Ursula Hornung, Sedef Gümen, Sabine Weilandt (Hrsg.): Zwischen Emanzipationsvision und Gesellschaftskritik. (Re) Konstruktionen der Geschlechterordnung (Forum Frauenforschung, Schriftenreihe der Sektion Frauenforschung in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, Band 14)

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The Best and Worst Times of Life: Narratives and Assessments of Subjective Well-Being by Anamnestic Comparative Self Assessment (ACSA) in the Eastern Cape,South Africa

The Anamnestic Comparative Self Assessment (ACSA) measure of subjective well-being (SWB) aims to reduce the problems of cultural bias and relativity to external standards by allowing people to define the endpoints or ‘anchors’ of the measurement scale. In medical terminology anamnestic denotes ‘based on memory’. The ACSA uses subjects’ memories of the best and worst periods in their lives to define the anchors of the scale. They then assess their current quality of life relative to these personal anchors. The South African pilot study tested the match between self-assessment of SWB with ACSA and the conventional single-item measures of life satisfaction and happiness used in the South African Quality of Life Trends Study and analysed the narratives of the best and worst times of life. The quota sample of 46 consisted of 26 residents of Makana district in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, and 20 patients undergoing treatment in the local TB hospital. Mean SWB ratings with all three measures of life satisfaction, happiness and ACSA were between 5 and 6 on a 0–10-point scale. Ratings on all three scales were positively correlated. However, on ACSA the TB patients rated their current SWB 1.84 points lower than the community respondents, suggesting a greater sensitivity of this measure. It was observed that the starting points of the life stories produced by respondents to define the anchor periods for ACSA were related to their current assessment of SWB. A typology was developed that combined the starting point of the life stories with current SWB. The majority of community respondents matched the ‘Achiever’ type who scored positively on ACSA (i.e., above the mid-point of the scale) and whose life stories started with the worst period of their lives and proceeded to the best period. The TB patients were the only respondents to represent the ‘Survivor’ type whose morale had recovered after misfortune in life. ‘Survivors’ started their narratives with the best period in their lives, then moved to the worst (often health-related) one, and gave positive ACSA ratings. Based on the qualitative analysis of narratives, it is concluded that ACSA is a sensitive measurement instrument and therefore particularly useful for monitoring the effects of treatments and social interventions in longitudinal studies. However, further research is required to verify its cross-cultural validity.

The Qualityity-of-Life (QOL) Research Movement: Past, Present, and Future

The purpose of this paper is to trace the history of the social indicators or quality-of-life (QOL) research movement up to today, forecast future developments, and pave the way for future growth. Broadly speaking, we tried to review historical antecedents from the point of view of different disciplines, with specialists in each discipline preparing the basic text and co-authors helping to polish the material into a finished product. Briefly, we begin with an overview of the conceptual and philosophical foundations of our field of research. That is followed by a historical overview of the sociological roots of our field. In the third section, the main contributions from the discipline of economics are reviewed. Following that, the fourth section covers a historical overview of the literature on health-related quality of life is provided. Next, the history of QOL research from a marketing perspective is reviewed followed by a history from the perspectives of industrial/organizational psychology and management. Finally, we offer some forecasts for future QOL studies that are intended not only to predict what might happen, but to encourage, stimulate and motivate researchers to undertake new initiatives.     

Sociodicies of (im)mobility: moral evaluations of stasis,departure and return in an emigrant village (Shenzhen,China)

Inhabitants of Pine Mansion, a former emigrant village in a present-day Chinese megacity, hold an ambivalent and nuanced morally laden discourse about migration. This paper takes up several of the challenges issued by the ‘regimes of mobility’ approach, and focuses on people’s moral justifications of (im)mobility. I build upon Boltanski’s sociology of critique to analyze how these narratives constitute sociodicies, explanatory schemes that retrospectively justify and evaluate past ‘choices’ and compare the destinies of those who stayed in the village and those who migrated abroad. Paying attention to sociodicies of (im)mobility fosters an understanding of the dynamics of change in the representations of migration and of the interplay between local understandings and state nationalist discourses. They furthermore reverse the tendency to present stasis and departure as the respective expressions of a deprivation and a manifestation of agency.     

On the abundance ofDermatophagoides pteronyssinus (Trouessart, 1897) (Pyroglyphidae: Acarina) in house dust

Summary The dominance of the Pyroglyphidae in house dust has been influenced by a number of factors. The humidity in houses dropped recently to such an extent that only Pyroglyphidae can survive. When temperature and relative humidity are favorable forAcarus siro andGlycyphagus destructor as well asDermatophagoides pteronyssinus, Dermatophagoides diminished in numbers by competition. Introduction of the predatorCheyletus eruditus into this mixed breeds causes the extermination ofDermatophagoides. The vacuum cleaner trapped mites, butDermatophagoides was protected by its habit to hide in cracks and crevices. The use of insecticides has a more killing effect onAcarus andGlycyphagus than onDermatophagoides. Supported by a grant of the Dutch Asthma Foundation.