BU Sociology

BIO AND RESEARCH
I received a B.A. in sociology from the University of Iceland in 1998, a M.A. in sociology from Indiana University in 2002 and a Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University in 2007. My research and teaching interests include medical sociology, sociology of mental health, comparative research, political sociology, sociology of culture, gender, and research methods. In my work, I seek to understand how institutional arrangements influence individual level outcomes. Frequently, but not exclusively, my focus is on health, illness, and healing. My dissertation, Medicalizing Mental Health: A Comparative View of the Public, Private, and Professional Construction of Mental Illness explores how medicalization, as a social process, is constructed and addressed at multiple avenues within and across nations. My other work focuses on how culture and politics impact issues of health, illness, and healing. For example, one stream of research focuses on how inequality and the welfare state impact health across nations with different social organization of welfare. Another stream of research explores the role of culture in understanding how and why individuals seek help for health problems.

SELECT PUBLICATIONS
Olafsdottir, Sigrun. 2009. “Varieties of Medicalization: The State, the Market, the Professions, and the Public.” Handbook of Mental Health and Mental Disorder: Perspectives from Social Science, edited by David Pilgrim, Anne Rogers, and Bernice A. Pescosolido.

Olafsdottir, Sigrun and Bernice A. Pescosolido. 2009. “Drawing the Line: The Cultural Cartography of Utilization Preferences for Mental Health Problems.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 50:

Olafsdottir, Sigrun and Jason Beckfield. 2009. “Health and the Social Rights of Citizenship: Integrating Welfare State Theory and Medical Sociology.” Handbook of Sociology of Health, Illness, and Healing, edited by Bernice A. Pescosolido, Jack K. Martin, Jane D. McLeod, and Anne Rogers.

Bolzendahl, Catherine and Sigrun Olafsdottir. 2008. “Gender Group Interest or Gender Ideology? Comparing Americans' Support of Family Policy within the Liberal Welfare Regime.” Sociological Perspectives 51:281-304.

Kikuzawa, Saeko, Sigrun Olafsdottir, and Bernice A. Pescosolido. 2008. “Similar Pressures, Different Context: Public Attitudes to Government Intervention for Health Care in 21 Nations.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 49:385-99.

Pescosolido, Bernice A., Sigrun Olafsdottir, Jack K. Martin, and J. Scott Long. 2008. “Cross-Cultural Issues on the Stigma of Mental Illness.” Stigma in Mental Health: Interventions to Reduce the Burden, edited by Julio Arboleda-Florez and Heather Stewart.

Pescosolido, Bernice A., Jack K. Martin, Annie Lang, and Sigrun Olafsdottir. 2008. “Rethinking Theoretical Approaches to Stigma: A Framework Integrating Normative Influences on Stigma (FINIS).” Social Science and Medicine 67:431-40.

Pescosolido, Bernice, A., Peter Jensen, Jack K. Martin, Jane McLeod, Brea L. Perry, Sigrun Olafsdottir, and Danielle Fettes. 2008. Public Knowledge and Assessment of Child Mental Health Problems: Findings from the National Stigma Study-Children.” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 47:339-49.

Olafsdottir, Sigrun. 2007. “Fundamental Causes of Health Disparities: Stratification, the Welfare State, and Health in the United States and Iceland.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 48:239-53.