institutional celibacy Ever since Erving Goffman’s research on stigma and asylums, sociologists have attributed the sexual woes of mentally ill patients to the stigma of their medical condition. This stigma makes them unattractive as sexual partners, and people with serious mental illness are thus sexually inactive. But while stigma undoubtedly plays a role in the sexual inactivity of the mentally ill, Eric R. Wright, Dustin E. Wright, Brea L. Perry, and Carrie E. Foote-Ardah (Social Problems, Winter 2007) find additional obstacles to sexual activity in the structural and institutional arrangements of the lives of the mentally ill. Using interviews about the sexual behavior of 261 people with mental illness, they discover not only that the sexual advances of the mentally ill are rejected, but also that there are few opportunities to make these advances. Many patients with mental illnesses are restricted to institutions where sexual expression of any kind is either explicitly prohibited or frowned upon by the hospital staff. Units or group homes, furthermore, are often segregated by gender, providing little opportunity for the mentally ill to interact with the opposite sex. Indeed, these institutions see sexual behavior as an obstacle to personal healing and development, rather than as an integral part of a fulfilling life. Both patients and staff see sex as getting in the way of the recovery process. But if the goal of mental health treatment is to enable the mentally ill to live fulfilling lives, how shall they engage in healthy sexual activity? The current system simply avoids this question by imposing celibacy.

lives arising from their ability to work hard and improve their lives despite these obstacles. While these farmworkers do not deny the difficulties of their lives, they are resilient and hopeful. It appears that, at least for this segment of the American workforce, the idea of the American Dream lives on. Yet it does come with a new twist, as these workers almost always describe their success in terms of family support and community connections.

adopt me, madonna! Conventional wisdom says that adopted children do not get the same resources and attention as biological children. This is often explained from an evolutionary standpoint: parents work harder to make sure their genetic material is protected for future generations. But when Laura Hamilton, Simon Cheng, and Brian Powell (American Sociological Review, February 2007) examined how much time and money adoptive parents invested in their children, they found that they invested just as much, and sometimes more, than biological parents. Considering a

photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

nizes people’s previous nationality rather than lumping migrants from different countries together in racial categories, as in the United States. These differences lead to a warmer welcome for migrants to Canada, accounting for its higher rate of naturalization. Perhaps America Junior has something to teach mom and dad.

american dreaming, communally How do those at the bottom of the social ladder think about their place in U.S. society? In analyzing the experiences of one of the most disadvantaged segments of the population—Mexican migrant farmworkers, many of whom are undocumented—José Rubén Parra-Cardona, Laurie A. Bulock, David R. Imig, Francisco A. Villarruel, and Steven J. Gold (Family Relations, July 2006) find stories of adaptation based on hard work and family ties. These workers know that they face discrimination and exploitation at work because they are Latino immigrants. At the same time, they express a general satisfaction with their

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variety of investments—sending children to private school, enrolling them in after-school activities, helping with homework, and volunteering at school—two-parent, adoptive families invested just as much as other two-parent families and more than most other family types. This “adoptive advantage” is explained, in part, by the higher overall education, income, and age levels of adoptive parents. This might explain why rich celebrities like Madonna and Angelina get special treatment when adopting. Little David, Maddox, Zahara, and Pax can look forward to expensive private schools and scheduled activities ...

lently into body fat or muscle tissue, while black users take the time to find a viable vein, sometimes spending an hour to do so. The authors link these bodily practices again to disparate racial experiences: For blacks, the drug elicits ecstasy, symbolizing resistance to a society that privileges

including dodging paparazzi in the afternoons.

unequal tooth decay Inequality rears its ugly head in innumerable ways. To find evidence for it, Kenneth Hudson, Jean Stockard, and Zach Ramberg (Sociological Perspectives, Spring 2007) look no further than people’s mouths. Drawing on data from more than 12,000 respondents to the National Health Education Survey III, they find that African Americans and Mexican Americans have more missing and decayed teeth than other Americans. These differences persist even when controlling for socioeconomic status. If economic inequalities cannot account for the compromised smiles of blacks and Mexican Americans, what does? The authors suggest that cultural attitudes toward dental care also play a role. Minorities tend to use dental services when they develop problems, rather than preventively.

A new study by Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg (Ethnography, Winter 2007) observes racial hierarchies in one of the most outcast groups in the United States— homeless heroin users. Spending ten years of participant observation among a multiethnic group of homeless heroin users in San Francisco, the authors observed a number of racial differences that reinforce symbolic boundaries and hierarchies among black and white heroin users—a system the authors refer to as “intimate apartheid.” Despite their shared, difficult experiences and close living quarters, heroin users reproduce the racial stratification of U.S. society. Bourgois and Schonberg discuss two ways in which the racial differences become manifest. First, black and white addicts use different strategies to get money. White addicts either beg passively, “flying signs” on street corners, or work part-time day jobs off the books, usually performing discrete manual labor tasks, such as sweeping or unloading trucks. Black users, on the other hand, do not work such jobs, and they panhandle more actively, using humor or threats to solicit money. They also engage in more petty theft, especially from construction sites. The authors link these differences to the past experiences of blacks and whites in the region. Blacks, who have a history of personal or family experience of racism on the job and union activism, refuse to submit to employers, choosing instead positions that express some form of resistance. Racial hierarchy also expresses itself physically in the ways the users inject heroin. After a while, heroin users have trouble finding a vein in which to inject the drug. White users tend to administer the drug hastily and vio-

photo by Reuters

intimate apartheid

being white. For white users with no experience as victims of racism, drug use does not carry the same glamour of being an outlaw. Instead, their addiction represents their failure to live up to the opportunities their skin color affords them.

rising Catholics In an age of increasing inequality in the United States, the prospects for upward mobility look grim for most groups. Yet one group seems to be bucking the trend— white Catholics. Lisa A. Kester (Social Forces, Spring 2007), using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, analyzed economic indicators of 4,753 non-Hispanic and non-immigrant whites. She discovered that non-Hispanic Catholics have been upwardly mobile during the past few decades. Kester attributes this mobility to several factors. First, Catholic marriage patterns and values that reject divorce keep dual-earning households intact. This is coupled with a decrease in family size; once-large Catholic families are now similar to those of mainline Protestants. Also, Catholics have increased their educational attainment, partially as a by-product of attending Catholic schools. Finally, Catholic values concerning work and money stress saving, and the Church itself does not have a strong tradition of tithing. And yet, as Kester points out, these factors may not necessarily translate into future upward mobility. Their

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