Meeting report--National Institute on Aging Workshop on the Comparative Biology of Aging

This Perspective is a summary of the Comparative Biology of Aging Workshop that was held in February 2002 by the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, MD. Participants discussed ways to exploit similarities and differences in aging among diverse species to learn more about critical factors that affect aging and regulate life expectancy in animals. The aim of the workshop was to stimulate new approaches to understanding the molecular bases for differences in aging rates and life expectancy among species.     

DYNAMIC INDICATORS OF SELF-PERCEIVED CONSERVATISM

This study looks at the relationship between standard indicators of conservatism and self-labeling behavior. Many of the variables believed to be indicative of conservatism and liberalism are not the variables people use when labeling themselves conservative or liberal. It is proposed that many of the standard social and political variables tend to be period- and age-specific in terms of their relationship to self-labeling behavior. The variables are period-specific because at any point in time there are a number of issues that are particularly salient and divisive, and therefore tend to affect self-labeling behavior. The variables are age-specific because social networks greatly influence sociopolitical attitudes and affiliations and the makeup of social networks tend to vary over the course of one's life. To test for the period- and age-specific nature of selflabeling behavior the General Social Survey is used. Results suggest that some standard indicators of conservatism are strongly correlated with self-perceived conservatism but only for the youngest age group. Results also show that moral issues such as premarital sex, abortion, pornography and marijuana use are particularly strong correlates of self-labeling behavior for these respondents.     

Emotion Knowledge Skills in Low-income Elementary School Children: Associations with Social Status and Peer Experiences

This short‐term longitudinal study examined relations between emotion knowledge and social functioning in a sample of low‐income kindergarten and 1st graders. Individual differences in spontaneous emotion naming and emotion recognition skills were used to predict children's social functioning at school, including peer‐nominated sociometric status, and child self‐reports of negative experiences with peers in school (peer victimization and rejection). Children who had greater emotional vocabulary and recognized emotions more accurately had better outcomes in all areas, and many of the associations between fall emotion knowledge skills and spring social functioning outcomes held after covarying grade and children's previous status with regard to these outcomes. Results are discussed with regard to implications for prevention and intervention programs (e.g., the PATHS curriculum) that focus on teaching emotion knowledge skills in order to foster high‐risk children's social competence.     

Spinning out the asbestos agenda: How big business uses public relations in Australia

Although health warnings associated with asbestos were first documented in 1898, by 2020 there are expected to be 60,000 deaths associated with asbestos in Australia. This paper examines how Australia's dominant asbestos producer's used public relations to limit media coverage and influence government policy related to its asbestos liabilities. It then traces the company's failures to manage the resulting crisis when external stakeholders and media interests became alerted to the corporation's agenda.     

Producing Family Problems: Organization and Uses of the Family Perspective and Rhetoric in Family Therapy

This article applies and extends literature on the micropolitics of trouble and family rhetoric perspectives by analyzing how therapists in a family therapy agency practicing the brief model used family rhetoric in defining and responding to client problems. Family rhetoric is the use of images of family (the family perspective) to (1) persuade others to one's preferred orientation to issues of mutual concern and (2) attribute identities to one's self and others. The article focuses on how the therapists rhetorically enacted and applied the family perspective in interactions with colleagues and clients to define and remedy client troubles. In general, troubles were defined and remedied by treating them as products of clients' family systems, defined as enduring roles, relationships, and perspectives. The therapists sought to remedy client troubles by initiating changes assessed as appropriate for their troubles and family systems. The article concludes by considering some of the implications of the findings and analysis for the sociological study of human service work.     

Integration and Targeting of Community Care for People with Severe and Enduring Mental Health Problems: Users' Experiences of the Care Programme Approach and Care Management

Correspondence to Professor John Carpenter, Director, Centre for Applied Social Studies, University of Durham, Elvet Riverside II, Durham DH1 3JT, UK. E-mail: J.S.W.Carpenter{at}dur.ac.ukJ.S.W.Carpenter@dur.ac.uk Summary We report the experiences of different models of community careof random samples of 262 people with severe and enduring mentalhealth problems living in four districts in the north of England.The districts were characterized in terms of the extent of (1)integration between the health service-led Care Programme Approach(CPA) and social services Care Management, and (2) targetingof services on people with severe mental health problems. Themajority of service users felt involved in planning their owncare and considered that they had choice in their care and treatmentwhen in the community, but not in hospital. Although all theseusers were formally subject to the CPA, the proportions of usersin the districts believing they had a written care programmeranged between 37 per cent and 60 per cent. Of these, the greatmajority were very positive about their care programmes andfelt that they were being helped to become independent. Theseresults were replicated when 87 per cent of the original samplewas re-interviewed six months later. There were significantdifferences between the four districts and evidence that userspreferred an integrated health and social care service. In addition,a higher proportion of users in inclusive districts were satisfiedcompared to those in targeted districts. Notwithstanding thesepositive findings, there is still considerable room for improvementin relation to the involvement of family carers and the provisionof adequate information about prescribed medication and makingformal complaints.