Youth, Aging and Life Course Division Newsletter in Brief Society for the Study of Social Problems Summer 2009 Editors’ Notes Hello, Everyone! We hope that you are all enjoying summer and that you are gearing up for travel to the August 2009 meetings in San Francisco, CA! This newsletter includes all important information about the panel and roundtable sessions that the Youth, Aging, and Life Course (YALC) division is sponsoring or co-sponsoring at this year’s SSSP meetings. Please forward information about the YALC Division to students, colleagues, and friends, and encourage them to attend our sessions and come to our business meeting in San Francisco. Also encourage others to join the YALC division of SSSP, because we can use new members, especially ones who would like to get more involved! While this newsletter is primarily about the 2009 meetings, you can also find an introductory letter from our newly-elected YALC Division Chair, Christopher Wellin, who has been elected for the 2009-2011 term. Please help us welcome Chris, and be ready to help him in preparing for the 2010 meetings. Please note that all SSSP conference participants are invited to the Welcoming Reception on Thursday, August 6, at 6:00pm, to celebrate the opening of the 59th Annual Meeting. The YALC Division will be co-sponsoring a Division Reception on Friday, August 7 from 6:30pm – 7:30pm as well, and we encourage everyone to come to both receptions to enjoy the free food and good company! The YALC Divisional Business meeting is open to all SSSP members and will be on Friday, August 7th, from 10:30am - 12:10pm SCH-Stanford West. Please come and bring a friend! This is a good place to meet others in the division and to volunteer for service. We hope you enjoy this very short pre-meeting newsletter, and we hope that this newsletter reminds you to stay involved in the Division’s events while at the 2009 meetings. Remember that you can send us the details on your career moves, recognitions, recent publications, job openings, or calls for papers for future newsletters. The next YALC newsletter will come out in mid-Fall 2009. Please contact Heather Dillaway at dillaway@wayne.edu or Leslie Elrod at Leslie.Elrod@uc.edu, if you have any questions about the YALC division, the 2009 SSSP meetings, or the items in this newsletter. See you in San Francisco in a few weeks! Heather Dillaway and Leslie Elrod, Newsletter Co-Editors Greetings from the Incoming Chair of the Y.A.L.C. Division of SSSP!!! Dear Members of the SSSP division on Youth, Aging, and the Life Course, I’m very excited to be able to serve as Chair of this special problems division of the SSSP. In taking on this role I’ll continue, most gratefully, to lean on several colleagues and SSSP staff members, particularly on Heather Dillaway who has been serving in this capacity for the past couple of years. I had the opportunity last summer, in Boston, to be a discussant on a panel that included Heather’s work; it was co-sponsored by the Institutional Ethnography division and featured critical perspectives of people with various disabilities toward the formal health and social services sectors. The discourse in that session crystallized for me some of what is so important and timely about research into youth, aging and the life course: Cultural assumptions about age/aging, as well as their impact on access to health and social services, are being sharply contested in the current political debates surrounding health policy reform in this period of fiscal crisis. The question, for example, of whether such services should be distributed based upon age or need—one explored presciently years ago by Bernice Neugarten—is being revisited now with new urgency. Also, as we saw with the prior administration’s failed efforts to privatize Social Security, perceptions of the efficacy of large-scale federal programs vary widely based on age (i.e., on one’s birth cohort membership). Having said this, it’s equally true that the traditional linkage in academic research between aging, disability, and dependence (a linkage Carroll Estes termed “The Aging Enterprise”) is being challenged as never before, as tens of millions of baby boomers approach retirement with an uneasy mixture of cultural latitude (to age in new ways) and financial anxiety as assets vanish. These questions represent but one slice of very broad and dynamic spectrum of theoretical, empirical, and political inquiry. As Chair of the special division on Y.A.L.C., my role will be to facilitate and support the efforts of a large and varied community. I come to the role having worked years as a paid caregiver in residential care settings for older people, and with a strong commitment to advancing and integrating members’ scholarly, pedagogical, policy and activist work. My first and arguably most important task is to learn all I can and meet people at the upcoming meetings in San Francisco. I’ll attend sessions, take part in the SSSP mentorship program, and take part in meetings through which I’ll divine how the Y.A.L.C. division’s agenda can best be promoted in the larger association. I hope that you will consider coming to the Divisional Business meeting on Friday, August 7th, to help me begin to prepare for the 2010 meetings. I am just beginning a job on the faculty of the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Illinois State University, Normal, IL. Despite the rigors of learning the ropes in a new setting, I will welcome and respond to any/all messages in the weeks leading up to the annual meetings. A particular focus of mine will be to help shape an exciting program for 2010. See you in San Francisco, Christopher Wellin Incoming YALC Division Chair, 2009-2011 cwellin@ilstu.edu SSSP Sessions Sponsored by the YALC Division: Please make sure these sessions are well-attended! SESSIONS ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 7TH 12:30pm – 2:10pm THEMATIC Session 24: Race, Gender and the Body Politic Room: SCH-Fournou’s Oven Sponsor: Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Organizer: Leslie Elrod, University of Cincinnati RWC Presider: Hara Bastas, University of Cincinnati Papers: * “The Paradox Between Embodied Strategies of Resistance to Social Controls and Self-Surveillance Practices,” Elizabeth Scheel, Saint Cloud State University * “Cultural Food Colonialism: Consuming the Other or Cooking Up Curiosity?” Melinda Mills, Georgia State University * “The lived female body: Sport and physical activity contribute to a positive self-concept,” Giovanna Follo, Emporia State University * “The Splitting of Girls’ Body Politic,” Hara Bastas, University of Cincinnati * “Social Consequences of Prejudice Toward Obese and Overweight Latino/a Children and Their Families,” Gloria Martinez, Texas State University-San Marcos 4:30pm – 6:10 Session 44: Learning to Labor? Schools as Sites of Inequality and Struggle Room: SCH-Fournou’s Oven Sponsors: Labor Studies Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Organizers: Heather E. Dillaway, Wayne State University, Reuben N. Roth, Laurentian University Presider: Peter Bahr, Wayne State University Papers: * “Success of Low Income Students in Higher Education: Preparations, Pathways, and Choices,” Ted Brimeyer, Georgia Southern University * “Teachers’ Perceptions, Race, and Student Outcomes,” Morgan Millar, Washington State University * “The Cooling Out Function in Higher Education: Do Financial Aid Policies Reproduce Inequality?” Terry Weiner, Union College * “The Advocate Within: An Autoethnographic Analysis of Negotiating the Roles of Employee, Researcher, and Advocate in a Behavioral Health Group Home for Adolescent Boys,” Kenneth Cruz, Northern Arizona University * “The Technologies of Risk & Safety: Education as Training for Work,” Lindsay Kerr, OISE/University of Toronto SESSIONS ON SATURDAY, AUGUST 8TH 12:30-2:10 Session 59: Eldercare Room: SCH-Rincon Hill Sponsors: Health, Health Policy, and Health Services; Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Organizer & Presider: Ronnie J. Steinberg, Vanderbilt University Papers: * “Missing Older Adults with Dementia: A Study of News Coverage of Incidents and Policy Developments, 2006-2008,” Glenn Muschert, Gina Petonito, Tirth Bhatta and Lydia Manning, Miami University * “Negotiating the Ethics of Elder Care in the Transnational Field: A Case of Immigrants in the U.S. and their Parents in Taiwan,” Ken Sun, Brandeis University * “The Long Term Care Ombudsman Program: A Social Movement Organization?” Brooke Hollister and Carroll Estes, UCSF * “Innovative Eldercare in the United States: the Eden Model,” Ronnie J. Steinberg, Vanderbilt University SESSIONS ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 9TH 8:30-10:10 Session 95: Caregiving across the Life Course Room: UC-4th Floor Lounge Sponsors: Family Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Organizers & Presiders: Elizabeth R. Paré, Wayne State University, Heather E. Dillaway, Wayne State University Papers: * “One is One and Two is Ten: The Effect of the Transition from One to Two Children on Mothers’ Labor Force Participation,” Chardie Baird, Kansas State University and Stephanie Burge, University of Oklahoma * “Where, What, and Who Are Mothers Supposed to Be? Exploring Public Discourse on Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama for Cultural Prescriptions about Motherhood,” Heather E. Dillaway and Elizabeth R. Paré, Wayne State University * “Caregiving and Work-Family Conflict: Implications for Mental Health,” Ronald Bulanda, Jennifer Roebuck Bulanda and Stephen Lippmann, Miami University * “University Student’s Underlying Thoughts About the Support Given to the Elderly in China,” Di Xue, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Ochanomizu University * “Things that Can Happen During a Qualitative Study: One Researcher’s Account while Working with Low-Income Mothers and Caregivers,” Sharon Lindhorst Everhardt, Wayne State University 12:30-2:10 Session 108: Childhoods Room: SCH-Nob Hill Sponsor: Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Organizer &Presider: Elizabeth Ann Gage, Roswell Park Cancer Institute Papers: * “Doing Girl: Elementary School Girls Idealizing Heteronormativity,” Kristen Myers and Laura Raymond, Northern Illinois University * “The Relationship between Adolescents’ Romantic Involvement and the Transition to Adulthood,” Stephanie Burge and Ann Beutel, University of Oklahoma * “Immunity and Vulnerability to Violence among Rural Adolescents,” Jennifer Esala, University of New Hampshire * “Does Religion Matter? Examining the Importance of Family Characteristics and Religiosity on Educational Attainment,” Christy Panagakis, SUNY Buffalo * “Respect and Respectability: Parenting Strategies of Marginalized Mothers,” Mary Ann Kanieski, Saint Mary’s College 2:30-4:10 Session 124: Gender, Health, Aging and New Body Technologies Room: UC-Black Cat Bar Sponsors: Health, Health Policy, and Health Services; Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Organizers &Discussants: Abigail Brooks, Boston College, Cheryl D. Stults, Brandeis University Papers: * “Doping & Obesity: U.S. Body Politics in a Militarizing Nation,” Virginia Husting, Boise State University * “Going Natural or Going Surgical? The Influence of Peer Culture on Women’s Approaches to Aging,” Abigail Brooks, Boston College * “The Debate about the ‘Safety’ of Silicone Breast Implants in the Media,” Cheryl D. Stults, Brandeis University * “The Obligation to Tell & the Duty to Protect: Managing Genetic Risk Information for Underage Children,” Emily Kolker, Brandeis University 4:30-6:10 Session 132: Ageism and Economic Inequality: Understanding Intersections Room: UC-Black Cat Bar Sponsors: Poverty, Class, and Inequality; Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Organizer & Presider: Leah Rogne, Minnesota State University, Mankato Discussant: Heather E. Dillaway, Wayne State University Papers: * “Ageism and Old Age Policy,” Carroll Estes, University of California, San Francisco, Leah Rogne, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Erica Solway, Brooke Hollister and Brian Grossman, University of California, San Francisco * “How does Age Matter? Experiences of Paid Work over the Life Span within the Context of Globalization,” Krista Brumley, Wayne State University * “A Visual Study of Older Adults in an Age-Segregated Place: An Intersectionality Approach,” Mary Byrnes, Western Carolina University and Melissa Gesbeck Howell, Loyola University Chicago * “Friends and Neighbor(hoods): Plans to Move or Stay Among Midlife and Older Adults in a Four Season Climate,” Debra Street, Department of Sociology, SUNY Buffalo Even If You Cannot Come to San Francisco This Year, Please Attend Future SSSP Meetings! 2010 2011 August 13-15, 2010 August 12-14, 2011 The Sheraton Atlanta Hotel The Blackstone, A Renaissance Hotel Atlanta, GA Chicago, IL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We hope you have enjoyed this newsletter! All feedback is welcomed, so please send comments about this newsletter to Heather Dillaway at dillaway@wayne.edu or Leslie Elrod at Leslie.Elrod@uc.edu. 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