Downloads & Free Reading Options - Results

Taboo communication is examined in relation to its distinctive characteristics and its significance in inhibiting social change involving birth control in Asian and other countries. Taboo communication tends to occur between very high homophilous individuals, which poses problems for communications research. Research is inhibited when researchers are quite unlike the persons they are trying to communicate with. The high degree of homophily between individuals in taboo communication acts as a barrier to diffusion of taboo messages, which in turn perpetuates the taboo status of the topic. This homophily frustrates individuals seeking taboo information because the individuals sought are unlikely to have the information and because of the high degree of redundancy in homophilous friendship networks. Taboo communication can be facilitated by encouraging widespread communication about the taboo message and by relabeling the taboo topic with different word-symbols. Problems involved in diffusion of family planning ideas are different from those involved in diffusion of ideas in other areas. Certain implicit assumptions in the diffusion model on which most Asian family planning programs are based do not recognize these differences. Family planning programs in Asia suggest two modifications in this model: (1) use of paraprofessional change agent aides--to over come the homophily barrier; and (2) payment of diffuser incentives to encourage communication about a taboo topic. (KM)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert