"THERE ARE SURVIVORS": Telling A Story Of Sudden Death

This article is a personal narrative of a family drama enacted in the aftermath of my brother's death in an airplane crash. "True" stories such as this fit in the space between fiction and social science, joining ethnographic and literary writing, and autobiographical and sociological understanding. My goal is to reposition readers vis a vis authors of texts of social science by acknowledging potential for optional readings and encouraging readers to "experience an experience" that can reveal not only how it was for me, but how it could be or once was for them. This experimental form permits researchers and readers to acknowledge and give voice to their own emotional experiences and encourages ethnographic subjects (co-authors) to reclaim and write their own lives.     

Telling the Right Story: Narrative as a Mechanism for Japanese American Ethnic Boundary Maintenance

This study conceptualizes ethnic grand narrative, a comprehensive story of a people, as a mechanism for maintaining and policing ethnic community boundaries. Such symbolic boundaries are shaped through relational processes of negotiation and contestation: boundary work. Taking the case of Japanese Americans, I demonstrate that legitimate claim on community membership relies on more than common ancestry, as ethnicity usually implies. Through an examination of the newspaper discourse surrounding two Japanese American men, Scott Fujita and Lt. Ehren Watada, I find that the collective ethnic narrative serves to define ethnic community boundaries and is used as a reference point for individual narratives. Depending on the alignment between personal narratives and collective ethnic narratives, in terms of content and structure, determines an individual's legitimate claim on ethnic membership. Notwithstanding the continued value placed on perceived shared biological heritage, ethnic membership is better conceived of as a combination of both common ancestry and strong fit between personal and community narratives.     

The Social Meaning of Children's Narratives: A Review of the Attachment-Based Narrative Story Stem Technique

Recent attachment-based research with the Narrative Story Stem Technique (NSST), a laboratory method using family doll figures and structured story stems, has proven to be useful in assessing young children's perceptions of social relationships. Eleven studies are reviewed that have validated this method with measures of children's social behavior or experience, contributing to a long-needed empirical basis for interpretations of children's play. Meaningful themes found in children's responses with the NSST are presented and organized with concepts from attachment theory, particularly the child's perception of the caregiver's trustworthiness and self-perception of worthiness to receive care. Implications for continuing research and for clinical interviewing are discussed.     

Toward a Culturally Informed Rehabilitation Treatment Model for American Indian/Alaska Native Veterans

American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) have a long tradition of military service, allying with Western forces in North America since the 1700s. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that AI/AN veterans experience higher rates of overall disability and service-related disability than veterans of other races and ethnicities. It is not clear, however, that AI/AN veterans with disabilities are receiving effective, culturally informed rehabilitation services. This article examines the incidence of disability among contemporary AI/AN veterans, considers barriers to effective treatment, and points out model programs tailored to the particular needs of this population, with attention to the historical and cultural context of AI/AN military service.     

Family Life With Children With Disabilities: The Key Role of Rehabilitation

This study examines the effects of children's medical impairments and functional disabilities and the use of medical care and rehabilitation on three family consequences (job changes, severe financial problems, and sleep disruptions). We use a life course perspective on the interlinked lives of family members, countertransitions, and career contingencies to understand the family impact of child disability. Using data from the 1994 and 1995 National Health Interview Surveys (N= 3,446), we find that the rehabilitation services that children receive account for (mediate) a large part of the observed association of children's medical impairments and disabilities on these family outcomes. Assistance in obtaining rehabilitation for children with disabilities could reduce the family costs and disruptive countertransitions associated with raising children with disabilities.     

From Prowar Soldier to Antiwar Activist: Change and Continuity in the Narratives of Political Conversion among Iraq War Veterans

This study examines conversion narratives of Iraq War military veterans who have become antiwar political activists. I examine how antiwar veterans construct and emplot prewar, wartime, and postwar narrative periods to shape and reclaim their moral identities as patriots fighting for a just cause, and how through a communal antiwar story they work to both challenge and reappropriate the rhetorical framework they associate with justifications for the invasion of Iraq. The study draws on in‐depth interviews with forty members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). In sum, the research describes how veterans engage with dominant narratives, shape new moral identities, and transition from soldiers to political activists.     

Career Rehabilitation: Integration of Vocational Rehabilitation and Career Development in the Twenty‐First Century

The concept of career rehabilitation, a paradigm that proposes integrating perspectives from vocational rehabilitation and career development, is introduced. Counselors are encouraged to assess how vocational handicaps secondary to a disabling problem can affect a client over his or her “worklife” and to adopt a life‐span approach to career decision making of people with disabilities. Four common vocational handicaps are discussed: diminished access to work opportunities, need for workplace accommodations, employer bias in hiring and advancement, and diminished “worklife” expectancy. Counselors testifying in legal forums are encouraged to pursue scholarship on the career development of people with disabilities.     

Vocational rehabilitation at Reykjalundur Rehabilitation Center in Iceland

This article describes a pilot project in specialized vocational rehabilitation program at Reykjalundur Rehabilitation Center in Iceland. It gives a brief historical overview of the development of the program, describes the theoretical frame used and the way the program is designed. Finally, it discusses the results of the program and ways to improve the program.     

Prolegomena to a Paradigm: Narratives of Surrender

This article seeks to develop a paradigm for understanding the sociological meaning of narratives of surrender. Surrenders are boundary events in time and in space. Coming at the end of conflicts, surrenders are transitional and transformative occasions during which the emotional and symbolic landscapes of power are traced and highlighted. They mark the site of trauma and, depending on the manner in which they are accomplished, can alternately emphasize the degradation of the vanquished or the magnanimity of the victor. Surrenders are analyzed as simultaneously historical events, symbolic events, and political events.     

Telling the Story of Stepfamily Beginnings: The Relationship between Young-adult Stepchildren's Stepfamily Origin Stories and their Satisfaction with the Stepfamily

The current study adopts a narrative perspective in examining the content of 80 stepchildren's stepfamily origin stories. Results reveal five types of stepfamily origin stories: Sudden, Dark-sided, Ambivalent, Idealized, and Incremental. Results support the hypothesis that story type would predict differences in family satisfaction; stepchildren who described their stepfamily origins as Idealized were more satisfied than those whose origins were Dark-sided or Sudden. Overall, participants framed their stepfamily identity more positively when their stepfamily beginnings were characterized by closeness, friendship, and even expected ups and downs, rather than when they were left out of the process of negotiating or forming the stepfamily and when the beginnings were tainted by issues they considered to be dark. Stepparents or practitioners may benefit from these findings by examining the means by which stepparents may involve stepchildren in the process of stepfamily courtship, facilitate closeness, and set up realistic expectations for negotiating stepfamily life.     

Good Excuses: Understanding Who Votes With An Improved Turnout Question

Utilizing studies which validate voter turnout, previous researchershave been able to identify a strong tendency for individualsto report voting when they in fact did not. In this article,we assess the effectiveness of a new turnout question on reducingvoter over-reporting in the National Election Study. Providingrespondents with socially acceptable excuses for not voting,we found that this alternate question significantly reducesthe over-reporting of turnout in the 2002 National ElectionStudy by about 8 percentage points. Moreover, our analysis revealsthat with the new question wording, estimates of the turnoutrate for those usually thought to be the least likely to voteare considerably lower than estimates using the traditionalquestion. Thus, not only did the experiment work to significantlyreduce over-reporting, the new question provides deeper insightsinto the voting behavior of the American electorate that hasimplications for both scholars and reformers.     

Using Suggested Contributions in Fundraising for Public Good

This article presents a provision point mechanism experiment designed to investigate the impact of suggested contributions in a public-good contribution process. We find that suggesting contributions is ineffective if subjects value the public good equally. However, if valuations for the public good differ among individuals, as they do in the real world, we find that contribution suggestions increase the likelihood of providing the public good, increase the fraction of individuals contributing their suggested share, and improve the equity of the distribution of contributions.     

Using Connected Technologies in a Continuous Quality Improvement Approach in after-school Settings: The PAX Good Behavior Game

Abstract

This demonstration study explored the use of connected technologies in a continuous quality improvement (CQI) approach to implementing evidence-based practices in after-school. Focus group with staff indicated enjoyment of technology and offered feedback for future development. Ecological momentary assessments (EMA) were gathered daily. Three randomized conditions were compared among 4 programs and 12 staff implementing PAX Good Behavior Game (PAX GBG). Analysis of variance (ANOVA), Post-Hoc Tukey, and chi-square analyses indicated that the tech-enhanced condition showed better implementation using scoreboards than the in person, while similar in game length. Both were superior to the control in behavioral strategies; highlighting the promise of technology in capacity building.