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Asao Inoue's metaphor "cooking in someone else's kitchen" provides a conceptual framework describing how white educators may navigate teaching topics outside of the subject positions they occupy. I apply an intentionally literal interpretation of Inoue's metaphor, to position food culture as an important component of social justice pedagogy. As post-secondary institutions prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, antiracist pedagogies have become a source of uneasiness for many white educators. Often, these educators may give excuses stemming from embodied positionality and fear of saying something wrong, which may become reasons to avoid difficult classroom conversations. As a result, universities lose opportunities to educate students about race-related issues, along with the potential for increased civic engagement. This paper addresses white teachers' apprehension surrounding antiracist pedagogy and presents a food-themed writing course focused on how food has been weaponized historically, contributing to racial, class, and gender injustice—and how similar systems of oppression are still in effect currently. The course centers food as a commonplace to explore race, racism, and cultural difference—while helping teachers gain confidence in joining antiracist efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the perceived connections between culture and food practices among Latino pre-adolescents (n = 17) and their parents (n = 15) through semi-structured interviews. Results show that pre-adolescents have formed perceptions concerning the association between their eating behaviors and cultural background that coincide with their parent's notions. Participants associated culture to both healthy and unhealthy food practices. Latin American food environments were described as healthier than in the US. The interviews revealed conflict between traditional foods preferences and perceptions of health, underscoring the need for better approaches to help Latino families navigate US food environments, while also preserving healthful traditional food practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores the dietary acculturation process among first-generation immigrant families from sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean living in Ottawa (Canada). In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 mothers. The interaction between accelerating factors and other mediating factors resulted in a spiral of dietary changes triggered by immigration. The spiral evolved at different paces from traditional to acculturated and toward healthy or unhealthy diets and was hard to stop or to change in its direction once it started. Findings call for enhancing immigrant mothers’ food access, food literacy and nutrition-related parenting skills, and their children’s school food environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted two experiments to test the effects of status on the relationship between gender and role-taking accuracy. Role-taking accuracy denotes the accuracy with which one can predict another’s behavior. In Study 1, we examine self-evaluative measures of role-taking accuracy and find they do not correlate with actual role-taking accuracy. In addition, women were more accurate role-takers than men, regardless of interaction history. In Study 2, we disentangle gender differences from status differences, hypothesizing that role-taking accuracy is structurally situated. To test this hypothesis, we examine variations in role-taking accuracy when interaction partners are assigned differential status. Results indicate that status differentials account for variations in role-taking accuracy, whereas gender and gender composition of the dyad do not. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Procuring, preparing, and consuming foods are symbolic processes learned and reified within cultural boundaries. While many cultures have established tradition or taste as rules to guide food activities, contemporary Americans are mainly guided by a fascination with health and risk (Pollan,The Omnivore's Dilemma). As reflections of and contributors to public understandings of food and risk, cookbooks can be rich sites for scholarly investigation (Driver; Nestle and McIntosh). In the current study, we explore the representation of tradition, taste, and science in the introductory materials of theJoy of Cooking. While discussions of science were more common than those of taste or tradition, science did not replace the presence of taste and tradition. The presence of science, taste, and tradition varied over time, suggesting that, though they remain criteria for eaters, their importance is constantly negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This Article provides one of the first critical looks at the interface between the values of the sustainable food movement and its rising use of litigation. In particular, it focuses on two growing areas of food sustainability litigation--challenges to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations ("CAFOs") and challenges to the use of genetically modified organisms ("GMOs") in the food system--chosen because they involve growing sectors of U.S. agriculture over which members of the sustainable food movement have raised significant concerns. The Article begins by describing the sustainable food movement, including how the movement fits in with factors that sociologists use to characterize social movements, as well as the values seemingly held by the sustainable food movement. The Article next provides a brief introduction into CAFOs and GMOs. In doing so, the Article explores the types of concerns expressed by the sustainable food movement regarding these issues by examining some popular literature coming out of the sustainable food movement. The Article then analyzes CAFO and GMO litigation in the United States arising from the sustainable food movement. This Article observes how these challenges relate to some of the purported goals of the sustainable food movement, yet recognizes that such litigation might not fully succeed in advancing some of the broader visions of the movement. The Article then explains that the inadequacy of these legal efforts results from the particular ways in which existing legal avenues fail to mesh with the values of the sustainable food movement. This Article concludes by drawing from studies of other historical movements and argues that if the sustainable food movement is to succeed in transforming the U.S. food system, it must seek reform not only through substantive changes to agricultural and food policy, but also through the creation of additional legal avenues for its values to be meaningfully expressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the preparation of meals within her ethnically mixed African and African-American home. She comments on her Ghanaian husband and his preference for Ghanaian foods, including waakye, banku, and pepper sauce. The article examines cultural mores surrounding food and food's importance in constructing gender, nationality, and cultural identity. The author analyzes her husband's criticism of crab cakes and his consumption of meals cooked by Ghanaian women. Other topics include kinship networks, cultural values, and ethnic grocery stores.

In 2003, the Canadian Federal/Provincial/Territorial Task Force on Seniors identified social isolation as an important issue for further study and policy development given that socially isolated persons are considered to be more vulnerable to both inappropriate use of the health care system and poorer health outcomes. In order to provide adequate support to this vulnerable population, it is critical to untangle the complex web of relationships that influence the need for care, and the health status and service utilization patterns of socially isolated older adults. Using data from the 2000-01 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), this article explores social isolation as a multidimensional social construct examining in particular the axes of gender and geography to try to tease out some of this complexity and its relationship to health status and service utilization. When individual characteristics like gender are considered together with broader contextual variables like place of residence, a more comprehensive and layered portrait of vulnerability among socially isolated persons begins to emerge with insights into their unique patterns of health and service use. For example, home care may be an extremely critical resource for keeping older women in their homes and out of hospital. On the other hand, among socially isolated older men, those living in rural communities may be particularly 'invisible', neither benefiting from home care nor having strong social supports. It seems plausible then that both men and women may be in need of special interventions or targeted programmes to help them to remain, or to become, more socially integrated in their communities as they age in place. In addition, this article addresses some of the limitations of using both a quantitative analytic approach and the CCHS dataset itself in grappling with such complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses the nature and types of paradigms, theories, and methods used in articles appearing in the journal of Rural Sociology from 1965 to 1976. The metatheoretical frameworks of Ritzer (1975) and Mullins (1973) are utilized to classify the material. The content analysis shows that the discipline is characterized by theoretical closure and methodological monism, suggesting a crisis of discipline stasis. The crisis is viewed in terms of the historical development of the discipline, recent theoretical writings in rural sociology, and the funding structure of research. The need for a new rural sociology, based on theoretical and methodological pluralism, is discussed in terms of the changing structure of rural societies, the many dimensions of the concept "rural," and the necessity of critical discipline self-analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the direct and indirect effects of race and income inequality on imprisonment rates. The article points out that there has been a tremendous increase in the level of incarceration in the United States. Between 1988 and 1993, the imprisonment rate increased from 244 to 351, which is an increase of 44 percent. Cultural conflict theorists argue that law enforcement officials are more likely to incarcerate minorities than others. At the end of 1993, African-Americans were seven times more likely to be imprisoned than whites. Unemployment rates, economic inequality and poverty rates have been used to measure the effect of economically deprived populations on imprisonment rates. For the study, a cross-sectional data set for all 50 states and the District of Columbia for 1993 were used. Two extra-legal variables were examined. First was the racial composition of each state. Second, was the measurement of economic inequality. The results provide no support for the cultural conflict perspective, which suggests that minority populations directly influence incarceration rates when controlling for crime.

Almost two decades of research on the exact relationship between socio-economic variables and the rate of incarceration has produced highly divergent results. Some of these inconsistencies may be due to the various models specified (some use total crime rather than violent, and some control for system level variables while others do not). Virtually all of the previous research has focused on the direct effect only. Utilizing 1990 cross-sectional state level data this study examines the direct and indirect effects of socio-economic variables on imprisonment rates while controlling for arrests or crimes rates and system level variables (e.g., prison admissions and releases). Models using arrest rate data rather than crime rates were included to capture the effect of the recent "war on drugs" on imprisonment which is not included in the Index Crime rate data. These data reveal that percent nonwhite has a significant and direct effect on imprisonment levels across the U.S., but less of a direct effect in nonsouthern states. The data also document that percent nonwhite has a substantial indirect effect. The indirect effect of economic inequality is greater than the direct effect. Finally, there was no variation in the effects of extra-legal variables between those models which controlled for system level data and those which did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 1983 survey of Texas homebuyers reveals a high degree of mismatch between their preferred and actual residences. Analysis indicates that the logit of fulfilling residential preference is largely determined by the type of area preferred and the occupation and age of the homebuyer. Mismatch is most common among homebuyers preferring a suburban location, less so for those preferring nonmetropolitan residences, and lowest among people preferring central cities. Occupation as a social structural variable also affects homebuyers' chance of fulfilling residential preference. Professionals are more likely to fulfill their residential preferences than persons in other occupations. Finally, younger persons suffer a higher degree of residential mismatch than older persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research develops a structural model of crime and imprisonment in the United States from data on 49 states which was evaluated through a series of path and regression analyses. The major findings revealed that crime rates were effectively predicted by social structural characteristics, primarily urban population characteristics, and in turn that prison admissions were predicted by crime rates. Prison releases were not as strongly influenced by structural characteristics as crime rates and prison admissions: however, prison admissions were found to significantly affect releases. Variations in social structural determinants of violent and property crimes were also observed. The implication of these results are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A causal model of the dimensions of religiosity and its social determinants, especially race, is presented and evaluated using cross-sectional survey data collected in a southern metropolitan area (n = 611). Religiosity is measured in two ways: a single item measure of church attendance and a multi-item Liken scale. The latter is factor analyzed to reveal three additional dimensions of religiosity: religious ritualism, religious communalism, and beliefs in God. Blacks report relatively higher levels of church attendance, ritualism and communalism, net of covariates. For each racial group, social determinants are hypothesized to influence church attendance via the other dimensions of religiosity. The hypothesis is partially confirmed. In addition, race and age are found to interact, with age directly influencing church attendance more for blacks than for whites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are people who will say they haven't eaten the whole day, simply because they haven't had their soup and fufu. If you give them anything--bread sandwich, Caesar salad--they don't [...]

Is it time to establish a food studies canon? In recent years, the field of food studies has come into its own as a means to investigate critical questions about production and consumption. This commentary explores the written sources of two academics' interest in food, and the books that have sparked the food studies movement and today's food revolution. As a topic for readers' consideration, it asks whether food studies has progressed to a stage of development at which it is now possible to identify a core list of books that can be considered to define the field. Keywords: food, food studies, food movement, food bibliography, food sociology, Introduction Within my academic lifetime, the use of food as a means to examine critical questions about the causes and consequences of production and consumption has grown dramatically. Indeed, the [...]