German Social System Research Articles

If We Open the Door–An Analysis of Prehospital Emergency Cases with the Need to Force the Door Open from Dresden, Germany

Introduction:Germany is a highly developed country. Nevertheless, there are reports that people have supply problems or die lonely and alone in their homes. Despite a differentiated social system, there seem to be significant gaps for individuals or old people. The rescue service is often involved in situations with unclear emergency calls or calls from third parties regarding social and supply problems. In some emergency cases the rescue service is alerted to someone's home but there is no response. Depending on the available information, a timely decision must be made to have the opportunity for life-saving. The door opening procedure is executed by the fire department. Afterward, the medical emergency teams take over. The goal of the study is to analyze findings discovered after opening the door.Method:Data of all emergencies from the dispatch center of Dresden operated by the fire and rescue department between January 2021 and December 2021 were recorded and transferred to a central database. All cases with the need to force the door open were extracted and analyzed.Results:There was a total number of 157.522 cases of emergency. In 847 cases the door was opened by the fire department. After door opening there was no emergency reported in 265 cases. 100 patients were found dead, six patients had cardiac arrest and received cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and 310 patients were transported to a hospital. The causes for emergencies were social problems, downfall and injuries, hypoglycemia, convulsion, stroke, psychiatric emergencies, dementia and suicide attempt. The mean age was 71 [18-103], 54,15% of patients were female.Conclusion:There is a high number of emergencies with the need to open the door. The number of patients transported to a hospital is also high and justified the procedure. Since numerous patients were found dead, this underlines a gap in the German social system.

Psychosocial situation of families with chronically ill children: a survey of parent initiatives

Children with chronic illness or disabilities and their families require more support than healthy families. The working group "custodial and psychosocial supply" defined 4 theses to figure out deficits and targets of family support: 1) my child is different; 2) my child is not devisable; 3) my child needs strong helpers; and 4) my child needs safety.Based on these theses, a questionnaire for parents was designed of which 20 were sent to 34 parent initiatives in Germany each, for distribution to a random sample of member families.499/680 questionnaires were returned of which 419 could be included in the analysis. Less than 50% of the parents felt adequately and timely informed about their child's condition, and support for coping with the child's diagnosis was rarely given. Less than half of the parents reported to have been informed about the options for support within the German social system, and less than 15% were aware of instructions for clearing houses on care and support. About a third of the parents reported needs for managing family, siblings or household, but only a third of these had been offered organised and structured family support. More than 50% of the families reported restraints in participating in social life: such restraints were associated with problems in partnership and loss of friends. Half of the parents felt restraints of the family income because of their child's condition.There is need for improvement of the psychosocial condition of families with chronically ill or disabled children by better, more and timely information about the child's clinical condition, access to the social support system and availability of support services.

Space, Modernity, and Emptiness: Some American Examples

One of the ways in which Christian groups responded to the challenges of modernity was by positioning themselves differently in space. In the interest of better understanding that process, let us think for a moment about the social system, the social space to be precise, within which groups exist. As one starting point for that, it is useful to acknowledge that social groups define themselves in relation to others. Specifically, groups define themselves by saying what they are not as much as by saying what they are. If we are to believe the German social systems theorist Niklas Luhmann, a leading advocate of the notion of social system, difference is prior to identity. That is to say—and this is the core of Luhmann's “difference” theory—one distinguishes a table from other objects before one indicates what it is (Luhmann adds, paradoxically, that distinction presupposes itself). His grand theory has shortcomings, but his point is that social groups create and maintain collective identity by defining themselves in relation to other groups, and especially by saying what they are not. They push off from other groups in defining themselves. We could extend that approach by stating that groups sometimes behave as if they lack a clear collective self-understanding; that is, they lack a fully formed core identity that they can marshall in a positive fashion against a field of other groups. They accordingly define themselves in relation to other groups, define themselves via negativa, by differentiating—in some cases to a great degree—from other groups. Identity is built through such negative definition. The twentieth-century American theorist of social conflict Lewis Coser described that mode of thinking in The Functions of Social Conflict, an extended mediation on the social conflict theories of Georg Simmel, and sociologist of religion Martin Reisebrodt has observed more recently how Christianity invents itself principally by distinguishing itself from other religious practices and beliefs. The process is evident among Christian groups in modernity as it was in early modern Europe. When we focus on how it has manifested spatially, we see the modern in American church history as a broad spectrum of occurrences demonstrating complexity, multivalence, competition, and differentiation.

Making It as a Dual-Career Family in Germany: Exploring What Couples Think and Do in Everyday Life

This qualitative-explorative article is about meanings and coordination of work, home, and their interrelationship in dual-career families. The study was conducted in a German company by interviewing couples working at the production level, in research and development, middle management, and administration. Data were gathered in narrative interviews and 1-week journals filled out by each interview partner. The results confirm four observations: persistence to traditional gender roles, the indispensable role of grandmothers in enabling mothers to pursue gainful employment, the prevalence of part-time work for mothers, and the “spillover” thesis, indicating that it is predominantly work that spills over into family rather than family that intrudes into work. In the discussion the German social system is included as an explanatory approach to these findings.

Gendering in the Ascription of Symbolic Meaning to Dance in Germany

This presentation deals with the current status of dance studies in Germany, focusing particularly on the situation in Baden-Württemberg, the home state of the internationally renowned Stuttgart Ballet. Whereas German dance companies enjoy some of the highest subsidies in the world, and freelance dancers in Germany benefit from privileges in the German social system, dance is not an independent subject of study at any level of the German educational system. The strong discrepancies in educational, cultural, and social policy on dance are indicative of the limits to and disagreements within symbolic meaning ascribed to dance. The relevant areas of policy will be presented, as well as the historical factors in the development of these discrepancies. A discussion of the role of gendering in the ascription of symbolic meanings to dance follows, especially considering current developments regarding community building and social justice.

Germany

Recently a well-known German newspaper declared the word ‘reforms’ as ‘the most tedious word of the year.’ This no doubt was due to the fact that so many reforms and...