Pathologies of the Poor: What do the War on Drugs and Welfare Reform Have in Common?

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) authorized drug testing of welfare recipients as a criterion for assistance eligibility. This raises the question of a possible confluence of War on Drugs and Welfare Reform policies, as indicated by continuity in policymakers’ rhetoric. We examine federal-level policymakers’ debates surrounding the authorization of drug testing welfare recipients. The analysis reveals that themes of social pathology were present in both policy areas. Crime, drug addiction, welfare dependency, and drug testing themes are comparable in both debates. Teen pregnancy, out-of-wedlock birth, and female-headed households themes were more prevalent in Welfare Reform debates, with the exception of drug-addicted newborns, which crossed both policy streams

Genetic risk and a primary role for cell-mediated immune mechanisms in multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is a common disease of the central nervous system in which the interplay between inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes typically results in intermittent neurological disturbance followed by progressive accumulation of disability. Epidemiological studies have shown that genetic factors are primarily responsible for the substantially increased frequency of the disease seen in the relatives of affected individuals, and systematic attempts to identify linkage in multiplex families have confirmed that variation within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) exerts the greatest individual effect on risk. Modestly powered genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled more than 20 additional risk loci to be identified and have shown that multiple variants exerting modest individual effects have a key role in disease susceptibility. Most of the genetic architecture underlying susceptibility to the disease remains to be defined and is anticipated to require the analysis of sample sizes that are beyond the numbers currently available to individual research groups. In a collaborative GWAS involving 9,772 cases of European descent collected by 23 research groups working in 15 different countries, we have replicated almost all of the previously suggested associations and identified at least a further 29 novel susceptibility loci. Within the MHC we have refined the identity of the HLA-DRB1 risk alleles and confirmed that variation in the HLA-A gene underlies the independent protective effect attributable to the class I region. Immunologically relevant genes are significantly overrepresented among those mapping close to the identified loci and particularly implicate T-helper-cell differentiation in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis

The Social Construction of Black Fatherhood in Responsible Fatherhood Programs

Since the mid-1990, promoting responsible fatherhood has remained on the national policy agenda, but fatherhood-related policy initiatives have yet to generate tangible outcomes for low-income communities. Almost 1 billion dollars have been allocated to address the combined efforts of marriage and fatherhood education, but the results have been minimal. Recent literature reveals a deep seeded legislative misunderstanding about the reasons behind low marriage rates among low-income couples. Contrary to popular cultural narratives that imply a blatant disregard for marriage, there is evidence that low-income couples respect the institution of marriage. Socio-economic barriers, however, inhibit that union from taking place. Despite this plausible explanation, policy-driven initiatives often employ program curriculums that seek to modify the behaviors of fathers by instilling in them the value of hard work as opposed to addressing the socio-economic circumstances they face. This partly stems from the broader cultural narrative and a related public perception that Black fathers are lazy and unwilling to work. Responsible fatherhood grantees have the potential to begin deconstructing negative perceptions of Black fathers by uncovering new information in these federally funded programs. Using qualitative interviews, this study utilizes a three-article style format to examine the presence of the dominant cultural narratives regarding Black fatherhood in Responsible Fatherhood policies and organizational narratives of the agencies tasked with policy implementation

Społeczne konstruowanie polityk antynarkotykowych oraz ich docelowych populacji. Amerykańska polityka i dyskurs medialny

In this review, we discuss the historical changes in U.S. drug policy discourse, institutional racism, and the social construction of target populations in media discourse. We do not intend to show a cause-effect relationship; instead, we use a social constructionist approach that focuses on meaning production and “truth-claims” to explore the relationship between news media and drug policy. We begin by discussing mass incarceration, war on drugs, and institutional racism. Next, we review a sample of the current research from the fields of sociology and criminology on drug policy, race, and media discourse. We then focus on the most recent articulation of drugrelated policy and media discourse – the discourse surrounding marijuana use, including most recent trends in marijuana discourse. We conclude by noting the possible direction for drug policies and discussing the need for research addressing gaps in current understanding of drug-related discourse and the social construction of target populations.W artykule omawiamy historyczne zmiany w dyskursie dotyczącym amerykańskiej polityki antynarkotykowej, instytucjonalnego rasizmu oraz to, jak konstruowane są społecznie w dyskursie medialnym docelowe populacje. Naszą intencją nie jest ukazanie związku przyczynowo-skutkowego; wykorzystujemy perspektywę społecznego konstruktywizmu w zakresie produkcji znaczeń i „formułowania prawd” w celu zbadania związków między przekazem mediów informacyjnych a polityką antynarkotykową. Na początku omówione zostały problemy: masowego więziennictwa, wojny narkotykowej (war on drugs) i instytucjonalnego rasizmu. W dalszej części prezentujemy fragment aktualnych badań z obszaru socjologii i kryminologii dotyczących polityki antynarkotykowej, kwestii rasowych i dyskursu medialnego. Następnie skupiamy się na najbardziej aktualnych i widocznych formach polityki antynarkotykowej i dyskursu medialnego – dyskursu wokół używania marihuany, z uwzględnieniem najbardziej aktualnych trendów w jego obrębie. W konkluzji wskazujemy na możliwe kierunki badań dotyczących polityki antynarkotykowej i dyskursu medialnego, które mogłyby wypełnić istniejącą w tym obszarze lukę oraz pomóc w zrozumieniu dyskursu odnoszącego się do problematyki narkotykowej oraz sposobu społecznej konstrukcji adresatów wspomnianych polityk

An Intersectional Analysis of Visual Media: A Case Study of Diesel Advertisements

This study is intended to advance the application of an intersectional approach that focuses on the simultaneous operation of gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality to the analysis of visual media, such as advertisements. Despite the growing advocacy to systematically include intersectionality in our analyses of people’s experiences and identities, on the one hand, and their images/representations, on the other, sociologists still tend to analyze only one of these identities at a time. In this article, we argue that the application of the intersectional approach leads to more complex and adequate understandings of how identities and power relations are constructed in visual media. Towards this end, we conduct an intersectional analysis of Diesel advertisements using the concepts of racialized gender and gendered race, and demonstrate the advantages of an intersectional analysis. In doing so, we hope to provide an illustration of an intersectional analysis of visual media, such as advertisements, which could inform the work of others interested in conducting similar analyses

Bringing The Body Back In: The Social Construction of Embodied Sexual Identities

In this paper, we build on the sociology of the body and existentialism to explore the relationships between sexual bodies and sexual identities" and to contribute to a fuller understanding of the processes of sexuality formation from the actor's perspective. Specifically, by centering respondents' bodily experiences and the situations in which they find themselves. this study not only provides an insight into the processes of sexual identity formation and its fluid nature, but also into the possibility that sexual nature can be stable for some and changeable for others. In this context, we introduce the concept of "embodied sexual identity," which can be successfully applied to grasp the different facets, stable and unstable, rigid and malleable, of sexuality as well as the complex relationships between individual experiences of the body and sexual identities

Blocking metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5 relieves maladaptive chronic stress consequences

Etiology and pharmacotherapy of stress-related psychiatric conditions and somatoform disorders are areas of high unmet medical need. Stressors holding chronic plus psychosocial components thereby bear the highest health risk. Although the metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5 (mGlu5) is well studied in the context of acute stress-induced behaviors and physiology, virtually nothing is known about its potential involvement in chronic psychosocial stress. Using the mGlu5 negative allosteric modulator CTEP (2-chloro-4[2-[2,5-dimethy1-1-[4-(trifluoromethoxy)phenylilmidazol-4yl]ethynyl]pyridine), a close analogue of the clinically active drug basimglurant- but optimized for rodent studies, as well as mGlu5-deficient mice in combination with a mouse model of male subordination (termed CSC, chronic subordinate colony housing), we demonstrate that mGlu5 mediates multiple physiological, immunological, and behavioral consequences of chronic psychosocial stressor exposure. For instance, CTEP dose dependently relieved hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunctions, colonic inflammation as well as the CSC-induced increase in innate anxiety; genetic ablation of mGlu5 in mice largely reproduced the stress-protective effects of CTEP and additionally ameliorated CSC-induced physiological anxiety. Interestingly, CSC also induced an upregulation of mGlu5 in the hippocampus, a stress-regulating brain area. Taken together, our findings provide evidence that mGlu5 is an important mediator for a wide range of chronic psychosocial stress-induced alterations and a potentially valuable drug target for the treatment of chronic stress-related pathologies in man. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved