To examine how descriptions of the performance of female athletes are likely to reflect dominant beliefs about gender in society, 769 passages from the print media describing gold medal winning contests for four U.S. women’s teams in the 1996 Olympics (basketball, gymnastics, soccer, and softball) and the U.S. women’s hockey team in the 1998 Olympics were subjected to content analysis. The sports analyzed fall under the categories of Matteo’s study classifying the gender appropriateness of sport (masculine, feminine, and neutral). Two dimensions were examined for each passage: task relevance and use of gender stereotypes. Consistent with our expectations, female athletes in male sports were described by the print media using frequent male-to-female comparisons and comments that had little to do with sports or the athlete’s performance. Print media coverage of female athletes in female sports focused on performance while reinforcing female stereotypes. Implications of the images of female athletes portrayed by the print media are discussed.

A fundamental goal of affirmative action is to eliminate both the consequences of past discrimination and likelihood of future discrimination. Thus, any assessment of the impact of affirmative action must examine two basic questions: (1) Have the consequences of discrimination been eliminated? (2) Are measures in place to prevent discrimination from occurring in the future? The basic conclusion that will be offered in this assessment is that while affirmative action has been successful in reducing some of the effects of discrimination, a wide variety of evidence suggests that the ultimate goal of affirmative action has yet to be reached. Some concerns and limitations of any attempt to assess the impact of affirmative action are discussed along with some thoughts about the future of these programs and policies.

High levels of food insecurity signal the presence of disparities and inequities in local food access, which have been shown to negatively impact the health and well-being of individuals and communities. However, the approaches used to define and measure high food insecurity, also known as a “food desert”, vary widely across research study and intervention methodology. This paper describes the development and validation of a measurement tool called the “Food Abundance Index” (FAI) which is a scorecard for assessing levels of food insecurity across five key dimensions: access, diversity, quality, density, and affordability. A pilot study was conducted to examine levels of food insecurity in order to test the extent to which the FAI can detect food deserts. Nine neighborhoods were selected based on the demographic characteristics of communities shown to be related to food insecurity. Our findings provide evidence that the Food Abundance Index provides a robust measurement tool to assess the extent of food insecurity within a community or neighborhood. Thus, this multidimensional scorecard can be used in future research to detect levels of food insecurity within urban areas and help to bridge the gap between academics, policymakers and practitioners in this important area.

No abstract

High levels of food insecurity signal the presence of disparities and inequities in local food access that have been shown to negatively impact the health and well-being of individuals and communities. Some argue that the lack of healthy, affordable and culturally relevant food within a community represents a troubling social and ethical concern for any society. The current research conducts an assessment of a specific community utilizing the framework outlined by the Food Abundance Index (FAI) scorecard. Combined with contemporary regional data on the demographics of the area, data revealed extremely low scores for both access and density dimensions. Our findings can help business, community and policymakers better understand and target evidence-based solutions to address the issue of food insecurity within this region.