Tradition, Change and Variation : Past and Present Trends in Public Old-age Care

The general aim of this dissertation is to describe and analyse how public old-age care in Sweden has developed and changed during the last century. The study applies a provider perspective on how care has been planned and professionally carried out. A broader social policy perspective, studying old-age care at central/national as well as local/municipal level, is also developed. A special focus is directed at the large local variation in care and services for the elderly. The empirical base is comprised of official documents and other public sources, survey data from interviews with elderly recipients of public old-age care, and official statistics on publicly financed and controlled old-age care and services. Study I addresses the development of old-age care in Sweden during the twentieth century by studying an important occupation in this field – the supervisors and their professional roles, tasks and working conditions. Throughout, the roles of supervisors have followed the prevailing official policy on the proper way to provide care for elderly people in Sweden; from poor relief at the beginning of the 1900s, via a generous level of services in the 1960s and 1970s, to today’s restricted and economy-controlled mode of operation. Study II describes and compares two main forms of public old-age care in Sweden today, home help services and institutional care. The care-load found in home-based care was comparable to and sometimes even larger than in service-homes and other institutions, indicating that large care needs among elderly people in Sweden today can be met in their homes as well as in institutional settings. Studies III and IV analyse the local variation in public old-age care in Sweden. During the last decades there has been an overall decline in home help services. The coverage of home help for elderly people shows large differences between municipalities throughout this period, and the relative variation has increased. The local disparity seems to depend more on historical factors, e.g., previous coverage rates, than on the present municipal situation in levels of need or local economy and politics. In an introductory part the four papers are linked together by an outline of the demographic situation and the social policy model for old-age care in Sweden. Trends that have been apparent over time, e.g. professionalisation and market orientation, are traced and discussed. Conflicts between prevailing ideologies are analysed, in regards to for instance home-based and institution-based care, social and medical culture, and local and central levels of decision-making. ’Welfare municipality’, ‘path dependency’, and ‘decentralisation’ are suggested as a conceptual framework for describing the large and increasing local variations in old-age care. Finally, implications of the four studies with regard to old-age care policy and further research are discussed.

Bridging innovation, nature and tradition: assessment of strategies for rural tourism development in Maramureş (Romania)

In the frame of EU rural policy, always more oriented towards environmental concerns and green livelihoods, Romania stands out for the predominance of rural areas and high nature value farming. The country has to face the challenge of joining the modernization process of rural farming systems with the valorization of local assets. Tourism has emerged as one of the main drivers of change and contributors for a sustainable exploitation of local resources. Rural tourism (RT) can foster the enhancement of the territorial capital (TC), the preservation of public goods (PGs) and the promotion of a more environmental oriented livelihood. The research focuses on a case study area, two valleys from Maramureş, where environmental approaches as diversification strategies are partially explored. The work investigates the role of tourism initiatives for the promotion of green oriented practices. The first part of the work is based on a literature review and interdisciplinary analysis of secondary data to identify the key issues: from rural development policy, to the concept of TC, of PGs and RT. The Romanian development programmes and related strategies are investigated; afterwards the characteristics of the County and the role of RT as diversification and valorisation policies is considered. The second part is based on the collection of primary data through interviews to different local stakeholders (farmers owners of rural guesthouses, local administrators, networks and artisans). The main frequencies are analyzed, a cluster analysis is computed to evaluate the similarities within the most representative groups and a comparative analysis is carried out between the two Valleys. The frame of the analysis is based on a set of indicators following the dimensions of the TC, to assess the characteristics of the local stakeholders and to outline the perception about the local PGs and on the adopted strategies to manage the territory. Final considerations are elaborated and few scenarios are outlined, giving relevance to the importance of improving awareness and creating embeddedness among public-private local stakeholders and resources as a tool for a socio-economic and environmental development of the area.

Agricultural land use and biodiversity in the Alps - How cultural tradition and socioeconomically motivated changes are shaping grassland biodiversity in the Swiss Alps

Alpine grasslands are ecosystems with a great diversity of plant species. However, little is known about other levels of biodiversity, such as landscape diversity, diversity of biological interactions of plants with herbivores or fungal pathogens, and genetic diversity. We therefore explored natural and anthropogenic determinants of grassland biodiversity at several levels of biological integration, from the genetic to the landscape level in the Swiss Alps. Differences between cultural traditions (Romanic, Germanic, and Walser) turned out to still affect land use diversity and thus landscape diversity. Increasing land use diversity, in turn, increased plant species diversity per village. However, recent land use changes have reduced this diversity. Within grassland parcels, plant species diversity was higher on unfertilized mown grasslands than on fertilized or grazed ones. Most individual plants were affected by herbivores and fungal leaf pathogens, reflecting that parcels harbored a great diversity of herbivores and pathogens. However, as plant damage by herbivores and pathogens was not severe, conserving these biological interactions among plants is hardly compromising agricultural goals. A common-garden experiment revealed genetic differentiation of the important fodder grass Poa alpina between mown and grazed sites, suggesting adaptation. Per-village genetic diversity of Poa alpina was greater in villages with higher land use diversity, analogous to the higher plant species diversity there. Overall, landscape diversity and biodiversity within grassland parcels are currently declining. As this contradicts the intention of Swiss law and international agreements, financial incentives need to be re-allocated and should focus on promoting high biodiversity at the local and the landscape level. At the same time, this will benefit landscape attractiveness for tourists and help preserve a precious cultural heritage in the Swiss Alps.

Community Research as a Factor Building Inclusive Community in Lithuania

Social and political change in Europe, increasing labour mobility, development of the new European social policy and increasingly global nature of the social problems had a profound effect on the socio-cultural and socio-educational work in community and on its objectives. In order to keep these new communitarian standards of social policy, the first steps have to be made in fostering local community with the perspective it will reach the western European communitarian level. That is the reason why university in these changes started to turn more and more to the society and first of all has put a great emphasis on the community research. This initiative was induced by non-existence of civic tradition during the communist period, the gap in the development of civil society and its culture, the weakness and the poorness of the third sector. This paper is based on the analysis of the community and civil society research conducted during recent years by the researchers of Kaunas University of Technology, Faculty of Social Sciences. The paper involves a review of the research methodology, interpretation of the received data and summary of the results. It discusses both theoretical and empirical possibilities of building and developing inclusive community.

Immigrant students’ psychological adjustment in the school context: A meta-synthesis of qualitative research on acculturation

This contribution focuses on the characteristics of the school context and their impact on immigrant students’ acculturation and adjustment at school. Research suggests that the ways immigrants acculturate is related to their well being (e.g. Phinney, et al., 2001; Ward & Rana-Deuba, 1999), although findings have been contradictory across methods and studies (e.g. Rogler, 1991; Escobar & Vega, 2001). Debates in acculturation research currently center on issues of acculturation measurement (e.g. Berry, 2009; Rudmin, 2009), as most research is conducted in the quantitative tradition. In addition, some have suggested (Birman, 2011) that research on acculturation in the tradition of cross-cultural psychology adopts an overly individualistic perspective, and lacks attention to the specific contexts of acculturation. Alternatively, the contextual approach proposes that the relationship between acculturation and adjustment is shaped by the surrounding context (Birman & Simon, 2013). For immigrant children, schools are the setting where the process of acculturation unfolds, and an important context in which to study their adjustment and well being (Birman, et al., 2007; Makarova & Herzog, 2011). Though rarely used in this tradition of acculturation research (Chirkov, 2009), qualitative methods are uniquely suited to gain insight to facilitate theory development, as well as appreciate the contextual nature of the acculturation process. Yet we are not aware of efforts to synthesize the empirical qualitative literature on this topic. Applying the methodology of meta-synthesis for qualitatieve research (Walsh & Downe, 2005) our contribution attempts to integrate results from qualitative studies on impact of acculturation on immigrant students’ psychological adjustment in the school context. For this purpose 84 articles which matched the inclusion criteria were selected. Overall, the results of our study show that within the school context a number of structural as well as process characteristics can be identified as crucial for immigrant youth psychological adjustment. Moreover, our findings indicate that immigrant youths’ psychological adjustment is related to other individual outcomes of acculturation in the school context such as behavioral adjustment, peer-relationships, academic achievement and identity development of immigrant youth.

Value Priorities and Content of Religiosity - New Research Perspectives

In this study the relationship of religiosity and value priorities is differentiated, based on a multidimensional measurement of different contents of religiosity. The structure of values is conceptualized using Schwartz’ (1992) two orthogonal dimensions of Self-transcendence vs. Self-enhancement and Openness to change vs. Conservation. The relations between these two dimensions and eight religious contents, ranging from open-minded to more close-minded forms of religiosity, were tested in a sample of church attenders (N = 685), gathered in Germany. The results show, that depending on the content of religiosity, different values are preferred (self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition and security values). The results indicate the importance of the content of religiosity for predicting value-loaded behaviors.

David et Salomon, rois d'Israël : d'après le texte de la Sainte-Écriture, la tradition et les commentateurs israélites les plus accrédités

par Gédéon Netter

Wrestling With Tradition: Japanese Activities at Amache, a World War II Incarceration Facility

I employ archaeological analyses, archival research, and oral histories to investigate traditional Japanese practices that were performed at Amache, a World War II Japanese American incarceration facility. I argue that these inter-generational practices helped to bridge a cultural gap that existed between several generations of Japanese Americans. For many incarcerated Japanese Americans, their first exposure to many traditional activities occurred during incarceration. The resulting social environment incorporated aspects of Japanese, Japanese American, and mainstream American influences, all of which were adapted to conditions during incarceration. Similarly, archaeological analyses allow for the investigation of traditional practice features. These provide evidence regarding the significance of the adapted landscape at Amache. Evidence of these practices suggests Amache internees had both a strong desire to maintain and celebrate these aspects of their Japanese heritage but they also incorporated non-traditional elements that reflected the unique living conditions during incarceration. Incarceration, I argue, created an environment in which a unique internee consciousness was formed in which the use of traditional practices was a focal point. The physical remains of traditional practices allow archaeologists to determine aspects of this newly formed consciousness that are not readily apparent in historical documentation.

James Turrell and the Northern romantic tradition

"This paper discusses the work of contemporary artist James Turrell as framed by the philosophy of the sublime. Focusing on the artist’s use of the medium of light, it addresses Turrell’s scientific approach to creating artworks and discusses his resolution of the problematic relationship between science and spirituality. This relationship is discussed through the examination of the artist’s use of total visual fields known as ganzfelden and other perceptual phenomena, such as those encountered while piloting aircraft"

The American portrait tradition : Cephas Thompson 1775-1856

"The purpose of this study is to reveal the work of Cephas Thompson in the context of the American Portrait Tradition as it existed in America from 1775 to 1856. European historic and artistic background serves as the foundation. A critical analysis of the most relevant American portraitists from the seventeenth to the midnineteenth centuries is provided to relate them aesthetically and ideologically with the work of Cephas Thompson and to provide insight into the artistic trends prevalent in Europe and America"

Plus ça change...Le renouvellement de la tradition chez Régine Robin, Dany Laferrière et Ying Chen

Cette thèse analyse la manifestation de la tradition dans certains textes des écrivains migrants au Québec, nommément La Québécoite et L’Immense fatigue des pierres de Régine Robin, Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer, Cette grenade dans la main du jeune nègre est-elle une arme ou un fruit ?, Pays sans chapeau et L’Énigme du retour de Dany Laferrière et, enfin L’Ingratitude et Immobile de Ying Chen. Les références à des récits, à des croyances et à des pratiques collectives qui se trouvent dans ces textes signalent une transformation de la transmission de l’héritage culturel d’une génération à l’autre. Afin de parvenir à une meilleure compréhension des liens entre la mémoire collective et la communauté culturelle se définissant dans le présent, je me sers du travail de folkloristes comme Alan Dundes, Simon Bronner et Richard Handler de même que des théories sur la faculté de la tradition proposées par Paul Ricœur, Walter Benjamin et Pierre Nora. Dans la première partie de la thèse, j’étudie l’imaginaire populaire du XIXe siècle et son incorporation dans la littérature canadienne-française de l’époque. Ensuite, j’analyse la remise en question de la tradition – de même que le rôle sous-jacent qu’elle continue de jouer, lors de la Révolution tranquille. Par rapport à ces deux périodes précédentes, l’usage du folklore chez les auteurs migrants laisse présager une nouvelle opération de la tradition dans un contexte où plusieurs groupes culturels se rencontrent. Dans un contexte pluraliste, l’idée de la communauté culturelle est fabriquée en fonction de notre appartenance à plusieurs groupes. Je m’intéresse à comment les gens qui habitent ensemble formulent des liens au passé même dans une situation dans laquelle ils ne partagent pas les mêmes rapports à la mémoire collective. Explorant le renouvellement, qui peut sembler paradoxal, de la tradition, je forme l’hypothèse qu’il est possible pour un groupe de se définir en fonction de valeurs culturelles puisées dans un passé collectif qui s’adaptent constamment à la réalité actuelle.