Support for aging policy: Self-interest, social justice, and political symbols

This article explores and evaluates theoretical assumptions implied by the familiar hypothesis that anti-elderly scapegoating rhetoric is producing attitude change with respect to citizen support for aging policy. An explanation—the self-interest model—that is consistent with both this hypothesis and existing attitude theory is presented. It is contrasted with a second hypothesis emphasizing the role played by symbolic political attitudes in the formation of citizen policy positions. Survey data from the state of Kansas indicate no support for either the self-interest explanation of aging policy attitudes or for the hypothesized impact of anti-elderly rhetoric.     

Beyond the Liberal-Conservative Divide: Assessing the Relationship Between Religious Denominations and Their Associated LGBT Organizations

Emerging research suggests that existing culture, including religious culture, serves to constrain and enable the rhetoric and claims of social actors in situations of conflict and change. Given that religious institutions continue to have significant authority in framing moral debates in the United States, we hypothesize that groups connected to each other through a religious tradition will share similar orientations towards the moral order, shaping the kinds of rhetoric they use and the kinds of claims they can make. To test this, we compare the official rhetoric of the 25 largest religious denominations on gay and lesbian issues, as well as their orientation towards the moral order more broadly, with the rhetoric of each denomination’s respective movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender inclusion, affirmation, or rights. We use Kniss’ heuristic map of the moral order to analyze and theorize about the patterns that emerge from these comparisons. Ultimately, we find that the existing rhetoric of the parent denomination on gay and lesbian issues, along with the broader moral stances they take, do appear to shape the rhetoric and ideologies of associated pro-LGBT organizations. This provides support for the notion that existing culture, belief, and rhetoric shape the trajectories of conflict and change.     

HIV/AIDS-Core competencies for practice: A framework for the education and training of social workers

This article identifies the increasing relevance of HIV and AIDS for social work practice in the 1990s and argues that the topic should be included as a core component of all DipSW qualifying programmes. It identifies direct work with people affected by the virus, health education and the politics of AIDS in relation to anti-discriminatory practice as key features of this training. The new educational-agency partnerships developing around DipSW are welcomed as having the potential to ensure a continuum of training for social workers. Local authorities, for instance, should have sufficient influence upon basic training to ensure that workers enter employment with a basic awareness of HIV and AIDS and the complex issues which it raises for practice generally. Agencies can then focus on planning effective training strategies which meet the specific and specialist needs of workers arising out of particular areas of practice.

The importance of maximising upon the symbiotic relationship between agencies and educational institutions is stressed, in order to ensure that the rhetoric of partnership is translated into action.     

Scarcity,Income Advantage,and Mobility: More Evidence on the Functional Theory of Stratification*

Two testable propositions suggested in the Davis and Moore functional theory of stratification are examined: the effect of scarcity on rewards and the effect of higher rewards on mobility. Data on the occupation of public school teaching for the period 1930 to 1971 were analyzed and compared with other wage and salary workers during those years. The proposition that scarcity increases rewards is rejected by these data, because higher incomes occur during periods (1) when there was less scarcity of teachers and (2) when employers discriminated against qualified married females in their hiring practices. The proposition that an increase in income advantage increases the movement of more qualified personnel into those positions found support, but for reasons more consistent with a conflict than a functional explanation. This research demonstrates the importance of economic incentives in attracting personnel but more importantly it documents how “political” groupings can regulate market forces.     

Stories of AIDS: The use of narrative as an approach to understanding in an AIDS support group

This paper shows how the co-creation and telling of narratives helped members of an AIDS support group transform their unique and separate experiences of suffering into shared insights, intense connections and comfort. Examples of narratives are drawn from the author's experience as a co-leader of a support group for gay men living with AIDS. Current literature on group work with persons living with AIDS is embedded in a modernist orientation in which the therapist is the scientist/expert, the client has the problem and the therapist helps the client's through exploring and interpreting the client's story according to a superseding theory (Gergen and Kaye, 1992). This approach emphasizes the need for leaders to maintain objectivity and emotional distance to avoid burnout (Gabriel, 1991; Grossman and Silverstein, 1993; Tunnell, 1991). In contrast, in a post-modern therapeutic approach, there is no privileging of the therapist's narrative and the traditional hierarchical relationship is replaced by a mutual effort as therapist and client together develop stories that translate and transcend experience. Using the AIDS work as illustration, this paper offers a post-modern, narrative approach to group work and shows how persons living with AIDS can use narrative to move beyond finite structures and the limits of life.This paper couldn't have been written without the help of the group members and my co-leader Sally Bowie. I want to thank them and other friends and colleagues-particularly the members of my Philosophy Study Group for their suggestions and support.The paper is dedicated to the memory of Jack, Paul, Mark, Alex, Richard, Hugh, Stan, Tim, Michael and Bill—all members of the group who have died and to Dean who, though not a member of the group, also died of AIDS and like the others—taught me much about dignity and courage, about being gay and about living with AIDS.     

How Effective is Peer Education in Addressing Young People’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs in Developing Countries?

This review article questions the assumptions at the core of peer education interventions adopted in young people’s sexual and reproductive health programmes in developing countries. Peer education is a more complex and problematic approach than its popularity with development agencies and practitioners implies. Its rise to prominence is more indicative of the desire to find effective tools to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic, than of peer education’s proven effectiveness. The often simplistic model of social relations that underlies peer education interventions leads to the reinforcement of gendered power relations, and a failure to take account of the social dynamics of poverty. The dominant rationales for peer education are examined and contested. In spite of the mismatch between rhetoric and experience, the appeal of the approach remains powerful, stemming largely from the objective of engaging young people in health interventions in a way that increases their autonomy and capacity .     

Greater involvement of people living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa

This study reports on a pilot project, the greater involvement of people living with HIV/AIDS Workplace Model, which places trained fieldworkers living openly with HIV/AIDS in selected partner organisations sectors, where they set up, review or enrich workplace policies and programmes. The project adds credibility to partners' HIV/AIDS programmes and creates a supportive environment for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and others to speak about HIV/AIDS. Eleven men and women living with HIV, aged between 30 and 45, and with varied life experiences and education levels, shared a willingness to speak about their HIV status in their workplace. They worked in very different environments but their collective experiences showed that PLWHA can add value to workplace HIV/AIDS programmes in a way that is relevant, effective, efficient, sustainable and ethical. They made companies and communities more aware of the intense need for HIV/AIDS policies and encouraged care and support for infected and affected people.     

Health Care innovation and children in poverty: lived experiences of caregivers of children with disabilities in a medicaid-serving ACO

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study of caregivers of children with disabilities enrolled in a Medicaid-serving accountable care organization (ACO). The state of Ohio mandated ACO enrollment for Medicaid-eligible children with disabilities in 34 of 88 counties effective July 2013. Research participants were queried in focus groups and individual interviews about their children’s care experiences and care coordination after enrollment. Most told researchers that they themselves are their children’s care coordinators, and many indicated that resource scarcity is a more pressing problem than fragmented care. Data analysis identified a theme of scarcity and four categories of insufficiency that made caregiver efforts on behalf of their children more difficult: a lack of health services under managed care, resource constraints on other agencies and programs for which families were eligible, a lack of financial support, and a lack of family support. A conceptual framework places ACO care coordination among more upstream factors and identifies ways in which ACOs serving Medicaid populations may wish to address the social determinants of the well-being of children with disabilities. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Public opinion about AIDS policies. The role of misinformation and attitudes toward homosexuals

In an effort to better understand the cognitive and attitudinal factors underlying public opinion on AIDS-related issues, this article proposes and empirically tests a model of the relationships between (1) knowledge of HIV transmission, specifically the misinformation that AIDS can be transmitted easily through casual contact with HIV-infected persons; (2) attitudes toward homosexuals, the most prominent of the social groups presently affected by the AIDS crisis; and (3) support for restrictive public policies aimed at HIV-infected persons. Data from two nationally representative surveys conducted in December of 1985 (N = 2,308) and in July of 1987 (N = 2,095) provide evidence that misinformation about AIDS transmission and negative attitudes toward homosexuals are strong predictors of support for stringent restrictions of persons with AIDS. The findings also suggest that several background factors, in particular, education and political liberalism, may also play decisive roles in influencing levels of support for restricting those infected with the AIDS virus.     

MANAGING GUILT:

In this article I illustrate the connections between talk, emotion management, and identity. In much of the recent work on collective, discursive strategies such as narrative and rhetoric, this link is left implicit. Through the study of a support group for parents of "troubled" teenagers, I highlight how parents' rhetorical talk created an emotional pathway that enabled them to maintain their good-parent identities despite their teenagers' rebellion. Parents used a personal responsibility rhetoric to make sense of their teenagers' misbehavior. For the most part as parents applied the personal responsibility rhetoric, they followed meeting protocol. Occasionally, however, parents violated the rhetoric's expression rule that parents were to avoid talking about guilt. I address how parents collectively constructed meeting discourse and conclude that their use of the personal responsibility rhetoric was how they collectively managed their own and each others' emotions. As a result they set the stage for becoming strict disciplinarians, which made it possible to see themselves as good parents, regardless of their teenagers' rebellion.     

Chapter 6: Gay Latinos and AIDS:

AIDS education, prevention strategies, and support services for gay and bisexual Latinos have traditionally been inadequate, even though surveillance data demonstrate that the risk of contracting AIDS is two and one-half times greater for gay or bisexual Latino men than for their white counterparts. Language, culture, disproportionate poverty, and different definitions of gay or bisexual identity in Latino communities must be considered when addressing AIDS issues among Latino groups in the United States. It should not be assumed that outreach, education and prevention programs which may be appropriate for whites or African Americans will be appropriate for Latinos. This article offers a theoretical framework for developing a culturally-sensitive AIDS prevention program for gay and bisexual Latino men.     

Government guidance for the Care Act: undermining ambitions for change?

The UK Government claims to be creating a historic change to social care in England through the Care Act by putting people in control of their support. However, this is fundamentally contradicted by the draft guidance published to support the Act. This amounts to a formula for maintaining the prevailing resource-limited approach to assessing and meeting needs. This reality is obscured by a welter of choice and person-centred rhetoric. However, it need not be like this. Councils with a genuine commitment to being person-centred could refer directly to the Care Act to create an alternative future, while service users and their allies could bring about systemic changes if they use the Act to establish new rights.     

Anti-elite politics and emotional reactions to socio-economic problems: Experimental evidence on “pocketbook anger” from France,Germany, and the United States

Many observers have noticed the importance of anger in contemporary politics, particularly with reference to populism. This article addresses the question under which conditions people become angry about a specific aspect of their lives: their personal financial situation. Specifically, it asks if populist anti-elite rhetoric has a causal influence on anger and if this influence differs across socio-economic groups. The theoretical expectation is that anti-elite rhetoric allows people to externalize responsibility for an unfavorable financial situation and thereby to turn negative self-conscious emotions into anger. The argument is tested with original survey data from France, Germany, and the United States. The empirical analysis yields three main insights. First, negative emotional reactions to respondents’ personal finances (and anger in particular) are surprisingly widespread in all three countries. Second, there is a pronounced socio-economic gradient in the distribution of anger and other negative emotions. Third, and most importantly, randomly exposing participants to populist anti-elite rhetoric causes considerably higher expressed anger about one's financial situation in France and Germany, but less so in the United States. This suggests a causal role of anti-elite rhetoric in stirring “pocketbook anger.” This is true in particular in the middle classes. The notion that populist rhetoric reduces negative self-conscious emotions, such as shame, is not supported by the data.     

THE CONSEQUENCES OF CARING:

Sociologists of emotion have examined the ways that workers are required to manage their emotions on the job, while studies of family emotion work reveal the effort involved in providing emotional support at home. Analyzing data collected from married or cohabiting women hospital workers, we examine the relations between women's job and family emotion work and the effects of both on women's job-related well-being. Consistent with "scarcity" views of women's emotional energy, we find that performance of family emotion work has negative consequences for women's job-related well-being. Consistent with "expansion" perspectives, however, women who perform some emotional labor on the job are more likely than other women to perform family emotion work. Our findings support a view that incorporates elements of both scarcity and expansion perspectives. We conclude that the job-related well-being of women hospital workers is less influenced by performance of emotional labor at work than it is by women's and their partners' involvement in family emotion work.     

(Re)Conceptualising inclusive education in New Zealand: listening to the hidden voices

This article explores the experiences of 14 students with severe and complex behaviour, their caregivers, and teachers/principals as the students transition from a disestablished residential school back to mainstream schools, with support from the Intensive Wraparound Service (IWS). Interviews were the primary source of data collection. Data were collated into 14 cases, and analysed using a general inductive approach. Two broad themes are addressed in the article: education and relationships/communication. The research found that the IWS is not living up to its rhetoric. Suggestions made for improvement are based on approaches that participants found worked for them.     

Violent families and the rhetoric of harmony

Observing that the violent realities of family life belie the social rhetoric of harmony, most sociologists recommend 'demythologizing' the family. This paper challenges that view, arguing that social rhetoric must be analysed rather than debunked. The sense-making activities of actors who engage in violent family events are identified as a strategic site for such an analyses. The paper explores the ways in which the rhetoric of family harmony is routinely sustained and reproduced. Two kinds of supports are considered (i) macrosocial supports, which sustain family rhetoric by integrating it into a wider system of collective representations; and (ii) microsocial supports which sustain family rhetoric by embodying it in the accounts of family members.     

Authority,Autonomy, and Ambivalence: Moral Choice in Twentieth-Century Commencement Speeches

This paper examines whether moral individualism has become a public moral philosophy by tracking changes in the ritualized rhetoric of moral choice in twentieth-century college commencement speeches. Content analysis of 171 speeches reveals that the rhetoric of choice becomes more prevalent and increasingly individualistic during the twentieth century. In addition, the rhetoric of moral choice is found to increasingly emphasize subjective moral autonomy rather than objective moral authority. Despite the importance of individual moral choice in commencement speech rhetoric, expressions of anxiety and ambivalence about the subjective approach to morality indicate unease with the rapid individualization characteristic of our times.     

Social support on Weibo for people living with HIV/AIDS in China: a quantitative content analysis

The Internet has recently become an important source of social support. People living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in China created an online support group (the HIV/AIDS Weibo Group) on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, in January 2011. To investigate social support in the HIV/AIDS Weibo Group, the content of all 7215 messages posted in this Weibo group since its launch on 18 January 2011, was analyzed. The analysis demonstrates that the majority of messages fell into the category of social support. Moreover, social support provisions were far more frequent than social support requests. The results also show that informational support, compared with emotional and instrumental support, was the most frequently requested and provided type of support in this Weibo group.     

What does Ubuntu solve? Thoughts on the rhetoric used in the making of the Heritage Transformation Charter

Following the drafting of the Heritage Transformation Charter, an academic study investigated one of the mandates of the Charter, that of oral traditions as part of South Africa’s living heritage. Through an engagement with the discursive elements of both the draft and final texts of the Charter, it found that the authors of the Charter considered Ubuntu as its underlying philosophy, which should inform not only the heritage sector but become an overarching principle for nation building. This approach transpired mostly through the use of rhetoric in the Charter texts, which seemingly placed the discussion of the concept of Ubuntu and to a certain degree the entire Charter firmly within a postcolonial Afro-centric position. Following some of the rhetoric with regard to Ubuntu, and considering the characteristics of rhetoric, its functions and manifestations, the paper will trace the effects of such rhetoric from within the context of a public document such as the Charter to the context of the wider South African society. Thereby, elaborating on the rhetoric around Ubuntu in the Charter texts, it will demonstrate in part how such rhetoric is used in shaping the wider postcolonial and post-apartheid discourse in the present socio-economic dispensation.