Societal Experiences Research Articles

Social-ecological Changes, Livelihoods and Resilience Among Fishing Communities in Mafia Island Marine Park, Tanzania

Analysis of societal dimensions is increasingly receiving attention in social–ecological resilience research. This study investigates the impacts of neo-liberal marine conservation and economic policies, and environmental changes on the livelihoods of two fishing communities in Mafia Island Marine Park, Tanzania, and their response strategies towards attempting to maintain livelihood resilience. These communities are in similar geographical and administrative settings but differ in their proximity to Park headquarters, conformity to Park regulations and engagement in fish trade. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, direct observation and questionnaire surveys. Interviewees from both villages reported increasing poverty in terms of reduced capacity to meet their basic needs, and decreases in numbers of meals per day, variety of foods and fish consumption, reduced access to resources, low productivity and prices of local produce. Women experienced raised household responsibilities for food security and meeting other household needs. Their main responses to these changes included loan seeking, reduction of expenditures, skipping meals, selling assets, collective fishing, livelihoods diversification, change of fishing techniques and gears, abandoning of fishing activity and outward migration. Their responses only contributed to survival without resolving the challenges. Paying attention to these societal experiences is therefore necessary, if resilience of social–ecological systems in a marine conservation area is to be maintained or enhanced.

Societal factors that predispose children under five years to severe malaria in developing countries: a systematic review of qualitative evidence

BACKGROUND Over 40% of the world’s population live in malaria endemic regions. While malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, some communities have different beliefs to this effect. These beliefs coupled with other societal factors lead to parents not having the appropriate health seeking behaviors and not getting prompt treatment of malaria for their children, a situation that could make their conditions severe, which may lead to death. Children below the age of five years and pregnant women mostly bear the brunt of the disease. Although malaria is a disease that is life threatening, it is preventable and curable. Malaria occurs in the poorest regions of the world where sanitation and hygienic conditions are far from optimal. OBJECTIVES To synthesize the best available evidence on the societal contexts and experiences that predispose children less than five years of age in developing countries to severe malaria. INCLUSION CRITERIA Types of participants: Participants were children below the ages of five years living in low and middle income countries. Phenomena of interest: Societal contexts and experiences of communities; traditional healers’, health workers’ and caregivers’ perceptions that predispose children below five years of age to severe malaria; and also communities' perceptions about the causes and symptoms of severe malaria and management strategies. Types of studies: Studies that were based on qualitative study designs. SEARCH STRATEGY Studies published in the English language from 1966 to 2013 were to be included in the review. METHODOLOGICAL QUALITY Papers selected were assessed by two independent reviewers for methodological quality using critical appraisal instruments from the Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument. DATA COLLECTION The Joanna Briggs Institute data extraction tool was used for extraction of data. DATA SYNTHESIS The Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument was used to pool findings based on their similarity of meaning. RESULTS Eleven studies generated 54 study findings that were aggregated into 40 categories to come up with eight synthesized findings. One of the synthesized findings was on the causes and symptoms of severe malaria, another was on management strategies of severe malaria and six others were about predisposition to the condition. CONCLUSIONS Findings place in context how knowledge, belief systems, health facility factors, gender roles of the home environment, access, traditional healers, and management strategies guide care providers’ care-seeking behaviors when their wards are taken ill with severe malaria.

Societal and Social Service Experiences of Unwed Korean Mothers Who Rear Their Children

The purpose of this study was to reposition the field’s understanding of unwed Korean mothers through narratives told by seven women about their experiences with social services and support during pregnancy and child rearing. Using a qualitative research framework combined with a phenomenological method, this study conveys their voices. The interviews indicate a discrepancy between the women’s needs and the services available, a discrepancy largely caused by the traditional social exclusion of unwed mothers. The interviews highlight the need to transform the current system from one that discriminates against unwed mothers to one that supports them in their child-rearing efforts.

Urbanity and Urbanization: An Interdisciplinary Review Combining Cultural and Physical Approaches

This review paper focuses on research schemes regarding urbanity and urbanization, and brings together both cultural and physical approaches. First, we review the cultural and social construction of urbanity (as related to urbanization) in Germany. In the early 20th century, urbanity was mainly the result of identity derived from a historical perspective in cities. This has changed profoundly in recent decades as urbanity stems more and more from various urban lifestyles and the staging of societal experiences, as summarized in the German term, “Erlebnisgesellschaft” (thrill-seeking society). The discussion is extended by an assessment of the recent state of the art regarding physical urban research. The focus lies on different fields of research; we address topics such as biodiversity, urban climate, air pollution, and resilience, as well as their impact on urban planning and governance. In conclusion, in order to tackle recent developments and future challenges regarding social and environmental issues, an integrative approach urges novel cross- and inter-disciplinary research efforts in urban studies, including urban-rural linkages. A newly constituted assessment of urbanization and city quarter development is proposed; the assessment focuses on the conjoint analysis of mobility, “Energiewende” (energy transition), cultural drivers, demographic development, and environmental issues.

Assessing Cul-de-sac Neighbourhoods: A Methodological Prelude

The grid-iron planning has long been adapted in Malaysia. Half a century later, intriguing societal experiences have challenged the physical grid-iron design, to that of the cul-de-sac. More apparent is the social concepts and its relationships between the physical neighbourhood factors such as security, street networks, green and open spaces and community integration. This paper evaluates available literature on methodological assessments of the cul-de-sac through an adaptation of a systematic review, towards specific contextual capacity of the Malaysian pluralistic neighbourhoods. The findings are expected to stimulate further discourses of methods of assessment, of the cul-de-sac communities at the micro-level of the neighbourhood.

Environmental Health Hazardscapes

Environmental Health Hazardscapes

Societal Contexts and Experiences that Predispose Children under 5 Years to Severe Malaria in Developing Countries: A Systematic Review.

Review question/objective The objective of this review is to synthesise the best available evidence on the societal contexts and experiences that predispose children less than 5 years of age to severe malaria, caregivers’ perception about the causes of severe malaria and the strategies adopted to manage severe malaria in developing (low to middle income) countries The specific review questions are 1. What societal contexts (i.e. cultural barrier, caregiver’s socio-economic status, distance to health facility and caregiver’s educational level) predispose children under 5 years to severe malaria? 2. What are caregiver’s perceptions about the causes and symptoms of severe malaria among children under 5 years? 3. What strategies have been adopted by communities and caregivers to manage severe malaria among children under 5 years? Inclusion criteria Types of participants The review will consider qualitative studies conducted in low and middle income countries9 and reports on children below five (5) years of age with severe malaria. Types of intervention(s)/phenomena of interest The focus of interest for this systematic review are societal contexts and experiences that predispose children below 5 years of age to severe malaria, community and caregivers’ perception about causes and symptoms of severe malaria and strategies to manage severe malaria among children less than 5 years of age.

Gifted Girls and Nonmathematical Aspirations

In this longitudinal study of two gifted Korean girls, experiences with early admittance into a gifted program are charted alongside their family and societal experiences that ultimately influenced their career choices in nonmathematical fields. The 8-year-long qualitative study involved extensive interviews with the two gifted girls and their parents to determine factors that led to their choice of a nonmathematical area of specialization in spite of early identification and support of their mathematical talent. Using tenets of qualitative inquiry to code the longitudinal data, the authors identified three main factors that contributed to these career choices, which are presented in the form of narratives. One of the startling findings of this study, contrary to the literature in gifted education research, is that the two girls’ early experiences with gifted education kept them from choosing careers related to mathematics. The article also narrates the enculturation of mathematically gifted girls in Korea that leads to nonmathematical career aspirations.

Reader’s Factors in Interpreting Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe Using Reader-Response Theory: A Preliminary Study

Article aims to find variety of interpretations on Eldorado poem, following the readers’ internal factors, such as societal norms, personal values and past experiences influence the interpretations. Data generated for this study are acquired through field research, in which questionnaires are used as data collecting instrument. The respondents are from third semester students of English Literature in Bina Nusantara University. The finding shows that interpretations of Eldorado include 44% ideas about failure, 24% ideas about perseverance, and 25.33% ideas about taking a journey. In comparison to Eldorado’s more neutral interpretation, it could be said that more respondents prefer to discuss the poem as the journey of life. It can be concluded that different societal norms, personal values and past experiences cause different kinds of interpretations, in which past experience becomes the most influential factor.

Literacy, Capital, and Education: A View From Immigrant Youth

From conservative estimates, as many as 1 in every 5 schoolchildren is an immigrant. Through both sheer numbers and qualitatively different migration practices, these populations have productively created an opportunity and imperative for educational practice to redefine its assumptions, practices, and relevancy. In this article, the author present snapshots of young immigrants navigating schooling and society, and more specifically, elucidate how these snapshots can productively agitate how literacy educators understand and undertake their work. The article uses case studies of two recently arrived immigrant students to examine how classroom practices and educational policies position these students, how literacy pedagogy follows from that framing, and how those frames obscure the complicated ways that textual practices reflect and structure societal experiences for immigrant youth. It provides recommendations for how educators can revamp their work to create educational experiences considerate of and responsive to, first and foremost, these students' lived realities.

Alaskan Gay Males’ Couple Experiences of Societal Non-Support: Coping Through Families of Choice and Therapeutic Means

Trends in the marriage and family therapy (MFT) field show that gay men access therapy at a rate two to four times greater than their heterosexual counterparts. Thus, MFTs must be prepared to meet the needs of such clientele. Little research has been conducted on male–male couple experiences and less has been conducted in Alaska. In this qualitative study involving eleven participants we explored societal experiences and coping strategies of Alaskan male–male couples. Themes demonstrated more non-supportive than supportive experiences, the use of families of choice as the primary means of coping, and mixed therapeutic experiences.

Complicating Intersectionality Through the Identities of a Hard of Hearing Korean Adoptee: An Autoethnography

Within education and social justice, the lenses of race, class, and gender are prevalent in analyzing multifaceted oppression, but there is a need to expand beyond those in order to obtain a more in-depth understanding of the intricacies of oppression. The autoethnographic approach enables me to use my experiences a Korean adoptee with a disability as an entry point to examine intersectional and interlocking oppression and to offer a different frame of reference that is absent in the literature: the integration of Korean adoptee and Disability Studies literature to further problematize each field and to complicate and advance the understanding of oppression. The critical self-reflexive process of writing allowed me to contest the prevailing representation and knowledge through my experiences and to develop an awareness of how we all are ensnared in this process of constructing/deconstructing oppression; thus personal and societal experiences of oppression and privilege are not easily separated. In order to shift toward a collaboratively oriented social justice, we must realize that focusing on one or multiple forms of oppression, but not all, cannot lead to true social justice change and transformation because all forms of oppression interact in a convoluted manner that reinforce or undermine each other in an entangled labyrinth.

Solidariedade e natureza humana

The concept of solidarity inhabits the collective unconscious and is usually related to something consensual, linked to the most basic values of mankind, but to expand that understanding leads to more complex views. Human solidarity would be conditioned by biological, or cultural issue that goes beyond any possible biological determinism. This study seeks to analyze the phenomenon of solidarity and its correlation with life in society from the perspective of complexity, through a cross-sectional analysis in order to cover the phenomenon in question from different perspectives. For that, we appealed to sociobiology, and the social sciences interpretation. We tried to thereby renounce the sole idea and permanent solution, by approaching to the assumptions of complex thinking, which rely precisely to overcome a single organizing principle or a single cause to explain the same phenomenon. It noticed the need of new societal experiences, which would block the advance of competitive individualist paradigm as the sole alternative, highlighting the experiences of the solidarity economy and third sector organizations that have a new business logic, a third social force among the state and the market.

Aesthetics Making Meaning

Aesthetics matter because through aesthetic practices people make individual and collective meaning. Consider two different senses in which making meaning can be understood as central curricular goals of art education-one, is to engage and understand through active interpretation;1 a second is to act as an artist-creating works from which the artist and others draw meaning, pleasure, and purpose. Knowledge from the discipline of supports both the interpreter and the maker in making nuanced observations of form, imagery, metaphors, antecedent practices, related concepts, and social and political implications as well as in utilizing various strategies to construct and develop artworks.Making MeaningIn From Work to Text, Roland Barthes (1971/1984) proposed that meaning is not made by an artist/author depositing meaning into a work through a series of signifiers that then produce a fixed meaning or true significance that must be extracted or uncovered by the reader/viewer. Instead, Barthes suggested the possibility of a hedonistic aesthetics in which signifiers are put into play by the artist/author (p. 174). The viewer/ reader/interpreter then plays with the weave of signifiers, making and re-making the meaning of the artwork through active engagement (p. 171). An artwork seen in this way is rich in meaning, but the meaning is open and decentered.Terry Eagleton's (1990) influential book, The Ideohgy of the Aesthetic, continued the challenge to ahistorical, apolitical concepts of aesthetic valuing through a careful articulation of the relationship between artistic sensibilities and other cultural values, thereby broadening the subject of to include its own uses and history. The modernist hermetic aesthetic experience is now rarely evoked by knowledgeable professionals because understanding contemporary art and theories of representation point to more complex mechanisms by which meaning is created (Hall, 1997; Harrison & Wood, 1993; Jameson, 1991; Mitchell, 2005). Today's fields of visual studies or visual culture can be seen as manifestations of within this expanded field of signifying practices - investigating semiotic choices about how still and moving images are structured (what has traditionally been called aesthetic choices) as key generators of cultural meaning (Dikovitskaya, 2005; Elkins, 2003; Freedman, 2003; Smith-Shank, 2004).Good contemporary art education can reflect the best practices of contemporary aesthetics. Ideas such as Barthes' ludic process of meaning making or visual culture investigations that consider how subject positions are created through how persons are hailed by cultural communications are suggested by principles of interpretation developed by art educator Terry Barrett (2003, 2007). Such principles as artworks attract multiple and it is not the goal of interpretation to arrive at single, grand, unified, composite interpretations, or interpretations imply a worldview, and of are not limited to what their artists intended them to mean provide plain language guides to effective, sophisticated aesthetic analysis of the meanings generated by (Barrett, 2003, p. 198). Such a contemporary approach to aesthetic investigation can encourage students to understand that just as meaning within and other cultural productions is socially generated, their own subjective experiences - responses to and reading of cultural artifacts - are not a natural given, but rather are generated within personal and societal experiences (Keifer-Boyd & Maitland-Gholson, 2007).Meaningful MakingArt (and the aesthetic practices that make art possible) can make life meaningful. Through artworks, personal and community experience is represented, re-presented, re-shaped, and re-formed. Alice Walker, talking about the importance of art in her life, wrote, It is, in the end the saving of lives that we writers are about . …

Re-conceptualizing Civil Society: The Debate Continues With Specific Reference to Contemporary Senegal

Abstract This article challenges the civil society argument based on its failure to correctly and appropriately conceptualize Africa's societal experiences. To this end, the article explores Senegal as a case study to show how the idiosyncrasy of societal development has constructed and produced different types of associational life that is not grasped within the liberal preconditions of civil society. Senegal was selected to make a deductive analysis. If we can prove that Senegalese society, which is commonly cited in the liberal argument as a vibrant model of civil society, is neither acting within the conventional frameworks nor meets the conventional preconditions of civil society, the argument on the flaws of the liberal conception of civil society will stand.

Cosmopolitics and the Maritime World City

Cosmopolitanism has emerged as a humanistic perspective to express globalizing societal experiences. What are its geographies? World cities are centers of globalizing processes, and their populations and institutions may share elements of cosmopolitical worldviews. Most world cities have also been ports, yet in the contemporary global imaginary, many world cities are not readily understood as places of maritime activity, historic or contemporary. Disjunctures in perceptions of the coastal city‐region reflect changes in the world economy and human experiences in modes of travel. This analysis recovers geographical processes of maritime urban areas as a basis for understanding transhistorical and geographical factors of cosmopolitics in globalizing regions and contemporary intellectual thought.

Effects of body fat distribution on body size estimation accuracy among obese women.

Body fat distribution is a reliable predictor of the health risks of obesity. Abdominal obesity (AO) has been associated with various health complications whereas gluteal-femoral obesity (GFO) appears to be less hazardous. Body size overestimation, a type of body image disturbance, is found in a subset of obese persons. The current study examined body size estimation accuracy as a function of body fat distribution. Cross-sectional, retrospective review of clinical records. 101 obese women (Mean age = 39.4) joining a weight loss program. Subjects provided body size estimates using a live video distortion procedure and were grouped into tertiles (AO; Mixed type obesity (MTO); GFO) on the basis of their waist-to-hip ratios. GFO women had significantly lower body size estimates and felt thinner than did AO or MTO women. In addition, more AO women (20.6% vs GFO: 8.8%) overestimated their body size by more than 15% whereas more GFO women (29.4% vs AO: 5.9%) underestimated their body size by more than 15%. Body fat distribution appears to be a mediator in body size estimation accuracy. These findings are discussed in terms of possible differences in perceptual and societal experiences among the groups.

The Double Perspective: Language, Literacy, and Social Relations

Examining the relationship between language and literacy and the societal experiences that help shape it, this political and polemical book builds on the author's previous work in reader-response criticism and challenges the now dominant assumption that language is an individual transaction independent of any social context. Moving through a series of interrelated essays, David Bleich explores topics including the social psychology of men, which he maintains exerts undue influence on everyone's education; conceptions of knowledge now offered by feminist epistemologists; social conceptions of language and knowledge found in the work of G.H. Mead, L.S. Vygotsky, Ludwik Fleck, and Mikhail Bakhtin; the influence of gender on language use; the views of current thinkers on the social character of the classroom and academic communities; and the process of individual language development.

Widowhood and its process in contemporary african society: A psycho-social study

Abstract Widowhood is often covered in myth and its processes left to the governance of whatever social or cultural system a bereaved person finds him/herself in. It is often felt that cultural traditions constitute the best guide to be followed or authority in widowhood. Recent societal experiences on widowhood and adjustment process however, question this position. It is clear that a more critical understanding of the widowhood process within traditional cultural, legal and psychosocial contexts need to emerge. This paper offers an explanation for this by discussing conceptual and operational definition, characteristics, and psycho-social manifestations in widowhood. Case studies are presented to illustrate some of the patterns in widowhood emerging in contemporary African society and the need to react in a more definite manner in order to evolve appropriate socio-legal and therapeutic resources and techniques.

Training Navajo Indians as Miners

When a mine opens, people must be found to perform all the necessary functions attendant to the mine's operation. Often the local populace is the source of this labor pool. Many of the newer U.S. mines are located in remote, relatively unpopulated regions of the country or regions which are populated by identifiable “special groups” or subpopulations. Utah International Inc., as one of the larger mining companies in the United States, encountered such a special group in the Navajo Indians when opening and operating the Navajo and San Juan Mines in northwestern New Mexico. This paper discusses the problems which arose from differences in cultural, familial, and societal background and experiences from those of the larger American society, how these differences impacted and continue to impact upon training, and the “solutions” by which they were and are handled. An example of such a difference to be discussed is the difficulty getting the desired photography for a visual training presentation. The Navajos believe that a portion of a person's spirit is captured in a photograph and can never be regained; therefore, it is imperative to get the permission of all Navajo individuals who will be in a photograph, slide, or film footage before endeavoring any photography.