Telecare call centre work and ageing in place

© 2016, The Author(s).We report findings from a study of call centre staff working to deliver a telecare service designed to enable older people to ‘age in place’. We show the steps they routinely take to produce a care system on behalf of their clients and their families that is both workable within the constraints of available resources and fit-for-purpose. In doing so, we have seen how call centre staff share with one another their experiences and solutions to problems, carry out liaison work with networks of lay carers, and generally act as the ‘glue’ providing the all-important link between otherwise fragmented services. We conclude with some thoughts on the significant technical and organizational challenges if the ‘ageing in place’ vision is to be realized in a practical, secure, dependable and cost-effective way

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

Sequential simulation model development

Sequential simulation (SqS) is a physical form of simulation that recreates care pathway trajectories rather than single episodes of care. Current physical simulation in health care focuses on specific tasks or particular teams and settings. However, the patient perspective is a journey through the care system and not an isolated component. To date, SqS has been used for a range of applications, including training multidisciplinary teams on end-of-life care, developing integrated care approaches, quality improvement projects, designing new models of care, evaluating new interventions, and improving care of the deteriorating patient in an acute setting, to name but a few. Many applications are possible, and therefore the design process can be lengthy and complex. This article outlines an approach the author took over a 3-year period to generate a usable SqS model through empirical and theoretical data. The model draws on process, observational, survey, and evaluative data to generate an understanding of the key components that constitute the design process of an SqS. This approach resulted in an empirically and theoretically driven model that can be used and refined by others in the field of health-care simulation

The effect of collectivism on family meal consumption behaviour and its implications on food companies in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a multi-cultural and multi-faceted society with people from diverse backgrounds, who espoused different cultural behaviours at mealtimes and in their business dealings. The significance of this study is that it highlights the differences and similarities inherent among the families and businesses in the Sierra Leonean collectivist context, and Africa generally, which has been neglected by many researchers in the past. This study is the first of its kind in the African continent as it provides an opportunity for governments and businesses to see not only the cultural richness of Sierra Leone, but to learn and understand how to develop and respond to food products produced, consumed and sold in such markets. The aim of this study is to critically review literature on collectivism and undertake data collection to evaluate the factors stakeholders perceived as influencing families’ meal social interaction behaviour in a Sierra Leonean context, and apply the results on food retailers and producers to assess how they affect their behaviour when marketing their products to consumers. This research adopted the constructionist approach as its epistemological perspective, which is reliably linked with the ‘lived experiences of families and businesses as it is considered an appropriate way for determining how humans make sense of their surroundings. In the first phase of the study, 20 different Sierra Leonean families (husband and wife), with a sample size of 40, were interviewed using observations and one-to-one semi-structured interviews, whilst in the second phase of the study, 20 businesses (16 food retailing and 4 food manufacturing companies) were interviewed using a semi-structured interview approach. The research was conducted in the four provincial headquarter towns of Bo, Freetown, Kenema and Makeni. The data was collected using snowballing, experiential and convenience sampling techniques. The researcher used qualitative research in explaining the behaviours of families and businesses. The data was analysed qualitatively using an inductive approach. The findings showed that a majority of Sierra Leonean families and businesses displayed collectivist behaviour when interacting socially and/or when marketing their food products to customers. The findings also showed that religion, ethnicity, conformity, reference groups and social class were the predominant determinants of the behaviours of a majority of families and businesses in Sierra Leone. In addition, the results of the findings implied that variation exists even between individuals of the same religion, between gender groups, and between food retailing and food producing companies, which affects the way they behave. The findings further revealed that there is a cultural divide between a majority of Muslims and Christians with regard the type of food considered appropriate for consumption at the dinner table, which equally affects the type of food products manufactured and sold by businesses. Despite this division, the findings showed that there are increased commonalities between a majority of the families and businesses as well as differences, which affects their behavioural patterns. The key contributions of this study are that it provides an extension of our knowledge in identifying new concepts of collectivism in the Sierra Leonean context that influences families and businesses’ behaviour, for example, family/customer’s food ethics; gender differentiation; tribal sentiment; preferential treatment; communication style; education; etc. The study also highlights the concept of interactionalism, which posits that religion, ethnicity, conformity, reference groups and social class interact with each other in the form of a web in influencing the behaviour of Sierra Leonean families and businesses. Another contribution of this study is its presentation of the factors affecting families and businesses’ behaviour in schematic diagrams

Esa 12th Conference: Differences, Inequalities and Sociological Imagination: Abstract Book

Esa 12th Conference: Differences, Inequalities and Sociological Imagination: Abstract Boo