Obituaries in four major metropolitan newspapers (the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, and the New York Times) are examined for gender differences and compared to a study conducted over twenty years ago by Kastenbaum, Peyton, and Kastenbaum. Not unlike the original study, men receive significantly more obituaries than women in each of the four papers, their obituaries are longer (except for the Miami Herald), and they are accompanied by significantly more photographs (except for the Miami Herald). The greatest evidence of bias is found in the New York Times, where men receive 7.69 times (4.02 times in the original study) as many obituaries as women, even when controlling for more male deaths in New York City. Average ages at death suggest a possible cohort effect. Period effects, gender effects of obituary editors, and decision-making rules are discussed. The results are explained within the context of continued gender discrimination in the workplace and the home.

This article explores sources of strain in older women's friendships. We know a fair amount about the salutary effects of women's friendships, but little about sources of strain and tension. What we do know comes from quantitative studies where subjects respond to lists, categories, or sets of exchanges, not open-ended descriptions of conflict. This project begins to fill that gap by giving voice to older women's understandings of the downside of friendship. Twenty-six older women were intensively interviewed about their friendships and their responses were analyzed using grounded theory methodology. Strain was linked to disruption ofexpectations associated with friendship, including expectations that friends will: (1) share similar interests, personal habits, and friends; (2) be trustworthy; (3) be honest; (4) not exploit one another; (5) live close by; (6) not be overly dependent; (7) share similar social statuses; (8) not be "whiney or demanding" when ill; (9) maintain balance and reciprocity in their friendships; and (10) tease only for fun. Most older women chose to avoid conflict rather than to openly confront their friends when they felt hurt or disappointment.

Spiritual exploration often occurs after the loss of a significant other or with the impending death of oneself. Twenty-six older women were intensively interviewed; none had experienced a recent loss or terminal illness. Many wanted to understand their place in the order of things and were not looking to organized religion for answers. Dominant themes that emerged from the interviews included: a need to feel connected; spiritual questioning; existential angst; thoughts about death and dying; and, to a lesser degree, reliance on organized religion. Some older women—African Americans, Latinas, and women of lower socioeconomic status—turned to the Bible, prayer, and Church for answers to their questions, but most did not. These data suggest that spiritual questioning—independent of organized religion, significant loss, or impending death—is a natural part of the aging process as one approaches the end of the life span.

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The purpose of this article is to document how a course in the fundamentals of sociology encouraged students to rethink negative impressions about people with AIDS. Multimethod, active learning processes were utilized to introduce the sociological imagination, critical thinking, and theory and methods in sociology. The intent was to apply basic sociological knowledge to a real-world issue, HIV/AIDS in a global perspective. In the process of developing basic skills in sociology, a consistent change was noted in students' self-reported impressions about people with AIDS in each of four semesters (N 5 160). Catastrophic contagion characterized their impressions at the beginning of the semester; humanizing attributes (encouragement and empowerment) replaced catastrophic contagion at the end of the semester. Implications of these findings for teaching and learning, and deconstructing HIV/AIDS stigma, are discussed.