Intersectionality in Clinical Medicine: The Need for a Conceptual Framework

Intersectionality has become a significant intellectual approach for those thinking about the ways that race, gender, and other social identities converge in order to create unique forms of oppression. Although the initial work on intersectionality addressed the unique position of black women relative to both black men and white women, the concept has since been expanded to address a range of social identities. Here we consider how to apply some of the theoretical tools provided by intersectionality to the clinical context. We begin with a brief discussion of intersectionality and how it might be useful in a clinical context. We then discuss two clinical scenarios that highlight how we think considering intersectionality could lead to more successful patient–clinician interactions. Finally, we extrapolate general strategies for applying intersectionality to the clinical context before considering objections and replies.     

Grit Applied Within: Identity and Well-being

This study investigates how grit, perseverance in the face of challenges and focus on achieving goals, relates to identity development and how identity development mediates the relationship between grit and well-being. Emerging adult college students (N = 232) indicated their grit, identity status, and well-being by completing an online questionnaire. Grit-perseverance of effort was associated with all identity statuses. Grit-consistency of interest was associated most identity statuses. Commitment and ruminative exploration mediated the relationship between grit and happiness and self-esteem, respectively.     

The Ethnic Adornment Survey (EAS): Measuring Individuals’ Use of Clothing to Express Ethnic Identity

The present paper introduces the Ethnic Adornment Survey as a measure of the relative frequency with which individuals use clothing to express their ethnic identity. Results of exploratory factor analyses in a pilot study (n = 174) and confirmatory factor analyses in a main study (n = 217) revealed that the Ethnic Adornment Survey measures two positively correlated, yet distinct, ethnic adornment factors (i.e., socially desirable and undesirable aspects). Moreover, results of regression analyses indicated that (1) self-esteem was positively predicted by socially desirable aspects of ethnic adornment (p’s < .05 in both studies); whereas (2) self-esteem was negatively predicted by socially undesirable aspects of ethnic adornment (p’s < .05 in the pilot study and < .10 in the main study). Implications for research on ethnic identity are discussed.     

Effect of fine motor skills training on arithmetical ability in children

Previous researches have shown that there was a strong relationship between fine motor skills and arithmetical abilities in children. However, the majority of previous studies examined only the correlations between fine motor skills and arithmetical abilities, but did not attempt to determine their causal relationship. Thus, the aim of the present study was to examine the effect of motor skills training on arithmetical abilities among 80 first graders. One of the results showed that the intervention group, which received training in fine motor skills for 10 min, showed greater improvements in performance on an arithmetic task and a pegboard than did the active control group, which read their favourite book for 10 min. These findings have suggested that training in this study is an appropriate program for improving fine motor skills and further fine motor skills had a significant influence on arithmetical abilities in children, with a medium effect size. The present study has, for the first time, provided evidence that there will be a causal relationship between these factors.     

An activist religiosity? Exploring Christian support for the Occupy movement

While Christian involvement in progressive social movements and activism is increasingly recognized, this literature has rarely gone beyond conceptualising religion as a resource to consider instead the ways in which individual activists may articulate their religious identity and how this intersects with the political. Based on ten in-depth interviews with Christian supporters of the London Occupy movement, this study offers an opportunity to respond to this gap by exploring the rich meaning-making processes of these activists. The article suggests that the location of the Occupy camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral was of central importance in bringing the Christian Occupiers’ religio-political identities to the foreground, their Christianity being defined in opposition to that represented by St Paul’s. The article then explores the religio-political meaning-making of the Christian Occupiers and introduces the term ‘activist religiosity’ as a way of understanding how religion and politics were articulated, and enacted, in similar ways. Indeed, religion and politics became considerably entangled and intertwined, rendering theoretical frameworks that conceptualise religion as a resource increasingly inappropriate. The features of this activist religiosity include post-institutional identities, a dislike of categorisation, and, centrally, the notion of ‘doings’—a predominant focus on engaged, active involvement.     

The effect of educational environment on identity recognition and perceptions of within-person variability

Individuals from small communities show impoverished face recognition relative to those from large communities, suggesting that the number of faces to which one is exposed has a measurable effect on face processing abilities. We sought to extend these findings by examining a second factor that influences the population of faces to which one is exposed during childhood: educational setting. In particular, we examined whether formerly home-schooled participants show reduced performance relative to non-homeschoolers on the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) and on a sorting task in which participants sort photographs of two unfamiliar identities into piles representing the number of identities they believe are present. On the CFMT, there was no effect of educational setting. However, formerly home-schooled participants showed significant deficits on the sorting task. Such results suggest that reduced exposure to faces early in life as a function of home-schooling may have lasting effects on the face processing system.     

Évaluer les processus de l’identité vocationnelle de l’adolescence à l’entrée dans l’âge adulte : validation française du « Vocational Identity Status Assessment » (VISA)

IntroductionVocational identity construction is a core developmental task from adolescence to emerging adulthood. It is based on six processes assessed by a self-report scale, the “Vocational Identity Status Assessment” (VISA) designed in English by Porfeli et al. (2011).ObjectiveThe aim of the current study was to validate a French version of the VISA both for research considerations and applications to help in adapting individual assistance and counseling to adolescent and emerging adult students.MethodParticipants were 1655 French adolescent and emerging adult students. The identity processes were assessed by three scales: the VISA, the DIDS and the U-MICS.ResultsThe statistical analyses we performed allowed to test the psychometric properties of the VISA and to identify six vocational identity statuses previously defined in the literature. Moreover, the presentation of two individual profiles illustrated the opportunities for application.ConclusionThe VISA is a self-report questionnaire with good psychometric properties, and useful for the identification of the processes involved in the vocational identity construction.     

Diverse identities in Christ according to Paul: the enduring influence of the work of William S. Campbell

Abstract

Unlike previous scholarship that asserted that in places where Jewish and gentile identities conflicted, Jewish traditions and practices had to give way to gentile ones, Campbell’s work sets forth the proposition that Paul envisioned side-by-side, diverse identities expressing themselves in unity. Thus, in Campbell’s reading Paul made room for missional activity to both Jews and gentiles, affirming Peter’s work as well as his own. Furthermore, Campbell shifted the conversation from an opposition between Jews and gentiles in the early church to the challenges of forming early Christ-followers’ identity in the face of the pervasive influence of the Roman empire. Although Campbell’s emphasis on Paul’s Jewish identity seems to place him among the New Perspective on Paul scholars, he recognises that Paul’s own identity was not his primary focus in his letters – the in-Christ gentile identities of the new communities was. This emphasis of Campbell’s work moves him beyond the less nuanced approaches of scholars such as Sanders and Dunn. A significant part of Campbell’s work has been to discuss the relationship between Israel and the emerging Christ movement. He concludes that neither Jewish nor gentile identities are obliterated, nor is gentile Christianity absorbed into or a replacement for Israel. Instead, gentile Christ followers are accepted into God’s people as gentiles, alongside Jews and Jewish Christ followers. William Campbell has been instrumental both within the Paul within Judaism movement, but also in pushing for nuanced and innovative developments stemming from that body of work. His past work commands respect and his future work is highly anticipated.     

Synagogues without rabbis or Christians? Ancient institutions beyond normative discourses

Abstract

This article focuses on a problem that tends to afflict, especially but not exclusively, historical narratives involving written sources celebrated as normative texts in contemporary religious communities. The religious authority ascribed to such texts is often entangled in claims about historical phenomena, resulting in ideological support of specific narratives nourished within religious communities as not only religiously significant but also historically true. Such assumptions in turn sustain aspects of religious identities and thus fulfil the social function of maintaining the status quo within and between communities. Because of their contemporary usefulness, these types of normative narratives are liable to bleed into scholarly reconstructions too, complicating the academic search for historical scenarios untouched by the needs of societies unknown to the ancients. This study aims to illustrate the problems involved through an exercise in which sources that speak to a specific historical question – the nature of ancient synagogues – but which later attained normative status within religious communities, are removed from the historical archive. The reconstruction offered, based on sources with no direct relationship to the continuing histories of Judaism and Christianity, yields a very different picture than the one commonly embraced today. The exercise also indicates the value of re-reading the sources previously removed from a new perspective, which may enrich the religious communities in question as they seek to understand their own history and identity, as well as one another.