Supervision in the helping professions a practical approach

Abstract

This article is based on an ethnographic study undertaken to explore whether eight people diagnosed with terminal cancer and their families drew on aspects of their cultural identities to make sense of their journey towards death, and if so, how. Ethnographic methods were supplemented by semistructured interviews. Most participants received medical treatments until close to death and invested much effort, time, and hope in these. Consequently, they made little sense of their palliative referrals. Instead, they accommodated the biomedical cultures of treatment-oriented services, thus delaying their own and their family's preparation for death. Only three participants appeared well prepared one month prior to death. An ecological perspective helped to explain the systemic factors involved in this prioritisation. The authors make recommendations for greater involvement of social workers in palliative care, and for more attention to supporting dying people and their families to make culturally meaningful decisions in the journey toward death.     

A practical approach to the assesment of manual handling equipment for cargo: multinational abrasives in Brazil

The Manual Handling of Loads is an activity present in virtually all production system, when developed without ergonomic principles of design and sizing can generate several instances of discomfort and musculoskeletal disorders. This work was carried out to measure, set limits and risks and guide specifications for the cargo handling carts in a specific company, tracing the anthropometric profile of the productive population and performing a quantitative evaluation of forces and design models of cars used in the company.     

Visual sociology: A practical pedagogy

As a part of an organisational sociological study of Danish film projects, I followed the development of a feature film over a one-year period in 2006–2007. Coincidentally, this film came to be about a drama in the academic world. Thus, while I researched the filmmakers, they investigated life in Academia, using me as an informant. In that way, the positions of researcher and informants were turned upside-down. Or rather, a two-way relation of mutual investigations was introduced between the filmmakers and me. In the empirical analysis of the filmmaker's work, I employ the concept of symmetrical ethnography, which has been introduced by the Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Vivieros de Castro in an attempt to equalise the knowledge practices of informants to those of ethnographers. Vivieros de Castro suggests that such symmetry entails a turn from epistemology to ontology. Hence I discuss whether the filmmakers’ work can be seen as an invention of ontologies. Whereas studies in organisational aesthetics and sociological appraisals of documentaries within visual sociology have a tendency to compare art to academic work, I suggest looking into the filmmakers’ ‘point of view on point of view’, suggesting that the filmmakers and I may not be representing the same world differently but representing different worlds.     

Justifying conclusions in naturalistic evaluations: A practical perspective

Naturalistic approaches to program evaluation generate multiple interpretations and possible conclusions, but lack inherent guidance on how to choose among or reconcile them. A practical frame of reference for addressing this challenge emphasizes criteria of utility and credibility, as well as an evaluation process that is participatory and openly value-pluralistic. This paper discusses the logic of justification underlying such a practical perspective.     

The participatory research approach in non‐Western countries: practical experiences from Central Asia and Zambia

This paper focuses on the application of the participatory research approach in non‐Western contexts. The aim is to provide critical insights into the participatory research discourse through an examination of its theory and practice based on our own experiences of using this approach in our doctoral research in five Central Asian countries and Zambia. Firstly, we summarise the published literature on the approach in both disability and development studies which are our academic disciplines. Secondly, we critically analyse some of the challenges we came across in applying participatory research in our doctoral studies in practice. By this we wish to contribute to making this approach more viable and to increase research participation by disabled persons in non‐Western contexts. Finally, based on our own experiences we give some suggestions for the use of the participatory research approach in non‐Western contexts.     

A flexible work force: Opportunities for women

V. Conclusion For a society that may be faced with fewer rapid increases in the work force than we have known during the “baby boom” years, various kinds of restrictions on the use of labor certainly would not help. Deterrents on labor can only hurt.     

Metacognitive confidence: A neuroscience approach

Abstract

Power leads to action and facilitates goal pursuit. The present study examines the joint effects of power and action demands on the ability to maintain the pursuit of goals. It is proposed that the power advantage in goal pursuit is particularly pronounced when goal striving requires high level of activity. Participants were assigned to a powerful or a powerless role and pursued a goal either in a passive or in an active self-regulatory mode. Level of activity affected powerless but not powerful participants: powerless participants gave up goal pursuit earlier when the level of activity required to maintain the goal was high (i.e., showed the typical passive-option effect), whereas this was not the case for powerful participants. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Innovation capability: A sociometric approach

To remain competitive worldwide, firms need to focus on their knowledge-based activities and possess specific abilities that allow them to unravel their potential to innovate. This need has led to an increasing interest in understanding the factors that allow a firm to develop its innovation capability. However, given the complexity of the phenomenon, there is no consensus on the nature and definition of innovation capability. Moreover, most existent studies have focused on studying innovation as a psychometric phenomenon; however, this approach neglects the social dimension of the construct. Thus, an exploratory study is conducted to examine a firm’s capability to innovate from a sociometric perspective. To achieve this objective, 61 surveys were distributed in the biotechnology area of a Mexican university. In addition, informal relations and knowledge sharing are analyzed as determinants of innovation capability. Since, the multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure (MRQAP) is applied.The results reveal that friendship relations become the base for knowledge sharing and, at the same time, this factor positively impacts a firm’s innovation capability.     

IEA/WHO toolkit for WMSDs prevention: criteria and practical tools for a step by step approach

When studying WMSDs, several determinants and their interrelationship are considered as relevant. Hence the necessity of an "holistic" approach to prevention, especially when preparing technical rules and strategic plans. There is a strong request, from OSH agencies and operators, for developing "simple" tools for risk assessment and management. In this context WHO asked IEA to develop a "Toolkit for WMSD prevention". The paper presents one of the main contribution to this WHO project, focused on selecting tools at different level for hazard identification, risk estimation and management. Proposals are based on two essential criteria: Acting on a step-by-step approach; Taking into account the presence of multiple influencing factors. The proposals consider: A Basic Step devoted to hazard identification by operative "key-enter" questions, that can be operated also by non-experts. A First Step, (quick assessment), for identifying 3 possible conditions: acceptable; high risk present; more detailed analysis (via tools presented at second step) necessary. This step can be operated by non-experts with only some specific training. A Second Step, where recognized (i.e. from international standards or guidelines) tools for risk estimation are used. This step can be operated only by persons with some specific training.     

Studying social capital in situ: A qualitative approach

In recent years, the concept of social capital – broadly defined as co-operative networks based on regular, personal contact and trust – has been widely applied within cross-disciplinary human science research, primarily by economists, political scientists and sociologists. In this article, I argue why and how fieldwork anthropologists should fill a gap in the social capital literature by highlighting how social capital is being built in situ. I suggest that the recent inventions of “bridging” and “bonding” social capital, e.g., inclusive and exclusive types of social capital, are fruitful concepts to apply in an anthropological fieldwork setting. Thus, my case study on the relationship between local people and newcomers in the rural Danish marginal municipality of Ravnsborg seeks to reveal processes of bridging/bonding social capital building. Such a case study at the micro level has general policy implications for a cultural clash between two different groups by demonstrating the complexity of a social capital mix where bonding social capital strongly prevails. This ultimately leads to a “social trap” (Rothstein 2005), implying widespread distrust and serious social and economic costs for a whole population. Gunnar Lind Haase Svendsen is Senior Researcher, at the Institute of Rural Research and Development, Southern University of Denmark. He is the co-author, with G. T. Svendsen, of The Creation and Destruction of Social Capital: Entrepreneurship, Co-operative Movements and Institutions (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, 2004, Paperback edition, October 2005); and author of Samarbejde og konfrontation. Opbygning og nedbrydning af social kapital i de danske landdistrikter 1864–2003 [Cooperation and Confrontation. The Creation and Destruction of Social Capital in Rural Denmark 1864–2003], Ph.D. dissertation, University of Sourthern Denmark, Esbjerg, 2004: http://www.humaniora.sdu.dk/phd/dokumenter/filer/Afhandlinger-30.pdfg. Gunnar Svendsen's scholarly interests include Bourdieusian Economics (new socioeconomics), capital theory, social capital, rural civic movements, and rural discourses. He has recently finished a research project for the Danish Ministry of the Interior about the role of intangible assets (culture, networks, and historical traditions) for differences in economic performance (DEP) among four Danish local communities.     

Gender-based faculty-pay differences in academe: A reduced-form approach

I test for gender differences in faculty salaries for the academic year 1987–1988, using a basic sample of 560 higher education institutions. The ratios of female faculty pay to male faculty pay are regressed on a reduced-form equation for implicit marginal productivity ratios and rate of departure ratios. Marginal productivities depend on faculty and administrative inputs and proxies for technology. Rate of departure ratios depend on various institutional characteristics, such as size, unionization, administrative intensity, Carnegie Foundation classification, type of ownership, and degree of faculty tenured. The results indicate that, after adjusting actual pay ratios for implicit marginal productivity ratios, female faculty pay is at least as high as male faculty pay for much of the sample (74 percent).     

Stakeholders as partners in evaluation: A stakeholder-collaborative approach

An emphasis in recent years on the utilization of evaluation has led to such innovations as stakeholder-based evaluation, which typically allows concerned groups to participate at the planning and review phases of a study. This paper presents a case study of a “stakeholder-collaborative” approach, in which the roles of participants were extended, to incorporate the design, administration, and interpretation of surveys and interviews, extensive data-gathering and development of major portions of the final report. An internal evaluator assigned to the group assumed the roles of facilitator and task manager, to enhance the validity of results. Benefits and disadvantages of the approach for this case are discussed, as well as utilization of the report produced. Six months after submission of the final report, four group members and two major users were interviewed regarding this approach and the report's use; all rated the process positively. Interviewee's suggestions for decreasing problems and maximizing benefits are summarized.     

Robust stochastic dominance: A semi-parametric approach

Lorenz curves and second-order dominance criteria, the fundamental tools for stochastic dominance, are known to be sensitive to data contamination in the tails of the distribution. We propose two ways of dealing with the problem: (1) Estimate Lorenz curves using parametric models and (2) combine empirical estimation with a parametric (robust) estimation of the upper tail of the distribution using the Pareto model. Approach (2) is preferred because of its flexibility. Using simulations we show the dramatic effect of a few contaminated data on the Lorenz ranking and the performance of the robust semi-parametric approach (2). Since estimation is only a first step for statistical inference and since semi-parametric models are not straightforward to handle, we also derive asymptotic covariance matrices for our semi-parametric estimators.