INTEGRATING GENDER AND ETHNICITY INTO PSYCHOLOGY COURSES

In this introduction to the special issue on teaching about gender and ethnicity in psychology, we consider the assumptions underlying an inclusive curriculum that pays attention to gender and ethnicity and address why such a curriculum has merit. We review empirical studies, assessing whether existing curricula are inclusive, and present an overview of the articles and the recurrent themes. These themes include the complexity of the interaction between ethnicity and gender; the difficulty of deciding which of the many possible ethnic groups to include in course material; the dominance of evaluative comparison in discussions of differences among groups; the interdisciplinary nature of research on ethnicity; and the tendency in psychology to ignore the importance of the power differences that confound analyses of the effect of ethnicity and gender.     

Assessing elements of women's decisions about mammography.

We investigated motivational and cognitive processes of behavior change with respect to mammography screening. One hundred forty-two women (ages 40 and older) recruited from three worksites answered a 41-item questionnaire consisting of statements based on constructs from the transtheoretical model of behavior change. Principal-components analysis identified two factors: a six-item component representing positive perceptions of mammography (Pros) and a six-item component representing avoidance of mammography (Cons). Analysis of variance showed that Pros, Cons, and a derived Decisional Balance measure (Pros minus Cons) were associated with stage of mammography adoption. Results are consistent with applications of the model to smoking cessation. The model is also discussed as it relates to other theories of behavior change and as a general strategy for analyzing perceptual data pertinent to health-related actions and intentions for behavioral change.