Loftus, Jeni. "America's Liberalization in Attitudes Toward Homosexuality, 1973-1998." American Sociological Review, Vol 66, No 5, 2001.
Abstract: Using General Social Survey data from 1973 to 1998, changing American attitudes toward homosexuality are examined. Two hypotheses are tested: (1) Can changes in attitudes be accounted for by the changing demographics of the population? (2) Are changing attitudes toward homosexuality embedded within larger cultural ideological shifts? The data indicate that Americans distinguish between the morality of homosexuality and the civil liberties of homosexuals. Americans became increasingly negative regarding the morality of homosexuality through 1990, but since then their attitudes have become increasingly liberal. The same 25-year period witnessed a steady decline in Americans' willingness to restrict the civil liberties of homosexuals. Changes in American demographics - particularly increasing educational levels - and changing cultural ideological beliefs can account for only about one-half of the changes over time in attitudes toward homosexuality. Several theories are put forth to explain these patterns of change and the distinction made between morality and civil liberties.
Bancroft, John, Jeni Loftus, J. Scott Long. "Distress About Sex: A National Survey of Women in Heterosexual Relationships." Archives of Sexual Behavior, June 2003.
Abstract:Context: As a consequence of the impact of Viagra on male sexual dysfunction, considerable attention is now being paid to sexual dysfunctions in women, which might respond to pharmacological treatment. Should women's sexual problems be conceptualized the same as men's? Objective: To assess the prevalence of distress about sexuality among women, examine the predictors of such distress, and consider the extent that such distress might indicate sexual dysfunction. Main Outcome Measures: Distress about: a) the sexual relationship, and b) the woman's own sexuality. Results: 24.3% of women reported marked distress about their sexual relationship and/or their own sexuality. The main predictors of sexual distress were mental health, physical health, frequency of sexual activity, lack of positive subjective response during sexual activity, and frequency of rapid ejaculation by the partner. Women with college education were more likely to report slight distress than either no distress or marked distress. None of the indicators of physcial response during sexual activity predicted distress. Applying DSM-IV criteria, which include marked distress, around 7.6% of women may have qualified for diagnosis of sexual dysfunction. Conclusions: The best predictors of sexual distress were markers of emotional state and emotional relationship with partner during sexual activity. Physical aspects of sexual response in women, including arousal, vaginal lubrication, and orgasm were poor predictors.
Bancroft, John, Jeni Loftus and J. Scott Long. “Reply to Rosen and Laumann (2003).” The Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol 32, No 3, 2003.
Pescosolido, Bernice A., Jeni Loftus, Stacy Scherr, Laura Fingerson, Kathryn Gold Hadley, Paul Ruggerio Namaste, and Jenny Stuber. 2004. "The Three Faces of SOTL: The Contribution of the Summer Freshman Institute Project to Service, Teaching and Research." In William Becker and Moya Andrews (Eds.) The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: The Contribution of the Research University. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Abstract: In Scholarship Reconsidered, Ernest Boyer argues for a view of the university as engaged in four overlapping functions, each of which he refers to as a type of scholarship: discovery, integration, application and teaching. This paper describes the efforts of an integrated group of faculty and graduate students to assist in an effort to reconsider and re-engineer the freshman year experience. The Summer Freshman Institute (SFI) was conceived as a pilot program designed to "turn the lightbulb on," drawing entering students into an intellectually exciting introduction to college life. Here, we provide a brief summary of the intent of the SFI, and the design, protocol and overall findings of the SFI Project. However, we concentrate our efforts on how the SFI project, developed and conceived as the scholarship of teaching and learning contributed fundamentally to the three traditional missions of the university: teaching, service and research. The research effort that accompanied the two experimental summer programs in 2000 and 2001, viewed through Boyer's new lens, represents a classic example of how the scholarship of teaching and learning in the research university setting articulates with the scholarship of discovery, integration and application. We end by considering its role in creating "stewards of the disciplines".
Dissertation
The biggest project I'm working on right now is my dissertaton. You can find out more about that by going to the infertility page
Loftus, Jeni, John Bancroft, and J. Scott Long “Sexual Well-Being: A Study of Women in Heterosexual Relationships.”
Abstract: Using a nationally representative sample of 750 heterosexual women, this paper explores the components of female sexual well-being broadly, including demographic, emotional and physiological factors, and then explores how those components might be socially conditioned by examining the differences for Black and white women. We find that social and psychological factors are more important than performance or sexual behaviors in predicting female sexual well-being. We also find interesting differences between Black and white women. Overall, Black women are more positive about their sexuality than are white women; however when you control for how sexually attractive the woman feels the differences between Black and white women disappear
Namaste, Paul Ruggerio and Jeni Loftus. "Expectant Mothers: Explaining Women's Infertility using Identity Theory."
Abstract: Using a synthesis of identity theory and social cognitive theories, we seek to explain the choices women make to continue with costly and painful procedures to achieve a pregnancy. In this paper we analyze infertility from the perspective of identity theory. Results illustrate how the potential identity of becoming a biological mother can have an extremely high level of salience, especially when it is associated with other highly salient identities that may include master statuses such as gender and race. Therefore, women enact behaviors that attempt to make the potential identity of motherhood a reality. However, because a discrepancy exists between the potential identity and the actual identity of infertility, women usually experience harmful physical, emotional, economic and social consequences until they either become pregnant or choose to stop infertility treatments. The data for this paper comes from an on-line open-ended survey of women struggling with infertility.
Pescosolido, Bernice A., Jeni Loftus, Stacy Scherr, Paul Ruggerio Namaste, and Jenny Stuber. "Why the ‘Light Bulb’ Didn’t Turn On: Stakeholder and Institutional Influences on a Failed Pilot Program for the Freshman Year Experience.”
Abstract: This paper explores in detail the results of the Summer Freshman Institute program, a pilot program designed to reevaulate the freshman year. We explore why the program failed. Although the SFI was originally designed to “turn the light bulb on”, by getting these students intellectually engaged in university life, the students’ end of first year GPA’s and retention are worse than a control group with similar characteristics. Using Ordinary Least Squares regression and Logistic Regression, we explore the predictors of success in the SFI and in their first year of college and whether or not the student was still enrolled in the university during the spring semester of their first year. We then explore how the SFI program was derailed by the stakeholders and actors involved in organizing and executing the SFI program by examining the ethnographic data that was collected during administrative meetings and classes. Although the SFI was originally conceptualized as an intellectually engaging summer program, it was carried out as a remedial program. We explore how and why this shift took place.