Patches of grief and rage: Visitor responses to the NAMES project AIDS Memorial Quilt

This paper presents an analysis of comments written on signature square panels of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. In our paper we explore how collective memory regarding AIDS deaths emerges from conflict among members of vernacular, mainstream and official culture. The cultural contest waged over how individuals who have died from AIDS-related illnesses will be remembered in society fits within the realm of the sociology of collective memory. Visitor responses to the Quilt illustrate that as a form of commemoration the Quilt is interpreted as a therapeutic device and a political tool. Like other memorials, especially those for which there is social disdain or conflict (e.g., the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial), signature square comments provide an alternative conception of public memory. The fact that the Quilt is used to symbolically commemorate the dead, providing an outlet for collective grieving and inspiring social action, is what makes it an important sociological phenomenon. In our paper we put forward a conception of the politics of collective memory that extends previous work in this area. In doing so this paper contributes to an emerging understanding of public commemoration and to the debate over how different segments of society are to be remembered.     

The Common Factors that Connect all Approaches to Family Therapy

I've developed a sort of working document that proposes what family therapists do (on the basis of what they know and value, i.e. competency). I think that if we're talking about a national identity, we could also identify our shared competencies in the way that social workers and social welfare workers did in the mid‐1990s. This compilation is adapted from Sprenkle, Blow & Dickey, 1999; Miller, Duncan & Johnson, 2000; Walsh, 1998; Seaburn, Landau‐Stanton & Horwitz, 1995.     

Four different approaches to community participation

This paper explores some of the politics of community work byexamining four basic community participation approaches. Movingfrom the right of politics to the left, it overviews some ofthe different theoretical orientations, goals, processes andrecruitment practices that are commonly used but not alwaysrecognized to constitute different forms of community participation.Offered primarily to ‘lay’ community members, studentsand beginning practitioners, the paper is intended to clarifysome of the differences that emerge when participation projectsare designed, and to stimulate discussion about community participationmore generally.     

PROCESS, ROBLEMS, AND SOLUTIONS IN BRIEF THERAPY

The MRI problem-solving and the recently popular solution-amplifying approaches to brief therapy are described as based upon the same process point of view. A process view is described in contrast to a structural view of human interactions. It is argued that an exclusive focus on amplifying perceived solutions without clearly defining problem patterns may become a problem. Clear articulation of a therapist's assumptions about human interaction, problems, and therapeutic solutions is strongly advocated. Creativity, flexibility, effectiveness, and efficiency are likely to be by-products of such clarity. Without it, our therapeutic zeal in searching for solutions is likely to become a problem.
A Japanese coastal village was once threatened by a tidal wave, but the wave was sighted in advance, far out on the horizon, by a lone farmer in the rice fields on the hillside above the village. At once he set fire to the fields, and the villagers who came swarming up to save their crops were saved from the flood.     

Sources of Bias in the Recall of Self‐Generated Data: The Role of Anchoring1

This study examines two issues. First, we assess the reliability of employment data self‐generated by respondents using a survey panel of 280 firms surveyed in 1999 and again in 2002. Our results show that there is a close correlation between self‐generated and archival secondary data. Second, we test for bias in the recall of previous years' employment levels and the sources of such bias. We assess three reasons for recall bias: respondent‐level factors; firm‐level factors; and anchoring. Our regression results indicate that: owners and new respondents; those in firms that changed legal status and/or location; those in smaller firms; and those in growing or declining firms were biased in their recall of prior employment. In addition, growing firms tended to underestimate their growth, which points to anchoring as an explanation for these biases. These biases imply that we have to be careful in delineating performance measures and cautious about how we interpret self‐generated managerial information.     

Vocational rehabilitation in multiple sclerosis (MS): a profile of clients seeking services

Although a number of innovative vocational rehabilitation (VR) demonstration projects have been completed with MS populations, there remains a lack of clarity as to a profile of these VR participants. An effort is made in this article to carefully describe the demographic and occupational characteristics of people with MS seeking vocational services at intake, as well as their self-perceived psychosocial functioning across a range of pertinent measures. The issue of "program dropouts" in VR services for people with MS is also addressed. Implications for better understanding participants with MS within the VR process and improved nuances in service delivery are then discussed.     

Job Satisfaction in Higher Education: Examining Gender in Professional Work Settings

The concept of job satisfaction has been central to the study of occupations. However, the impact of gender on job satisfaction in professional settings is still under-represented as an area of inquiry. We use the notion of job satisfaction to introduce our organizational heterogenesis approach to understanding workplace satisfaction. Central to this approach is a concern with constructs of organizational interaction which combine the individualistic and structuralist approaches to understanding organizational life. Our analysis of 180 faculty at a large, urban university shows that gender affects the features of the workplace that affect job satisfaction. Our organizational heterogenesis approach frames these findings as an example of how dispositions are made important in the organization rather than locating dispositions as individual characteristics alone. We conclude by discussing the organizational heterogenesis approach as a viable theory that combines individualistic and structuralist approaches to organizational life.