Occupational Scientists Research Articles

Occupational identity: Engaging socio‐cultural perspectives

Occupational identity has been conceptualized with the individual at the core of the construct and assuming that autonomy and free choice are universally applicable constructs. While occupational therapists acknowledge social and cultural dimensions of identity formation and occupational scientists have advocated greater inclusion of socio‐cultural perspectives in theory generation, the relevance of these constructs has yet to be examined. This article focuses on current assumptions informing conceptualisations of occupational identity. The individual, productivity, choice, and conceptions of the social are considered in light of emergent theories of identity drawn from anthropology, sociology, cultural theory and philosophy. The authors propose that socio‐cultural theoretical perspectives offer generative insights for advancing conceptualizations of occupational identity, and draw attention to a dialectically oriented understanding about how social and cultural dimensions shape occupational identities.

Childhood Leukemia in the Vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants in Germany: Ignorance Is a Curse

The authors noted an increase in the number of cases of leukemia in children younger than 5 years within a 5 km radius of nuclear power stations. Notably, they think that a causal association between raised leukemia incidence and additional radiation exposure through nuclear power stations is implausible. If this conclusion has been clear from the beginning, I don’t understand why the study was conducted in the first place. After the leukemia increase that was found, the usual dose estimate in children now needs to be questioned. And this is where ignorance is a curse. This is part of the highly complex area of biodosimetry and dosage equivalents, a highly technical terrain that neither a psychologist and occupational scientist (Professor Jungermann) nor an epidemiologist and informatics specialist (Dr Kaatsch) is qualified to comment on. The normal, extremely arbitrary dose estimates would need to be subjected to highly complicated tests. Finally, research would need to be conducted into what radiation load exactly an individual resident in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant receives, not only via environmental radiation but also via environmental air and the food chain; how the biological distribution in the body tissues works over time; and which bone seeking radionuclides administer which dosage to a child’s bone marrow. These questions would be worth studying and the computation models prestented by the German Commission on Radiological Protection would be worth verifying, and any insider knows exactly how very arbitrary the presented dose estimates are. What we do not need is a philosophical discourse about risk perception, nor repetitive emphasis on implausible causal associations compared with environmental radiation. What is required is careful checking of the dose estimates presented (allegedly only 1/1000 of environmental radiation). The studies required for this would have to conduct laborious nuclide measurements in the biotope and in the environmental air that the children breathe over the long term. The bone marrow of children who died due to leukemia in the vicinity of nuclear power plants would need to be compared in terms of its radionuclide uptake with that of children elsewhere. For knowledge to be interpreted and integrated, this knowledge has to be gained first of all!

Cyberspace, real place: Thoughts on doing in contemporary occupations

Today, the distinction between cyberspace and real space represents a false dichotomy. Wireless laptop computers, personal digital assistant devices and similar emergent information and communication technology (ICT) objects, along with the cyberspace/ internet information they mediate, may be intervening between what and how we are able to ‘do’ in real places. This phenomenon is seen in many contemporary occupations in the westernized world and intensifies the connections among occupation, place, and the internet. In this article, we begin to examine this connection, starting from Hocking's person‐object interaction model. Advocating the addition of an informational domain to objects in the model, we discuss its application to internet informational mediating ICT objects. Examples are used to illustrate the complexities of introducing ICT objects and the information they mediate, to a place or across different places, and how their inclusion in occupational scientists’ conscious consideration may contribute to the discipline's broader understanding of many contemporary occupations.

Co‐occupation: The challenges of defining concepts original to occupational science

The term co‐occupation was coined in the early days of occupational science and has begun to accrue a grouping of studies that shed light on its dynamic. Its lasting nature as a concept original to occupational science may be due to the fact that it is grounded in the interdisciplinary play literature, as well as the interests of occupational scientists in the interactive social dimension of occupation, especially those of mothers and children. The essence of co‐occupation is its highly interactive nature. Co‐occupation is a dance between the occupations of one individual and another that sequentially shapes the occupations of both persons. Although many of the experiences of co‐occupation are fairly symmetrical, as in playing tennis, this is not a defining characteristic of co‐occupation. Co‐occupations do not necessarily occur within shared space, time, meaning, affect, or intent. Efforts to define co‐occupation bring to light multiple challenges to defining occupational science concepts: the need to welcome multiple definitions, the special logics that can support the definition of new concepts, the tendency to glorify occupation within definitions, the need to differentiate between ideas and experiences within definitions of occupation and its subtypes, the tendency to overemphasize the social dimension of occupations and underemphasize their spatial and temporal aspects, and the need to build new areas of understanding of the transactional characteristics of occupation without discrediting occupational scientists’ valuing of the individual perspectives of those studied. This special issue of the Journal of Occupational Science is a milestone for occupational science, as this unique type of occupation comes of age as a research focus for diverse researchers.

Action theories for occupational science: The contributions of Dewey and Bourdieu

Occupational scientists have argued that occupation implies action, but they have not produced sufficient analyses of action theories as potential bases for understanding occupation. We describe this situation and the corresponding need to theorize action as a necessary step for more carefully and powerfully conceptualizing occupation. To begin addressing the problem and need, we provide an analysis of two theorists, John Dewey and Pierre Bourdieu, whose writings about action may be applied to deepen understandings of occupation. Our analysis focuses on three dimensions of action common to both scholars’ theories—habit, context, and creativity. In comparing and contrasting the theories, we find them largely in agreement but also complementary. Through a discussion of the theories via these dimensions, we extend and deepen the transactional view of occupation. In addition, we offer a conceptualization of occupation consistent with the two theorists’ works.

Die internationalen Think Tanks der Occupational Science: Katalysatoren für die weltweite Entwicklung der Occupational Science

Occupational Science bringt Wissen über Betätigung hervor. Diese interdisziplinäre Basiswissenschaft wird von Ergotherapeuten entwickelt und führt zu Erkenntnissen, die für die ergotherapeutische Praxis von fundamentaler Bedeutung sind. Sie liefert auch Beiträge zur Praxis anderer Berufsrichtungen, wie der Stadtplanung und dem Management der Fürsorge (welfare management), und kann der Regierungsarbeit (public policy) in Bereichen wie Gesundheit, Verkehr und Wirtschaft wichtige Anregungen geben. Aus diesen Gründen können die beiden internationalen Think Tanks (Denkfabriken) der Occupational Science als ausgesprochen wichtig eingestuft werden. Die Think Tanks hatten eine katalytische Wirkung auf die weltweite Entwicklung der Occupational Science. Sie haben die Etablierung eines Occupational-Scientists-Netzwerks erleichtert, das den gesamten Erdball umfasst, und haben Strategien und Anleitungen entwickelt, um Occupational Science voranzutreiben. In diesem Bericht werden die Ziele und Prozesse der beiden Think Tanks vorgestellt. Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse der Think Tanks, die Entwicklung der International Society of Occupational Scientists und der Way Forward Plan, werden diskutiert. Für Leser, die weitere Informationen über Occupational Science und ihre internationalen Think Tanks suchen, enthält der Anhang zu diesem Bericht Links zu hilfreichen Webseiten.

A Proposed Conceptual Model of Organizational Development for Occupational Therapists and Occupational Scientists

This article proposes that the idea of meaningful occupations can be used by occupational therapists and occupational scientists to create organizational development interventions to help build sustainable business organizations. Review of recent organizational development literature indicates a trend toward an increasing lack of concern for individual employee needs. A conceptual model of organizational development that reinstates focus on the well-being of the individual as a basis for building sustainable organizations in which employee and organizational goals match is proposed for use by occupational therapists and occupational scientists who may be interested in contributing to this area of human endeavor. An occupation-based worker evaluation formula based on participation in occupations that are meaningful to an employee is suggested.

Physical Activity and the Occupations of Children: Perspectives of Parents and Children

There is concern that children's health is being compromised by a decline in physical activity occurring as a result of the changing nature of the occupations of childhood. This article reports the findings of in-depth interviews conducted with six children and their parents when the children were between 7 and 8 years and then again when they were between 9 and 10 years. This longitudinal perspective highlighted features associated with children remaining engaged in physical occupations. Factors found to contribute to continued involvement in exercise and sports were: the initial introduction to the activity being pleasurable; same-sex parents or older siblings being directly involved; and the skills required by the occupations being commensurate with children's developmental level. These findings help inform occupational scientists about the nature of recreational and leisure occupations, and how they are introduced and framed within the context of children's occupational roles.

One Person's Thoughts on the Future of Occupational Science

In its 16 years of existence, occupational science has achieved noteworthy success. However, to continue to thrive, the discipline must remain responsive to the changing times and environment. This paper assesses the current health of occupational science based on the plight of other academic disciplines such as sociology and geography whose futre is presently threatened. The intellectual vitality of occupational science is strong, yet the discipline must continue to solidify its interdisciplinary commitment, increase the number of publications, and expand its research scope. Beyond this, strategic planning to keep occupational science alive and well in the future will require nurturing the symbiotic relationship between the discipline and the occupational therapy profession. To the extent that occupational therapy thrives, occupational science must be better positioned, with the resource base and links to practice it needs to flourish. Finally, viewing occupational science as a kind of living organism whose survival can be described through principles of evolutionary biology can also help with the formulation of strategic initiatives. In this paper, I use this framework to identify long-term survival strategies for occupational science. I then present an heuristic model for developing customized survival plans for occupational science programs within the US and for the discipline in general. The occupational science program at the University of Southern California is used to illustrate the implementation of the heuristic model in terms of: national and global priorities; university/institutional culture, mission and values; university colleagues, networks, and programs; and departmental research and education program.I believe occupationai science will thrive in the future if occupational scientists develop and implement customized survival plans for their educational programs that are responsive to tbe opportunities and challenges present in their respective settings.

Living in a Restricted Occupational World: The Occupational Experiences of Stroke Survivors who are Wheelchair Users and Their Caregivers

In order to meet the responsibilities of understanding and enabling occupation, occupational scientists and therapists must conduct research that is framed within an occupational perspective. This paper reports the results of a qualitative investigation of the occupational experiences of stroke survivors (n = 16) who use wheelchairs and their primary caregivers (n = 15). Inductive analysis of data collected via in-depth interviews resulted in two major themes related to occupation, specifically: living in a restricted occupational world and challenges to participation in occupation. These results highlight the overall experience labeled occupation by default, and the intricate interconnections or spill-over effect between the occupations of stroke survivors and caregivers. In addition to providing empirical support for the importance of having a sense of control over occupation and the connection between occupation and identity, the results have implications for practice aimed at enabling occupation and directions for future research. As well, the results illustrate that occupational therapy services need to extend beyond wheelchair prescription in order to enable occupation with clients.

Occupation as Transactional Experience: A Critique of Individualism in Occupational Science

Occupational science uses various concepts to denote occupation as residing within the individual. That is, despite recognizing the role of a context for the individual and her or his occupation, occupational scientists have continued to implicitly or explicitly create a dualistic view of person and context (environment). The dualism creates a problem for understanding occupation as well as the relationship of person and context. In this paper we present occupationally‐focused case studies of two individuals and assert that existing concepts of occupation in the discipline cannot encompass the situations represented by these cases. We propose the Deweyan concept of transaction as an alternative perspective for understanding occupation. The relational perspective of transactionalism means that occupation is no longer seen as a thing or as a type of self‐action or inter‐action arising from within individuals. In this view, occupation is an important mode through which human beings, as organisms‐in‐environment‐as‐a‐whole, function in their complex totality. As such, occupations become more central to the scientific understanding of person‐context relations.

An Exploration of Mothers' Perceptions Regarding Mothering Occupations and Experiences

The objective of this phenomenological study was to explore mothers' perceptions related to the occupational experiences of mothering. Seven women between the ages of 24 and 42, with children ranging in age from 13 months to 18 years, were interviewed in two separate focus groups. Areas addressed in the semi-structured interviews included mothering role descriptions, experiences as mothers, and feelings about mothering. Data were collected by the use of field notes and audio recording. An inductive method of data analysis was used to code the transcribed narratives. Four major themes emerged that included socio-cultural influence, activities and occupations of mothering, range of feelings, and role management. Some differences between older and younger women emerged in the analysis. Perceptions of mothering occupations influence the manner in which mothers participate in their everyday activities. Exploring the perceptions of mothering among women of typical children is valuable for occupational scientists and occupational therapists seeking to understand families better. Increased awareness may lead to more optimal family-centered care.

Understanding Political Influences on Occupational Possibilities: An Analysis of Newspaper Constructions of Retirement

Occupational possibilities, that is, the occupations people view as ideal and possible and which are promoted and made available within specific sociohistorical contexts, are shaped by political, social and cultural influences. This paper examines the implications of the contemporary structural and discursive transformation of retirement for retirees’ occupational possibilities. Results of a critical discourse analysis of 138 recent Canadian newspaper articles addressing retirement that examined: i) the possibilities and constraints for ways of being (subjectivities) and doing (occupation) and, ii) if and how subjectivities shaped for retirees are linked with neoliberal political rationality, are presented. Four ideal subjectivities, falling along continua with ends points of producer and consumer, and age‐defiance and being prudential, were shaped within the texts analyzed. Drawing on the governmentality perspective, it is argued that contemporary discourses regarding retirement are bounded within neoliberal rationality and, as a result, shape occupational injustices. The findings highlight links between political factors and occupation, and challenge occupational scientists to contribute to the creation of alternative discourses about retirement.

The time of our lives: the experience of temporality in occupation.

This paper synthesizes research and theory on aspects of activities producing variations in perceived temporality and subjective experience. A proposed continuum of variations of six temporal experience are described: 1) protracted duration--elapsed time feels greater than actual elapsed clock time; 2) synchronicity--match of clock and perceived time; 3) compression--perceived time feels shorter than clock time; 4) flow--a sense of timelessness; 5) interstitial--perceived stoppage of clock time; and 6) temporal rupture--disruption of synchronicity of clock time. Five contextually situated steps that generate each of these temporal variations explain how these variations unfold in the experience of occupation. This synthesis is the basis for the Dynamic Occupation in Time (DOiT) Model which also incorporates the key occupational therapy concepts of human agency, personal engagement, context, and culture. Investigating how occupations produce various temporalities and experiences will allow occupational scientists to investigate the underlying complexities of occupation-based practice. Also, by understanding more about the dynamic nature of occupations and appreciating the fluid quality of persons within their occupational context, occupational therapists can improve their design of occupation-based interventions.

Making Sense of What People Do: A Sociological Perspective

This final keynote address focuses on how to make work visible. Drawing on the methodology of institutional ethnography, the author advocates a mode of inquiry that starts in people's everyday lives, examining the relations, organizations and forms of power that intersect with and organize the everyday world and relate us to others in ways we do not easily see or appreciate. This approach makes visible a whole range of activities that do not usually appear as work: waiting in lines, gathering the materials needed to begin work, the thinking and planning that makes work appear to happen effortlessly. It makes visible the complex organization of social relations that results, for example, in the downloading of work from paid to unpaid (e.g. bagging our own groceries, doing our own bank deposits, assigning postal codes to letters). People's relations to others change imperceptibly. Our social world is reorganized, yet much of the complex organization of work remains invisible. The very process of using a professional or institutional language to make things accountable itself makes almost everything that is involved in doing the work in actual real life situations disappear. Professionals talk about their work using professional discourses which take for granted and do not describe what they actually do. Occupational scientists need to be aware of the ways our descriptions, our use of language, may make invisible the work that people do.

Storied Approaches to Understanding Occupation

Occupation is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, one that truly tests the range of research methodologies available to occupational scientists. In recent times there has been a resurgence of the use of personal stories as a research method in a wide range of disciplines and occupational scientists have begun to recognise their particular value in furthering our understanding of occupation and humans as occupational beings. There are many types of personal stories and these include life story, life history, and oral history. The boundaries between these are becoming increasingly blurred and so researchers are beginning to take a more eclectic approach to their use. There is, however, little doubt that stories are well suited to the study of occupation as they permit an exploration of personal meaning, temporality, occupational historicity, and the wider contextual dynamics that impact on occupational engagement. When combined with narrative methods of analysis, oral history provides a powerful method for making sense of what people do. Research which employs oral history and narrative analysis produces field and research texts which both further our understanding and appreciation of the occupational nature of humans and their experience of illness.

Time to Reevaluate the Machine Society: Post‐industrial Ethics from an Occupational Perspective

This paper discusses the ethics underlying the occupational repertoire of the post‐industrial citizen, giving attention to lifestyle phenomena such as increased tempo and quantity of occupations; manipulation of time, organisms and environments; decreases in sleep, rest and play etc. In trying to understand human behavior in the 21st century, an ethical perspective is delineated and some starting points for a discussion of ethics from an everyday occupational perspective are investigated. Using examples from contemporary Western society, human occupational behavior is described as imprinted by machine‐ethical values. It is argued that since behavior arising from such values has been little formulated or observed, it constitutes a substantial risk factor for ill health and stress. An alternative eco‐ethical perspective of occupation, inspired by Skolimowski the Polish professor of eco‐philosophy, is proposed. The concept of “ecopation” is introduced as an optional choice denoting occupations that are performed with concern for the ecological context at a pace that gives room for reflection and experience of meaning. The questions raised in this paper may be important for occupational scientists to more fully understand the implicit guidelines of contemporary and future occupation and for occupational therapists taking an active part in future healthcare.

Habits in Context: A Synthesis, with Implications for Research in Occupational Science

Habits, rather than being mundane or trivial, are significant learned behaviors embedded in an ecocultural context (of time, place, and society) with which they engage in a dialectical relationship. Habits enable or frustrate adaptation to environmental challenges. In a positive mode, habits relate to personal meaning, identity, competence, satisfaction, and self-expression. The study of habits requires adoption of an ethical, scholarly, and holistic approach. Occupational science needs to continue its investigation and synthesis of interdisciplinary knowledge about habits, including identification of the environmental conditions that further occupation; the “affordances” (environmental potentials for action) that provide occupational resources; the habit patterns that contribute to health, and to identification and reclamation of people's strengths, capabilities, and interests; the process of learning of new habits; reconstruction of the self through habit change; and the relationship of engagement in occupation to being in place in one's ecoculture. Such study may require that occupational scientists critically assess their epistemological assumptions and research approaches.

Women Workers Confront One-Eyed Science: Building Alliances to Improve Women's Occupational Health

SUMMARY Women suffer many health problems related to their work, but attempts to improve their situation face obstacles at two levels: recognition of their problems and ability to organize to prevent them. Recognition by occupational health specialists has been delayed due in part to: A perception that women's issues have been included in research focussed on male workers; pressure to deal with more visible issues of mortality and well-established illness; ignorance of women's working conditions; methodological biases and inadequacies. Recognition by unions is slowed when women and their concerns are absent from union membership and/or governing structures. Feminist health advocates have not often participated in these struggles, due to social class differences and difficulties in linking with some male-dominated unions. Also, due to the wide variety of hazardous working conditions, they do not emerge from population-based analyses of health determinants in the same way as do domestic violence, tobacco or poverty. The authors describe three alliances necessary for successful research, policy and practice in women's occupational health: between feminist and working-class organizations; between feminists and occupational health scientists; between researchers and women workers.

Who is occupied? Consciousness, self awareness and the process of human adaptation

This article explores consciousness and its relevance to the field of occupational science. Selected literature from Eastern and Western schools of philosophy and consciousness is explored in relation to the process of human adaptation. The article highlights the inner world of occupational beings with particular emphasis on the nature of identity as experienced through the self/I. This paper explores consciousness further from the standpoint of advances made in science and psychology. The theories of uncertainty, chaos and complexity are discussed from a process oriented perspective that considers the importance of self awareness. This article suggests that occupational scientists should consider the dynamic potential that exists for evolving awareness in consciousness, and the implications that this has for occupational beings and the process of human adaptation.