New infections with HIV remain an urgent problem among young people in Africa, but many young Africans pursue sexual relationships with little thought about the epidemic. This book examines young people's sexual relationships in a region typical of rural sub-Saharan Africa and investigates why the risk of HIV infection generally was not a salient concern for them. It is based on an extraordinarily large and representative qualitative study that was affiliated with an adolescent se...

Written by a social worker, popular educator, and member of the transgender community, this well-rounded resource combines an accessible portrait of transgenderism with a rich history of transgender life and its unique experiences of discrimination. Chapters introduce transgenderism and its psychological, physical, and social processes. They describe the coming out process and its effect on family and friends, the relationship between sexual orientation, and gender and the differences betw...

Reflections from Common Ground . . . Cultural Awareness in Healthcare, showcases many of the opportunities and tools available for healthcare professionals to develop cultural awareness and competency. This unique book offers a way forward and easily lends itself to personal, group or institutional use. It is a tool to promote change, while also an interesting look into the origins of what we encounter in ourselves and others.

In Do Parents Matter? anthropologists (and grandparents) Robert & Sarah LeVine investigate the diversity of parenting practices across the world - from the USA to Africa, Japan to Mexico - and come away with a reassuring conclusion: children tend to turn out to be the same well-adjusted adults all around the world no matter the parenting style.Japanese children sleep with their parents well into primary school, women of the Hausa tribe (largely based in Ni...

In this groundbreaking narrative, longtime Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg and award-winning AIDS researcher Daniel Halperin tell the surprising story of how Western colonial powers unwittingly sparked the AIDS epidemic and then fanned its rise. Drawing on remarkable new science, Tinderbox overturns the conventional wisdom on the origins of this deadly pandemic and the best ways to fight it today.Recent genetic studies have traced the birth of HIV to the fo...

This key textbook provides a firm grounding in theoretical and practical aspects of the study of sexual health for both undergraduates and post-graduates.

Sociology is a key topic for all trainee health professionals, but many struggle to see what sociology has to offer. Based on years of experience teaching sociology to healthcare students, Lani Russell has written a truly introductory text which explains the main sociological concepts without jargon or becoming too advanced. Using carefully chosen examples, she shows how health issues are influenced by social phenomena such as class, race or sexuality and the relevance this has for practit...

The debate over "nature versus nature" continues over the causes of homosexuality. Is there a gay gene? Is there something about the way a child is raised that can "turn" her gay? Or is being gay simply a "choice"? Taking a look at the major genetic, biological, and psychological theories of the origins of homosexuality, this book asks questions about gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation that are at the center of gay people's sense of identity and their struggle for civil rights...

Custom cutting and modification of the genitalia of female infants, girls, and adolescents has been a common place practice in some communities since antiquity. It endures today basically in the African continent and among small communities in the Middle East and Asia. The range of these genital procedures has been expressed as female circumcision, or more recently, female genital mutilation (FGM) as a general name describing several different traditional procedural cuttings that emphasize...

This is an important and complete resource for:Transgender People who seek more information about themselves, their gender origins, aides to transitioning, and how to maintain better relations with and come out to family members, others meaningful people, and employers;Those Who Know a Transgender Person will learn the cause, why it is kept a secret, their biological imperative to express their inner gender, and how to maintain a loving relationship with their transgender l...

Proceeding from the premise that gender influences sexuality and sexual behaviour, Sex, Power and Taboo provides an interdisciplinary exploration of how gender affects HIV risk and prevention. The paradigm of HIV and AIDS research is shifted by illuminating the influence of gender ideologies, norms and power relationships on sexuality and the impact of gender on HIV risk and prevention within and outside of the Caribbean. From the diverse Caribbean and International perspectives, the contr...

A Companion to Medical Anthropology examines the current issues, controversies, and state of the field in medical anthropology today.Provides an expert view of the major topics and themes to concern the discipline since its founding in the 1960sWritten by leading international scholars in medical anthropologyCovers environmental health, global health, biotechnology, syndemics, nutrition, substance abuse, infectious disease, and sexuality and repro...