From bedside to bench: research agenda for frailty

The American Geriatrics Society sponsored a working conference in January 2004, funded by the National Institute on Aging, to establish the state of the art in frailty research and to set a research agenda for the future. The invited participants included senior basic biologists, epidemiologists, geneticists, and clinical investigators who study aging-related issues. This article summarizes the central theoretical observations on frailty and research needs and opportunities presented and discussed at this conference, and lays out an agenda for future research on frailty.     

Improvisational choreography in teleservice work

This naturalistic study of the ordinary work practice of sales representatives employed by the call centre of a large office-equipment company focuses on the actions of those sales reps during their calls with customers. We show how this work performance is organized through an improvisational choreography of action involving not only the turn-by-turn interchange with customers on the telephone but also the concurrent utilization of a variety of tools and artefacts. While 'improvise' and 'choreograph' may appear to be conceptually incongruent, our analysis demonstrates that even though these teleservice workers recurrently fabricate their actions out of materials and means that are conveniently on hand, the convenience is often carefully arranged to afford such extemporaneous composition. Finally, we conclude from this analysis that the traditional topics of 'work routines' and 'routinization' need to be respecified in order to take into account how any 'routine' is a contingently produced result (and in this centre, a craft-like performance).     

Power and Group Processes

Theoretical discussions of power assume that power alters the behavior but not the structure of participants. A significant consequence of subordination to power, however, is that the composition, constitution and structure of agents are transformed. After identifying the fallacy of the unitary subject it is argued, and demonstrated in a case study, that power involves a disunity of the subject. These points are then integrated into a discussion of the dimensions of power.     

An ecological approach to social work with children and families

This paper examines research into the social ecology of parents and children, with particular reference to the effects of social support on family functioning and outcomes for children. The historical failure of social work in the UK to successfully apply the findings from this area of research to mainstream work with children and families is considered in the light of the prevailing child protection discourse. Challenges to this discourse are now beginning to emerge from developments in both research and practice. The implications of these developments for the construction of a new discourse, which recognizes the wider social and political factors that shape the family environment, are discussed. It is argued that there is sufficient research evidence available to demonstrate the potential of community social work strategies, which enhance the social support networks of families, to significantly reduce the incidence of child abuse. A number of successful action-research projects of this nature are considered.     

Demands of the joint committee's standards for educational evaluation

The study examines demands placed on evaluators by the the Joint Committee on Educational Evaluation's standards. Twenty-two experts in evaluation rated the compatibility of implementing pairs of standards or rated individual standards on a series of scales. Multidimensional scaling of the compatibility judgments revealed five demands of ethical practice: evaluators must attend to the contextual and political circumstances of the evaluation; they must exhibit professionalism in their work; they must conduct the evaluation openly and consult widely; evaluators must meet canons of social science practice; and finally, evaluators' research activities must attend to the specific evaluation setting. The demand to attend to the contextual and political circumstances of the evaluation presents the greatest potential for conflict with other demands and is in greatest need of development.     

Social Theory and the De/Reconstruction of Agricultural Science: Local Knowledge for an Alternative Agriculture1

Abstract As a result of environmental and agrarian activism and of academic critique, a substantial amount of space is available now for moving agricultural technoscience onto new trajectories. A critical rural sociology has played a key role in pushing forward the deconstructive project that has been instrumental in creating this space. And rural sociologists can be active agents in the reconstruction of the alternative science that must emerge from “actually existing” science and that must be developed if there is to be a truly alternative agriculture. But to be effective in this effort we need to enlarge not only the canon of our colleagues in the natural sciences, but our own canon as well. This article suggests that the theoretical resources for such reconstruction are available in contemporary sociological and feminist interpretations of science. Material resources for the reconstruction of a “successor science” are to be found in the “local knowledge” that is continually produced and reproduced by farmers and agricultural workers. Articulations and complementarities between theoretical resources are suggested and potentially productive research areas are outlined.