Interaction between clients and physiotherapists in group exercise classes in geriatric rehabilitation

The aim of this paper is to explore how older people construct their interaction in group exercise classes in geriatric rehabilitation and what is their contribution to the interaction. Discourse analysis was employed and data, consisting of seven videotaped group-based exercise sessions, were collected from 52 older people (aged 66–93 years) and nine rehabilitation professionals in seven rehabilitation centres. Four discourse categories were found. In “taciturn exercising”, older people remained verbally silent but physically active. In “submissive disagreeing”, older people opposed the professionals’ agenda by displaying reluctant consent to proposals. In “resilient endeavouring”, older adults persisted on their course of action, regardless of the disapproval of the professionals. In “lay helping”, older people initiated spontaneous encouragement, but also gave verbal and physical assistance to their peers. Older people's meaningful contribution to interaction, whilst it may challenge the institutional flow of activities, can constitute an integral part of the re-ablement process of rehabilitation

Labor on Vermont Dairy Farms: A Producer Perspective

To compete with larger, more efficient dairy farms, build resilience against increasingly volatile milk prices, and increase farm income, farms in traditional dairy states such as New York, Wisconsin, and Vermont, have been forced to expand their herds and increase production. Many dairy farmers do not have formal training in human resources management, and find the transition to a larger, non-family workforce to be challenging. In addition, farmers who have transitioned to a primarily Latinx workforce also face considerable cultural and language barriers. The quality of human resource management can have a significant impact on a farm business, and evidence suggests that intentional human resource management can result in healthier cows, higher profits, and lower employee turnover (Billikopf & Gonzalez, 2012; Erskine, Martinez, & Contreras, 2015; Stup, 2006). This thesis explores two essential components of human resource management on dairy farms: the employer-employee relationship, and the components of a competitive wage and non-wage benefit package. Both articles rely upon thirty surveys conducted in Addison County, Vermont, from December 2017 to January 2018. In the first article, using the qualitative data collected in the survey, I apply the concept of precarious employment to the employer-employee relationship on dairy farms in Addison County. Although I discover some evidence of precarity, I also find examples of worker control over working conditions, specifically regarding worker recruitment, termination, wage rates, and hours. In the second article, I use the quantitative data we collected regarding wages, and the estimates provided by farmers for the value of the non-wage benefits offered to employees, to outline the structure of a typical compensation package for Addison County dairy employees. I find that that more than half of employers provide Latinx employees with housing, utilities, internet, satellite TV, a bonus, transportation, farm products, and vacation time. In terms of non-wage benefits offered to U.S. workers, more than half of employers provide housing, utilities, a bonus, farm products, sick time, and vacation time. I also find that including the producer-estimated value of the typical non-wage benefits offered to employees, the median total hourly compensation for Latinx workers is $12.62. American dairy workers in Addison County earn a median total hourly compensation with a range of$21.32 to $24.02. I end with a discussion of the practical and theoretical implications of our research. I also include a few recommendations for future research

Boundaries of Home and Work: Social Reproduction and Home-Based Workers in Ahmedabad, India

This dissertation critically questions the use of women’s labor in international development and global capitalism by examining women’s participation in the informal economy, a significant source of work for women in the Global South. Based on ten months of fieldwork in Ahmedabad, India, this study considers women’s experiences with informality when they participate in home-based work, the production of goods for the market in one’s own home. I ask how women’s place-based activities redefine their roles and positions across three spheres of social life: the family, the economy, and civil society (through their participation in a non-governmental organization, or NGO). I argue that the material consequences of neoliberal capitalism for workers can only be fully understood by also accounting for ideological and symbolic relations of power, which is possible with the analytical framework provided by social reproduction theory. Working with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a membership-based organization for women in the informal economy in India, I conducted a survey of one hundred home-based garment workers, follow-up interviews with thirty of the workers and spatial analysis of their homes, content analysis of SEWA documentation and media, and interviews with five SEWA directors and four local academics and activists. This dissertation presents four main findings. First, the temporal and spatial aspects of home-based work create a worker who is always available, even when caring, and easily disposed of in the subcontracting system. Second, the characterization of informal workers as entrepreneurs, exemplified by the micro-entrepreneurial woman, contradicts actual experiences with informality. Third, women express agency in their choices and practices, yet, these actions are informed within a set of socio-cultural and economic boundaries, reproducing feminine domesticity. However, in my final empirical chapter, I argue that women envision resistance to the reproduction of power through their aspirations that their children find secure work in the formal economy. Notably, for their daughters, women emphasize the importance of mobility and leaving the home to “come forward in life,” and so transgress boundaries of feminine domesticity. These aspirations point to women’s understanding of their social position in this economic system, an acknowledgement that was left unsaid earlier in the interviews. Analyzing women’s place-based activities reveals the role of their social reproduction labor across the institutions of the family, economy, and civil society. Women employ practices and discourses that reproduce, redefine, and at times resist these power dynamics. It is necessary to acknowledge the interdependence of production and social reproduction when considering the growing presence of informality in the contemporary economic landscape and the continuing use of women’s labor to support international development. Lastly, this dissertation highlights the necessity for transnational sociological knowledge, since individuals and communities of the Global South have faced precarity in social life long before the term entered Western discours

Challenges Facing First Year Chinese International Students In a California Private School

Mandarin speaking, mainland Chinese secondary students enrolled in grades nine through twelve make up almost 50% of America\u27s international student population (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2015). According to the literature, these students face unique challenges in their education: learning core subjects in a non-native language before they have fully grasped the language, and sitting in classes that are taught by teachers with virtually no training in making the content comprehensible for international students. The purpose of this qualitative study is to acquire an in-depth understanding of the challenges that Mandarin speaking, mainland Chinese, international secondary students face in their learning during their first year at one suburban California private school which established an international student program in 2007. The researcher conducted personal interviews with nine Mandarin speaking, mainland Chinese international secondary students in grades seven through 11 who were in their first year attending this private school. Each participant answered 20 questions regarding the perceived challenges they face on a daily basis in this school as they attend mainstream classes with their native English speaking peers. The findings showed that the participants faced challenges in understanding the teacher in mainstream classes, learning difficult content in mainstream classes while still learning English, adjusting to a different educational system and culture, and making friends with the American students at school

Curriculum renewal in translator training: vocational challenges in academic environments with reference to needs and situation analysis and skills transferability from the contemporary experience of Polish translator training culture

This work examines the principles underlying curriculum renewal for the training of translators. It considers recent work from Translation Studies on the nature of translation competence, arguing that a more dynamic understanding of the nature of translation must be reflected in a departure from traditional transmissionist pedagogical practices. Consideration of these issues in a curricular framework must also acknowledge the ideological potential of curricula themselves to prioritise certain relationships between the learner and society, relationships which are investigated from the perspective of a socially situated view of the translator. With regard to determining curricular orientation, a methodology of needs and situation analysis is suggested as a means of profiling essential characteristics of the translator’s work in specific contexts, informed by such issues as changing notions of translation, changing employment norms in the language services sector, locally prevailing norms in the educational environment, etc. Major issues impacting on the situational consideration of needs in translator training are examined, in particular the way in which the vocational / academic dichotomy may problematise training in academic environments. The notion of skills transferability is presented as a theme which is important both to the training of translators and to maximising social reconstructionist potentials in university curricula. In the final chapter, the issues presented in the first three chapters are discussed in relation to the challenges facing translator training in Polish universities with the implementation of Bologna Process reforms. In particular, Polish notions of academic and vocational education are analysed and the experience of one particular university philology is presented as a case study. The conclusion takes the themes discussed in the work and presents them in terms of the opposition between ‘training translators’ and ‘teaching translation.’ Future research trajectories are also proposed

The NASA SBIR product catalog

The purpose of this catalog is to assist small business firms in making the community aware of products emerging from their efforts in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. It contains descriptions of some products that have advanced into Phase 3 and others that are identified as prospective products. Both lists of products in this catalog are based on information supplied by NASA SBIR contractors in responding to an invitation to be represented in this document. Generally, all products suggested by the small firms were included in order to meet the goals of information exchange for SBIR results. Of the 444 SBIR contractors NASA queried, 137 provided information on 219 products. The catalog presents the product information in the technology areas listed in the table of contents. Within each area, the products are listed in alphabetical order by product name and are given identifying numbers. Also included is an alphabetical listing of the companies that have products described. This listing cross-references the product list and provides information on the business activity of each firm. In addition, there are three indexes: one a list of firms by states, one that lists the products according to NASA Centers that managed the SBIR projects, and one that lists the products by the relevant Technical Topics utilized in NASA's annual program solicitation under which each SBIR project was selected

INVESTigating India: A Strategic Recruitment Plan for Indian Students

This paper outlines the strategic recruitment plan for Indian undergraduate students designed for the Michigan State University (MSU) Office of Admissions. The title “INVESTigating India” refers not only to the finances that are necessary to fund the strategic recruitment plan, but also to the investment of time and human capital that must be devoted to the strategic recruitment plan in order to succeed. Furthermore, INVESTigating India utilizes deliberate methods to investigate the various reasonings behind Indian student mobility to the United States, while looking at both internal and external environmental factors at the micro (institutional) and macro (country) levels that can affect their mobility. By combining these considerations, INVESTigating India serves as a concrete plan with a timeline, goals, and objectives that can be easily followed by the MSU Office of Admissions and provides a template for recruitment in other countries around the world. INVESTigating India echoes the institutional devotion to internationalization and serves as a benchmark with which to measure results