Japanese women's experiences of pharmacological pain relief in New Zealand

BackgroundIn Japan, most women manage labour pain without pharmacological interventions. However, New Zealand statistics show a high percentage of epidural use amongst Asian women. Entonox (a gas mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen) and pethidine are also available to women in New Zealand. This article investigates how Japanese women in New Zealand respond to the use of pharmacological pain relief in labour.QuestionsThe study was guided by two research questions: (1) How do Japanese women experience and manage labour pain in New Zealand? (2) How do they feel about the use of pharmacological pain relief?MethodsThirteen Japanese women who had given birth in New Zealand were interviewed individually or in a focus group. The conversations were analysed using thematic analysis.FindingsAlthough in Japan very few women use pain relief, nine women received epidural and/or Entonox out of 11 women who experienced labour pain. The contrast between their Japanese cultural expectations and their birth experiences caused some of the women subsequent personal conflict.ConclusionJapanese women's cultural perspectives and passive attitudes were demonstrated to influence the decision-making process concerning pain relief. It was concluded that understanding Japanese cultural worldviews and approaches to the role of pain in labour would help maternity providers in their provision of appropriate care for Japanese women.     

Hypermedia Computer-Based Education in Social Work Education

Abstract

Hypermedia computer-based education (CBE) is an emerging information technology that makes possible user-directed, nonsequential exploration of, and interaction with, information presented through a variety of media including text, animation, graphics, sound, and video. This article describes hypermedia CBE and briefly reviews the research on its instructional efficacy. A synopsis of the theoretical foundation covers cognitive theory concepts of information networks and associative learning, web teaching principles, andragogical theory as it relates to social work education, and hypermedia CBE structure. Examples of current and potential applications in social work education demonstrate that hypermedia CBE can emulate the dynamic, iterative learning process of knowledge acquisition, knowledge testing, and content integration through practice simulation.     

Forecasting the market demand for waste paper

In a recent article in this journal, Livesey and Barcena supplied an interesting but necessarily superficial analysis of the market for waste paper. Their essential conclusion was that, faced with future shortages, and hence increased prices of wood pulp, the paper and board industry would be forced to rely more heavily on secondary fibre. In turn, they felt that ‘in order to ensure an adequate supply of waste paper, governments may need to exert a greater degree of influence over the market than they do at present’.This paper seeks to provide a more rigorous analysis of the ‘waste paper problem’ in terms of future demand and fluctuations in that demand. It also corrects some misconceptions in the paper by Livesey and Barcena as to the likely sources of future supply and the economics of securing those supplies.     

JOHANNESBURG INTERIORS

Almost two decades into the post-apartheid era, inner-city Johannesburg – like much of South Africa – remains structured by deeply ingrained forms of physical and imaginative segregation. Building on architect Sarah Calburn's suggestion that one way to address these divisions would be to make the city's external or outside spaces feel more like domestic interiors as well as on the calls of writer Njabulo Ndebele for new forms of public intimacy, this article explores three distinct artistic projects that each attempt to push beyond segregation by opening up private homes for public perusal and/or making public space more intimate and home-like: Kgebetli Moele's novel Room 207, Christoph Gurk's performance art collection X Homes Johannesburg and Terry Kurgan's public photography/digital media experiment Hotel Yeoville. Working with concepts of home, hotels and hospitality, it theorizes the modes of ‘intimate exposure’ these projects enact as forms of hospitality or Derridean ‘hos(ti)pitality’ potentially capable of welcoming diverse groups into a shared public space while at the same time foregrounding inequalities in need of redress. While the role of artistic projects in shaping culture should not be overemphasized, the article also underscores how such works have emerged in contemporary South Africa as vibrant ways of thinking in public and thinking the public.     

The Native in the Garden: Floral Politics and Cultural Entrepreneurs

Although sociological research has examined how state symbolism binds citizens together and creates allegiance, little attention has been paid to how such symbols are selected. We investigate the adoption of state flowers in the United States. Seemingly unproblematic processes surrounding the selection of floral emblems can, under certain circumstances, involve heated symbolic politics. The default option of selecting a native flower, naturalizing the state, can be overcome by materialist or cultural interests that invest cultivated flowers with symbolic potency. In-depth case studies of three states where battles were waged over the state flower reveal that the battle lines were material and symbolic, demonstrating that apparently “authentic” representations of nature can be trumped by factional and subcultural interests.

Of Polls, Mountains: U.S. Journalists and Their Use of Election Surveys

Polls are a prominent feature of U.S. election news coverage.Although polls are used to explain voter opinion, they are employedmostly to fuel horse-race coverage and to craft images consistentwith the candidates’ positions in the race. Moreover,U.S. journalists sometimes misinterpret polls by slighting thepossibility that changes in candidate preference are the resultof survey error rather than real change. On balance, U.S. journalists’dependence on polls adversely affects the quality of Americanelection coverage.     

Expert Companions? Constructing a Pedagogy for Supervising Honours Students

There is a substantial body of knowledge that describes and analyses supervision of higher degree research students. However, the literature is relatively silent on the question of appropriate pedagogy for the supervision of honours students. Using a sample of social work students who completed their studies during the period 2005–2010, the authors set out to gain some preliminary knowledge of the appropriate pedagogy for the supervision of honours students. The findings reveal that most honours students constructed their supervisors as being expert companions, and provide some support for a social work model of academic supervision.     

Rescue Fantasies in Child Therapy: Countertransference/Transference Enactments

When the focus of the child treatment is on the therapist being a good object, this can accentuate a possible countertransference difficulty of the therapist becoming the protector of the child from the bad object. This countertransference can often resonate with rescue fantasies in the child. This paper will explore the topic of rescue fantasies in child treatment, while addressing the issue of coinciding fantasies existing unconsciously in both the therapist and child, leading to their enactment. A case of a nine-year old boy is presented which demonstrates how interpretation and resolution of rescue fantasies can lead to a deepening of the treatment.