Institutional abuse of older adults: what we know, what we need to know

Although Canadian policies support "aging in place," there still will be a number of older adults who will require institutional care in the future. Most research on elder abuse, however, has focused on domestic abuse and has paid less attention to institutional abuse. The purpose of this article is to comprehensively review current research to identify gaps in knowledge and methodological issues in the study of institutional abuse. Overall, 49 studies in English and 20 studies in French were reviewed, and 11 key-informant interviews were conducted with methodological experts. Methodological challenges are addressed in light of the review and interviews.     

Using process evaluation to determine effectiveness of participatory ergonomics training interventions in construction

The construction industry continues to experience high rates of musculoskeletal injuries despite the widespread promotion of ergonomic solutions. Participatory ergonomics (PE) has been suggested as one approach to engage workers and employers for reducing physical exposures from work tasks but a systematic review of participatory ergonomics programs showed inconclusive results.. A process evaluation is used to monitor and document the implementation of a program and can aid in understanding the relationship between the program elements and the program outcomes. The purpose of this project is to describe a proposed process evaluation for use in a participatory ergonomic training program in construction workers and to evaluate its utility in a demonstration project among floor layers.     

Achieving impact in ergonomic research

People are central to system functioning and this role has been dramatically extended by new information technology. This makes possible the fundamental transformation of processes across systems of systems. Can Ergonomics research play an effective role in systems integration innovation? To have real world impact on such problems the system of R and D needs to sustain strong designs that address the functionality of socio-technical systems and support the implementation of innovations, taking into account the complexity of change, the importance of values of dignity and trust, and creating a common understanding amongst all stakeholders to enable design for operations. Strong research designs are more expensive, difficult, risky and prolonged than more commonly practiced weaker designs. They require active engagement with the industrial or service provider and involve overcoming cultural and other barriers to effective implementation and change. To create a virtuous cycle of research-generated impact it is necessary for strong designs to be well supported in the research community and for real world impact to be central to performance criteria of research excellence. Unfortunately neither of these criteria appear to be fulfilled. To ameliorate this, deficiencies in the full cycle of systems integration innovation need to be addressed.     

Diversity in the Academy: On the Growing Prominence of Race and Ethnicity in the Pacific Sociological Association, 1929–2014

This article examines issues related to the underrepresentation of faculty of color in higher education, with specific attention to the discipline of Sociology and the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA). The authors explore the role that professional organizations such as the PSA have played in promoting racial and ethnic diversity within the Sociology pipeline. Further, it provides an analytic overview of the history of conference presentations on the topic of race and ethnicity within the PSA over the last eight decades. The article proceeds in three major parts: First, is an outline of the contours of the problem of racial underrepresentation in the academy. Next, follows a content analysis of PSA programs, which indicates that race continues to be of central importance to the PSA and that the 1970s were a turning point when the PSA began to examine its role in promoting diversity in the discipline. Finally, mentorship is presented as a critical vehicle for promoting greater racial equity in the PSA and the discipline of Sociology more broadly.     

Emotional Facial Expression Recognition and Expressivity in Type I and Type II Alcohol Dependent Patients

Alcohol dependent patients (ADs) are known to encounter severe interpersonal problems. Nonverbal communication skills are important for the development of healthy relationships. The present study aimed to explore emotional facial expression (EFE) recognition and posed and spontaneous EFE expressivity in male ADs divided into two groups according to Cloninger’s typology and the impact of their interpersonal relationship quality on the potential nonverbal deficits. Twenty type I ADs, twenty-one type II ADs, and twenty control participants took part in an EFE recognition task and an EFE expressivity task that considered personal emotional events (spontaneous expressivity) and EFE in response to a photo or word cue (posed expressivity). Coding was based on judges’ ratings of participants’ emotional facial expressions. Participants additionally completed a questionnaire on interpersonal relationship quality. No difference between the three groups emerged in the EFE recognition task. Type II ADs showed heightened deficits compared with type I ADs in EFE expressivity: Judges perceived less accurate posed EFE in response to a cue word and less intense and positive spontaneous EFE in type II ADs compared to control participants. In addition, type II ADs reported more relationship difficulties compared to both type I ADs and control participants. These interpersonal relationship difficulties were related to some of the EFE expressivity deficits of AD-IIs. This study underlines the important differences between the interpersonal functioning of AD subtypes.     

‘How to be a rural man’: Young men's performances and negotiations of rural masculinities

This paper is concerned with young rural men and how they ‘do’ identity politics living in a rural area of Norway. Focusing on how masculinity and rurality are constructed and interrelated in young men's narratives of living in a remote community, it is identified that young rural men reproduce, negotiate and transform local discourses of rural masculinity. First, the article shows that young men living in rural areas believe it is important to express rural masculinity through hunting and outdoor life as well as by exhibiting skills as handymen. Second, it reveals that it is important for young rural men to communicate a particular stance in the ongoing and controversial Norwegian debate over snowmobiles and carnivores, as these topics are related to rural men's sense of loyalty to place. Third, the article shows how rural men negotiate ‘the tough man’ images related to hunting, motors and handyman skills by constructing new and alternative masculinities. The analysis reveals that young rural men enact alternative masculinities, expressed in relation to new working life opportunities in the service sector, through emotional openness and caring, and in relation to traditional ‘masculine spaces’ such as hunting and snowmobiling. It is concluded that, little by little, rural communities are opening up for more flexible masculinities.     

Realigning criminal policy. Offender and victim in the Swedish party system over time

The article conducts a case study of criminal policy in the Swedish party system between 1960 and the present. Like other countries, Sweden has witnessed its criminal policy take a ‘punitive turn’ during this time. We hypothesize that this turn is explained by the fact that the discourse on crime has become increasingly victim-centred. Our study of the changes in the parties’ policies suggests that the parties play a central role in this explanation. In order to understand the punitive turn, however, the increasingly victim-centred discourse must in turn be explained. We argue that it is the individualization of society which provides the key here.     

New Technology in Home Help Services — A Tool for Support or an Instrument of Subordination?

The implementation of information and communication technologies (ICT) is in line with a general transformation of the work of home help services in Sweden. One strong motivation behind the introduction of new technology was to change the ways of working towards greater efficiency in order to reduce costs and at the same time raise the value of care‐giving work. This article discusses the introduction of ICT in home help services as a part of the increasing rationalization of care‐giving work and its consequences for the workers. The results of an ethnographic study of the introduction of hand‐held computers in a working team in home help services in Sweden shows that the motives for the implementation of ICT run counter to the basic norms that are supposed to govern care‐giving work. The technology participates in reproducing the subordinate position of care‐giving work as well as that of the front‐line workers. The workers act according to personal decision‐making ability and show a form of limited resistance to the technology while, at the same time, taking part in their own subordination.     

Discourse marker ‘oh’ as a means for realizing the identity potential of constructed dialogue in interaction1

This research explores how discourse marker oh works with constructed dialogue (quoted speech), identifying a use of oh not discussed in previous research in which it can serve to signal speaker stance towards quoted material. While both discourse markers and constructed dialogue have been widely discussed as identity resources in the discourse analytic and interactional‐sociolinguistic tradition, there has been little work considering how these linguistic features may work together. In this paper, I address this gap by illustrating how Bakhtin's (1984) notions of uni‐directional and vari‐directional double voicing articulate with information display and evaluation functions of oh identified by Schiffrin (1987) , suggesting that oh (when occurring as a preface to constructed dialogue), works both to display and evaluate quoted material for the purposes of identity construction in interaction. Such uses of this discourse marker provide illustration of how footing works together with related concepts of evaluation, positioning, and alignment as part of a process of stancetaking in interaction ( Du Bois 2007 ). Examples are taken from ethnographic interviews collected as part of a larger study of the linguistic style of a community of improv performers in Washington, D.C. focusing primarily on examples contributed by one speaker, Josh.     

Sociological Theories of Low-Wage Work

This review addresses the use of sociological theories in the examination of low-wage work. Due to the vast volume of literature on this topic, only theories that help to explain the dynamics of low-wage work are described, along with the differences and controversies surrounding these theories. These theories are divided into four topic areas related to theories of work, racial and gender theories, immigration theories, and intersectionality theory. The theories of work include different models of wage determination, namely, functional, conflict, and structural models. The review concludes with a conceptual map that illustrates how these theories can inform and guide practice.