2006 research has focused on health care provider issues with less attention given to individual and contextual factors that contribute to the remaining service gap. Adopting the health care user's viewpoint, we focus on two questions: How do health care users perceive access to health care, and which contextual factors are relevant to explaining the failure of recent efforts to increase access by rural veterans? We collected detailed data through focus groups and individual interviews involving veterans and knowledgeable community members in four rural areas of Utah. Framing the analysis of interview data using the sociospatial approach reveals key dimensions of several contexts that affect rural veterans' access to health care: the historical period of military service that influences attitudes toward use of Veterans Administration health care and access to specialists, regulations of regionally and locally organized insurance coverage that affects access to and coordination of health care, and local social aspects of rural communities that inform use of specific health care sources. These dimensions provide new insights into the conditions that contribute to variations in the vulnerability of rural Utah veterans.

After their release in 2001, Bratz dolls carved into Barbie's previously monopolistic share of teen doll sales. Amidst their growing popularity, cultural critics expressed a host of concerns about Bratz dolls, especially over how they sexualize youth, but the line grew to include a host of products like costumes, makeup kits, games, books, clothing, and movies. It also inspired new, similar doll lines from other toy companies. In this article, we situate the Bratz's popularity in a specific cultural moment tied to the history of modern feminism. We use a content analysis of the Bratz movie series to explore the feminist and post-feminist thematics it contains. We identify the images of girlhood that are being marketed through the films and explore how the series repackages not only girlhood but also feminism itself in a way that encourages girls to exchange political power for purchasing power.

AbstractUsing gender and life course frameworks attuned to overlapping roles and statuses, this exploratory case study highlights the experiences of older, rural female veterans in Utah with accessing Veterans Administration and other healthcare. Based on three focus groups with 22 women, findings show that these veterans experienced similar healthcare access obstacles to female veterans in other contexts. Most also experienced invisibility and discrimination in the military, which carried over as they became veterans. However, while these older, rural women veterans voiced new concerns about their own healthcare in later life course stages, they also described extensive experience with coordination of services and advocacy for other veterans, family and rural community members. Thus, these women veterans acted as healthcare advocates in a complex, bureaucratic, strained system. Feeling largely excluded from the male veterans' networks and organizations, they perceived the need to create new networks that could assist veterans in need.

AbstractThe growth of high‐speed Internet access in rural communities is a relatively recent event. In this exploratory study, we contribute to the literature regarding the Internet and local community by analyzing the influence of Internet activity on community experience, measured through community satisfaction and attachment, using the systemic model as controls. After surveying 24 rural communities in Utah, USA once in 2008 and again in 2017 with a cumulative analytic sample size of 2,236, we find a negative association between increased use of the Internet for amenity purposes and community experience. While our models show mixed findings that community experience has decreased over time in rural areas, we find evidence that Internet activities can affect community experience, strengthening arguments that researchers should control for more than merely Internet access. Due to the associations between Internet activities and community experience, we argue that rural policymakers should find place‐based ways to strengthen community experience.

This research examined the effects of voluntary factory audits on labor conditions. Sometimes referred to as corporate social responsibility (CSR) codes of conduct, corporations impose voluntary labor standards coupled with regular auditing to help ensure the protection of workers throughout their global production networks (GPNs). While some believe that auditing factories ensures that CSR codes of conduct are followed and helps private corporations promote higher labor standards, others argue that factory audits have little effect on labor standards at the factory level. Using unique panel data of internal factory audit reports of factories in four Southeast Asian countries between 2003 and 2010, this paper sought to understand whether voluntary GPN audits improve labor standards at the factory level. The results showed that a factory's number of audits between 2003 and 2010 did not improve factory working conditions significantly and that the local neighborhood in which a factory is located has a greater effect on changes in factory audit scores. These findings suggest that CSR codes of conduct and auditing alone are not sufficient to improve labor standards in GPNs. Rather, joint private-public collaboration is needed to improve labor conditions for workers in the global south.

AbstractModernity can be characterised by a shift from a communal to an individual orientation where social mobility is one of individuals' primary goals. However, for individuals to achieve social mobility, they often must also be geographically mobile. Consequently, geographic immobility or staying in place needs to be theorised and examined directly. In this context, the life course perspective provides a useful framework to understand staying. The role transitions associated with different life stages represent different decision points where choices to stay must be deliberate. We use state‐representative data from Montana (USA) in 2010 to perform an exploratory analysis of stayers. Using a variety of community and individual predictors, we find that high community attachment, low satisfaction with one's community, and/or local services make being a stayer more likely. In separate models of being a stayer by rurality, age group, educational attainment, and having a dependent in the home, the pattern of results suggests that interpretations of high attachment and low satisfaction among stayers as being indicators of being "stuck" may be incorrect. Instead, even in the absence of being satisfied with one's community, community attachment may be indicative of deliberate decisions to stay. We discuss the limitations of addressing staying using cross‐sectional data and suggest future avenues for better understanding those who stay in place throughout their lives.