We apply a symbolic interactionist framework and a qualitative methodology to the examination of the everyday reality of translational science research (TSR). This is a growing scientific movement that aims to facilitate the efficient application of basic research to clinical service design and delivery. We describe the emerging culture of translational research at a mid-size medical center that received a Clinical and Translational Science Award from the National Institutes of Health. The stories related by scientists, clinicians, and students in interviews indicate that they make sense of the emerging inter- and cross-disciplinary, team-oriented culture of TSR through the refinement and redefinition of the significant symbols that inform their work while they attempt to master translational research by addressing the dilemmas it produces for them and their work. We see the strength, currency, adaptability, and energy of the core self-definition of “scientist” to be significant in shaping the emerging culture of translational research. We conclude by celebrating the value of interpretive ethnography for evaluation research.

The purpose of this qualitative study was twofold. First, the authors examined the phenomenon of inner strength as a resource that women infected with HIV use to cope with and manage their difficult lives. Second, the authors sought the women's views on the potential impact health care workers, specifically nurses, can have on the activation of inner strength. This study was phenomenologically informed and qualitatively structured. The goal was to construct an analytical understanding of inner strength as it is perceived, defined, experienced, and activated by women infected with HIV. Data were collected by means of 19 conversational, biographical interviews. These interviews were conducted with a stratified (by ethnicity and social class) sample of women infected with HIV. The data were elicited in terms of respondents' stories of living with HIV. The women listed a number of definitions for inner strength such as "the ability to fight" and "the motivation to go on and do better." The women recommended that nurses working with them be sensitive to the following patient concerns: validation, reality, sensitivity, and autonomy. The concept of inner strength can be of great scholarly and clinical value if it is defined as follows: Inner strength refers to the different ways women with serious illnesses experience and talk about the deepest, existential resources available to and used by them to manage severe risks to self-integrity. The recommendations, although somewhat critical of nurses, are plausible because they incorporate nurses' traditional approaches to caring for patients.

This article is an empirical examination of the ways in which macro-level social forces have had micro-level consequences in the New Orleans drug market. The article illustrates a clear connection between poverty and entrance into the drug market, as mitigated by race, lack of societal opportunity, lack of social capital, distressed families, and closed neighborhoods. Specifically, the research illustrates the mechanisms by which macro-level social forces intersect to legitimize drug dealing as a viable alternative method of acquiring money and social capital. These intersecting macro-level social forces, such as poverty, race, family structure, and neighborhood characteristics, ultimately constrain the life chances of those living in the inner city irrespective of personal traits, individual motivations, or private achievements.

This essay illustrates the value of time in understanding baby boomers' experiences of rock 'n' roll. In a distinctively interactionist style, I use time as a sensitizing concept in my research on this phenomenon. The orientation that guides this research is methodological tourism, by which the researcher treats something as common and taken-for-granted as rock 'n' roll music in everyday life as strange if not exotic. Structurally, songs about time constitute the most visible temporal structures in the world of rock 'n' roll. Interactionally, I will argue that the concept of the cohort is more useful than that of the decade for an interpretive analysis of musical nostalgia, a key feature of the phenomenon in question. Illustrations of the re exive relationship between rock 'n' roll and time in middle age include using awareness of recent deaths of rock 'n' roll performers to interpret the existential signi cance of aging; using rock 'n' roll songs as benchmarks for signi cant events such as birthdays and anniversaries, as well as gift giving for these events; and using rock 'n' roll music to pass the time.Given the pervasiveness of time in everyday life, it should come as no surprise that most sociologists include at least an implicit sense of time in their writing. As Reese and Katovich (1989:160-61) note, sociologists have approached the study of time both structurally and interactionally. Structurally, we focus on time as observable yet typically takenfor-granted features of social life, or "temporal structures." Temporal structures organize social life for us, and it is our responsibility as competent members of society to abide by normatively approved time markers. Interactionally, we view time as an integral tool in everyday life (Couch 1986;Mead 1932). We use time-time frames, timing, and timeliness-to make sense of situations, events, and relationships. We use time to make sense of the world and to create social order, for as Reese and Katovich THEORETICAL NOTE

An essential feature, and perhaps the harshest reality, of incarceration is the physical separation of the prisoner from those with whom he or she would ordinarily interact-