Role In Social Change Research Articles

Social Capital and Community Group Participation: Examining ‘Bridging’ and ‘Bonding’ in the Context of a Healthy Living Centre in the UK

ABSTRACTSocial capital has been widely advocated as a way of understanding and building community participation in the interest of health improvement. However, the concept as proposed by Putnam, has been criticised for presenting an overly romanticised account of complex community relations. This paper presents analysis from a qualitative evaluation of a Healthy Living Centre (HLC) in the North of England, to examine the utility of the concept of social capital in this context. We found the concepts of ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ social capital were useful – though not without limitations – in helping to make sense of the complexities and contradictions in participants’ experiences of community group participation. 'Bridging' helped provide an understanding of how the decline in shared social spaces such as local shops impacts on social relationships. 'Bonding' highlighted how community group membership can have positive and negative implications for individuals and the wider community. It was found that skilled group leadership was key to strengthening bridging capital. Politically, in the UK, community participation is seen as having an essential role in social change, for example, its centrality to the coalition government's idea of the ‘Big Society’. A micro‐examination of this HLC using the lens of social capital provides a valuable critical insight into community participation. It shows that this kind of initiative can be successful in building social capital, given conditions such as an appropriate setting and effective leadership. However, they cannot substitute for other kinds of investment in the physical infrastructure of a community. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Multiple Social Roles, Health, and Sickness Absence—A Five-Year Follow-Up Study of Professional Women in Sweden

The aim of this study was to analyze associations between changes in social roles and physical health, mental well-being, psychiatric disorder, and long-term sickness absence over a five-year period. The study was part of a general population-based multipurpose project. Professional women from six birth cohorts born in 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965, 1970, or 1975 (N = 532) were interviewed twice. Self-rated information on physical health, mental well-being, long-term sickness absence, and changes in social roles was used. Information on psychiatric disorders was based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III-R and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV diagnoses. Multivariate logistic regressions were adjusted for age, socio-economic position, alcohol dependence and abuse, and health at baseline. An increase in number of social roles was associated with lower odds for poor mental well-being, odds ratio (OR) 0.4 (confidence interval [CI] 0.2 to 0.8), while a decrease was associated with higher odds for poor mental well-being, OR 4.5 (CI 1.8 to 11.0), psychiatric disorder, OR 2.6 (1.0 to 6.8), and sickness absence, OR 4.4 (1.6 to 11.7). The results indicated that an increase in number of social roles might be protective against poor mental well-being, while a decrease in number of roles might be related to increased psychiatric disorders and long-term sickness absence. More studies on long-term health implications of gender-specific experiences are needed.

Seizing the opportunities of adolescent health

Economic and social change have brought great opportunities and threats to adolescent health for rich and poor nations alike. The health transition, together with changes in adolescent social roles, has shifted the burden from childhood infectious diseases towards adolescent injuries and health-jeopardising behaviours in all but the poorest countries. Fortunately, research has clarified many determinants of these behaviours, and wide-ranging prevention approaches to minimise harm and promote health have been identified. The challenge is how to increase use of efficacious policies and programmes worldwide, while recognising that communities and nations differ and need to make local decisions. Likewise, there is a need to understand that adolescent health contributes to adult health and can deliver economic dividends to nations that invest wisely in adolescent health. 1 Little AW Green A Successful globalisation, education and sustainable development. Int J Educ Dev. 2009; 29: 166-174 Crossref Scopus (81) Google Scholar , 2 World BankWorld Development Report 2007: development and the next generation. The World Bank, Washington, DC2006 Crossref Google Scholar Adolescence: a foundation for future healthAdolescence is a life phase in which the opportunities for health are great and future patterns of adult health are established. Health in adolescence is the result of interactions between prenatal and early childhood development and the specific biological and social-role changes that accompany puberty, shaped by social determinants and risk and protective factors that affect the uptake of health-related behaviours. The shape of adolescence is rapidly changing—the age of onset of puberty is decreasing and the age at which mature social roles are achieved is rising. Full-Text PDF Adolescence and the social determinants of healthThe health of adolescents is strongly affected by social factors at personal, family, community, and national levels. Nations present young people with structures of opportunity as they grow up. Since health and health behaviours correspond strongly from adolescence into adult life, the way that these social determinants affect adolescent health are crucial to the health of the whole population and the economic development of nations. During adolescence, developmental effects related to puberty and brain development lead to new sets of behaviours and capacities that enable transitions in family, peer, and educational domains, and in health behaviours. Full-Text PDF Worldwide application of prevention science in adolescent healthThe burden of morbidity and mortality from non-communicable disease has risen worldwide and is accelerating in low-income and middle-income countries, whereas the burden from infectious diseases has declined. Since this transition, the prevention of non-communicable disease as well as communicable disease causes of adolescent mortality has risen in importance. Problem behaviours that increase the short-term or long-term likelihood of morbidity and mortality, including alcohol, tobacco, and other drug misuse, mental health problems, unsafe sex, risky and unsafe driving, and violence are largely preventable. Full-Text PDF Health of the world's adolescents: a synthesis of internationally comparable dataAdolescence and young adulthood offer opportunities for health gains both through prevention and early clinical intervention. Yet development of health information systems to support this work has been weak and so far lagged behind those for early childhood and adulthood. With falls in the number of deaths in earlier childhood in many countries and a shifting emphasis to non-communicable disease risks, injuries, and mental health, there are good reasons to assess the present sources of health information for young people. Full-Text PDF

Global Feminism from Page to Stage: Teaching <em>Half the Sky</em> and <em>Seven</em>

Imagine a dark stage with, one by one, seven women stepping forward to declare their name and country of origin. They then sit and interweave seven monologues of their individual struggles for gender justice in Cambodia, Northern Ireland, Russia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Guatemala. “What can I do?” asks Farida, an Afghani woman who feels powerless; “Maybe I can help the women of my country,” Mukhtar Mai from Pakistan realizes later in the play (Cizmar et al. 14, 27). These voices intersect, themes overlapping from speaker to speaker even as the seven stories belong to different places and times. Each woman begins by telling her story directly to the audience; but by the end, the actresses include each other in their gazes and respond to each other’s words, a symbol of their joint suffering, shared strength, and the solidarity necessary for lasting change. At the play’s conclusion, Guatemalan Congresswoman Anabella De Leon’s declaration “No more silence!” is a call to the entire audience (37). Women’s voices are heard, individually and collectively, throwing a spotlight on global gender issues and women’s crucial role in social change. What I have briefly described is the documentary play Seven, the collaboration of seven female playwrights with seven women activists connected in 2006 by the Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nonprofit nongovernmental organization supporting the development of female leaders (Vital).1 The stated mission of Vital Voices, to “identify, invest in and bring visibility to extraordinary women around the world by unleashing their leadership potential to transform lives and accelerate peace and prosperity in their communities,” is well served by the creative drama Seven (Vital). Like the more well-known Vagina Monologues, Seven is an ensemble piece of documentary theatre based on interviews. Also like Vagina Monologues, the play has minimal staging—usually just seven women, scripts in hand, on a stage devoid of props or sets. Anna Deavere Smith, an actress and writer known for her “journalism-based theatre” (Pressley), interviewed Nigerian activist Hafsat Abiola, and is perhaps the best known of the playwrights attached to the project, who also include Paula Cizmar, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Carol K. Mack, Ruth Margraff, and Susan Yankowitz. Each playwright interviewed

Understanding the health impact of caregiving: a qualitative study of immigrant parents and single parents of children with cancer

Research looking at the health of parents of children with cancer typically uses outcome measures focused on symptoms of anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress. Our team builds on this literature to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the health impact of caregiving. Interviews were conducted with 79 Canadian parents of children with cancer at least 6months post-diagnosis. Line-by-line coding was used to establish categories and themes. Constant comparison was used to examine relationships within and across codes and categories. Interviewing continued until no new themes emerged. Parents described health concerns as including sleep disturbance, daytime fatigue, anxiety, depression, social isolation, and changes in social roles. Parents described the positive impacts of caregiving as including gaining a greater appreciation for child and family and developing compassion, empathy, patience, inner strength, and new perspectives on life. Parents of children with cancer can experience a range of health problems due to the emotional impact of a cancer diagnosis and the intensive and often prolonged nature of treatment and aftercare. Given the central role parents play as caregivers, it is crucial to understand the health impact of caregiving so that supportive interventions can be implemented as necessary.

How cancer crossed the color line

3366 The Journal of Clinical Investigation http://www.jci.org Volume 121 Number 9 September 2011 early part of the 20th century, women’s reproductive cancers occupied nearly all of the social awareness about the disease, leading to hypotheses about the relationship between cancer incidence and women’s reproductive roles. An explanatory model that linked cancer incidence to the changing social roles of women was reinforced by the observation that African-American women experienced lower rates of cancer, and it was speculated that this was related to the fact that women remained closer to their “natural” roles in those communities. Toward the middle of the century, differences in cancer incidence between racial and ethnic groups became of increasing interest, as some of the first epidemiologic studies of cancer rates provided surprising and vivid accounts of the population variation. These differences spawned new hypotheses about the causes of cancer, including the role of diet and environmental exposure. These studies also brought more attention to the debate about the role of inadequate access to care and poor reporting infrastructure in masking the true burden of cancer among minorities. By the last half of the century, cancer awareness had grown substantially as had the challenges in finding effective prevention and treatment. Public desperation for effective cancer treatment and skepticism about the intellectual establishment led to the increasing politicization of cancer at the same time that race became even more politicized in the US. Following the report by Howard University researchers in 1972, demonstrating the dramatic increase in the cancer burden among African Americans, the social and political activity around race and cancer coalesced in a growing focus on racial disparities in cancer incidence. The story of race and cancer in the US is important, and there is a sense of achievement in the publication of this book. It offers an overdue perspective both on the history of cancer in our society and on how we come to define and understand differences across racial groups in any disease. However, Wailoo writes as a historian for a social science audience, and the book’s impact in those fields is likely to be far greater than that in the biomedical world. Several topics receive too little attention to be satisfying for most cancer researchers, particularly those interested in disparities. The debate about the role of biology/genetics is glossed over with little insight into the revolutions in molecular genetics that continue to inform and influence the discourse surrounding race and cancer. Similarly, the role of health care quality, encompassing prevention, early detection, and treatment, receives remarkably little attention given its prominence in the lay and medical press about cancer disparities. Wailoo identifies one of the fundamental paradoxes of racial disparities research (i.e., that racial identity must be simplified and categorized if disparities are to be measured and monitored) but has very little to offer as a way forward in this area. Science grows from attempts to explain observations. The history of race and cancer in the US shows how the interpretations of some observations can be been influenced by the sociopolitical environment of any period and can, in turn, influence the sociopolitical environment in the future. In the end, the main reason to read How Cancer Crossed the Color Line has less to do with gaining a comprehensive understanding of race and cancer in the US and more to do with catching yet another glimpse of the fundamental truth that science and society are inextricably linked. How cancer crossed the color line

Editorial: Focusing on a moving target: key themes for research and practice in adolescent mental health

Editorial: Focusing on a moving target: key themes for research and practice in adolescent mental health

Roles as resources: A social roles perspective of change in value networks

This paper contributes to the understanding of value co-creation and co-production by exploring how social roles can be drawn upon as resources for change in value networks. By broadening the marketing emphasis on dyadic perspectives of social roles to that of a network perspective, a social role is conceptualized as a particular set of practices that connects one actor to one or more other actors. In this way, social roles act as resources for change in value networks because they can lead to social norms and establish social positions, or sets of value-creating relationships connected to a particular actor. The proposed framework suggests that actors continually draw on social roles and social positions as resources in their efforts to co-create value with different actors. Given this, we argue that recent, notable changes in social roles within value networks can be more specifically associated with co-production, or the joint development of potential, exchangeable resources.

How cancer crossed the color line

How cancer crossed the color line

Changes in the care context: challenges for nursing

This research aimed to identify global changes in the way of practicing and understanding care, as well as the demands population change has generated and the implications for family and professional caregivers. An integrative literature review was performed, identifying 284 papers with the following descriptors: care and caregivers, associated with the descriptor "Nursing", published between 2005 and 2010. Forty-one papers were selected that correspond to the intended goal. The results point towards a care transition model, reconfigured by new care demands, which are mainly associated with the increase in chronic conditions and population aging. In addition, the change in social and individual roles takes care beyond the family sphere and closer to shared social responsibility. Care is the axis around which nurses rotate. Hence, it is fundamental to analyze this context, which demands evolution in professional care development.

P02-505 - Post partum sexuality

In the post partum period many changes happen to the woman, including in the sexual life. Short-term post partum sexual problems are highly prevalent. Even though all kinds of dysfunction can arise, the most frequent are hypoactive sexual desire, vaginal dryness, orgasmic dysfunction and dyspareunia.The aim of this poster is to overview six main etiological factors of the post partum sexual dysfunction: hormonal changes and breastfeeding, perineal trauma, fatigue, changes in social role, partner interaction and mood. The knowledge of these etiological factors and identification of the risk factors are important weapons in the prevention and approach to post partum sexuality by the couple and health professionals.

A British Bureaucratic Revolution?

This paper addresses a puzzle: how to account for changes in the routine behavior of groups, organizations and individuals in Britain? Following a detailed analysis of state-market interdependence and the role of the state in creating the market, an analysis drawn from the thinking of Weber and Polanyi, we suggest adapting Weber's notion of bureaucratic revolution: in what we call the British bureaucratic revolution, the state has played an essential role in social change by creating institutions and rules that are lastingly reorienting actors' behavior. The example of the healthcare field is examined in order to identify the specific mechanisms that have been impacting on behavior within an approximately ten-year period; namely, the introduction of 1) competitive practices (sanction/reward) and 2) auditing and inspection. If this interpretation is valid, then it is reasonable to assume that the effects of this bureaucratic revolution extend beyond Britain. This article is a response to a phenomenon we initially found surprising and that we have now defined as a puzzle. Having studied change in British society over the last twenty years, we, like others, have observed a radical transformation of the behavior of individuals, groups and organizations. How is it that union leaders steeped in Labour Party traditions have begun competing with each other more intensively by trying to offer their members

Reconstructing the pragmatics of a medieval marriage negotiation (Novgorod 955)

This article presents a pragmaphilological approach to the analysis of a recently discovered Novgorodian birchbark letter (N955) written in the course of matchmaking. This document has an unusual format and includes ornamentation generally associated with parchment manuscripts. My chief goal is to reconstruct the complex communicative situation and social functions that it reflects. To be properly understood, the text, format, and ornamentation should be treated holistically, as functionally interrelated elements. I show that the visually and textually discrete sections of the letter pertain to different addressees or to addressees with changing social roles in the communicative event. Finally, in an excursus, I offer an interpretation of two words that differs from the one in the published edition.

Better with age: Social relationships across adulthood

Older adults typically report higher levels of satisfaction with their social relationships than younger adults. The present paper integrates current developmental research to explain why social relationships are generally more positive with age. We discuss actions by older adults that contribute to more positive social experiences. We also include social role changes that may provide advantages for older adults when navigating their relationships. Next, we turn to interactional processes between older adults with their social partners. We review literature indicating that: (a) older adults engage in strategies that optimize positive social experiences and minimize negative ones by avoiding conflicts, and (b) social partners often reciprocate by treating older adults more positively and with greater forgiveness than they do younger adults.

Introduction: change and continuity in recent family policies

Families have become a focal point in debates of ‘new risks’ and much needed ‘new policies’ for Western welfare states. Family policy responses to the new challenges and even the goals associated with welfare policies designed to aid families have, however, varied across countries, and there is much uncertainty about the sources of this variation and the future development of the policy field. This special issue takes stock of recent developments in the field of family policy. It brings together a range of countries that, taken together, map the full spectrum of advanced industrial countries’ family policy dilemmas, responses, and intervening institutional and ideational variables. Its goal is to take a first step towards explaining the varied degrees and forms of family policy activism in mature welfare states of Western liberal democracies. The introduction to the special issue first sketches the changing nature and social roles of the family, as they evolved along with public law and welfare policies. It then presents family policy regimes which allow for a systematic account of possible intervening factors in the formulation of country-specific responses. Most importantly, the introduction provides a brief outline of plausible causal approaches to the question of family policy change and comments on their strengths and the potential hazards and describes how the papers assembled here may collectively contribute to a better understanding of what drives and shapes family policy development and how these potential causes are interrelated.

Substance use changes and social role transitions: proximal developmental effects on ongoing trajectories from late adolescence through early adulthood.

Substance use changes rapidly during late adolescence and early adulthood. This time in the life course is also dense with social role changes, as role changes provide dynamic context for individual developmental change. Using nationally representative, multiwave longitudinal data from age 18 to 28, we examine proximal links between changes in social roles and changes in substance use during the transition to adulthood. We find that changes in family roles, such as marriage, divorce, and parenthood, have clear and consistent associations with changes in substance use. With some notable exceptions, changes in school and work roles have weaker effects on changes in substance use compared to family roles. Changes in socializing (i.e., nights out for fun and recreation) and in religiosity were found to mediate the relationship of social role transitions to substance use. Two time-invariant covariates, socioeconomic background and heavy adolescent substance use, predicted social role status, but did not moderate associations, as within-person links between social roles and substance use were largely equivalent across groups. This paper adds to the cascading effects literature by considering how, within individuals, more proximal variations in school, work, and family roles relate to variations in substance use, and which roles appear to be most influential in precipitating changes in substance use during the transition to adulthood.

The quality of life of laryngectomised patients

Background A total laryngectomy is a stressful experience for patients with laryngeal carcinoma. Total laryngectomy extends patients’ lives at the expense of complete loss of natural voice, subsequent poor quality of life (QOL) and changes in social roles. This study aimed to assess these issues and assess QOL including the physical and the social well being (Communication, Swallowing, Social disruption, ongoing problems).

Psychosocial Issues in Palliative Care: A Message for Us All

Psychosocial Issues in Palliative Care: A Message for Us All

The Middle Ages: Change in Women's Personalities and Social Roles

It has been argued that the predominant focus of midlife personality development is generativity; other research has found that social roles influence both its onset and its expression. In this article, we examine women's midlife personality development and its relationship to career and family commitments. Results for a sample of 90 women indicated that commitment to particular social projects in early midlife was associated with different patterns of identity, intimacy, and generativity levels at age 62. In addition, women who added social projects to existing projects during adulthood expressed similar levels of identity, intimacy, and generativity at age 62 as women whose social project commitments had stayed the same. For smaller subsamples of women in the study, longitudinal analyses assessed changes in personality development within middle age as well as the relationship between personality and the maintenance or addition of social projects. These results highlight important variation among women who followed different adult life paths.

The Experience of Retirement in Second Modernity

Retirement and later life are taking on new forms and these may be related to what Ulrich Beck and others have referred to as the birth of the ‘quasi-subject’. This article addresses the ways in which retirement, for some, is actively constructed as a lifestyle option or choice. We present findings from a study based on 20 qualitative interviews with UK men and women who had previously worked in executive and higher management posts and who had recently taken early retirement as a matter of choice. Our aim was to explore the experiences of retirement, changes in lifestyle and social roles and the meanings associated with retirement. We focused on the extent to which the attitudes and beliefs of retired people resonated with the idealized ‘quasi-subject’. Our article concludes by considering the extent to which these reported experiences and understandings reflected a generational habitus in retirement.