When they call me cripple: a group of South African adolescents with cerebral palsy attending a special needs school talk about being disabled

Central to the experience of disability are social and political forces and discourses which position people in particular ways. Little is known about the experiences of individuals with disabilities living in low-income and middle-income countries. We investigate the lived experience of a group of South African adolescents with cerebral palsy. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 adolescents with cerebral palsy. Data were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. The participants position themselves between the medical and social models of disability, in a liminal space between ‘normal’ and ‘disabled’, but do not identify with either group. They describe a ‘hierarchy of disability’ and position themselves in-between more serious sensory impairments and less serious emotional and learning disabilities. Being disabled is associated with being taken care of, infantilised and being powerless. Consequently they aspire to achieve independence and autonomy, and face danger, which are seen as signifiers that they are not disabled.     

Understanding gender differences in older people's attitudes towards life-prolonging medical technologies

The power of medical technologies to extend the final stages of life has heightened the need to understand what factors influence older people's wish to use such medical technologies. We analyse gender differences in such views, based on audio-recorded interviews with 33 men and 36 women (aged 65–93) in south-east England. Older women were twice as likely as men to oppose using medical technologies to extend life. More older women voiced ‘other-oriented’ reasons for their opposition, particularly not wanting to be a burden on others. Older men's attitudes were primarily ‘self-oriented’, reflecting a concern to stay alive for as long as possible, with fewer expressing concern about consequences for others. Women's greater life course involvement in caring and empathising with the wishes and concerns of others underlay these gender differences. Thus, women were ‘performing gender’ by putting others before themselves, even at this critical juncture in their lives.     

The Timing of Divorce: Predicting When a Couple Will Divorce Over a 14‐Year Period

This paper investigates the predictability of divorce in a long‐term, prospective longitudinal study. Past research has indicated that 2 periods can be considered the most critical for the survival of marriages: (a) the first 7 years of marriage, during which half of all divorces are known to occur, and (b) the period during which the first child reaches 14 years of age, which has been suggested as a low point for marital satisfaction in the life course. In the present study, interaction variables at Time 1 (both during conflict and in an events‐of‐the‐day discussion following separation of the spouses for at least 8 hours) and noninteractive variables were used to predict divorcing both early and later in the marriage. A different set of variables predicted early divorcing than predicted later divorcing. Negative affect during conflict predicted early divorcing, but it did not predict later divorcing. By contrast, the lack of positive affect in events‐of‐the‐day and conflict discussions predicted later divorcing, but it did not predict early divorcing. Prediction was possible over the 14‐year period of the study with a model that included marital satisfaction, thoughts of marital dissolution, and affective interaction in both conversations. The model predicted divorce with 93% accuracy.     

Reducing Risk on Machinery: A Field Evaluation Pilot Study of Risk Assessment

A pilot evaluation of the ANSI B11-TR3 Machinery Risk Assessment/Risk Reduction (RA/RR) Guideline was conducted. The TR3 guideline was introduced into five companies on one machinery system in each company with a second machine system serving as a control. A pre-post investigation was performed with safety conditions measured pre and post in both treatment and control and with risk reduction score measured only in the treatment machine system. NIOSH provided a commercially available risk assessment software to facilitate the process. Evaluation measures included avoided injuries, reduced exposure to machinery hazards, pretest and posttest knowledge demonstration, assessment of group processes following training, correct implementation of the guidelines, and degree to which risk reduction recommendations were implemented. The qualitative results of this pilot effort appear to be the best indicators for the way ahead in industrial machine risk assessment. All companies indicated that they derived value in participating in this study and in conducting risk assessments. Quantitative study results suggest that: (1) as measured by the knowledge of the participants before and after the TR3 training, the guidelines can be effective at enhancing employee knowledge of safe machine operations and (2) although the injury reduction trends appear successful, the small sample size in the study size should be considered in interpreting these early results.     

An International Perspective of Field Instruction

Abstract

Social work educators and practitioners have long debated several issues confronting field instruction. For example, they have addressed the structure of field placement, school versus agency-based supervision, remuneration to agencies that accept student placements, and the use of employer agencies as field settings. Because problem-solving increasingly involves working with people in nations other than the United States, it is important to gain an international perspective on field instruction issues. To this end, an international study was conducted to examine social work field instruction and the educational context in which it occurs. This article reports the findings of that study, which involved 51 countries. The universality of field instruction as an integral part of educational program, is apparent, as are the similarity of issues, problems, and proposed solutions Moreover, the findings indicate areas in which social work education has greater international consistency than education for the professions within national and regional boundaries, whereas other areas are influenced more by national and regional factors than by a universal social work professional culture.     

Apples to Apples: The Origin and Magnitude of Differences in Asbestos Cancer Risk Estimates Derived Using Varying Protocols

Given that new protocols for assessing asbestos‐related cancer risk have recently been published, questions arise concerning how they compare to the “IRIS” protocol currently used by regulators. The newest protocols incorporate findings from 20 additional years of literature. Thus, differences between the IRIS and newer Berman and Crump protocols are examined to evaluate whether these protocols can be reconciled. Risks estimated by applying these protocols to real exposure data from both laboratory and field studies are also compared to assess the relative health protectiveness of each protocol. The reliability of risks estimated using the two protocols are compared by evaluating the degree with which each potentially reproduces the known epidemiology study risks. Results indicate that the IRIS and Berman and Crump protocols can be reconciled; while environment‐specific variation within fiber type is apparently due primarily to size effects (not addressed by IRIS), the 10‐fold (average) difference between amphibole asbestos risks estimated using each protocol is attributable to an arbitrary selection of the lowest of available mesothelioma potency factors in the IRIS protocol. Thus, the IRIS protocol may substantially underestimate risk when exposure is primarily to amphibole asbestos. Moreover, while the Berman and Crump protocol is more reliable than the IRIS protocol overall (especially for predicting amphibole risk), evidence is presented suggesting a new fiber‐size‐related adjustment to the Berman and Crump protocol may ultimately succeed in reconciling the entire epidemiology database. However, additional data need to be developed before the performance of the adjusted protocol can be fully validated.     

Linkages Between Parents’ Differential Treatment,Youth Depressive Symptoms,and Sibling Relationships

We tested social comparison predictions about cross‐sectional and longitudinal associations between parents’ differential treatment of siblings and both youth depressive symptoms and sibling relationship qualities from middle childhood to late adolescence, controlling for dyadic parent‐child relationships and siblings’ ratings of parents’ fairness. Participants were parents and first‐ and second‐borns (M= 11.8 and 9.2 years old at Year 1) from 201 White, middle/working‐class families. Three‐level models revealed both cross‐sectional and longitudinal linkages between differential treatment and outcomes. For example, youth whose parent‐child relationships decreased in warmth relative to those of their sibling reported increases in depressive symptoms and decreases in sibling warmth. Gender and age moderated differential treatment‐depressive symptoms associations; birth order moderated differential treatment‐sibling relationship associations.     

A Study of Cognitive Complexity in the Education for Social Work Practice

This study investigates cognitive complexity in interpersonal discriminations as it relates to selected aspects of the decision-making process in social work practice. Differences in data transmission and selection of interventive activities between graduate social work students who scored high on Carr's Interpersonal Discrimination Test were compared with those who scored low. As predicted, subjects who scored high on interpersonal discrimination transmitted more information about clients dissimilar to themselves and specified a greater number of interventive alternatives than did those who scored low. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of selection for the profession and in the identification and ordering of learning experiences in the curriculum     

Invasive <Emphasis Type="Italic">Wisteria</Emphasis> in the Southeastern United States: genetic diversity,hybridization and the role of urban centers

The increasing numbers and negative impacts of invasive species have prompted research on the relationship between human activities and the success of invasive horticultural plants. In this study, we use population genetic relationships to model the escape of a common garden vine, exotic Wisteria, into natural habitats. Urban and naturalized Wisteria populations in Charleston, South Carolina and Tallahassee, Florida were investigated using a combination of chloroplast, mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers. Fifty-nine of 72 (81.9%) Wisteria collections were hybrids of Wisteria sinensis and W. floribunda. Chi-square analysis of the distribution of shared W. floribunda haplotypes among naturalized and urban populations supports the relationship of time with invasion success. Naturalized populations were more similar to those in historic neighborhoods. The most common haplotype, F1, was encountered 22 times but its distribution was not significantly different between urban and naturalized populations. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of haplotype F2 found in naturalized populations suggests that selection may also be acting within these populations. Finally, due to extensive human dispersal, there is no relationship between genetic distance and geographical distance among the populations sampled. We conclude that Wisteria’s long history of horticulture, rampant hybridization, and human-aided dispersal are all implicated in the successful ability of these plants to invade natural habitats throughout the USA.     

Quality of life perceptions in two cultures

This paper reports and analyzes the quality of life perceptions held by the inhabitants of two culturally different but demographically similar cities: Springfield, Illinois and Aix-en-Provence, France. Although the Springfielders expressed greater satisfaction than the Aixois in virtually all the life domains covered by the research, the areas of relative satisfaction and dissatisfaction were remarkably similar in the two cities; furthermore, the domains in which the French indicated the least satisfaction were generally ones where their objective quality of life conditions were inferior to those of their American counterparts. Multiple regression techniques are used to trace the relative contribution of domain satisfactions and demographic characteristics in explaining respondents' comparative life enjoyment and reported levels of happiness.