Autonomy in Assisted Living: Employees’ Perspectives

This focused ethnography explores how employees in assisted living facilities give meaning to the term autonomy, a core value in the mission of assisted living facilities. In-depth interviews were conducted with managerial and front line staff in two assisted living facilities to understand their interpretation of the concept of autonomy and how they felt they enhance the autonomy of the residents. Four interrelated themes capturing the meaning of autonomy emerged from analysis of the interview data: (1) autonomy is synonymous with functional independence, (2) expectations of residents of assisted living are different from residents of nursing homes, (3) rehabilitation is a goal of assisted living, and (4) a tendency to intervene in the best interests of the residents. The implications of the findings are discussed in terms of their potential effect on residents.     

HEALTH AND ILLNESS ISSUES FACING AN AGING WORKFORCE IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM

This article raises key social issues facing an aging workforce, including the increasing levels of employment after retirement, the concentration of older workers in the service industries and in part-time work, and the impact of technological innovation on older workers. The article examines the experiences of older workers in the context of the other major social roles occupied by women and men aged 55 and older. This review provides medical sociologists several suggestions for new or continued areas for research as we move into the new millennium on health and illness issues relevant to older workers in the United States.     

An evaluation of the use of diaries in a study of medication in later life

This paper is based upon our experience of commissioning diaries to be kept by research subjects. First the paper reviews some previous research based on diaries, then it outlines the aims of our research and the method of data collection. Then the paper goes on to evaluate the design and use of a diary that participants in our research completed. In particular we consider the ways in which the diary may have biased our sample, caused the participants difficulties and generated poor data. There is also a discussion on how it may have affected behaviour and on the ethical issues that are raised by commissioned diaries. In conclusion, observations are made about the strengths and weaknesses of diaries as an investigative tool with a wider applicability. The diary proved particularly revealing and we recommend that other researchers consider diaries as a method of investigating everyday life.     

A Case-based Collaborative Learning Model for Teaching Advocacy

Social work graduate school programs focusing on clinical practice have traditionally attended less to the profession's advocacy role. Masters-level clinical social work students, therefore, may not receive adequate training to understand their roles in advocating for or against policies that directly impact their practice. This article proposes a collaborative learning model called ‘Advocacy Week’, which prepares students for a statewide NASW-sponsored Advocacy Day. Using case presentations prepared in collaboration with clinical and policy social work faculty, aspiring clinical social work practitioners are exposed to the relevance of advocacy. Preliminary findings suggest that graduate students exposed to this model become aware of their advocate role as part of their clinical practice, a knowledge which has implications for social work education.     

Breaking it is one thing,fixing it is another: Responsibility attributions and support for the U.S. Presidency,Congress, and the Supreme Court

When do attributions of responsibility predict support for governmental institutions? Data from an online survey of 508 United States citizens examining attributions for their most salient national problem revealed associations between attributions and evaluations of the Presidency, Supreme Court, and Congress. With respect to the Presidency, causal attributions were related to more negative evaluations, while resolution attributions were related to more positive evaluations. This was especially true for conservative participants. With respect to the Supreme Court, causal attributions were related to more negative evaluations. With respect to Congress, there was an association between causal attributions and negative evaluations, but only for those with a low level of resolution attributions. Results are discussed in terms of the political climate and differences in institutional expectations.     

Culture in the transitions to modernity: seven pillars of a new research agenda

How did cultural dynamics help bring about the societies we now recognize as modern? This article constructs seven distinct models for how structures of signification and social meaning participated in the transitions to modernity in the West and, in some of the models, across the globe. Our models address: (1) the spread, via imitation, of modern institutions around the world (memetic replication); (2) the construal, by socio-cultural forces and by state organizations, of the modern citizen-subject (social subjectification); (3) the continual search for new meanings to replace traditional religious meaning-systems (compensatory reenchantment); (4) repeated attempts, in modern revolutions, to remake society completely, according to a utopian vision (ideological totalization); (5) the cultural origins and social consequences of scientific and humanistic worldviews (epistemic rift); (6) the gendered politics of state formation (patriarchal supercession); (7) the invention and production of race in the colonial encounter (racial recognition). We explicate the models in reverse chronological order, because in our synthesis, we argue that the original modern break results from a dynamic combination of racial recognition, patriarchal supercession, and epistemic rift; these changes set the stage for the four other processes we theorize. In addition to our synthesis, we also consider, from a more neutral perspective, the kinds of causal arguments upon which these models tend to rely, and thus explicate the analytical undergirding for the application of any of these models to empirical research on transitions to modernity. Throughout the article, we consider how these models might, and might not, mesh with other families of explanation, such as the politico-economic.     

Individual and Issue‐Specific Differences in Parental Knowledge and Adolescent Disclosure in Chile,the Philippines,and the United States

Perceived parental knowledge and adolescents' disclosure to parents were predicted from parental warmth and monitoring and adolescents' disclosure, agreement, and beliefs about obligation to obey and parental legitimacy (N=698 Chilean, Filipino, and U.S. 13–20‐year‐olds). The correlates of knowledge are similar in all three countries, but the relative strength of the correlations differs. Global agreement was associated with greater knowledge. Parents knew most about issues governed by rules and those where adolescents agreed, felt obliged to obey, and disclosed. Monitoring predicted knowledge only in Chile and the Philippines. Warmth was a stronger predictor of knowledge in the United States. Key predictors of disclosure include agreement in Chile, agreement and rules in the Philippines, and warmth and rules in the United States.