Is it racism? The belief in cultural superiority across Europe

Are Europeans racist if they maintain that some cultures are superior? Theorists of cultural racism argue so and suggest that modern racism in Europe is expressed as a belief in cultural superiority. But this claim has been based on theoretical arguments, not on empirical tests. The current research investigated how widespread a belief in cultural superiority was in European countries and tested how such a belief related to biological racism. Analyses of data from the European Social Survey (21 countries, total N > 33,000) showed large differences across countries in tendencies to endorse the belief in cultural superiority. But in nearly all countries, a factor model consistent with the theory of cultural racism had much better support than a factor model building on the assumption that culturalism is distinct from racism. Even when the factor analysis was able to maintain a distinction between racism and culturalism, the two factors had a very strong correlation. The present research suggests that although a belief in cultural superiority may harbour different views, expressed beliefs in cultural superiority and cultural concerns are strongly associated with traditional racism.publishedVersio

Help and Care to Older Parents in the Digital Society

This study examines the extent and predictors of employees’ help and care to their old parentsand aims to contribute to policy development enabling employees to combine full-time workand caregiving to parents. Analyzing responses from 3332 Norwegian employees aged between45 and 67 years with at least one living parent, we identified frequencies of different help andcare types and tested competing predictors. Assistance with digital technology was frequent, andvarious types of practical support were common, but personal care provision was rare. Parents’health and parents living alone were substantial predictors. Public home care services seemedinsufficient and were associated with employees providing more help and care. The findingsemphasize the family as a comprehensive care provider when the welfare state falls short. Thestudy concludes that adult children play a critical role in helping older people cope with limitedpublic services and challenges posed by the digital society

Nurses’ experiences of transitions of older patients from hospitals to community care. A nation-wide survey in Norway

Moving older patients from hospitals to community services is a critical phase of integrated care. Yet there has been little large-scale research on the quality of these transitions. We investigated how Norwegian nurses working in community care services (N = 4,312) and at in-patient wards at hospitals (N = 2,421) experienced the quality of transitions of older patients from hospitals to community care. We tested hypotheses derived from qualitative research and consistent with predictions, we found that compared to hospital nurses, the nurses working in community care experienced lower quality of patient transitions and were less satisfied with information exchange on patients’ condition and needs. Further, when comparing groups of community nurses, we confirmed the hypothesis that nurses in home nursing were more dissatisfied with the quality of transitions and information exchange than nurses in nursing homes. We conclude that hospital nurses should have more face-to-face or telephone contact with community nurses, and specifically with home nurses. Further, we suggest that means are implemented to promote a mutual understanding of the older patients’ pathway from one service to the other, and to improve co-ordination across the services

Supporting the Old but Neglecting the Young? The Two Faces of Ageism

Ageism is the most prevalent form of prejudice and is experienced by both older and younger people. Little is known about whether these experiences are interdependent or have common origins. We analyze data from 8,117 older (aged 70 and over) and 11,647 younger respondents (15–29 years) in representative samples from 29 countries in the European Social Survey. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, we test the hypothesis that older people are less likely, and younger people more likely, to suffer age discrimination if they live in a country with stronger structural support for older people. We also test the hypothesis that although stronger social norm against age discrimination reduce age discrimination suffered by older people it does not inhibit discrimination against younger people. These hypotheses are supported, and the results underline the neglected problem of ageism toward youth. Findings highlight that strategies for reducing age prejudice must address ageism as a multigenerational challenge, requiring attention to intergenerational cohesion and resource distribution between ages

After Hospital: Should Older Care-Needing Patients Be Transferred to Their Homes or to an intermediate Care Institution?

In most European countries, communities need to provide health and socialcare services to an increasing number of severely ill patients discharged from hospitals. We investi-gated whether nurses in hospitals and in the communities’ health and social care services experiencedthat the administration in the municipalities allocated older patients the right type of services afterhospital discharge. Methods: We used data from Norway, with a qualitative pilot study and quantita-tive analysis (structural equation modeling) of surveys involving 2431 nurses on inpatient wards inacute hospitals and 4312 nurses working in nursing homes or home nursing. Results: Dissatisfactionwas widespread with the use of patients’ homes the first days after hospital discharge. Among nursesworking in hospitals, 38% were commonly or very commonly disagreeing with the use of the patient’shome after hospital discharge, 25% among home nurses, and 18% among nurses in nursing homes.Home nurses were more prone to oppose the use of patients’ homes if they also experienced thattheir service had inadequate staffing or inadequate medical equipment. Conclusions: This researchindicates conflicting priorities between the bureaucracy and nurses involved in actual work witholder patients. From the nurses’ perspective, the municipalities’ administration was offering too fewolder patients short-term-stay in an intermediate care institution as part of the clinical pathway fromhospital to home. However, providing more recourses to home nursing would improve their abilityto provide sufficient care to older patients discharged from hospital.publishedVersio

Caring for older parents in Norway - How does it affect labor market participation and absence from work?

As the population ages, younger generations will increasingly be called upon to provide informal care to their aging parents. To prepare for this development, it is essential to understand how employees combine the dual responsibilities of work and caring for aging parents. By analyzing data collected in Norway in 2022 from a nationally representative sample of 6049 respondents, aged 35 to 67, we investigated how caring for older parents affects labor market participation and work absence. We provide descriptive statistics and conduct analyses with structural equation modeling. These analyses indicated that caregiving had no substantial impact on overall participation in the workforce. However, employees did use work absences to assist their parents. We differentiate between using holidays, compensatory time, and three types of formal leave: paid, unpaid, and sick leave. More than a third of the formal leave was taken as sick leave. Women were moderately more likely to use work absence to care for their parents. We conclude that caregiving for older parents currently has little effect on work participation in Norway and attribute the favorable situation in Norway to its comprehensive public elderly care system. However, a contributing factor is Norway's generous sick leave policy. Although intended for use when employees are sick themselves, sick leave is used by employees to provide care to aging parents. Sick leave seems to act as a safety valve. To mitigate the effects of informal care on work participation, welfare states may create conditions that allow employees to combine work and informal care without resorting to unauthorized sick leave. A solution could be to extend the existing support scheme for employees with young children to those providing care for their aging parents

Help and Care to Older Parents in the Digital Society

This study examines the extent and predictors of employees’ help and care to their old parents and aims to contribute to policy development enabling employees to combine full-time work and caregiving to parents. Analyzing responses from 3332 Norwegian employees aged between 45 and 67 years with at least one living parent, we identified frequencies of different help and care types and tested competing predictors. Assistance with digital technology was frequent, and various types of practical support were common, but personal care provision was rare. Parents’ health and parents living alone were substantial predictors. Public home care services seemed insufficient and were associated with employees providing more help and care. The findings emphasize the family as a comprehensive care provider when the welfare state falls short. The study concludes that adult children play a critical role in helping older people cope with limited public services and challenges posed by the digital society

What Do Older People Think That Others Think of Them, and Does It Matter? The Role of Meta-Perceptions and Social Norms in the Prediction of Perceived Age Discrimination

Psychological theories of aging highlight the importance of social context. However, very little research has distinguished empirically between older people’s perception of how others in their social context perceive them (personal meta-perceptions) and the shared perceptions in society (societal meta-perceptions). Drawing on theories of intergroup relations and stereotyping and using a multilevel perspective, this article examines how well older people’s perceptions of age discrimination (PAD) are predicted by (a) older people’s personal meta-perceptions, (b) societal meta-perceptions, and (c) social norms of intolerance toward age prejudice. Aging meta-perceptions are differentiated into the cognitive and affective components of ageism. Multilevel analyses of data from the European Social Survey (N over 70 years of age 8,123, 29 countries; European Social Survey (ESS) Round 4 Data, 2008) confirmed that older people’s personal meta-perceptions of negative age stereotypes and specific intergroup emotions (pity, envy, contempt) are associated with higher PAD. However, at the societal-level, only paternalistic meta-perceptions were consistently associated with greater PAD. The results show that a few meta-perceptions operate only as a psychological phenomenon in explaining PAD, some carry consonant, and others carry contrasting effects at the societal-level of analysis. This evidence extends previous research on aging meta-perceptions by showing that both the content of meta-perceptions and the level of analysis at which they are assessed make distinct contributions to PAD. Moreover, social norms of intolerance of age prejudice have a larger statistical effect than societal meta-perceptions. Social interventions would benefit from considering these differential findings

MICROBIAL BASED CHLORINATED ETHENE DESTRUCTION

A mixed culture of Dehalococcoides species is provided that has an ability to catalyze the complete dechlorination of polychlorinated ethenes such as PCE, TCE, cDCE, 1,1-DCE and vinyl chloride as well as halogenated ethanes such as 1,2-DCA and EDB. The mixed culture demonstrates the ability to achieve dechlorination even in the presence of high source concentrations of chlorinated ethenes

Shaping the Development of Prejudice: Latent Growth Modeling of the Influence of Social Dominance Orientation on Outgroup Affect in Youth

Social dominance orientation (SDO) has been theorized as a stable, early-emerging trait influencing outgroup evaluations, a view supported by evidence from cross-sectional and two-wave longitudinal research. Yet, the limitations of identifying causal paths with cross-sectional and two-wave designs are increasingly being acknowledged. This article presents the first use of multi-wave data to test the over-time relationship between SDO and outgroup affect among young people. We use cross-lagged and latent growth modeling (LGM) of a three-wave data set employing Norwegian adolescents (over 2 years, N = 453) and a five-wave data set with American university students (over 4 years, N = 748). Overall, SDO exhibits high temporal rank-order stability and predicts changes in outgroup affect. This research represents the strongest test to date of SDO’s role as a stable trait that influences the development of prejudice, while highlighting LGM as a valuable tool for social and political psychology