Dignified care is a central issue in the nursing care of older adults. Nurses are expected to treat older adults with dignity, and older adults wish to be treated in a dignified manner. Researchers have recommended investigating the concept of dignity based on specific contexts and population groups. This meta-synthesis study aims to explore the understandings of dignity from the perspective of older adults in the Nordic countries. Synthesising findings from qualitative studies on older adults’ experiences of dignity has provided (...) important insight into what can be essential for dignified care in a Nordic context. The importance of visibility and recognition for the experience of dignity is an overarching theme in all the studies. The participants’ descriptions mostly implicated an existence dominated by a lack of recognition. The older adults do not feel valued as people or for their contribution to society and strive to tone down their illnesses in an attempt to become more visible and acknowledged as people. Toning down their illnesses and masking their needs can protect their independence. At the same time, becoming less visible can leave them without a voice. The metaphorical phrase protected and exposed by a cloak of invisibility is used to express the authors’ overall interpretation of the findings. Lack of recognition and being socially invisible is a genuine threat to older adults’ dignity. (shrink)

Recent research has revealed the widespread effects of emotion on cognitive functions and memory. However, the influence of emotional valence on verbal short-term memory remains largely unexplored, especially in children. This study measured the effect of emotional valence on word immediate serial recall in 4–6-year-old French children (N = 124). Results show a robust effect of emotional valence on recall performances and recall errors. More precisely, we observed a facilitating effect of the positive valence of words: it allows better performance (...) and causes few recall errors. On the contrary, the data indicated a disruptive impact of negative word valence: the latter causes very low recall performance and is associated with a high proportion of recall errors. These findings add new evidence of the influence of emotion on children’s verbal short-term memory. Our results are discussed in relation to current semantic and attentional explanations of the emotional enhancement of memory. (shrink)

Prior research that analyses the cross-firm variation in the prevalence of women on corporate boards has tended to emphasise the importance of firm and industry-level factors, such as firm size, the quality of corporate governance, and the proximity to final consumers. In contrast, very little research has explored the role of national institutional factors for this important phenomenon. In this study, we explore the relative importance of country, industry, and firm-level factors in explaining the cross-firm variation in the proportion of (...) directorships occupied by female directors. Findings indicate that while all levels of influence are significant, country-level effects are a highly-important and under-researched antecedent of the presence of women on corporate boards. (shrink)

This study sets out to evaluate the role and emerging salience of environmental managers in a longitudinal perspective through a series of interviews with UK based environmental managers. Our results suggest that coercive isomorphic pressures are particularly important in driving the increased salience of the environmental management role and that stakeholder pressures overall have increased since 2006 which has further contributed to the environmental management function emerging as central to the business organisation. Views on the impact of the financial crisis (...) were divided. (shrink)

This text is based on an image that, in some ways, can be understood only in terms of sound. In the lonely darkness of a movie theatre, the audience spends ninety minutes gazing at a single image: that of a rubber dinghy drifting aimlessly on a vast expanse of water.This is the rare challenge posed by German filmmaker Philip Scheffner with his documentary Havarie: viewers are asked to focus on a single image while listening to a variety of sounds – (...) especially the voices of many nameless individuals discussing their own drifting journeys.A few years ago, Scheffner happened “totally by accident” to come across a cellphone video on YouTube lasting three minutes and thirty-six seconds; it was titled simply “refugees”... (shrink)

In this article we explore the influences upon the proportion of women on a country’s corporate boards. Using a conceptual framework that builds uponnational business systems theory, we investigate the extent to which national economic, cultural, political and social institutions explain cross-country variationin the gender composition of corporate elites. In the context of a sample drawn from over 40 countries, our empirical analysis shows that such institutionscollectively explain approximately two-thirds of the variance between countries in the percentage of women on (...) their corporate boards. Specifically, our findingsshow that economic and cultural factors play a particularly important role in shaping the gender balance of boards in comparison to political and social factors. (shrink)

For several years now, early cinema historians have developed certain notions that can help us define, in a much broader context, the axes of research in intermedial studies. Even though I’ll be giving it a slightly different importance, the notion I will be borrowing from these historians here is that of the “parameter.” Work by André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion on the emergence of the cinematographic medium relies on the idea that the medium appears as the result of a choice (...) made by the historian. To write the history of any given medium and separate it into periods, one must also select the components “that gathered together as a way of giving ‘birth’ to that medium at.. (shrink)

Les analyses des parcours de vie s’intéressent surtout au repérage des régularités du cycle de vie ou, tout au plus, aux écarts aux modèles types, en termes de retard des événements ou d’allongement des transitions sur les calendriers scolaires, professionnels, résidentiels ou familiaux. Les études empiriques suggèrent pourtant la présence de dynamiques non linéaires évoquant la possibilité que les parcours comportent des « bifurcations » où tout peut être remis en question, pouvant entraîner des changements durables de situation. Ce phénomène (...) est plus souvent interprété en référence à la capacité des individus de faire leurs propres choix qu’en fonction de l’influence possible des cadres institutionnels. L’étude de parcours scolaires et professionnels de jeunes Québécois dans les années 1990 constitue la base de cette réflexion sur la place des bifurcations dans les parcours de vie qui met l’accent sur le rôle des dispositifs institutionnels dans la création d’une flexibilité des structures, sur les phénomènes d’appropriation par les individus des opportunités offertes par cette flexibilité et sur le mouvement des réversibilités et irréversibilités construites à travers ce processus. L’analyse suggère que les individus peuvent s’engager dans des actions en évaluant les possibilités offertes par les institutions qui encadrent la vie sociale, qu’ils sont capables de percevoir les irréversibilités associées aux choix offerts et ainsi, de les prévenir, les exploiter ou s’y adapter. La croissance du nombre de personnes adoptant les mêmes comportements dans une situation donnée accroît ainsi la possibilité que ce choix se transforme en une convention sociale et que les bifurcations s’institutionnalisent.Life course analyses are mainly interested in identifying regularities in the life cycle or, at most, in deviations from typical patterns in terms of a postponing of events or of transitions within educational, career, residential or family trajectories. However, empirical studies point to the existence of non-linear dynamics and suggest the possibility that life paths may also include « bifurcations », where everything is placed in question, and that may lead to lasting changes in situations. This phenomenon is more often interpreted in reference to the individual’s capacity to make personal choices rather than in terms of the potential influence of institutional frameworks. This study is based on an analysis of the educational and career trajectories of Québec youth during the 1990s : it looks at the role of bifurcations in the life course, in emphasizing how institutional arrangements may help to create a flexibility of structures, and explores the phenomena of individuals seizing the opportunities offered by this flexibility. The study suggests that individuals may undertake actions after evaluating the opportunities presented by social institutions, and that they are able to grasp the irreversibility of certain choices and anticipate them, use them to their advantage or adjust their actions accordingly. An increase in the number of persons adopting the same behaviours in a given situation thus also increases the possibility that such a choice may evolve into a social convention and that these bifurcations may become institutionalized. (shrink)

Collaborative interaction pervades many everyday practices: work meetings, innovation and product design, education and arts. Previous studies have pointed to the central role of acknowledgement and acceptance for the success of joint action, by creating affiliation and signaling understanding. We argue that various forms of explicit miscommunication are just as critical to challenge, negotiate and integrate individual contributions in collaborative creative activities. Through qualitative microanalysis of spontaneous coordination in collective creative LEGO constructions, we individuate three interactional styles: inclusive, characterized by (...) acknowledgment and praise; instructional, characterized by self-repair; and integrative, characterized by widespread self- and other-repair. We then investigate how different interaction styles leave distinct material traces in the resulting LEGO models. The inclusive interaction style generally results in concatenations of individual contributions with little coherence and core narrative. The instructional style produces coherent, but largely individually driven models. Finally, the integrative style generates more innovative models, synthesizing individual contributions in shared narratives or schemas. (shrink)

Jointly coordinated affective activities are fundamental for social relationships. This study investigates a naturally occurring interaction between two women who produced reciprocal emotional stances towards similar past experiences. Adopting a microanalytic approach, we describe how the participants re-enact their past experiences through different but aligning synchronized gestures. This embodied dialogue evolves into affective flooding, in which participants co-produce their body memories of pulling down window blinds to block out sunshine. We show how the participants live this moment intercorporeally and how (...) multiple timescales are tied together in gesture, which is both an incarnation of body history and a novel expression of it. Thus, collaborative gesturing is a resource for experiencing together emotions re-enacted from body memories. Contributing to our understanding of the intercorporeality of human action, we provide an empirical investigation into how emotions and multiple timescales are nested in cooperative gestures. Data are in Finnish with English translations. (shrink)

Explorations in the aesthetics of waste and the material infrastructure of memory.

This paper investigates a special kind of social meaning-making manifest in how we experience static objects and properties of our everyday world. This happens, for example, when we recognize objects like vacuum cleaners, sliced tomatoes, and sneakers as placed in special sites in the environment. Given the compositional features of such images, we see them as designed to accomplish communicative functions. It is argued that object configurations of this kind are recognized as externalized ostensive cues. They are seen as having (...) been created with the intention of setting off an intersubjective mode of perception. This significantly changes the perceiver's semiotic exploration of the scene. From a `private' mode of sense-making mostly structured by reference to episodic, autobiographical experiential content, the perceiver takes a language stance. In other words, the perceiver adopts a qualitatively different meaning-constructing strategy in dealing with such images. Defending this claim, we present evidence from an empirical investigation of 20 participants' construals of photographic images depicting everyday static objects. We show that a subset of these object configurations evoke a special kind of socially responsive attitude as manifested in participants' introspective reports. The importance of these findings is brought out by discussion of parallels in neuro-cognitive work and how ostensive cues influence infant behavior. (shrink)

Collaborative interaction pervades everyday practices: work meetings, innovation and product design, education and arts. Previous studies have pointed to the central role of acknowledgement and acceptance for the success of joint action, by creating affiliation and signaling understanding. We argue that various forms of explicit miscommunication are just as critical to challenge, negotiate and integrate individual contributions in collaborative creative activities. Through qualitative microanalysis of spontaneous coordination in collective creative LEGO constructions, we individuate three interactional styles: inclusive, characterized by acknowledgment (...) and praise; instructional, characterized by self-repair; and integrative, characterized by widespread self- and other-repair. We investigate how different interaction styles leave distinct traces in the resulting LEGO models. The inclusive interaction style results in concatenations of individual contributions with little coherence and core narrative. The instructional style produces coherent, but individually driven models. Finally, the integrative style generates more innovative models, synthesizing individual contributions in shared narratives or schemas. (shrink)

HIV/AIDS continues to constitute a serious threat to the social and physical wellbeing of African mothers and their babies. In the hardest hit countries of sub-Saharan Africa, more than 60% of all new HIV infections are occurring in women, infants and young children. Mother-to-child transmission constitutes 90% of new HIV infections among infants and young children. Most of these infections can be prevented. However, the social stigma of HIV/AIDS insidiously continues to undermine the success of prevention programs. Ironically, some attributes (...) or characteristics of prevention of mother-to-child transmission programs may in fact serve as catalysts to the stigmatization process. This paper identifies and discusses six potential initiators: Routine HIV testing, Six months exclusive breastfeeding, Incentives, Home visits, Location of PMTCT program, and PMTCT terminology. In all these areas, there are practical strategies that may be applied to reduce the chances of being stigmatized. These strategies are introduced and discussed. (shrink)

This paper investigates a special kind of social meaning-making manifest in how we experience static objects and properties of our everyday world. This happens, for example, when we recognize objects like vacuum cleaners, sliced tomatoes, and sneakers as placed in special sites in the environment. Given the compositional features of such images, we see them as designed to accomplish communicative functions. It is argued that object configurations of this kind are recognized as externalized ostensive cues. They are seen as having (...) been created with the intention of setting off an intersubjective mode of perception. This significantly changes the perceiver’s semiotic exploration of the scene. From a ‘private’ mode of sense-making mostly structured by reference to episodic, autobiographical experiential content, the perceiver takes a language stance. In other words, the perceiver adopts a qualitatively different meaning-constructing strategy in dealing with such images. Defending this claim, we present evidence from an empirical investigation of 20 participants’ construals of photographic images depicting everyday static objects. We show that a subset of these object configurations evoke a special kind of socially responsive attitude as manifested in participants’ introspective reports. The importance of these findings is brought out by discussion of parallels in neuro-cognitive work and how ostensive cues influence infant behavior. (shrink)

Are physicians sometimes morally required to ease caregiver burden? In our paper we defend an affirmative answer to this question. First, we examine the well-established principle that medical care should be centered on the patient. We argue that although this principle seems to give physicians some leeway to lessen caregivers' suffering, it is very restrictive when spelled out precisely. Based on a critical analysis of existing cases for transcending patient-centeredness we then go on to argue that the medical ethos should (...) indeed contain a rule requiring physicians to alleviate caregiver burden under certain circumstances. Finally, we apply our findings to deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's disease. We present empirical data from a recent study of DBS indicating that spousal caregivers of Parkinson patients treated with DBS are sometimes deeply troubled by the effects of the therapy and discuss what moral obligations the treating physicians may have in such cases. (shrink)

Que nous apprend le processus de fabrication des photographies de « bénéficiaires » sur le droit à l’image dans l’humanitaire ? Au Kirghizstan, l’image est l’objet d’une négociation de l’aide. La fabrication d’« authentiques victimes » y est centrale comme dans les campagnes de l’église protestante allemande. L’analyse d’affiches conclut à un commun objectif : effacer l’altérité du « bénéficiaire » pour permettre un lien avec le « spectateur ». Le caractère factice de l’authenticité se révèle lorsque le photographié conteste (...) l’image. L’exigence de l’égalité surgit alors comme condition aux projets pour les droits de l’Homme et offre des pistes pour une gouvernance de l’éthique du numérique. (shrink)

This volume puts leading pragmatists in the philosophy of language, including Robert Brandom, in contact with scholars concerned with what pragmatism has come to mean for the law. Each contribution uses the resources of pragmatism to tackle fundamental problems in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of law, and social and political philosophy. In many chapters, the version of pragmatism deployed proves a fruitful approach to its subject matter; in others, shortcomings of the specific brand of pragmatism are revealed. The (...) result is a clearer understanding of what pragmatism has meant and can mean across these tightly related philosophical areas. The book, then, is itself pragmatism in action: it seeks to clarify its unifying concept by examining the practices that centrally involve it. (shrink)

Dignity is omnipresent in Western ethics, but it also provokes dissension and controversy. One of the most striking examples is the debate on medically assisted death, where dignity is invoked to support antagonistic positions. While some authors conclude that the concept is useless as an ethical reference, many others invite us to deepen our analysis from a multidimensional perspective, to enrich it and make it useful. This scoping study is intended to provide an overview of the different conceptions of dignity (...) used in the assisted dying debate, to better grasp the multiple facets of the concept. The Joanna Briggs Institute's JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis guided the scoping review. Key words were based on the researchers' expertise and were used to identify relevant literature in French and English. Eleven databases covering the last six decades were consulted. Initially, 2,071 references were found in the databases. After excluding duplicates, screening titles, abstracts, and full texts, and after a specific literature search on the concept of relational dignity, 156 papers were found to match the identified inclusion criteria. The literature highlights the stark confrontation between two dominant conceptions of dignity: ontological and autonomist. However, a lesser-known conceptualization of dignity integrates these two perspectives, underlining the relational and social dimensions of dignity. As a result, dignity emerges as a dynamic, experiential, and dialogical concept, that modulates itself according to circumstances. This raises the possibility of breaking through the binary debate and questioning the current frameworks that define dignity. This multidimensional conceptualization of dignity could lead to a more complete and nuanced understanding of the concept, as well as open richer normative horizons regarding the issue of medically assisted death. (shrink)

Every year medical researchers make contact with a large number of cancer survivors with the aim of evaluating cancer treatment. For this reason we decided to investigate how Swedish cancer survivors perceived their participation in research studies focusing on the long-term consequences of being a survivor of gynaecological or urinary bladder cancer. Data were collected by means of two study-specific postal questionnaires, both consisting of questions covering physical symptoms, well-being and the experience of being a cancer survivor. Both questionnaires also (...) included questions evaluating the participants’ experience of being research subjects. The questionnaires were developed in close co-operation with cancer survivors. The study population consisted of 1068 cancer survivors. Of these, 95% (n=1003) reported that they thought the study was valuable and 54% (n=559) that they had been positively affected by participating. Four per cent (n=39) expressed that they had been negatively affected by their participation in the study. The vast majority of the cancer survivors thought that participating in their particular study was valuable. (shrink)

BackgroundTo assess ethical concerns associated with participation in a financial incentive programme to help adolescents with type 1 diabetes improve diabetes self-management.MethodsFocus groups with 46 adolescents with type 1 diabetes ages 12–17 and 38 of their parents were conducted in the Seattle, Washington metropolitan area. Semistructured focus group guides addressed ethical concerns related to the use of FI to promote change in diabetes self-management. Qualitative data were analysed and emergent themes identified.ResultsWe identified three themes related to the ethical issues adolescents (...) and parents anticipated with FI programme participation. First, FI programmes may variably change pressure and conflict in different families in ways that are not necessarily problematic. Second, the pressure to share FIs in some families and how FI payments are structured may lead to unfairness in some cases. Third, some adolescents may be likely to fabricate information in any circumstances, not simply because of FIs, but this could compromise the integrity of FI programmes relying on measures that cannot be externally verified.ConclusionsMany adolescents with type 1 diabetes and their parents see positive potential of FIs to help adolescents improve their self-management. However, ethical concerns about unfairness, potentially harmful increases in conflict/pressure and dishonesty should be addressed in the design and evaluation of FI programmes. (shrink)

Many types of everyday and specialized reasoning depend on diagrams: we use maps to find our way, we draw graphs and sketches to communicate concepts and prove geometrical theorems, and we manipulate diagrams to explore new creative solutions to problems. The active involvement and manipulation of representational artifacts for purposes of thinking and communicating is discussed in relation to C.S. Peirce’s notion of diagrammatical reasoning. We propose to extend Peirce’s original ideas and sketch a conceptual framework that delineates different kinds (...) of diagram manipulation: Sometimes diagrams are manipulated in order to profile known information in an optimal fashion. At other times diagrams are explored in order to gain new insights, solve problems or discover hidden meaning potentials. The latter cases often entail manipulations that either generate additional information or extract information by means of abstraction. Ideas are substantiated by reference to ethnographic, experimental and historical examples. (shrink)

The rule of rescue describes the powerful human proclivity to rescue identified endangered lives, regardless of cost or risk. Deciding whether or not to perform a decompressive craniectomy as a life-saving or ‘rescue’ procedure for a young person with a severe traumatic brain injury provides a good example of the ethical tensions that occur in these situations. Unfortunately, there comes a point when the primary brain injury is so severe that if the patient survives they are likely to remain severely (...) disabled and fully dependent. The health resource implications of this outcome are significant. By using a web-based outcome prediction model this study compares the long-term outcome and designation of two groups of patients. One group had a very severe injury as adjudged by the model and the other group a less severe injury. At 18 month follow-up there were significant differences in outcome and healthcare requirements. This raises important ethical issues when considering life-saving but non-restorative surgical intervention. The discussion about realistic outcome cannot be dichotomised into simply life or death so that the outcome for the patient must enter the equation. As in other ‘rescue situations’, the utility of the procedure cannot be rationalised on a mere cost–benefit analysis. A compromise has to be reached to determine at what point either the likely outcome would be unacceptable to the person on whom the procedure is being performed or the social utility gained from the rule of rescue intervention fails to justify the utilitarian value and justice of equitable resource allocation. (shrink)