Can a voluntary web survey be useful beyond explorative research?

In this paper, we compare the estimates of earnings determinants based on the non-probabilistic WageIndicator web survey with those based on the widely used, representative EU Study of Income and Living Conditions survey. Using 10 years of Dutch data, we show that there exists an established segment of predominantly junior workers from which the respondents of the WageIndicator survey are disproportionally drawn. In consequence, the composition of WageIndicator sample tends to retain key characteristics over the years, even though it lacks a probabilistic sampling frame. We show that the estimates produced on the basis of an extended Mincerian earnings model using the two data sources are qualitatively similar. In line with much of the literature, however, the two sets of estimates do not pass the formal statistical test of equality. Nonetheless, when we examine only the subsample of junior workers, the statistical testing does not detect a statistically significant difference between the two datasets in many instances. To our knowledge, ours is the first paper showing such statistical evidence for comparability of a web survey based with a widely used representative data source.     

Can sample size in qualitative research be determined a priori?

There has been considerable recent interest in methods of determining sample size for qualitative research a priori, rather than through an adaptive approach such as saturation. Extending previous literature in this area, we identify four distinct approaches to determining sample size in this way: rules of thumb, conceptual models, numerical guidelines derived from empirical studies, and statistical formulae. Through critical discussion of these approaches, we argue that each embodies one or more questionable philosophical or methodological assumptions, namely: a naïve realist ontology; a focus on themes as enumerable ‘instances’, rather than in more conceptual terms; an incompatibility with an inductive approach to analysis; inappropriate statistical assumptions in the use of formulae; and an unwarranted assumption of generality across qualitative methods. We conclude that, whilst meeting certain practical demands, determining qualitative sample size a priori is an inherently problematic approach, especially in more interpretive models of qualitative research.     

Ethical challenges of community based participatory research: exploring researchers’ experience

Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) has been proposed as an equitable, empowering partnership approach to collaborative research. International literature about the ethical implications of CBPR suggests a continuing strong interest in the topic. However, there is a notable lack of research that captures the experience of ethical challenges of researchers from different countries who engage in CBPR. The aim of this research was to address this lack of evidence by exploring researchers’ experience of ethical challenges in CBPR at an international level. An innovative data collection method was designed utilising a purpose-built blog. Balancing participant protection and autonomy, partnership tensions, and enduring impacts of the researcher role emerged as the main themes. These findings illustrate the specific conflicts faced by researchers engaged in CBPR. This is largely as a result of the complexities of CBPR coupled with rigid ethics committee review that does not always take into account the more fluid nature of the approach.     

Time for change: can empowerment be a solution to meet the perils of modern day working life?

Working life continues to undergo rapid change. This change creates greater demand and sophistication and causes employees to experience more pressure, professionally and personally. Thus, absences from work due to sickness and injuries increase. In Sweden, this problem has become serious. This article argues that psychological empowerment and individual control are two key factors that minimize the many perils faced by the modern worker and those seeking to return to the work force through the vocational rehabilitation process. The findings show that a shift in ideology is needed. Specifically, there must be a shift from scientific management and Weberian bureaucracy towards organizational structures, routines, and cultures that support and increase individual worker psychological empowerment and control.     

The Scottish perspective: a pathway to progress?

This chapter provides a historical overview of the development of care and aftercare practices in Scotland. It highlights significant developments in legislation and social policy and offers a critical analysis that draws on the author's experience as a practitioner.     

The emergence of Dutch casinos: A case study of mismarketing?

Ostensibly, the approval of legalized casino type gambling in the Netherlands was intended to combat illegal and uncontrolled gambling. Very early on, however, the plan conceived and implemented by the Netherlands Parliament demonstrated serious mismarketing strategies and tactics. The new legal casinos were appealing to people other than those engaged in illegal gambling, in particular foreign tourists and local high rollers. This paper attempts to analyze the ultimate process of goal displacement, as the state casino industry allowed economic objectives to supplant desires to utilize legal casinos primarily as controls over illegal gambling.     

Disabled People,Health Professionals and the Social Model of Disability: Can there be a research relationship?

The social model of disability is proposed as an alternative to models that have viewed disability as an individual, rather than a socio-political issue. The use of this model to guide both research theory and practice is proposed in order to equalise research power relationships, and involve and empower disabled people. Health professionals have traditionally reinforced the medical model of disability in both research and practice, and this has been seen as contributing to the oppression and marginalisation of disabled people. If the social model is to achieve wider dissemination, it would appear important to develop a dialogue between disabled people and health professionals. However, because of negative perceptions it can be difficult for health professionals to find an appropriate position in relation to disabled people, research and the social model of disability. While not denying the past, it appears essential to look at ways in which disabled people and health professionals can work together to overcome the oppression and marginalisation that has been linked to the provision of health services.     

What makes a good placement? Findings of a social work student-to-student research study

Social work fieldwork placements are recognised as a key component of social work education. This article analyses the experiences of students who have completed one social work placement and examines what they felt was most effective in aiding their learning. The innovative methodology used for the research enabled first year students to design an on-line survey which they administered to their second year student colleagues. The first year students gained experience in designing and administering a piece of research, but also gained a greater understanding of what previous students have found assisted their learning on placement. This cross-sectional research surveyed accessed the 2014/15 cohort of year 1 and year 2 Masters in Social Work (MSW) students. Students reported how prepared they felt for placement and also who or what facilitated their learning on placement. Students’ perception of the volume of learning on placement was strongly correlated with satisfaction. It is argued that being able to clearly identify types of interaction that enhance students’ learning, leads to more positive outcomes for all involved in the placement experience.     

Quasi-experimental evaluation using confirmatory procedures: A case study of an economic and social empowerment intervention to reduce girls’ vulnerability to HIV in rural Mozambique

PurposeOur goal was to determine whether an economic and social empowerment intervention implemented in Zambézia Province, Mozambique reduced girls’ vulnerability to HIV. We use this experience to discuss challenges of evaluating real-world interventions.MethodsTwo rounds of data were collected from 885 girls, 13–19 years, for this clustered, non-equivalent (two-stage) cohort trial. We used multi-level exact matching and difference-in-differences estimation to estimate intervention effects on two outcomes: girls’ knowledge of gender-based violence and school attendance.ResultsEstimates of two outcomes analysed indicated no statistically significant intervention effects. Preliminary analysis of data from the intervention group revealed this study was unable to obtain accurate measures for five outcomes related to HIV vulnerability.ConclusionsAlthough our study did not find evidence of impact on the a priori selected outcomes, we report on our experience implementing this robust methodologic design and describe how the challenges encountered in this program setting affected our ability to attain results. We recommend prospective evaluation designs with random allocation be accommodated early during planning. When not possible, quasi-experimental studies should collect data from large samples. To reduce measurement bias, biological endpoints such sexually transmitted infections should serve as primary outcomes for programs intending to reduce sexual behaviors.     

A Reluctance to be Defined 'Disabled'. How Can the Social Model of Disability Enhance Understanding of Anorexia?

Most people would not ordinarily regard anorexia as a disability, exposing the narrow social understanding of the latter term, although for certain bureaucratic purposes, like claiming Disability Living Allowance, anorexia is demarcated thus. The oppression faced by people labelled 'anorexic' mirrors that which theorists suggest disadvantages disabled people, a similarity examined below using the social model of disability as a tool of enquiry. In addition, the reasons against and for defining anorexia as a disability, and arguments for incorporating the experiences of people labelled 'anorexic' into the Disability Movement will be discussed. This paper is based on the comments of nine interviewees, medically or self-defined as 'anorexic', whose words clarify and make theoretical discussion more engaging. It is anticipated that exploring anorexia in a new light will improve understanding of the condition and will also be beneficial to Disability Studies.     

From absence to absenteeism? A qualitative cross case study of teachers’ views on sickness absence

This is a qualitative pilot study that explores how teachers from three Norwegian upper secondary schools with different absence histories experience norms related to sickness absence. The starting point was theory and recent empirical studies which indicate that absence at the workplace level is reinforced through social interaction. Hitherto, we know little about how such spiralling processes form in different organisational contexts, and we therefore decided to conduct an explorative case study. The findings are based on interviews with teachers and management. The findings support some of the proposed processes of social interaction that supposedly underlie spiralling effects of sickness absence. In the study context, the processes seem to involve concerns about fairness and social support. Interestingly, the findings do not support an assumption that stigma linked to absence reduces as the absence level increases. On the contrary, it appears that social sanctions are activated as a counter force to increasing absence. The findings have potential implications for theoretical assumptions and for design and interpretation of future quantitative economic studies of social interaction.     

Why men collect things? A case study of fossilised dinosaur eggs

Collecting entails substantial costs in terms of effort, money, time and space needed to find, obtain and store desirable items. Still, the non-utilitarian nature of collectibles suggests that a simple economic justification of this behaviour is unlikely. Moreover, the apparent sex difference, with collectors being almost exclusively men, indicates a possible reproductive motive. However, presently available theories have failed to identify these motives and predict its patterns leaving collecting behaviour unexplained. This paper employs recent developments in the fields of evolutionary psychology and theoretical biology in order to construct a plausible theory which accounts for collecting behaviour. In particular, it is argued that collecting has evolved to facilitate reliable communication between males with respect to their unobserved resource acquisition capacity. Based on this theoretical framework three hypotheses are derived: the desirability of a collectible item is positively related to its rarity, aesthetic pleasingness, and size. Evidence based on eBay auction sales of fossilised dinosaur eggs provides support for all three hypotheses.     

Are mothers of young children more likely to be self-employed? The case of Sweden

Previous studies, mostly from Anglo-Saxon countries, find a positive correlation between the presence of young children in the household and self-employment probabilities among women. This has been seen as an indication of women with young children choosing self-employment as a way of balancing work and family commitments. This paper studies the relationship between children and female self-employment in a country with family friendly policies and a generous welfare system: Sweden. The initial hypothesis is that we will not find evidence of a positive effect of children on self-employment among Swedish women since there are other institutions in place aiming at facilitating the combination of work and family. Using Swedish register data for the period 2004–2008 we do, however, find that the presence of young children increases the probability of choosing self-employment also among Swedish women. The effect is strongest for women with very young children, 0–3 years of age. These results also hold in a panel data model that takes individual unobserved heterogeneity into account. We also analyze time-use data and find, contrary to what has been found in many other countries, that self-employed women spend more, or as much, time on market work than wage-earning women. This raises doubts about whether women in Sweden chose self-employment as a way of balancing work and family commitments.     

Can activity be understood out of subjectivity?

The PSR echo a crisis of the relation of the organization with the subjectivity, which is at the same time a crisis of the relation of the organization with the reality that subjectivity is confronting through activity. Thus, they also raise, with ergonomics, the question to know which place it grants itself to subjectivity in the relation health-effectiveness.     

Does Internet use provide a deeper sense of political empowerment to the Less Educated?

In politics, there is an offline power imbalance between the Educated and the Less Educated caused, in part, by the fact that those individuals with more extensive levels of education are more equipped to influence the political process. This study analyses the impact of Internet use on this imbalance and investigates whether the disparity remains intact in the Digital Age. Accessibility to the Internet is somewhat agnostic to one’s education and may be a quick and cost-effective tool to affect the political process. This study employs the concept of online political efficacy (OPE), which is likely to impact online political participation (OPP), to test whether Internet use provokes a sense of political effectiveness in the less educated to a greater extent than those more educated. Internet Service Types, particularly social media, were found to be positively associated with OPE to a much greater extent among the less educated. These findings indicate that, as a result of an enhanced positive perception of the Internet from using the Internet Service Types, the less educated are likely to feel empowered to affect the political process to a greater degree than the educated. Such use, in turn, is more likely to lead the less educated to OPP. This flow in the context of Internet use and education levels was presented in the framework of the O-S-R-O-R model of communication effects. As such, Internet use has the potential to contribute toward an equalization of the offline power imbalance.     

Can old age be given a public meaning?

Anti-ageism has done much to eliminate bias and stereotyping, but it has given us no positive vision of what old age might be. A shared interpretation of the physical and social realities of the elderly can enhance the lives of aging people and provide the foundations for public policy.