"Choice" in Filial Care Work: Moving beyond a Dichotomy

Les auteures analysent le concept du «choix>> dans le travail des aidants naturels filiaux. Dans la documentation théorique et empirique sur le travail des aidants naturels, une dichotomie entre le «choix>> et l'«obligation>> est considérée comme une construction sociale. Néanmoins, cette dichotomie ne reflète pas adéquatement les expériences familiales de fourniture de soins; par exemple, le choix et l'obligation ne constituent pas des motivations mutuellement exclusives. Ils sont plutôt «relationnels>>, «contextuels>> et manifestes dans l'interaction entre des macro et des microcontextes. La dichotomie choix-obligation est également idéologique. Sur le plan de la politique morale, elle fait la promotion du déchargement de la responsabilité des gouvernements sur les familles, elle obscurcit la complexité des relations filiales et peut même promouvoir l'ambivalence psychologique.
In this paper, we discuss the concept of "choice" in filial care work. A dichotomy between choice and obligation is constructed in theoretical and empirical literature on filial care work. However, this dichotomy does not adequately reflect family caregiving experiences; for instance, choice and obligation are not mutually exclusive motivations. Rather, choice and obligation are "relational" and "contextual" and manifest in the interaction between macro- and micro-contexts. The choice-obligation dichotomy is also ideological. At the moral-political level, it promotes the downloading of responsibility by governments to family, obscures the complexity of filial relationships, and may even promote psychological ambivalence.     

Alternative Question Forms for Attitude Scale Questions in Telephone Interviews

The absence of visual aids in telephone interviews has led investigatorsto seek methods for asking questions which are commonly accompaniedby aids in personal interviews. This study experimentally comparedtwo approaches to asking seven-point scale attitude questionsin a national (N = 4,300) telephone health survey. A randomhalf-sample received the attitude questions as single-step numericalselection tasks. The questions were administered to the otherhalf-sample in two stages, the first asking for a general verbalstatement of attitude and the second asking for a more detailedspecification. The two question forms produced comparable resultsin univariate distributions. Items administered with the one-stepform showed slightly higher intercorrelations. This study representsone step in the process of empirically testing data collectionprocedures which have been deemed necessary in the rich folkloreof survey research. Overall, the results show more comparabilitythan might be anticipated, given the multiple differences betweenthe forms.     

A study of expediting practices in manufacturing firms

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of one of the most common yet least optimized production management practices—expediting. The intention of this study was to generate quantitative insight into issues that underlie expediting decision making, such as the relative frequency of various causes of expediting, commonly used expediting strategies and tactics, and the interaction of expediting and the production scheduling environment in use. The study centered around a survey sent to 1768 manufacturing staff personnel, with 182 usable questionnaires returned. It is hoped that the data and conclusions presented in this paper will be of use to production management researchers who are interested in expediting as a managerial decision.     

Do worker absences affect productivity? The case of teachers

This article studies the impact of teacher absences on education. Using data spanning three academic years about 285 teachers and 8,631 predominantly economically disadvantaged students from a United States urban school district, it tests assumptions that a substantial portion of teachers' absences is discretionary and that these absences reduce productivity – students' mathematics scores. Since absent teachers are typically replaced by less qualified substitutes, instructional intensity and consistency may decline: ten days of teacher absence reduce students' achievement score by about 3.3 per cent of a standard deviation – enough to lower some students' designation in the state proficiency system and, thus, their motivation to succeed.     

The Continuity and Discontinuity of the Embodied Self in Infertility*

Se servant de données d'interviews en profondeur auprès de 110 femmes et 68 hommes, les auteurs de cet article examinent la construction et la négotiation du moi intrinsèque dans l'infertilité. lis analysent comment les hommes et les femmes qu'ils ont interviewés construisent une image de leur corps comme une machine, négocient la perte de contrôle et éprouvent les défauts perçus du moi intrinsèque dans le contexte des discours dominants de la féminité et de la masculinitè. Ils soutiennent que les défauts du corps aboutissent à un moi intrinseque discontinu, au fur et à mesure que l'infertilité fait voler en éclats les perceptions antérieures du moi intrinsèque et remet en question les anciennes conceptualisations des individus du lien tenu pour acquis entre le corps et le moi.
Using data from in-depth interviews with 110 women and 68 men, this paper examines the construction and negotiation of the embodied self in infertility. We analyse how the men and women we interviewed construct the body as machine, negotiate loss of control, and experience the perceived failings of the embodied self within the context of dominant discourses of femininity and masculinity. We argue that the failings of the body culminate in a discontinuous embodied self as infertility shatters previously held perceptions of the embodied self and challenges individuals' former conceptualizations of the taken-for-granted link between the body and the self.