Same Difference? Older People's Organisations and Disability Issues

This paper addresses some important areas of commonality in the political interests of older and disabled people. The paper reports findings from survey and interview research with local organisations representing older people, and their engagement with disability issues. We begin by reviewing similarities in the claims and mobilisation of older and disabled people, and by reviewing the groups that participated in the study. The main part of the paper identifies substantive policy issues that were perceived as important to older people. Here, there are considerable areas of overlap with the claims of disabled people's organisations (for example, in relation to information, independent living, accessible housing, transport, social support, and incomes). We review these commonalities and offer some thoughts on the potential for political alliance between the two movements. The paper concludes that, while there are considerable areas of common ground, there remain cultural barriers to the mobilisation of such alliances.     

Pseudo-Opinions on Public Affairs

This article reports on the often suspected but rarely researchedtendency of survey respondents to give opinions on topics towhich they have given little or no thought. The findings, basedon a question about a fictitious public affairs issue, do showthat the magnitude of the problem is substantial. But the dataalso demonstrate that this phenomenon does not represent simplerandom error, reflecting instead basic social-psychologicaldispositions which can be elicited, unwittingly, in the contextof the interview.     

Employers' Perceptions and Practice in the Employability of Disabled People: a survey of companies in south east UK

This article reports a foundation survey of the extent of employment of disabled people in three sectors of industry--transportation, IT and financial services--in two UK counties, identifies which specific disabilities and limitations on personal skills are seen by employers as the greatest impediments to employment, proposes a new model for analysis by using a modification of established recording models and provides a springboard for further work. The survey reported here was based on structured interviews with personnel officers conducted by telephone. No separate question was devoted to invitation of free comment, but the interview delivery of the questionnaire normally led to a general discussion of the issues raised, and some typical quotes and comments from respondents are included in the Results.     

Cultural Differences: Deaf and Hearing Researchers Working together

This article is based on several years of research done by the two authors, one of whom is Deaf and the other hearing. The paper discusses research done within the Deaf community using sign language. This is an estimated 50,000 people-the same number as those whose first language is Welsh. The Deaf community sees itself as a linguistic and cultural minority and as such is quite distinct from people with an acquired hearing loss, or those who are hard of hearing and who usually rely on written and spoken English through lipreading or writing things down. The paper sets this research in the context of cross-cultural research and looks at its connections with emancipatory research. The central discussion is in the form of a dialogue between the Deaf and hearing researchers and their personal responses to cultural differences. In the past Deaf people have been denied the opportunity of making their opinions known because research has used written or spoken language. Our research, using videocameras to record sign language and Deaf research using sign language to interview, provides a means of interviewing more suited to Deaf people than to hearing researchers. However, as the hearing culture is likely to be perceived as the dominant culture, there are bound to be differences when a hearing and Deaf researcher are working together within the Deaf community. These are the issues which we discuss within Deaf research.     

Attitudinal Conformity and Anonymity

Past research has shown that surveillance, unanimity of others,and ambiguous stimuli all contribute to conformity. This studysought to determine whether people will conform to a group theyidentify with even in the absence of all three contributingconditions. Using college students as subjects, the researcherposed as a pollster asking for responses to six statements onpublic issues. The falsified results of an earlier "nationalcollege sample" were used as the majority consensus stimulus.A written questionnaire was administered in private, and thenplaced in a locked ballot box. This study found no evidenceof conformity, suggesting that when people have definite attitudes,and when others are not unanimous in their opinions, the socialpressures produced by surveillance are necessary in order toproduce conformity     

Interviewing vulnerable old people: ethical and methodological implications of imagining our subjects

It is sometimes argued that interview research with vulnerable social groups, such as frail, lonely, older people, has distinctive ethical and methodological requirements. The conventional one-off, professional interview is seen to be both inadequate as a method of data collection and inimical to the interest of research subjects. While ideologically persuasive, such a view is not derived from systematic analysis of actual interviews. In this article, I describe a research project on social isolation in which the conceptualization of elderly interviewees as "vulnerable subjects" had a number of critical but intended impacts on the course and outcomes of the research. I offer an empirically grounded analysis of the interview situation that suggests an alternative reading of the relationship between social representation of aging persons and the methods we use to study them.     

SHOULD WE TAKE DON'T KNOW FOR AN ANSWER?

Much attention has been given to the problem of non-attitudes,that is, people expressing opinions while lacking an underlyingattitude (false positives). In comparison, the potential problemof false negatives, people with an attitude who decline to expressan opinion, has been neglected. Using a survey on nuclear powerfrom Sweden, we examine whether people who answer "don't know"but are induced subsequently to give an opinion really haveattitudes. The attitudes these people express on follow-up questionspredict behavior to a significant extent. This implies thatthe usual don't know category includes some false negatives,that is, people who really have attitudes but refrain, at leastinitially, from expressing them.     

Supplementing a survey with respondent Twitter data to measure e-cigarette information exposure

ABSTRACT

Social media data are increasingly used by researchers to gain insights on individuals’ behaviors and opinions. Platforms like Twitter provide access to individuals’ postings, networks of friends and followers, and the content to which they are exposed. This article presents the methods and results of an exploratory study to supplement survey data with respondents’ Twitter postings, networks of Twitter friends and followers, and information to which they were exposed about e-cigarettes. Twitter use is important to consider in e-cigarette research and other topics influenced by online information sharing and exposure. Further, Twitter metadata provide direct measures of user’s friends and followers as opposed to survey self-reports. We find that Twitter metadata provide similar information to survey questions on Twitter network size without inducing recall error or other measurement issues. Using sentiment coding and machine learning methods, we find Twitter can elucidate on topics difficult to measure via surveys such as online expressed opinions and network composition. We present and discuss models predicting whether respondents’ tweet positively about e-cigarettes using survey and Twitter data, finding the combined data to provide broader measures than either source alone.     

Disability in the UK: measuring equality

In this article we identify the key survey data for examining the issue of equality in the lives of disabled people in the UK. Such data is essential for assessing change in quality of life over time and for the evaluation of the impact of policy initiatives. For each data source we consider definitions, data collection, issue coverage, sample size and data access. It is evident that there is only limited survey data on the lives of disabled people in the UK. A number of national surveys include questions on disability, but many offer only limited coverage. There is a tendency to focus on the medical aspects of disability and a failure to clearly distinguish disability from other health issues. Moreover, disability definitions vary and sample sizes are often too small to compare differences by age, gender, ethnicity or locality. For effective policy development there is a need to identify and measure what leads to change in disabled peoples' lives.     

The Willingness to State an Opinion: Inequality,Don't Know Responses,and Political Participation

Most explanations of inequality in political participation focus on costs or other barriers for those with fewer economic, educational, and “cognitive” resources. I argue, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's work on “political competence,” that social position in the form of income also structures political participation through differences in the sense that one is a legitimate producer of political opinions. I test whether income differences in participation persist net of costs by examining nonparticipation in a setting in which barriers to participation are low: answering political survey questions. Lower‐income people are more likely than others to withhold political opinions by saying “don't know” net of differences in education, “cognitive ability,” or engagement with the survey exercise. Further, political “don't know” rates predict voting rates, net of other predictors. Efforts to democratize participation in American politics must attend not only to the costs of involvement but also to class‐based differences in individuals' relationship to political expression itself.     

Some Questions for Linda Mitchel on Loss and Bereavement

Resolving loss is the theme of this issue's interview. Linda Mitchell offers something in her employee counseling services that more employee assistance specialists need to address - helping clients better understand and resolve the sense of loss. She is a skilled psychotherapist with a specialty in counseling on "loss-related issues." She has designed and conducted support groups dealing with issues such as bereavement, self-esteem, job loss. As a skilled psychotherapist she has provided counseling and education to families experiencing a death of a loved one. In addition to seeing chemically dependent clients in her practice, she has experience counseling people with AIDS. Another part of her practice a assisting individuals in dealing with various life issues such as a change in a job position, or the loss of employment.     

Constructing ‘normal childhoods’: young people talk about young carers

There has been a great deal of attention paid to young carers in recent research, social policy and service provision. In this paper we report on a survey and interview study of 46 young people aged 15 to 18, nine of whom had experience as young carers, to explore the ways in which young people construct the young carer and their disabled parent. A key theme arising from the interview data analysis is the construction of a series of normative assumptions about ‘normal’ childhood through which young carers and their disabled parent are viewed as non‐normative and deficient. The predominantly negative construction of both parent and child/carer is critically analyzed and alternatives suggested in the discussion of these findings.     

Status or Access? The Impact of Marriage on Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,and Queer Community Change

Drawing on interview and survey research with 116 married and unmarried lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) individuals, this study offers the first systematic data on the relationship between legal marriage and LGBQ community life. The author distinguishes between marital status—being married—and marital access—gaining access to the institution of marriage—as distinct drivers of community change. In contrast to research with heterosexuals, the findings suggest that marital access plays a primary role in LGBQ community change. The different life course trajectories of LGBQ people and their prior experiences of social exclusion alter the relationship between marriage and community. The findings push family scholarship beyond a one‐model‐fits‐all approach to understanding the impact of marriage on community engagement. Taken together, they expand literature on marriage as greedy, the deinstitutionalization of marriage, and marriage and social inclusion as well as offer insights into how LGBQ people understand and enact marriage.     

Synthesizing the interests of consumers, citizens, and administrators in gathering client feedback

In a large metropolitan county's mental health system program evaluators involved consumer representatives, advisory board, and administrators in a client feedback study. The evaluators presented the groups with a “menu” of possible questions, and members of each group selected items where it would be particularly useful to know the opinions of clients. The groups did not agree about the kinds of questions that were desirable. The evaluators created a survey instrument that included high-priority items from each group. The survey was completed by 205 outpatients in three sites. Clients expressed a nearunanimous opinion about some questions, while on other issues there was no client consensus. In human service systems where decision making is shared by people with potentially conflicting interests, the authors recommend polling groups of decision-makers and then uniting their interests in a study of client feedback.     

Live audience responses to live televised election debates: time series analysis of issue salience and party salience on audience behavior

Televised political debates are the platforms for party leaders to outline their party's political programs and to attack those of their political opponents. At the same time journalists who moderate the debates are testing the party leaders’ ability to clearly outline and defend their programs. Television audiences of election debates evaluate these party leaders and political parties based on their television performances. Prior to the social media era, viewers’ evaluations were collected through phone surveys or web questionnaires. Nowadays viewers share their opinions in real-time on social media. Particularly Twitter is used in the Netherlands as the platform to share these opinions. In this study tweets produced by the audiences of five different televised debates that took place during the campaign for the Dutch 2012 parliamentary elections are analyzed in terms of tweeting about politicians and parties as well as political issues, as well as the content of the debates. This allowed us, using time series analysis, to test the relation between issue salience in debates and issue salience of the audience on Twitter. The issues of ‘Employment and income’ and ‘Europe’ were the most tweeted about, roughly aligning with the attention these issues received in televised debates. Findings further show there are consistent audience reactions to issues discussed in the debates: issues of ‘Housing’, ‘Care for the needy', and ‘Europe’ showing the strongest effects. However, candidates and parties are not explicitly associated by people active on Twitter when certain political issues are being debated on TV.     

Social workers' assessments of needs and interventions for adolescents with substance misuse problems,criminal behaviour and mental health difficulties: a vignette study

The aim of the current vignette study was to examine how social workers assess adolescents with substance misuse problems, criminal behaviour and mental health difficulties, and how they make decisions about treatment interventions to reduce these problems. Earlier research has shown lack of knowledge concerning factors and processes that govern assessments and decisions in social work practice. In this anonymously administered survey, social workers in Stockholm, Sweden, were invited to assess fictitious youth issues. We found that social workers recognise the problems and needs of young people, but that they find it harder to link needs to evidence-based interventions. Also, there is a tendency to overrate alleged non-serious problems in the vignettes. We conclude that there is a need for increased knowledge about evidence-based methods and more structured procedures to broaden the basis for decisions.     

Interviewing child witnesses within Memorandum guidelines. A survey of police officers in England and Wales

Since 1991, the evidence‐in‐chief of child witnesses in United Kingdom (UK) criminal proceedings can be an initial video‐recorded interview between a police officer/social worker and the child witness. This paper reports on the results of a survey of the attitudes and opinions of police officers who conduct video interviews with child witnesses in 18 police forces in England and Wales. Notably, officers' views were sought on the conduct of interviews. This builds on previous surveys which have focused on general views of videotaping children's evidence (for example, Davies and others 1995) and training issues (for example, Davies, Marshall and Robertson, 1998). Our findings support previous reports in that police officers view current provisions for child witnesses as a step in the right direction (Davies and others, 1995) but there are some reported limitations for example, gaps in training (Davies, Marshall and Robertson, 1998). In addition, we highlight the difficulties that can arise in relation to language use and some differences of opinion amongst officers (for example, with respect to the use of props in interviewing). Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accounting for Divorce: Gender and Uncoupling Narratives

Past research about uncoupling processes has focused on the differing narratives people offer to explain the end of their marriages, depending on whether or not they perceive themselves to have initiated the ending. This article extends previous work by adding gender to the analysis, exploring intersections between accounts of divorce and accountability to cultural assumptions related to gender. In this inductive study, we examine qualitative interview data—particularly discrepancies in the narratives of some men and women—and suggest that gender mediates how people talk about the process of uncoupling as well as their motives for divorce.     

Enhancing Children's Memory Through Cognitive Interviewing: An Assessment Technique for Social Work Practice

The cognitive interview is a memory retrieval procedure consisting of four general retrievals mnemonics which was developed for eyewitnesses. Based on a sound theoretical framework, Geiselman et al. (1984) developed this technique to assist police officers in interviewing and interrogating witnesses. The cognitive interview has been accepted as one of the most successful interview techniques used in real-life investigations. This article will provide background of the current research on cognitive interviewing and will discuss the theoretical rationale for the use of the mnemonic strategies, the enhancement in the cognitive interviewing technique, and the modifications and revisions conducted from using the cognitive interview with children ages 7 to 12 years. The major conclusions drawn from the research are that the cognitive interview can enhance the completeness and accuracy of recollections by children and can offer a valuable technique for social workers interviewing and evaluating children who are victims or witnesses to crimes.