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A male hemophiliac, who had contracted AIDS through a contaminated blood product, enrolled as a senior student in an Illinois public high school. The disruptive reactions that had emerged in similar situations were averted. The 13 processes that were primarily responsible for the successful integration of the student into the school system are delineated, illustrated, documented, and interpreted. Four methods--inside participant observation, analysis of documents, interviews, and survey questionnaires--were used to investigate the situation. The findings have implications for three areas: (a) the use of multiple methods in researching large social systems, (b) the sociological understanding of 'overt ambiguous awareness contexts,' and (c) policies for the management of schoolchildren with AIDS. This study appears to be the first to intensively examine the reaction of an educational community to a student with AIDS while the reaction was actually emerging. Other studies have been retrospective.

In this article the authors examine the apparently contradictory concepts of "pet" and "family member" in an attempt to understand how these become translated into a consistent, sensible meaning Employing concepts from frame analysis, they illustrate how the meaning of pets is built up and maintained by framing and keying Although ostensibly about family pets, the analysis is also significant because it provides one model for applying frame analysis to concrete social situations [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]