Participation In Domestic Activities Research Articles

Associations between physical activity types and multi-domain cognitive decline in older adults from the Three-city cohort.

Several studies suggest that physical activity improves cognitive functions and reduces cognitive decline, whereas others did not find any evidence of a neuroprotective effect. Furthermore, few cohort studies have analyzed the different physical activity types and particularly household activities. Our objective was to assess the association of two physical activity types with the decline in different cognitive domains in a large prospective cohort of community-dwelling older adults from the Three-city study. Physical activity (domestic/transportation activities and leisure/sport activities) was assessed with the Voorrips questionnaire, specific for older adults. Baseline sociodemographic and health history variables as well as cognitive performance data at baseline and during the 8-year follow-up (Mini-Mental State Examination, Benton Visual Retention Test, Trail Making Tests A and B, Isaac's Set Test and Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test) were also available. Associations between physical activity scores and cognitive decline in different domains were tested using minimally- and multi-adjusted linear mixed models. The analysis included 1697 participants without dementia at baseline and with at least one follow-up visit. At baseline, participants with higher sub-scores for the two physical activity types had better cognitive performances. Interaction with time showed that decline in some cognitive scores (Trail Making Test B and Isaac's Set Test) was significantly less pronounced in participants with higher household/transportation activity sub-scores. No significant effect over time was found for leisure/sport activities. This study shows that during an 8-year follow-up, executive functions and verbal fluency were better preserved in older adults who performed household/transportation activities at moderate to high level. Participation in domestic activities and using adapted transport means could allow older adults to maintain specific cognitive abilities.

An Exploratory Factor Analysis and Construct Validity of the Resident Choice Assessment Scale With Paid Carers of Adults With Intellectual Disabilities and Challenging Behavior in Community Settings

ABSTRACTIntroduction: The Resident Choice Assessment Scale (RCAS) is used to assess choice availability for adults with intellectual disabilities (ID). The aim of the study was to explore the factor structure, construct validity, and internal consistency of the measure in community settings to further validate this tool. Method: 108 paid carers of adults with ID living in supported accommodation and residential care facilities in urban, rural, and semirural areas in England completed the RCAS. Exploratory factor analyses were performed and the construct validity and internal consistency of the emerging factors were assessed. Results: Principal axis factoring with oblique rotations suggested a scale with two factors (Everyday Choices and Participation in Household Activities) which explained 45% of the variance; the factors showed favorable construct validity as they identified significant differences between those living in residential care homes compared with supported living; the factors also differentiated between people with different levels of intellectual impairment with less choice and participation in domestic activities for those with more severe ID compared to their counterparts with moderate and mild impairment. Five items did not load onto any factor, suggesting that these could be dropped from the scale when administered in community settings, thus resulting in an 18-item measure (RCAS-18). Conclusion: The RCAS-18 may provide a useful measure to assess choice availability for people with ID supported by paid carers in the community. The revised measure may be more suitable in capturing choice than the original version for use in community samples.

Dropout Rate at Elementary Level in Two Primary Schools of Backward Area, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal: A Comparative Approach

A dropout is considered a student who for any reason other than death leaves school before graduation without transferring to another school. Dropping out of school is a well documented social problem and often present daunting circumstances for adolescents. Dropping out is also associated with delinquency, and low school achievements. The study was conducted in two primary school of Gopiballavpur Circle (west) of Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal. For selection of ‘Schools with lower primary grades only’ within Gopiballavpur Circle (West), Paschim Medinipur, the list of all such schools was first arranged in ascending order on the basis of total enrolment (Grade I-IV). In case the total enrolment in a school was less than 10, it was excluded. With the help of this list, two schools (which are fells into more inaccessible and backward area than other school within circle.) were selected by circular systematic sampling method. However, we have used enrolment records collected from daily attendance book considered for study from both school. The considered data period ranges from 2003 to 2010 (seven academic sessions i.e. 2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10) and the data are continuous without any missing data. Reconstructed cohort method and Coefficient of Internal Efficiency are used for this study to estimates of dropout and promotion rates based on academic years and to find out important reasons of their school leaving /dropping out from school, present activity of those who are not in any school. The results of the study revealed that drop out of pupils from school in rural backward area were reluctance of parents and participation in domestic activities. Another major reason was problem of financial constraints. The parent’s educational status was poor and they did not give much importance to the education of girls as they did to their sons. They perceived that sons support them in their old age.

“I Do Hope That It'll Be Maybe 80/20”: Equality in Contemporary Australian Marriages

One in three Australian marriages ends in divorce (ABS, Parental Divorce). While such statistics may be interpreted to mean that marriage is becoming less significant to Australians, many Australians continue to invest heavily in marriage as a constitutive mode of subjectification. Recently released first-wave data from a longitudinal study being conducted with seven thousand high school students in Queensland indicates that the majority of high schoolers expect to get married (Skrbis et al. 76). Significant political attention and debate in Australia has centred on the issue of marriage “equality” in relation to legislating same-sex marriage. Many accounts problematise marriage in Australia today by focussing on the current inequities involved in who can and cannot legally get married, which are important debates to be had in the process of understanding the persistent importance of marriage as a social institution. This paper, however, provides a critical account of “equality” in contemporary heterosexual marriages or heteronormative monogamous relationships. I argue that, far from being a mundane “old” debate, the distribution of unpaid work between spouses has a significant effect on women’s spousal satisfaction, and it calls into question the notion of “marriage equality” in everyday heterosexual marriages whether these are civil or common law relationships. I suggest that the contemporary “Hollywood” fantasy about marriage, which informs the same-sex marriage movement, sets up expectations that belie most people’s lived realities.

Changing Domestic Roles in the New Urban Family in Spain

This article examines the important changes in women's domestic roles among Madrid's new urban families during the past decade. The results of a survey conducted by the Centre of Sociological Research in 1984 have been compared with those obtained in a survey conducted by the author in 1995. The results show a significant increase in male participation in domestic labour. A multivariable analysis of the second survey, the only one for which a database was available, was used to determine the factors behind this change. To measure adequately men's participation, an indicator has been elaborated which is capable of analyzing not only male involvement in energy- and time-intensive tasks, but also participation in relatively minor tasks which suggest a change in family relations as well. The results obtained in the analysis demonstrate that none of the available theories, by themselves, explain domestic participation. Male participation in domestic activities depends on factors such as the wife's employment status, the professional prestige obtained, the man's educational level, and the rejection of traditional gender roles. Therefore the important change registered in the past decade is related to the massive incorporation of women into the labour market and the increasing prolongation of their period of schooling. Moreover, the onset of a cultural change has resulted in an increase in men's receptivity to the demands of a more egalitarian division of domestic labour.

Spending Time with the Kids: Meanings of Family Time for Fathers

Based on intensive, qualitative interviews with 32 men, this study reports on meanings of time for fathers from intact families with young children (under age of 6). Men's experience of time provides some insight into why they have been slow to increase their time commitment to family activities, even when their wives enter labor force. The fathers in this study believed in priority of spending time with their children but, at same time, lamented that making time for family was costly, fixed in amount, and largely beyond their control to change due to demands of their paid work. In order for men to have a different experience of time, changes are required at three levels: individual attitudes about time, control over time in work place, and systemic realignments in parenting practices. Studies of men and family time have traditionally focused on measuring how much time men commit to activities like child care and housework. These studies gained momentum as more women entered paid labor force on supposition that, as women's balance of family and work changed, so, too, would men's. Specifically, frameworks such as resource theory (Blood & Wolfe, 1960) and subsequent time allocation studies (e.g., Robinson, 1977) have tended to treat time as a quantifiable resource that operates according to a kind of accounting ledger system. With this approach, historical changes in men's and women's roles have been examined in terms of how time in each of columns has been redistributed. The studies that examine men's participation in domestic activities typically demonstrate that men have changed at a slow but minimal rate in past 25 years (Barnett & Baruch, 1987; Berardo, Shehan, & Leslie, 1987; Coverman & Sheley, 1986; Geerken & Gove, 1983; Hoffman, 1989; Pleck,1993; Rachlin, 1987; Volling & Belsky, 1991). For example, Shelton (1992) reports that, whereas in 1975 men did 46% as much housework as women, this number had risen to 57% in 1987. When focus is on parenting behaviors only, one study found that mothers spent 19.5 hours compared to 5.5 hours for fathers in time spent alone with their children (Barnett & Baruch, 1987). This result is consistent with reviews of fathers' engagement time with children, which indicate that fathers spend about one third time that mothers do (Pleck, in press). This research has given rise to a political discourse that laments reluctance of men to commit more of their time to family experience. It has been expressed in terms of women working the second shift (Hochschild, 1989), an ethical inconsistency whereby men receive a double set of privileges and women a double set of obligations (Komarovsky, 1992, p. 304), or a continuing inequity that is part of transitional double standard (Hood, 1986, p. 354). Although large time-use surveys show ongoing disparities in men's and women's allocations to family work, they do little to explain why this is case (Perry-Jenkins & Crouter, 1990). Several explanations have been offered for slow increase in men's participation in family work. One explanation is that men and women have fundamentally different frameworks that structure their choices with respect to paid work and family work. For example, whereas women are more likely to see their commitments to jobs and children in terms of a trade-off involving ongoing choices, men are more likely to view their commitment to work and parenting as independent of each other and do not view themselves as having to make a choice between two (DiBenedetto & Tittle, 1990). The implication is that women experience more conflict in ongoing management of family-work balance. In keeping with this experience of greater conflict for women, fair is not a notion that men use when talking about distribution of family work, but, rather, it is a word that their wives use especially when they are upset with their husbands for not doing enough (Marshall, Heck, Hawkins, & Roberts, 1994). …