Sociology

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    A curricular audit method: addressing the erasure of intersex, trans and Two-Spirit people and the imprecise use of gender and sex concepts in undergraduate medical education
    (Taylor & Francis, 2023) Lowik, A.J.; Parkyn, Jack; Wiesenthal, Emily; Hubinette, Maria; Wiedmeyer, Mei-ling
    Phenomenon: Intersex, trans, and Two-Spirit people report overwhelmingly negative experiences with health care providers, including having to educate their providers, delaying, foregoing, and discontinuing care due to discrimination and being denied care. Medical education is a critical site of intervention for improving the health and health care experiences of these patients. Medical research studies, clinical guidelines, textbooks, and medical education generally, assumes that patients will be white, endosex, and cisgender; gender and sex concepts are also frequently misused. Approach: We developed and piloted an audit framework and associated tools to assess the quantity and quality of medical education related to gender and sex concepts, as well as physician training and preparedness to meet the needs of intersex, trans, and Two-Spirit patients. We piloted our framework and tools at a single Canadian medical school, the University of British Columbia, focused on their undergraduate MD program. We were interested in assessing the extent to which endosexnormativity, cisnormativity, transnormativity, and the coloniality of gender were informing the curriculum. In this paper, we detail our audit development process, including the role of advisory committees, student focus groups, and expert consultation interviews. We also detail the 3-pronged audit method, and include full-length versions of the student survey, faculty survey, and purpose-built audit question list. Findings: We reflect on the strengths, limits, and challenges of our audit, to inform the uptake and adaptation of this approach by other institutions. We detail our strategy for managing the volume of curricular content, discuss the role of expertise, identify a section of the student survey that needs to be reworked, and look ahead to the vital task of curricular reform and recommendations implementation. Insights: Our findings suggest that curricular audits focused on these populations are lacking but imperative for improving the health of all patients. We detail how enhancing curriculum in these areas, including by adding content about intersex, trans, and Two-Spirit people, and by using gender and sex concepts more accurately, precisely and inclusively, is in line with the CanMEDS competencies, the Medical Council of Canada’s Objectives for the Qualifying Examinations, many institutions’ stated values of equity, inclusion and diversity, and physicians’ ethical, legal and professional obligations.
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    A sex- and gender-based analysis of alcohol treatment intervention research involving youth: a methodological systematic review
    (Public Library of Science, 2024) Lowik, A.J.; Mniszak, Caroline; Pang, Michelle; Ziafat, Kimia; Karamouzian, Mohammad; Knight, Rod
    Background While there is widespread consensus that sex- and gender-related factors are important for how interventions are designed, implemented, and evaluated, it is not currently known how alcohol treatment research accounts for sex characteristics and/or gender identities and modalities. This methodological systematic review documents and assesses how sex characteristics, gender identities, and gender modalities are operationalized in alcohol treatment intervention research involving youth. Methods and findings We searched MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Central Registry of Controlled Trials, PsycINFO, CINAHL, LGBT Life, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and grey literature from 2008 to 2023. We included articles that reported genders and/or sexes of participants 30 years of age and under and screened participants using AUDIT, AUDIT-C, or a structured interview using DSM-IV criteria. We limited the inclusion to studies that enrolled participants in alcohol treatment interventions and used a quantitative study design. We provide a narrative overview of the findings. Of 8,019 studies screened for inclusion, 86 articles were included in the review. None of the studies defined, measured, and reported both sex and gender variables accurately. Only 2 studies reported including trans participants. Most of the studies used gender or sex measures as a covariate to control for the effects of sex or gender on the intervention but did not discuss the rationale for or implications of this procedure. Conclusions Our findings identify that the majority of alcohol treatment intervention research with youth conflate sex and gender factors, including terminologically, conceptually, and methodologically. Based on these findings, we recommend future research in this area define and account for a spectrum of gender modalities, identities, and/or sex characteristics throughout the research life cycle, including during study design, data collection, data analysis, and reporting. It is also imperative that sex and gender variables are used expansively to ensure that intersex and trans youth are meaningfully integrated.
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    Access to and quality of care for sexual and gender minority women living with HIV in Metro Vancouver, Canada: results from a longitudinal cohort study
    (Sage, 2023) Perrin, H.; Shannon, K.; Lowk, A.J.; Rich, A.; Baral, S.; Braschel, M.; Deering, K.
    Background: While scarce, literature suggests that women at the intersection of HIV status and gender and/or sexual minority identities experience heightened social and health disparities within health care systems. Objectives: This study examines the association between sexual and/or gender minority identities and: (1) experiences of poor treatment by health professionals and (2) being unable to access health services among a cohort of women living with HIV in Metro Vancouver, Canada. Design: Data were drawn from a longitudinal community–based cohort of women living with HIV (Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Women’s Longitudinal Needs Assessment). Methods: We examined associations between sexual and/or gender minority identities and the two outcomes. We drew on explanatory variables to measure sexual minority and gender minority identities independently and a combined variable measuring sexual and/or gender minority identities. The associations between each of these three variables and each outcome were analysed using bivariate and multivariable logistic regression models with generalized estimating equations for repeated measures over time. Adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals are reported. Results: The study sample included 1460 observations on 315 participants over 4.5 years (September 2014 to February 2019). Overall, 125 (39.7%) reported poor treatment by health professionals and 102 (32.4%) reported being unable to access health care services when needed at least once over the study period. A total of 110 (34.9%) of participants reported sexual and/or gender minority identities, 106 (33.7%) reporting sexual minority identities, with 29 (9.2%) reporting gender minority identities. In multivariable analysis, adjusting for confounders, sexual minority identities, and combined sexual and/or gender minority identities were significantly associated with increased odds of experiencing poor treatment by health professionals (sexual minority adjusted odds ratio = 1.39 (0.94–2.05); sexual and/or gender minority adjusted odds ratio = 1.48 (1.00–2.18)) and being unable to access health services (sexual minority adjusted odds ratio = 1.89 (1.20–2.97); sexual and/or gender minority adjusted odds ratio = 1.91 (1.23–2.98)). In multivariable analysis, gender minority identities were not significantly associated with increased odds of experiencing poor treatment by health professionals (gender minority adjusted odds ratio = 1.38; 95% CI = 0.76–2.52) and being unable to access health services (gender minority adjusted odds ratio = 1.72; 95% CI = 0.89–3.31) possibly due to low sample size among women with gender minority identities. Conclusion: Our findings suggest the need for access to inclusive, affirming, trauma-informed health care services tailored specifically for and by women living with HIV with sexual and/or gender minority identities.
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    Alice in demographyland: how it looks from the other side of the looking glass
    (Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, 1992) McDaniel, Susan A.
    In this paper, a glimpse of some of the challenges posed to academic women demographers is offered. As the title of the paper suggests, "Alice's" look from the other side of the looking glass may not be every woman's, but hopefully in sharing reflections on (1) challenges to women in academia generally, and (2) the gender challenge to demography in particular, the door can be opened for further discussion, research and change.
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    Are perceived comparative risks realistic among high-risk sports participants?
    (Human Kinetics, 2010) Martha, Cecile; Laurendeau, Jason
    This poper examined how risk sports practitioners, compared with those of the average sports participant, perceive their abilities to manage risks (AMR) and their vulnerability to a serious injury (VSI) whilst participating. We also examined which variables influence perceived comparative VSI. High-risk and moderate-risk sports participonts (n = 432) completed measures of perceived personal AMR, perceived comparative AMR and VSI, and motive of playing to the limit. Results showed that high-risk sports practitioners perceived their VSI as being higher than the average sports participant, while moderate-risk practitioners perceived their VSI as being lower. Perceived comparative VSI was negatively related to perceived personol AMR and positively related to past injury episode, sporting experience, and playing to the limit. In conclusion, perceived comparative risks were similarly realistic amongst high-risk sports practitioners. Future research is needed to further examine the role that perceived comparative risks play in the risk-taking decision-making process.
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    Bodily practices as vehicles for dehumanization in an institution for mental defectives
    (M D P I A G, 2012) Malacrida, Claudia
    This article analyzes the processes of dehumanization that occurred in the Michener Center, a total institution for the purported care and training of people deemed to be mental defectives1 that operated in Alberta, Canada. I report on qualitative interviews with 22 survivors, three ex-workers, and the institutional archival record, drawing out the ways that dehumanization was accomplished through bodily means and the construction of embodied otherness along several axes. First, inmates’ bodies were erased or debased as unruly matter out of place that disturbed the order of rational modernity, a move that meant inmates were not seen as deserving or even requiring of normal human consideration. Spatial practices within the institution included panopticism and isolation, constructing inmates as not only docile but as unworthy of contact and interaction. Dehumanization was also seen as necessary to and facilitative of patient care; to produce inmates as subhuman permitted efficiency, but also neglect and abuse. Finally, practices of hygiene and sequestering the polluting bodies of those deemed mentally defective sustained and justified dehumanization. These practices had profound effects for inmates and also for those charged with caring for them.
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    Classroom re-design to facilitate student learning: a case-study of changes to a university classroom.
    (Indiana University. Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching, 2016) Perks, Tom; Orr, Doug; Alomari, Elham
    This case study examines the physical aspects of a particular university classroom, and what affect specific changes to the classroom had on the perceptions of students, instructors and observers regarding the room as an effective learning space. We compare survey and focus group data collected from students taking courses in the classroom prior to changes to the physical environment with comparable data from students taking courses in the same classroom after specific changes had been made. Immediately following changes to the classroom, notable increases were observed in reported perceptions of student satisfaction with the physical environment, including perceptions of the classroom as a more effective and engaging learning space. Similar perceptions of improvement as a teaching-learning space were reported by instructors and observers. However, subsequent follow-up data collection and analyses suggested little if any sustained increase in perceptions of efficacy of the room as a learning space; indeed, most reported variables returned to baseline levels. The implications of these findings and their relevance to classroom design nevertheless may provide insight regarding the manner in which physical space might support or even enhance teaching and learning.
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    Complicating food security: definitions, discourses, commitments
    (University of Alberta Press, 2014) Ramp, William
    Food security is now commonly seen as one of the defining global issues of the century, intertwined with population and consumption shifts, climate change, environmental degradation, water scarcity, and the geopolitics attending globalization. Some analysts suggest that food security threats are so urgent that philosophical scruples must be set aside in order to concentrate all resources on developing and implementing radical strategies to avert a looming civilizational crisis. This article suggests that definitions of food security invoke commitments and have consequences, and that continued critical and conceptual attention to the language employed in food security research and policy is warranted.
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    Continuing the conversation on Canada: changing patterns of religious service attendance
    (Wiley, 2011) Bibby, Reginald W.
    David Eagle's article on changing patterns of religious service attendance appeared in the March 2011 issue of Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. He presented a comprehensive analysis of three data sets that allow social scientists to estimate the rate of religious service attendance in Canada: Project Canada Survey (PCS), the General Social Survey (GSS), and the Canadian Survey of Giving, Volunteering, and Participating (GSGVP). Reginald Bibby initiated the PCS in 1975, 10 years before Statistics Canada began conducting the GSS in 1985, and 22 years before the GSGVP began in 1997. He comments on the Eagle article, cautions scholars to be mindful of important methodological differences across samples, and offers his own analysis of trends in religious service attendance.
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    The conundrum of demographic aging and policy challenges: a comparative case study of Canada, Japan and Korea
    (University of Alberta. Department of Sociology, 2009) McDaniel, Susan A.
    Some analysts lean toward comparative analyses of population aging, then draw potentialpolicy implications. Others lean in the direction of attention to differences in policy regimes and then consider implications of population aging. Key differences among advanced societies may not emanate from demographic aging but from differences in how markets, states, and families work to redistribute societal benefits. In this paper, three countries with contrasting configurations of markets, states, and families, and at different stages of demographic aging, are compared and contrasted: Canada, Japan, and Korea. The paper has three objectives: 1) to outline key changes in population, family, and work in the three countries; 2) to consider how knowledge about these changes, their dynamics and interrelationships, is framed with respect to policy options; and 3) to compare Canada, Japan, and Korea in terms of the framing of policy challenges related to demographic aging. It is found that Canada is joining the longstanding pattern of Japan and Korea of late home-leaving by youth, meaning less effective time in the paid labour force. Little deep connection exists between population aging and economic productivity or labour force shortages. Differential labour market participation of women mediates the effects of population aging.
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    The Demographic Sources of Ontario Gaming Revenue
    (Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre, 2004-06-23) Williams, Robert J.; Wood, Robert T.
    The present study reinvestigated the gaming revenue contributions of Ontario problem gamblers. An attempt was made to exclude out-of-province expenditures as well as revenues from non-Ontario residents. Better methods were used to establish the prevalence rate (better instrument; more exhaustive RDD sampling to achieve a better response rate; adjustments for populations not available for sampling). Improved methodology was used to obtain self-reported net expenditures (prospective 4 week diaries of gambling expenditures; clear, non-biasing questions explaining what is meant by ‘net expenditure’). Various methods were used to establish the validity of these self-reported expenditures, including comparison with actual Ontario gaming revenues collected in this time period.
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    Designing a Longitudinal Cohort Study of Gambling in Alberta: Rationale, Methods, and Challenges
    (Springer, 2008-12) el-Guebaly, Nady; Casey, David M.; Hodgins, David C.; Smith, Garry J.; Williams, Robert J.; Schopflocher, Donald Peter; Wood, Robert T.
    Longitudinal research on the determinants of gambling behavior is sparse. This article briefly reviews the previous seventeen longitudinally designed studies, focusing on the methodology for each study. This is followed by a description of our ongoing longitudinal study entitled the Leisure, Lifestyle, & Lifecycle Project (LLLP). Participants for the LLLP were recruited from four locations in Alberta, Canada, including both rural and urban populations. In the LLLP most participants were recruited using random digit dialing (RDD), with 1808 participants from 5 age cohorts at baseline: 13-15, 18-20, 23-25, 43-45, and 63-65. Individuals completed telephone, computer, and face-to-face surveys at baseline, with the data collection occurring between February and October, 2006. At baseline, a wide variety of constructs were measured, including gambling behavior, substance use, psychopathology, intelligence, family environment, and internalizing and externalizing problems. Finally, the conclusions that can be drawn thus far are discussed as well as the plans for three future data collections.
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    Do we really want to keep the gate threshold that high?
    (2021) Brooks, Grace; Pras, Amandine; Elafros, Athena; Lockett, Monica
    Drawing upon the survey instruments of Lewis and Neville [1], Nadal [2], and Yang and Carroll [3], we conducted an online survey that captured experiences of discrimination and microaggressions reported by 387 recording engineers, producers, and studio assistants living in 46 different countries. Our statistical analyses reveal highly significant and systemic gender inequalities within the field, e.g., cisgender women experience many more sexually inappropriate comments (p < e-14, large effect size) and unwanted comments about their physical appearance (p < e-12, large effect size) than do cisgender men, and they are much more likely to face challenges to their authority (p < e-13, large effect size) and expertise (p < e-10, large effect size). A comparison of our results with a study about women’s experiences of microaggressions within STEM academia [3] indicates that the recording studio workplace scores 33% worse on the silencing and maginalization of women, 33% worse on gender-related workplace microaggressions, and 24% worse on sexual objectification. These findings call for serious reflection on the part of the community to progress from awareness to collective action that will unlock the control room for women and other marginalized groups of studio professionals.
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    Economic implications of the asocial society: a scoping review of loneliness among young adults across the life course
    (University of Lethbridge, 2023) Boco, Adebiyi G.; Hallstrom, Lars K.; Ofori Dei, Samuel M.; Onyeso, Ogochukwu K.; Sowunmi, Eileen; Swanepoel, Lisa-Marie; Wilson, Brie
    Loneliness — the subjective experience of social isolation — is a pervasive social issue, negatively impacting individuals across the life course. Loneliness and its consequences have primarily been studied in older populations. Yet, recent data indicates that loneliness is on the rise among young adults globally, including in Canada. The economic consequences of loneliness among young adults are increasingly being recognized. In this scoping review, we asked what the existing research tells us about the economic impacts and dimensions of loneliness among young adults in Canada and internationally. This review mapped and synthesized the available evidence on the economic impacts of loneliness and interventions targeted to reduce loneliness in young adults (15-35 years) in Canada and globally, highlighting gaps and areas for future research.
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    The elementary forms as political (a)theology
    (University of Alberta Press, 2014) Ramp, William
    Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life examines a fundamental intercalation of selfhood, sociality and cosmology, but as a response to a particular political context, it may also speak to contemporary issues of sovereignty and democracy. Reading the Elementary Forms in this context, and in light of Durkheim’s references to monarchy, absolutism and revolution, is suggestive of an approach to such issues which resists sacrifice of the social to the sovereign, whether hierarchical or popular.
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    Embodied action, embodied theory: understanding the body in society
    (M D P I A G, 2013) Low, Jacqueline; Malacrida, Claudia
    [No abstract available]
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    Engaged queer scholarship: probing a new paradigm of knowledge creation
    (CISP Press, 2014) Mulé, Nick; Lowik, A.J.; Teixeira, Rob; Hudler, Richard; Hader, Davina
    This article features a reflexive iteration of engaged scholarship regarding the Queer Liberation Theory Project, a community-based research study with the social justice group Queer Ontario, which involves academics, activists, and artists, a number of whom are cross affiliated. We explore the tensions and challenges involved in developing and creating knowledge via an engaged scholarship process that must respect the historical philosophical perspectives of a social movement as well as today’s academic theories. This article addresses the challenges of developing new knowledge (a theory) that counters a powerful, neoliberal, mainstream segment of today’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements, with implications for society at large. The layered issues associated with engaged scholarship are disentangled, including vulnerability to neoliberalism, navigating competing perspectives, and how academics/activists/artists both understand and engage in knowledge creation.
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    Gambling and problem gambling in a sample of university students
    (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 2006-04) Williams, Robert J.; Connolly, Dennis; Wood, Robert T.; Nowatzki, Nadine R.
    University students from southern Alberta (n = 585) were administered a questionnaire to assess their gambling behaviour. Seventy-two percent reported gambling in the past 6 months, with the most common types being lotteries and instant win tickets (44%) and games of skill against other people (34%). Most students who gambled spent very little time and money doing so (median time spent = 1.5 hrs; median amount of money spent = $0). While gambling is an innocuous activity for most, a significant minority of students are heavy gamblers who experience adverse consequences from it. Seven and one-half percent of students were classified as problem or pathological gamblers, a rate significantly higher than in the general Alberta adult population. The characteristics that best differentiated problem gamblers from non-problem gamblers were more positive attitudes toward gambling, ethnicity (41% of Asian gamblers were problem gamblers), university major (kinesiology, education, management), superior ability to calculate gambling odds, and older age.
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    Global and Canadian population and beyond: introduction
    (University of Alberta. Department of Sociology, 2014) McDaniel, Susan A.
    No abstract available
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    The global and the local: precautionary behaviors in the realms of crime, health, and home safety
    (University of Alberta, 2009) Van Brunschot, Erin Gibbs; Laurendeau, Jason; Keown, Leslie-Anne
    Expressions of anxieties are examined in the realms of crime, health and home safety. We consider protective behaviours that individuals undertake in each of these realms as potential outlets for the expression of anxiety; the way in which elements of social context such as age, education and income, and biographical factors including past experiences, perceived control, and anxieties about future events contribute to protective behaviours within each realm is examined. Findings indicate different factors drive precautionary behaviours for men and women, suggesting gender as a lens through which precautionary behaviours are taken up. Global anxiety inconsistently predicts precautionary behaviours — a finding that questions both the utility of and the theoretical significance of global anxiety. Local (individual) negative experiences within these realms play an important role in predicting preventative behaviour, although the impact of negative experiences among the realms and between the sexes is inconsistent. Light is shed on the relationship between global anxieties and local expressions suggesting that behaviour may have a far more local element than might be expected.