Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2010. / Title from screen (viewed on July 19, 2010). Department of Sociology, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Peter Seybold, Patricia A. Wittberg, Christine Leland. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-54).

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Sammanfattning Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka utlandsfödda mödrars personliga erfarenheter och upplevelser av livet som student och ensamstående förälder. Vi ville få svar på hur mödrar med invandrarbakgrund upplever att vara ensamstående förälder och studenter och hur mödrarna uppfattar att deras barn påverkas av familjens livssituation. Vårt teoretiska ramverk utgår främst från Erving Goffmans teorier om stigma och det dramaturgiska perspektivet samt Trost & Levin och Angelöw & Jonssons rollteorier. Tidigare forskning, som används till denna studie, är forskning som berör den ensamstående och studerande moderns aktuella livssituation och som bygger på dialoger kring rollerna och dess avvikelser. Studiens slutsats visar att våra intervjupersoner upplever en press i sin aktuella livssituation och att barnen berörs av mödrarnas livssituation samt att mödrarna ömsesidigt också berörs av barnets situation. Dessutom bidar deras aktuella livssituation till upplevelser av utanförskap då deras förhållanden att vara ”ensamstående samtidigt som student med invandrarbakgrund” anses vara avvikande från samhällets normer och värderingar för våra intervjupersoner. Vi tillämpade en kvalitativ forskningsansats där sammanlagt åtta ensamstående och studerande mödrar med invandrarbakgrund intervjuats utifrån semistrukturerade intervjufrågor. Med utgångspunkt i ett centralt feministteoretiskt koncept; intersektionalism kan framtida forskning undersöka hur de olika egenskaperna som deltagarna karaktäriseras av samvarierar med varandra och vidare hur dessa egenskaper tillsammans kan leda till social exkludering.

Some research has been done on this subject, although sparsely. The purpose of this study is to determine how, why, and to what extent representation in fiction matters, in regard to socially stigmatized groups of people, focusing on mental health, sexuality, and gender roles. The main focus is on bonding with fictional characters, how it relates to representation and its importance. Eleven (cis)female participants shared their own experiences with this. Each written reply was condensed, eventually narrowed down to three main components considered central to this phenomenon; (1) a sense of isolation, (2) an inability to cope, and (3) relatability in characters. These components can all be connected to loneliness, which suggests that loneliness plays a large part in one's sense of self-worth. Thus, representation can be argued to be vital, due to its function of including and speaking for stigmatized groups of people, granting a sense of belonging and support.

BACKGROUND: Substance use disorders are highly prevalent and highly stigmatized. They are defined as conditions in which the use of one or more substances, in spite of negative consequences, leads to a clinically significant impairment or distress. Stigma is a characteristic deemed undesirable by society. Stigma is dependent on the relationship between the specific discrediting or undesirable characteristic and the social context. LITERATURE REVIEW FINDINGS: The various manifestations of stigma include public or external stigma, provider stigma, and internal stigma. External stigma is the negative beliefs that society holds about people in stigmatized groups, for example patients with substance use disorders or HIV. Another type of stigma is provider stigma, referring to the negative beliefs that providers hold about patients belonging to these stigmatized groups. Internal stigma is defined as the devaluation that people in stigmatized groups hold about themselves in relation to society. Stigma is continued when there is a lack of familiarity and education with a stigmatized condition or group. PROPOSED PROJECT: The proposed project aims to address and decrease provider stigma in physician assistant trainees before they begin their clinical training through an educational intervention. This thesis will propose the development and evaluation of a new curriculum to educate physician assistant students on substance use disorders and their treatments, frame substance use disorders as chronic diseases, and aid physician assistant student trainees on recognizing their attitudes and biases, or prejudices, toward working with patients with substance use disorders. The project will assess attitudes before and after the education intervention to analyze if attitudes toward patients with substance use disorders have changed as a result of the educational intervention. The goal of the educational curriculum is to improve physician assistant student attitudes toward working with patients with substance use disorders before they encounter this population in clinical practice. SIGNIFICANCE: Physician assistants are clinicians who diagnose illness, develop treatment plans, manage their own patients, and often serve as the primary clinician for patients. Physician assistants will encounter a number of patients with substance use disorders throughout the course of their careers. Addressing provider stigma in this group will help improve treatment outcomes in this patient population and give the students the confidence and knowledge to manage patients with substance use disorders. As a result of completing this curriculum, physician assistant students will have decreased stigma and better attitudes toward working with patients with substance use disorders.

In an effort to shift away from the narrow medical model of drug treatment the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), in 1982, introduced the idea of the 'problem drug user' (PDU) and recommended a multi-disciplinary approach in order to meet the increasingly evident multiple and complex problems presented by dependent drug users. However, despite the development of a series of drug strategies (HM Government, 1995; 1998; 2002; 2008; 2010) and vast increases in funding, dependent drug users are still struggling to receive the services they require to address their diverse problems (Neale, 2008; Buchanan, 2010). Through an analysis of in-depth interviews with dependent drug users and their keyworkers this thesis seeks to explain these deficiencies. The author argues that the broad umbrella of drug policy that has adopted a framework of risk-based strategies to regulate and control drugs and drug users has focused on the social and economic costs associated with problem drug use, particularly in relation to the belief that much acquisitive crime is drug-related. Hence, the focus has not been on the problems that drug users have but on the problems they cause. The medical model that has dominated the treatment of addiction has been reinforced, therefore, not only because 'drug addiction' has been described as a chronic and relapsing condition (NTA, 2002), but also because of the wider social control objectives (crime reduction, in particular) that this approach delivers (Lind et al., 2005; Gossop, 2005; Millar et al., 2008). The author examines the implications of these drug policy directions on the treatment journeys of dependent drug users. Firstly, the author demonstrates how the confluence of the health and crime reduction agendas has led to the paradoxical perception of drug users as being 'sick-but-deviant' that has served to exacerbate their stigmatised identities. Secondly, the author suggests that the closer alignment between the drug treatment workforce and the criminal justice system has led to the isolation of drug treatment from wider health and social care services. Together, these two consequences of drug policies have created further barriers to service access and successful recovery, thereby providing an explanation for the unmet need of dependent drug users attending treatment services.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster that occurred in March of 2011 has not only strongly affected the environment and economy in Japan; it has also impacted the social and psychological well-being of the people of Fukushima Prefecture. Radiation stigma was a problem for the survivors of the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and those with mental health issues have occasionally been subject to discrimination and inadequate treatment. These appear to be similar issues facing those affected in Fukushima, according to news articles covering the nuclear disaster. In interviews conducted with Japanese citizens, it appears that although mental health problems do exist among those affected, mental health discrimination was not reported to be a problem. Some reported specific examples of radiation stigma, and many interviewees revealed that marriage discrimination could certainly become a problem in the future, particularly for women exposed to radiation.

According to a 2017 study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, roughly one in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime. Despite how incredibly common of an experience it is, one almost never hears abortion talked about on an individual basis. This study seeks to find out why people who’ve had abortions do or don’t talk about them, and why, as well as what, if anything, can and needs to be done to change the conversational landscape around abortion. I used qualitative methods to conduct seven participant-led interviews with different people who have had abortions. My findings show that people don’t talk about their abortions for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to: fear of stigma, feeling there’s no non-“awkward” way to bring it up in conversation, and simply not really thinking about it that often. My participants also described a variety of ideas for fighting this stigma, primarily through connecting with, talking with, listening to, and being a source of mutual support for other people who have also had abortions. Because I used a participatory-action model of methods, my participants and I worked to put some of their ideas into action after the conclusion of our interviews.

This thesis is an exploration of infertility and assisted conception in contemporary India. It explores some of the prominent themes underpinning the cultural engagement with reproductive disruption and seeks to understand how people - inflicted infertile individuals and treatment providers - grapple with conception gone-awry. In doing this, the research locates both clinical and non-clinical responses to the process of assisted conception, within the wider cultural context that views infertility as highly undesirable. The research is multi-sited and attempts to connect a number of disparate domains in which the experience of infertility and the promotion and management of its treatment lies dispersed. This has principally entailed an eclectic engagement with a number of diverse 'locales,' such as the political economy of health in India, the mass media as a field for promoting and contesting assisted conception, ancient norms and ideas about fertility and their reverberation in contemporary Hindu conceptual domain. The thesis highlights the importance of this cultural frame for producing stigma and as a 'sense making' resource for understanding assisted conception. Taken together, these locales unravel the complex nature of infertility and assisted conception in India.

The perspective of the individual who self-injures has been under-represented in research. This study places the meaning of self-injury for these individuals at its core. People who self-injure can offer comprehensive and discerning insights into the behaviour. This study confirms the findings of earlier research that self-injury is often rooted in processes of suffering. The social and personal cost experienced by people who self-injure can be high, not only in direct relation to the self-injury itself, but also regarding the legacy of the processes of suffering in general from which self-injury emerged. In this study the processes of suffering, ritual and stigma are explored. Using a qualitative approach, data was collected from 25 self-injuring participants though semi-structured interviews. Interview data was supplemented by diaries and collections of poetry. The main findings from the study are that self-injury can emerge as an action scheme of escape from the processes of suffering. It is a highly stigmatised behaviour which can also develop into an extremely ritualised practice involving a complexity of meanings regarding the surroundings, the apparatus and the process. The self-injury ritual can be viewed as an extreme but therapeutic workout for the five senses of the human body.