Social capital and health : variations, associations and challenges

Although social capital and health have been extensively studied during the last decade, there are still open issues in current empirical research. These concern for instance the measurement of the concept in different contexts, as well as the association between different types of social capital and different dimensions of health. The present thesis addressed these questions. The general aim was to promote the understanding of social capital and health by investigating the oldest old and the two major language groups in Finland, Swedish- and Finnish-speakers. Another aim was to contribute to the discussion on methodological issues in social capital and health research. The present thesis investigated two empirical data sets, Umeå 85+ and Health 2000. The Umeå 85+ study was a cross-sectional study of 163 individuals aged 85, 90, and 95 or older, living in the municipality of Umeå, Sweden, in the year of 2000. The Health 2000 survey was a national study of 8,028 persons aged 30 or above carried out in Finland in 2000-2001. Different indicators of structural (e.g. social contacts) and cognitive (e.g. trust) social capital, as well as health indicators were used as variables in the analyses. The Umeå 85+ data set was analyzed with factor analysis, as well as univariate and multivariate analysis of variance. The Health 2000 data was analyzed with logistic regression techniques. The results showed that the Swedish-speakers in the Finnish data set Health 2000 had consistently higher prevalence of social capital compared to the Finnish-speakers even after controlling for central sociodemographic variables. The results further showed that even if the language group differences in health were small, the Swedishspeakers experienced in general better self-reported health compared with the Finnish-speakers. Common sociodemographic variables could not explain these observed differences in health. The results imply that social capital is often, but not always, associated with health. This was clearly seen in the Umeå 85+ data set where only one health indicator (depressive symptoms) was associated with structural social capital among the oldest old. The results based on the analysis of the Health 2000 survey demonstrated that the cognitive component of social capital was associated with self-rated health and psychological health rather than with participation in social activities and social contacts. In addition, social capital statistically reduced the health advantage especially for Swedish-speaking men, indicating that high prevalence of social capital may promote health. Finally, the present thesis also discussed the issue of methodological challenges faced with when analyzing social capital and health. It was suggested that certain components of social capital such as bonding and bridging social capital may be more relevant than structural and cognitive components when investigating social capital among the two language groups in Finland. The results concerning the oldest old indicated that the structural aspects of social capital probably reflect current living conditions, whereas cognitive social capital reflects attitudes and traits often acquired decades earlier. This is interpreted as an indication of the fact that structural and cognitive social capital are closely related yet empirically two distinctive concepts. Taken together, some components of social capital may be more relevant to study than others depending on which population group and age group is under study. The results also implied that the choice of cut-off point of dichotomization of selfrated health has an impact on the estimated effects of the explanatory variables. When the whole age interval, 35-64 years, was analyzed with logistic regression techniques the choice of cut-off point did not matter for the estimated effects of marital status and educational level. The results changed, however, when the age interval was divided into three shorter intervals. If self-rated health is explored using wide age intervals that do not account for age-dependent covariates there is a risk of drawing misleading conclusions. In conclusion, the results presented in the thesis suggest that the uneven distribution of social capital observed between the two language groups in Finland are of importance when trying to further understand health inequalities that exist between Swedish- and Finnish-speakers in Finland. Although social capital seemed to be relevant to the understanding of health among the oldest old, the meaning of social capital is probably different compared to a less vulnerable age group. This should be noticed in future empirical research. In the present thesis, it was shown that the relationship between social capital and health is complex and multidimensional. Different aspects of social capital seem to be important for different aspects of health. This reduces the possibility to generalize the results and to recommend general policy implementations in this area. An increased methodological awareness regarding social capital as well as health are called for in order to further understand the cfomplex association between them. However, based on the present data and findings social capital is associated with health. To understand individual health one must also consider social aspects of the individuals’ environment such as social capital.

Neural correlates of language learning in adults

The human language-learning ability persists throughout life, indicating considerable flexibility at the cognitive and neural level. This ability spans from expanding the vocabulary in the mother tongue to acquisition of a new language with its lexicon and grammar. The present thesis consists of five studies that tap both of these aspects of adult language learning by using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during language processing and language learning tasks. The thesis shows that learning novel phonological word forms, either in the native tongue or when exposed to a foreign phonology, activates the brain in similar ways. The results also show that novel native words readily become integrated in the mental lexicon. Several studies in the thesis highlight the left temporal cortex as an important brain region in learning and accessing phonological forms. Incidental learning of foreign phonological word forms was reflected in functionally distinct temporal lobe areas that, respectively, reflected short-term memory processes and more stable learning that persisted to the next day. In a study where explicitly trained items were tracked for ten months, it was found that enhanced naming-related temporal and frontal activation one week after learning was predictive of good long-term memory. The results suggest that memory maintenance is an active process that depends on mechanisms of reconsolidation, and that these process vary considerably between individuals. The thesis put special emphasis on studying language learning in the context of language production. The neural foundation of language production has been studied considerably less than that of perceptive language, especially on the sentence level. A well-known paradigm in language production studies is picture naming, also used as a clinical tool in neuropsychology. This thesis shows that accessing the meaning and phonological form of a depicted object are subserved by different neural implementations. Moreover, a comparison between action and object naming from identical images indicated that the grammatical class of the retrieved word (verb, noun) is less important than the visual content of the image. In the present thesis, the picture naming was further modified into a novel paradigm in order to probe sentence-level speech production in a newly learned miniature language. Neural activity related to grammatical processing did not differ between the novel language and the mother tongue, but stronger neural activation for the novel language was observed during the planning of the upcoming output, likely related to more demanding lexical retrieval and short-term memory. In sum, the thesis aimed at examining language learning by combining different linguistic domains, such as phonology, semantics, and grammar, in a dynamic description of language processing in the human brain.

Who Needs Language?

Book review.

A tour through Sweden, Swedish-Lapland, Finland and Denmark. In a series of letters, illustrated with engravings : by Matthew Consett, esq.

P. 143-158 are misnumbered 142-157.

Morfologisk processering i svenska : språkbakgrundens effekter på ordigenkänningen

Marja Portinin väitöskirja Morphological processing in Swedish : effects of language backround on word recognition (Åbo Akademi 2008).

Understanding the Racial Nature of Police and Immigrant Relations In Finland. The Case of Africans in Turku

The focus of this study is to examine the role of police and immigrants’ relations, as less is known about this process in the country. The studies were approached in two different ways. Firstly, an attempt was made to examine how immigrants view their encounters with the police. Secondly, the studies explored how aware the police are of immigrants’ experiences in their various encounters and interactions on the street level. An ancillary aim of the studies is to clarify, analyse and discuss how prejudice and stereotypes can be tackled, thereby contributing to the general debate about racism and discrimination for better ethnic relations in the country. The data in which this analysis was based is on a group of adults (n=88) from the total of 120 Africans questioned for the entire study (n=45) police cadets and (n=6) serving police officers from Turku. The present thesis is a compilation of five articles. A summary of each article findings follows, as the same data was used in all five studies. In the first study, a theoretical model was developed to examine the perceived knowledge of bias by immigrants resulting from race, culture and belief. This was also an attempt to explore whether this knowledge was predetermined in my attempt to classify and discuss as well as analyse the factors that may be influencing immigrants’ allegations of unfair treatment by the police in Turku. The main finding shows that in the first paper there was ignorance and naivety on the part of the police in their attitudes towards the African immigrant’s prior experiences with the police, and this may probably have resulted from stereotypes or their lack of experience as well as prior training with immigrants where these kinds of experience are rampant in the country (Egharevba, 2003 and 2004a). In exploring what leads to stereotypes, a working definition is the assumption that is prevalent among some segments of the population, including the police, that Finland is a homogenous country by employing certain conducts and behaviour towards ethnic and immigrant groups in the country. This to my understanding is stereotype. Historically this was true, but today the social topography of the country is changing and becoming even more complex. It is true that, on linguistic grounds, the country is multilingual, as there are a few recognised national minority languages (Swedish, Sami and Russian) as well as a number of immigrant languages including English. Apparently it is vital for the police to have a line of communication open when addressing the problem associated with immigrants in the country. The second paper moved a step further by examining African immigrants’ understanding of human rights as well as what human rights violation means or entails in their views as a result of their experiences with the police, both in Finland and in their country of origin. This approach became essential during the course of the study, especially when the participants were completing the questionnaire (N=88), where volunteers were solicited for a later date for an in-depth interview with the author. Many of the respondents came from countries where human rights are not well protected and seldom discussed publicly, therefore understanding their views on the subject can help to explain why some of the immigrants are sceptical about coming forward to report cases of batteries and assaults to the police, or even their experiences of being monitored in shopping malls in their new home and the reason behind their low level of trust in public authorities in Finland. The study showed that knowledge of human rights is notably low among some of the participants. The study also found that female respondents were less aware of human rights when compared with their male counterparts. This has resulted in some of the male participants focussing more on their traditional ways of thinking by not realising that they are in a new country where there is equality in sexes and lack of respect on gender terms is not condoned. The third paper focussed on the respondents’ experiences with the police in Turku and tried to explore police attitudes towards African immigrant clients, in addition to the role stereotype plays in police views of different cultures and how these views have impacted on immigrants’ views of discriminatory policing in Turku. The data is the same throughout the entire studies (n=88), except that some few participants were interviewed for the third paper thirty-five persons. The results showed that there is some bias in mass-media reports on the immigrants’ issues, due to selective portrayal of biases without much investigation being carried out before jumping to conclusions, especially when the issues at stake involve an immigrant (Egharevba, 2005a; Egharevba, 2004a and 2004b). In this vein, there was an allegation that the police are even biased while investigating cases of theft, especially if the stolen property is owned by an immigrant (Egharevba, 2006a, Egharevba, 2006b). One vital observation from the respondents’ various comments was that race has meaning in their encounters and interaction with the police in the country. This result led the author to conclude that the relation between the police and immigrants is still a challenge, as there is rampant fear and distrust towards the police by some segments of the participating respondents in the study. In the fourth paper the focus was on examining the respondents’ view of the police, with special emphasis on race and culture as well as the respondents’ perspective on police behaviour in Turku. This is because race, as it was relayed to me in the study, is a significant predictor of police perception (Egharevba, 2005a; Egharevba and Hannikianen, 2005). It is a known scientific fact that inter-group racial attitudes are the representation of group competition and perceived threat to power and status (Group-position theory). According to Blumer (1958) a sense of group threat is an essential element for the emergence of racial prejudice. Consequently, it was essential that we explored the existing relationship between the respondents and the police in order to have an understanding of this concept. The result indicates some local and international contextual issues and assumptions that were of importance tackling prejudice and discrimination as it exists within the police in the country. Moreover, we have to also remember that, for years, many of these African immigrants have been on the receiving end of unjust law enforcement in their various countries of origin, which has resulted in many of them feeling inferior and distrustful of the police even in their own country of origin. While discussing the issues of cultural difference and how it affects policing, we must also keep in mind the socio-cultural background of the participants, their level of language proficiency and educational background. The research data analysed in this study also confirmed the difficulties associated with cultural misunderstandings in interpreting issues and how these misunderstandings have affected police and immigrant relations in Finland. Finally, the fifth paper focussed on cadets’ attitudes towards African immigrants as well as serving police officers’ interaction with African clients. Secondly, the police level of awareness of African immigrants’ distrustfulness of their profession was unclear. For this reason, my questions in this fifth study examined the experiences and attitudes of police cadets and serving police officers as well as those of African immigrants in understanding how to improve this relationship in the country. The data was based on (n=88) immigrant participants, (n=45) police cadets and 6 serving police officers from the Turku police department. The result suggests that there is distrust of the police in the respondents’ interaction; this tends to have galvanised a heightened tension resulting from the lack of language proficiency (Egharevba and White, 2007; Egharevba and Hannikainen, 2005, and Egharevba, 2006b) The result also shows that the allegation of immigrants as being belittled by the police stems from the misconceptions of both parties as well as the notion of stop and search by the police in Turku. All these factors were observed to have contributed to the alleged police evasiveness and the lack of regular contact between the respondents and the police in their dealings. In other words, the police have only had job-related contact with many of the participants in the present study. The results also demonstrated the complexities caused by the low level of education among some of the African immigrants in their understanding about the Finnish culture, norms and values in the country. Thus, the framework constructed in these studies embodies diversity in national culture as well as the need for a further research study with a greater number of respondents (both from the police and immigrant/majority groups), in order to explore the different role cultures play in immigrant and majority citizens’ understanding of police work.

Euroalueen ja muiden ulkomaisten keskuspankkien julkaisut

Kokoelma sisältää euroalueen keskuspankkien ja muiden ulkomaisten keskuspankkien julkaisemia tilastojulkaisuja, vuosikertomuksia ja lehtiä rahapolitiikasta, rahoitusmarkkinoista, finanssivalvonnasta, rahahuollosta ja pankkitoiminnasta. Julkaisuissa on tilastotietoa kyseisistä maista ja katsauksia taloudelliseen tilanteeseen ja rahapoliittisiin toimenpiteisiin. Tilastot ovat yleensä maan omassa valuutassa. Julkaisuja on n. 3890 nimekettä 1800 -luvulta lähtien. Kokoelman julkaisut ovat enimmäkseen englanninkielisiä, mutta julkaisuja on myös kansallisilla kielillä. Keskuspankkikokoelma kasvaa painetuilla vuosikertomuksilla, tilastoilla ja raporteilla. Osa tilastojulkaisuista sekä lehdistä on verkkojulkaisuina keskuspankkien sivuilla. Kokoelman vanhin aineisto on Ruotsin ja Englannin keskuspankkien lainsäädäntöä 1800-luvun puolivälistä. Euroalueelta kokoelmassa on Alankomaiden, Belgian, Espanjan, Irlannin, Italian, Itävallan, Kreikan, Kyproksen, Luxemburgin, Maltan, Portugalin, Ranskan, Saksan, Slovakian, Slovenian, ja Viron keskuspankkien julkaisuja. Suomen Pankin julkaisut on käsitelty omana alueenaan. Kokoelmassa on myös Argentiinan, Australian, Brasilian, Bulgarian, Intian, Islannin, Ison-Britannian, Israelin, Japanin, entisen Jugoslavian, Kanadan, Kiinan, Latvian, Liettuan, Puolan, Romanian, Ruotsin, Sveitsin, Tanskan, Tsekin, entisen Tsekkoslovakian, Turkin, Ukrainan, Unkarin, Uuden Seelannin, Venäjän ja Yhdysvaltojen keskuspankkien julkaisuja. Painettua kokoelmaa säilytetään varastokokoelmassa, ja se on saatavana pyynnöstä käyttöön ja kopioitavaksi.

Ambivalent self-understanding? : change, language and boundaries in the Shetland Islands (1970–present)

Avhandlingen berör språkets roll på Shetlandsöarna från år 1970 till idag och shetländarnas självbild som shetländare och skottar. Öarna, som ligger i Storbritanniens nordligaste del, beskrivs ofta som kulturellt annorlunda och unika. Även om shetländarna uppfattar sig själva som annorlunda, har utomstående betraktare tidvis tonat ner, tidvis betonat öarnas kulturella särdrag. Shetlandsöarna utgör ett intressant undersökningsobjekt, eftersom shetländarnas uppfattningar om sig själva som en särskild grupp har genomgått en förändring under de fyra senaste årtiondena. Den ekonomiska högkonjunktur som var en konsekvens av oljefynden i Nordsjön och 1990-talets politiska förändringar på öarna och i Skottland har båda påverkat de sätt på vilka Shetland beskrivs och förstås. I den förändrade samhällssituationen tvingades shetländarna omvärdera sin relation till det skotska fastlandet. Man var också tvungen att hitta nya svar på frågan vilka shetländarna är och på vilka sätt man borde värna om den verkliga eller föreställda kulturella autonomin. Avhandlingens syfte var att undersöka och analysera de sätt på vilka de samhälleliga förändringarna har påverkat shetländarnas självförståelse, särskilt de uppfattningar som är kopplade till språket. Undersökningen visar att många av dagens uppfattningar om en kulturell särart kan spåras till slutet av 1800-talet och tiden efter andra världskriget. Som avhandlingen visar har språkhistorien spelat en viktig roll i den process i vilken shetländarna har särskilt sig som en separat grupp. Språkets betydelse kan förstås korrekt endast om man i stället för att betrakta shetländarna som en etnisk grupp betraktar Shetlandsöarna som en relativt sett autonom beslutför region. I detta fall fungerar dialekten som en symbol för regional samhörighet.

Tekijännimet Mikael Agricolan teosten kielessä. Henkilötarkoitteisten johdosten merkitykset, funktiot ja rakenteet

My research deals with agent nouns in the language of the works of Mikael Agricola (ca. 1510–1557). The main tasks addressed in my thesis have been to describe individual agent noun types, to provide a comprehensive picture of the category of agent nouns and to clarify the relations between different types of agent nouns. My research material consists of all the agent nouns referring to persons in the language of Agricola’s works, together with their context. The language studied is for the most part translated language. Agent nouns play an important role both in the vocabulary of natural language and in broader sentence structures, since in a text it is constantly necessary to refer to actors re-ferring to persons in the text. As a concept and a phenomenon, the agent noun is widely known in languages. It is a word formed with a certain derivational affixes, which typical-ly refers to a person. In my research the agent noun category includes both deverbal and denominal derivatives referring to persons, e.g. kirjoittaa > kirjoittaja (to write > writer), asua > asuva (to inhabit > inhabitant), imeä > imeväinen (to suck > suckling), juopua > juopunut (to drink > drunkard), pelätä > pelkuri (to fear > one who fears ‘a coward’), apu > apulainen (help/to help > helper); lammas > lampuri (sheep > shepherd). Besides original Finnish expressions, agent noun derivatives taken as such from foreign languages form a word group of central importance for the research (e.g. nikkari, porvari, ryöväri, based on the German/Swedish for carpenter, burgher, robber). Especially important for the formation of agent nouns in Finnish are the models offered by foreign languages. The starting point for my work is predominantly semantic, as both the criteria for collecting the material and the categorisation underlying the analysis of the material are based on semantic criteria. When examining derivatives, aspects relating to structure are also inevitably of central importance, as form and meaning are closely associated with each other in this type of vocabulary. The alliance of structure and meaning can be described in an illustrative manner with the help of structural schemata. The examination of agent nouns comprises on the one hand analysis of syntactic elements and on the other, study of cultural words in their most typical form. The latter aspect offers a research object in which language and the extralinguistic world, referents, their designations and cultural-historical reality are in concrete terms one and the same. Thus both the agent noun types that follow the word formation principles of the Finn-ish language and those of foreign origin borrowed as a whole into Finnish illustrate very well how an expression of a certain origin and formed according to a certain structural model is inseparably bound up with the background of its referent and in general with semantic factors. This becomes evident both on the level of the connection between cer-tain linguistic features and text genre and in relation to cultural words referring to per-sons. For example, the model for the designations of God based on agent nouns goes back thousands of years and is still closely linked in 16th century literature with certain text genres. This brings out the link between the linguistic feature and the genre in a very con-crete manner. A good example of the connection between language and the extralinguistic world is provided by the cultural vocabulary referring to persons. Originally Finnish agent noun derivatives are associated with an agrarian society, while the vocabulary relat-ing to mediaeval urbanisation, the Hansa trade and specialisation by trade or profession is borrowed and originates in its entirety from vocabulary that was originally German.

Nollapersoonalause suomessa ja virossa. Tutkimus kirjoitetun kielen aineistosta

The present study focuses on the zero person constructions both in Finnish and Estonian. In the zero person construction, there is no overt subject and the verb is in the 3rd person singular form: Fin. Tammikuussa voi hiihtää Etelä-Suomessakin. Est. Jaanuaris saab suusatada ka Lõuna-Soomes ‘In January one can ski even in South-Finland’. The meaning of the zero construction is usually considered generic and open. However, the zero may be interpreted as indexically open so that the reference can be construed from the context. This study demonstrates how the zero may be interpreted as referring to the speaker, the addressee, or anybody. The zero person construction in Finnish has been contrasted to the generic pronoun constructions in Indo-European languages. For example, the zero person is translated in English as you or one; in Swedish and German as man. The grammar and semantics of the Finnish zero person construction have been studied earlier to some extent. However, the differences and similarities between Finnish and Estonian, two closely related languages, have not been thoroughly studied before. The present doctoral thesis sheds light on the zero person construction, its use, functions, and interpretation both in Finnish and Estonian. The approach taken is contrastive. The data comes from magazine articles published in Finnish and translated into Estonian. The data consists of Finnish sentences with the zero person and their Estonian translations. In addition, the data includes literary fiction, and non-translated Estonian corpora texts as well. Estonian and Finnish are closely related and in principle the personal system of the two languages is almost identical, nevertheless, there are interesting differences. The present study shows that the zero person construction is not as common in Estonian as it is in Finnish. In my data, a typical sentence with the zero person in both languages is a generic statement which tells us what can or cannot be done. When making generic statements the two languages are relatively similar, especially when the zero person is used together with a modal verb. The modal verbs (eg. Fin. voida ‘can’, saada ‘may’, täytyä ‘must’; Est. võima ‘may’, saama ‘can’, tulema ’must’) are the most common verbs in both Finnish and Estonian zero person constructions. Significant differences appear when a non-modal verb is used. Overall, non-modal verbs are used less frequently in both languages. Verbs with relatively low agentivity or intentionality, such as perception verb nähdä in Finnish and nägema in Estonian, are used in the zero person clauses in both languages to certain extent. Verbs with more agentive and intentional properties are not used in the Estonian zero person clauses; in Finnish their use is restricted to specific context. The if–then-frame provides a suitable context for the zero person in Finnish, and the Finnish zero person may occur together with any kind of verb in conditional if-clause. Estonian if-clauses are not suitable contexts for zero person. There is usually a da-infinitive, a generic 2nd person singular or a passive form instead of the zero person in Estonian counterparts for Finnish if-clauses with zero person. The aim of this study was to analyze motivations for choosing the zero person in certain contexts. In Estonian, the use of the zero person constructions is more limited than in Finnish, and some of the constraints are grammatical. On the other hand, some of the constraints are motivated by the differences in actual language use. Contrasting the two languages reveals interesting differences and similarities between these two languages and shows how these languages may use similar means differently.

Private Home Care in Municipal Service Systems – A Case Study among Finnish and Swedish Municipalities

The aim of this study is to assess the current and future preconditions for conducting private business in municipal service systems for home care in Lahti and Hyvinkää in Finland, and in Uppsala and Huddinge in Sweden. This study also aims to assess the implications of quality related issues on the preconditions for conducting private business in the service systems in question. The theories and the research methodologies of the study are based on the Business Model Generation and the Business Model Canvas -concepts. Also a couple of frameworks on implications of quality are applied and integrated into the study. The study is completed as a case study – with structured and identical approaches for all four municipalities. The analyses and assessments of the study are primarily qualitative, but supported by simple quantitative methodologies. The data of the study consists primarily of publicly available information, and secondarily of answers provided by the case-municipalities to multiple choice questions. The results of the study show that the service systems for home care among the case-municipalities are, from perspective of private companies, diverse with local characteristics. Both the premises for conducting private business and the quality-issues are in many respects different in the Finnish and the Swedish case-municipalities. This is partly due to differences in the national service systems; the service voucher system versus the system of choice. Still, it appears that the current preconditions for conducting private business in the service systems for home care, including the implications of quality, would be more favorable in Uppsala and Huddinge than in Lahti and Hyvinkää. On the other hand, the service systems are subject to changes, and the most positive and significant development is here forecasted for a Finnish case-municipality (Lahti). Communication of quality is clearly more advanced in the Swedish case-municipalities. The results of this study can be utilized in several ways, for instance by private companies interested in entering into service systems for home care, either in some of the case-municipalities, or in some other Finnish or Swedish municipalities. Also municipalities can apply the analyses of the study when designing, developing or evaluating their own service systems for home care.

A bridge between engineering and language learning : automation and German in an online course

Artikkeli luettavissa osassa: Part 2. - ISBN 9789522163172(PDF). - Liitteenä työpaperi