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Despite the fact that, statistically, women of low socioeconomic status (SES) experience greater difficulty conceiving children, infertility is generally understood to be a wealthy, white woman's issue. InMisconception, Ann V. Bell overturns such historically ingrained notions of infertility by examining the experiences of poor women and women of color. These women, so the stereotype would have it, are simply too fertile. The fertility of affluent and of poor women is perceived differently, and these perceptions have political and social consequences, as social policies have entrenched these ideas throughout U.S. history. Through fifty-eight in-depth interviews with women of both high and low SES, Bell begins to break down the stereotypes of infertility and show how such depictions consequently shape women's infertility experiences. Prior studies have relied solely on participants recruited from medical clinics-a sampling process that inherently skews the participant base toward wealthier white women with health insurance. In comparing class experiences,Misconceptiongoes beyond examining medical experiences of infertility to expose the often overlooked economic and classist underpinnings of reproduction, family, motherhood, and health in contemporary America.

InDaughters and Granddaughters of Farmworkers, Barbara Wells examines the work and family lives of Mexican American women in a community near the U.S.-Mexican border in California's Imperial County. Decades earlier, their Mexican parents and grandparents had made the momentous decision to migrate to the United States as farmworkers. This book explores how that decision has worked out for these second- and third-generation Mexican Americans. Wells provides stories of the struggles, triumphs, and everyday experiences of these women. She analyzes their narratives on a broad canvas that includes the social structures that create the barriers, constraints, and opportunities that have shaped their lives. The women have constructed far more settled lives than the immigrant generation that followed the crops, but many struggle to provide adequately for their families. These women aspire to achieve the middle-class lives of the American Dream. But upward mobility is an elusive goal. The realities of life in a rural, agricultural border community strictly limit social mobility for these descendants of immigrant farm laborers. Reliance on family networks is a vital strategy for meeting the economic challenges they encounter. Wells illustrates clearly the ways in which the \"long shadow\" of farm work continues to permeate the lives and prospects of these women and their families.

Children with mentally ill parents are at risk of developing mental health problems themselves. To enhance early support for these children may prevent mental health problems from being transmitted from one generation to the next. The sample ( N  = 219) included health professionals in a large university hospital, who responded to a web-based survey on the routines of the mental health services, attitudes within the workforce capacity, worker’s knowledge on the impact of parental mental illness on children, knowledge on legislation concerning children of patients, experience, expectations for possible outcomes of change in current clinical practice and demographic variables. A total of 56 % reported that they did not identify whether or not patients had children. There were no significant differences between the groups (identifiers and non-identifiers) except for the two scales measuring aspects of knowledge, i.e., Knowledge Children and Knowledge Legislation where workers who identified children had higher scores. The results also showed that younger workers with a medium level of education scored higher on Positive Attitudes. Furthermore, workers who reported to have more knowledge about children and the impact of mental illness on the parenting role were less concerned about a child-focussed approach interfering with the patient-therapist relation.

Whooping cough still occupies a leading position in the group of controlled infectious diseases, despite worldwide mass vaccination. In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in the incidence of whooping cough and the spread of atypical forms among adolescents and adults. It has been proposed that the formation of an anthropogenic source of infection evolves due to Bordetella pertussis bacteria with reduced or completely lost virulence that are capable of long-term persistence in the human body and restoration of infectivity under certain conditions. The persistence mechanisms of the causative agent of whooping cough have not yet been studied completely. We hypothesize that one of the mechanisms may be a change of the bvgAS operon, which regulates the expression of all virulence genes of B. pertussis bacteria because of the integration of IS-elements. Mobile IS-elements are known to have the ability to both embed into the host genome sites and be cut out of them with the restoration of impaired functions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the duration of persistence and to analyze the population composition of B. pertussis bacteria in children with whooping cough and contact persons in family foci. In this study, 80 children with confirmed diagnosis of pertussis and 116 people from 59 family foci of pertussis in contact with those children were examined. Patients were included in the study after they signed an informed consent. To detect B. pertussis DNA in nasopharyngeal swabs and to register IS-element integrations, the PCR-RT-IS test-system developed at the Gamaleya Research Institute was used along with nested PCR and sequencing. It has been shown to be possible to detect the causative agent of whooping cough in patients at different stages of the disease and in family members who have been in contact with patients for a long period. It has been found that, in the period of convalescence from whooping cough, the formation of insertional avirulent mutants of B. pertussis in the upper respiratory tract, which are capable of long-term persistence in the human body, is observed in 25% of patients. The appearance of avirulent mutants has been registered at a lower frequency (15%) in contact persons from family foci. The long-term detection of the causative agent of whooping cough and the registration of B. pertussis bvg -mutants containing the integration of IS-elements in bacterial carriers confirm the hypothesis that bacterial transition to persistence because of the insertional inactivation of bvg AS operon is possible. Identifying persistent B. pertussis bacteria and studying the mechanisms of their formation is important for creating new vaccination strategies and improvement of pertussis vaccines.

A longstanding notion in labor market theory is that women accommodate family responsibilities in their occupational and job choices. Utilizing a survey of newly graduated highly educated men and women in five occupations in Sweden (n≈2400), the article explores whether men and women differ in their professional strategies and if such differences produce early career wage gaps. Findings based on OLS regressions show that women express dual commitment to work and family; compared with men, they value ‘family-friendly’ work-conditions higher but do not value wages and career lower. Parenthood is not related to lower levels of career focus, but neutralizes occupational differences in family focus for women. Despite the select sample, women have lower wages than men, but the wage gap is not explained by different prioritization of family/career. The findings suggest that assumptions about gendered skill investments must be empirically scrutinized and theories further developed.

The Morality of Spin explores the ethics of political rhetoric crafted to persuade and possibly manipulate potential voters. Based on extensive insider interviews with leaders of Focus on the Family, one of the most powerful Christian right organizations in America, Nathaniel Klemp asks whether the tactic of tailoring a message to a particular audience is politically legitimate or amounts to democratic malpractice. Klemp’s nuanced assessment, highlighting both democratic vices and virtues of the political rhetoric, provides a welcome contribution to recent scholarship on deliberative democracy, rhetoric, and the growing empirical literature on the American Christian right.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Life of the Family Simulating the Life Course of a Model Family Glimpsing the Life Course of Real Families Coming to the End of the Life Course Further Reading

Through a probing investigation of conservative Christianity and its response to an issue that, according to the statistics of conservative Christian groups, affects only a small number of Americans, Ludger Viefhues-Bailey alights on a profound theological conundrum: in today's conservative Christian movement, both sexes are called upon to be at once assertive and submissive, masculine and feminine, not only within the home but also within the church, society, and the state. Therefore the arguments of conservative Christians against same-sex marriage involve more than literal readings of the Bible or nostalgia for simple gender roles. Focusing primarily on texts produced by Focus on the Family, a leading media and ministry organization informing conservative Christian culture, Viefhues-Bailey identifies two distinct ideas of male homosexuality: gender-disturbed and passive; and oversexed, strongly masculine, and aggressive. These homosexualities enable a complex ideal of Christian masculinity in which men are encouraged to be assertive toward the world while also being submissive toward God and family. This web of sexual contradiction influences the flow of power between the sexes and within the state. It joins notions of sexual equality to claims of \"natural\" difference, establishing a fraught basis for respectable romantic marriage. Heterosexual union is then treated as emblematic of, if not essential to, the success of American political lifeyet far from creating gender stability, these tensions produce an endless striving for balance. Viefhues-Bailey's final, brilliant move is to connect the desire for stability to the conservative Christian movement's strategies of political power.

The purpose of the research was to investigate Malian youth's attitudes and opinions about Family Planning (FP), barriers to contraceptive use, and suggestions for FP programming. Qualitative data were collected in focus group discussions (FGD) held with 95 females and males ages 18-24 in the district towns of Kita, Kolokani, Mopti, Sikasso, and Tombouctou. Qualitative thematic content analysis techniques were used to analyze the data. Benefits of FP use were acknowledged; however, it was sti ll considered a taboo topic, especially for unmarried youth. This makes it difficult for youth to access information and services. Many participants expressed a desire to learn more about FP, though they underscored the need for confidential and discrete services. Programming suggestions included improving access to information, raising community awareness, and improving access to methods. The study findings can be used to improve messaging, counseling, outreach, and communication, to improve youth's reproductive health in Mali. (Afr J Reprod Health 2020; 24[2]:106-114). Le but de la recherche était d'étudier les attitudes et les opinions des jeunes maliens au sujet de la planification familiale (PF), les obstacles à l'utilisation des contraceptifs et les suggestions pour la programmation de la PF. Des données qualitatives ont été collectées lors de discussions de groupe (FGD) tenues avec 95 femmes et hommes âgés de 18 à 24 ans dans les villes de district de Kita, Kolokani, Mopti, Sikasso et Tombouctou. Des techniques d'analyse de contenu thématique qualitative ont été utilisées pour analyser les données. Les avantages de l'utilisation de la PF ont été reconnus; cependant, il était toujours considéré comme un sujet tabou, en particulier pour les jeunes célibataires. Cela rend difficile l'accès des jeunes à l'information et aux services. De nombreux participants ont exprimé le désir d'en savoir plus sur la PF, bien qu'ils aient souligné la nécessité de services confidentiels et discrets. Les suggestions de programmation comprenaient l'amélioration de l'accès à l'information, la sensibilisation de la communauté et l'amélioration de l'accès aux méthodes. Les résultats de l'étude peuvent être utilisés pour améliorer la messagerie, le conseil, la sensibilisation et la communication, afin d'améliorer la santé reproductive des jeunes au Mali. (Afr J Reprod Health 2020; 24[2]: 106-114).

Contemporary debates over religious political discourse focus on the role that religion ought to play in the democratic forum. By emphasizing the normative dimensions of religious politics, however, these discussions overlook the structural conditions that shape the political actions of religious groups. To explore this more empirical side of religious discourse, this essay examines the political practices of James Dobson's Focus on the Family, a group that has steadily become the predominant voice in the conservative Christian movement. This case study shows that public discourse theorists underestimate the deep structural pressures that democratic institutions place upon the practices of religious groups. In particular, they overlook the two-fold effect of democracy: while the democratic process moderates Focus on the Family's use of religion in public debates, it also radicalizes their internal practices.