Bibliographic record
Abstract
A distinguishing feature of North American society is preoccupation with self-image, as seen in the ritualistic nature of bodily practices aimed at constantly improving the body. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the prevailing fixation with straight, white teeth. While there is an ever-expanding literature on the sociology of body, very little has been written on teeth in this context. Using literature from anthropology, biology, dentistry, sociology and social psychology, this study attempts to answer: (1) Why have straight, white teeth become a beauty ideal in North American society? (2) What is the basis for this ideal? (3) How is this ideal propagated? It demonstrates that dental aesthetic tendencies are biologically, culturally and socially patterned. Concepts from the works of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault are used to illustrate how straight, white teeth contribute towards reinforcing class differences and how society exercises a disciplinary power on individuals through this ideal. It is concluded that modified teeth are linked to self and identity that are rooted in social structure. Moreover, teeth demonstrate the ways in which class differences are embodied and projected as symbols of social advantage or disadvantage. Implications on professional, public health, sociological and political levels are considered.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.022 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".