Lifelong learning has a crucial role in enabling individuals to handle key transition points in their lives, but what can education do to prepare them for the final, inevitable transition. Some of the educational contribution to managing the final transition is very broad, a matter of general enlightenment. But there are some more specific…

Magic has to do with the supernatural and the unnatural. It is indifferent to natural law and science and is aloof from scientific inquiry. Its existence depends upon unquestioning faith. Granted such faith, it is extraordinarily potent. If it does not move mountains, it convinces the faithful that it can. It can damage health and perhaps, restore…

In the article "Magic, Morals and Health" the reader is treated to Dr. Warren Johnson's thoughts about health and society, and the role of health educators. If one stays with Dr. Johnson's train of thought, one will find Dr. Johnson is concerned that: (1) A large segment of society tends to base at least some of their beliefs about health on…

Many have incorrectly assumed that, because of recently developed treatments, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome is now a manageable disease. These false assumptions contribute to the increase in risk behaviors and a decrease in society's response to the epidemic. (Author/JOW)

Difficulties faced by older adults are exacerbated by social attitudes that render them unproductive and unneeded citizens. Health education can provide aging education that will make the aged stage of life a positive, useful, healthy, and socially acceptable time for continued personal growth. (JD)

College students, educators, staff, and administrators often adjust, with resignation, to destructive drinking behaviors. Changing their discomfort to dismay could motivate change. The paper discusses how to reshape the environment of norms, expectations, and social context to construct a community of caring to reduce the prevalence of problem…

Given the ambiguities and serious consequences of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), health professionals must not over simplify HIV transmission. An alarming paradox underlies HIV infection: a preventable disease rooted in human intimacy is reaching pandemic proportions. Well-publicized instances in which persons with AIDS have been shunned…

Examines how certainty about children, obesity, exercise, and health is produced in the context of 'expert' knowledge and recontextualized in the academic and professional physical education literature. Argues that the unquestioning acceptance of the obesity discourses in physical education helps to construct anxieties about the body, which are…

This paper is a call for academic and public libraries to contemplate their role in meeting the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) information needs of their patrons. Librarians are urged to consider the potential negative consequences of neglecting to provide up-to-date and representative collections of AIDS materials. It is suggested…

Placed in the current political context of growing liberalization within China, this essay describes the Shanghai Hotline for Sexual Minorities. Funded by agencies outside the government, these services target LGBTs toward self-acceptance and AIDS/STD education while seeking to reduce social prejudice.

Twelve priority areas for health education in the 1980s are identified, based on the magnitude and seriousness of the problems addressed; the solidity of the research base; and the likelihood that health education may facilitate improvement in the area. The twelve areas are: (1) cigarette smoking; (2) aging and the aged; (3) mental health; (4)…

This book is a collection of expository essays examining the "silence" in early childhood classrooms concerning AIDS. The book also addresses questions of gender, sexuality, psychology, epistemology, and ethics in childhood and adolescent education. The introduction details how a gay, AIDS educator and advocate came to his current…