How listeners shape what tellers tell: Patterns of interaction in lifestory interviews and their impact on reminiscence by elderly interviewees

How older adults reminisce about their lives to others depends in part on who is listening, and on the relationship that they and their listeners establish. To support this hypothesis, findings are presented from a narrative analysis of 12 lifestory interviews done by 3 interviewers (4 interviews each: 2 with males; 2 with females) with people 80 and older living in a largely rural area of Eastern Canada. The interviewers have distinctive listening styles and come from significantly different backgrounds. One is a man, and former minister, from the immediate region; another, a woman from a large European city; the third, a younger woman from an urban centre in Western Canada. The paper takes advantage of the opportunity inherent in having 3 interviewers rather than only 1 and compares patterns that characterized the various interviewer–interviewee interactions and the impact of such patterns on how interviewees talked about their lives. Speculations are offered concerning how different listeners might have elicited reminiscences on different themes or of different types from the same tellers.     

Conclusions: Adolescents' Preparation for the Future

The future of societies depends on their success in providing pathways whereby young people develop and prepare themselves to be contributing adults to their communities. When these pathways are well marked, stable, supported by the community, and inviting to adolescents, a society can be confident that new generations will join the ranks of adulthood well prepared. When these paths are hazardous, unpredictable, uninviting, or ill fitted to the demands of adulthood in that society, the future is insecure, both for adolescents and for society. This volume and the additional two volumes of this study group (Brown, Larson, && Saraswathi, 2002; Mortimer && Brown, 2002) suggest the following observations about the experiences of youth and how well they are being prepared for adulthood in the 21st century.     

Why is the potential of augmentative and alternative communication not being realized? Exploring the experiences of people who use communication aids

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) holds the potential to enable people with severe oral communication impairments to participate more fully in society. However, despite the development of increasingly sophisticated communication aids, as well as recent UK policy initiatives aimed at improving access to them, some major obstacles stand in the way of the inclusory potential of AAC being realized to any significant degree. Drawing on findings of a research study that explored the experiences of people who use AAC, this paper looks at the various problems that people encounter in using communication aids. It identifies the lack of consistent, structured support as a key overarching issue. The author goes on to argue that for the potential of AAC to be realized attention needs to be given to the development of coordinated systems of support within the policy domains of education, health and social services.     

A Serpent in the Garden: Implications of Highway Development in Canada's Niagara Fruit Belt

This paper examines how long–term residents of the Niagara Fruit Belt of Ontario, Canada interpret the disappearance of prime farming land. The Queen Elizabeth Way, a highway development, is identified as one major initiative which has deeply affected the characteristics of the region and, importantly, has overshadowed perspectives of development and growth. An historical account of the development of the highway is presented to show how the event has become symbolic of urbanization and government interference. Participants in the study expressed little hope for the continuation of fruit farming in the region.     

Evaluating a multiple-family group access intervention for refugees with PTSD

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of a multiple-family group in increasing access to mental health services for refugees with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study investigated a nine-session multiple-family group called Coffee and Families Education and Support with refugee families from Bosnia-Herzegovina in Chicago. Adults with PTSD (n = 197) and their families were randomly assigned to receive either the intervention or a control condition. The results indicated that a multiple-family group was effective in increasing access to mental health services and that depression and family comfort with discussing trauma mediated the intervention effect. Further well-designed studies of family interventions are needed for developing evidence-based interventions for refugee families.     

Assessing the Unidimensionality of Psychological Scales: Using Multiple Criteria from Factor Analysis

Whenever one uses a composite scale score from item responses, one is tacitly assuming that the scale is dominantly unidimensional. Investigating the unidimensionality of item response data is an essential component of construct validity. Yet, there is no universally accepted technique or set of rules to determine the number of factors to retain when assessing the dimensionality of item response data. Typically factor analysis is used with the eigenvalues-greater-than-one rule, the ratio of first-to-second eigenvalues, parallel analysis, root-mean-square-error-of-approximation, or hypothesis testing approaches involving chi-square tests from Maximum Likelihood or Generalized Least Squares estimation. The purpose of this study was to investigate how these various procedures perform individually, and in combination, when assessing the unidimensionality of item response data via a computer simulated design. Conditions such as sample size, magnitude of communality, distribution of item responses, proportion of communality on second factor, and the number of items with non-zero loadings on the second factor were varied. Results indicate that there was no one individual decision-making method that identified unidimensionality under all conditions manipulated. Given the low communalities, all individual decision-making methods failed to detect unidimensionality for the combination where sample size was small, magnitude of communality was low, and item distributions were skewed. A set of guidelines and a new statistical methodology are provided for researchers.     

Strengthening Resource Mobilization Chains: Developing the Social Media Competencies of Community and Voluntary Organizations in New Zealand

There is potential for nonprofit organizations to increase effectiveness by mobilizing social media to help achieve goals. However, the sector is only just becoming aware of the possibilities for social media and lags behind other sectors in its use. We report a New Zealand initiative to enhance the capability of nonprofit organizations through action research that has implications for nonprofit organizations elsewhere. Borrowing from resource mobilization theory, we introduce the concept of resource mobilization chains to explain the requirements for and obstacles to taking advantage of social media. A survey and two in-depth case studies found that nonprofit organizations demonstrated extremely limited familiarity with and use of social media. Participants were enthusiastic about the potential of mobilizing social media to achieve organizational goals, but struggled to take concrete steps to implement their aspirations. Lack of resources was a key obstacle identified in both survey and case study research.     

Disparities in Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Literacy and Vaccine Completion Among Asian American Pacific Islander Undergraduates: Implications for Cancer Health Equity

Abstract

Purpose: Low rates of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among young Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women need to be addressed, particularly given the high incidence of cervical cancer in this population. The current study aims to investigate predictors of HPV vaccination in young AAPI and non-Latina white (NLW) women. Methods: A secondary data analysis was conducted of a health survey administered to college-aged women (N = 2,270) at a large public university in the Midwest. Andersen's behavioral model of health services utilization guided the study theoretically, and hierarchical logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate research aim. Results: NLW women had a significantly higher rate of vaccine completion than AAPI women (NLW = 60.7%; AAPI = 38.6%). NLW women also scored higher on all 5 measures of HPV vaccine literacy than AAPI women. Both groups of undergraduate women reported that increasing age, knowledge about HPV, greater use of gynecological services, and knowing someone who had cancer were significant factors related to HPV vaccination completion. In the NLW group, father's income was also found to be a predictor of HPV vaccination completion. Conclusions: Rate and predictors of HPV vaccination completion vary between NLW and AAPI women. Greater promotion of HPV literacy and gynecological service use should be made to young AAPI women to increase their HPV uptake. Further research should examine sociocultural factors that could hinder or promote HPV vaccination in young AAPI women.