Cultural dialogues in the good society

Value conflicts involving gender equality are interwoven into current multicultural tensions in many European societies. They are at the core of these tensions in Sweden, in which gender equality and principles of individual human rights constitute the state profile and political identity. In this article, we focus on three cases of honor killings that became flash points for public debates on `culture and cultures' among political parties, immigrant groups and feminists in Sweden. The media fervor surrounding honour-related violence has provided xenophobic groups with political opportunities, but at the same time, the public debate has given visibility and opened up public space for immigrant women's groups. We conclude that the notion of the `good society' has kept at bay the recognition of overtly xenophobic parties, but it has also inhibited open dialogue across and within majority and minority cultures, which would allow for reflections upon the diversity within cultures, marked by religion, gender, class differences and generational conflicts

Applying Sens capabilities framework to work family balance within a European context: theoretical and empirical challenges

This state of the art has two specific aims: One is to present the dominant theories and identify weaknesses in theories that have sought to explain the processes surrounding the division of time and paid/ unpaid work in families, specifically addressing models of agency and work family balance. The second and main purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework and set of indicators for analyzing agency and work family balance in a complex and multi-layered universe of constraints and possibilities, of rights and capabilities to exercise them. This framework derives its inspiration from Amartya Sens framework on capabilities and agency freedom and much of the paper will be devoted to discussing the framework and the theoretical and empirical challenges that it poses for comparative welfare state research with a multi-level approach, that integrates the individual/ household level, supra-national and national policy level and firm/ work organizational level. The paper takes up theoretical and empirical challenges that Sens framework poses for welfare state research: How are the tensions and contradictions in WFB balance policy both within and beyond the nation state reflected in agency inequalities? How do institutional settings shape not only individual practices but also the perception of ones entitlement to make a claim, the conversion of rights into claims? How do we design research models that capture the multiple sites of claims making for WFB: household; work organization and the state? We present several models of capabilities incorporating a mutli-level framework of individual, institutional and societal resources. The assumptions in this model are applied to data in the 2004 wave of the European Social Survey

Applying Sens Capabilities Framework to Work Family Balance within a European Context: Theoretical and Empirical Challenges

This state of the art has two specific aims: One is to present the dominant theories and identify weaknesses in theories that have sought to explain the processes surrounding the division of time and paid/unpaid work in families, specifically addressing models of agency and work family balance. The second and main purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework and set of indicators for analyzing agency and work family balance in a complex and multi-layered universe of constraints and possibilities, of rights and capabilities to exercise them. This framework derives its inspiration from Amartya Sens framework on capabilities and agency freedom and much of the paper will be devoted to discussing the framework and the theoretical and empirical challenges that it poses for comparative welfare state research with a multi-level approach, that integrates the individual/household level, supra-national and national policy level and firm/work organizational level. The paper takes up theoretical and empirical challenges that Sens framework poses for welfare state research: How are the tensions and contradictions in WFB balance policy both within and beyond the nation state reflected in agency inequalities? How do institutional settings shape not only individual practices but also the perception of ones entitlement to make a claim, the conversion of rights into claims? How do we design research models that capture the multiple sites of claims making for WFB: household; work organization and the state? We present several models of capabilities incorporating a mutli-level framework of individual, institutional and societal resources. The assumptions in this model are applied to data in the 2004 wave of the European Social Survey

Pleasure and meaningful discourse: an overview of research issues

The concept of pleasure has emerged as a multi-faceted social and cultural phenomenon in studies of media audiences since the 1980s. In these studies different forms of pleasure have been identified as explaining audience activity and commitment. In the diverse studies pleasure has emerged as a multi-faceted social and cultural concept that needs to be contextualized carefully. Genre and genre variations, class, gender, (sub-)cultural identity and generation all seem to be instrumental in determining the kind and variety of pleasures experienced in the act of viewing. This body of research has undoubtedly contributed to a better understanding of the complexity of audience activities, but it is exactly the diversity of the concept that is puzzling and poses a challenge to its further use. If pleasure is maintained as a key concept in audience analysis that holds much explanatory power, it needs a stronger theoretical foundation. The article maps the ways in which the concept of pleasure has been used by cultural theorists, who have paved the way for its application in reception analysis, and it goes on to explore the ways in which the concept has been used in empirical studies. Central to our discussion is the division between the ‘public knowledge’ and the ‘popular culture’ projects in reception analysis which, we argue, have major implications for the way in which pleasure has come to be understood as divorced from politics, power and ideology. Finally, we suggest ways of bridging the gap between these two projects in an effort to link pleasure to the concepts of hegemony and ideology

SF-36 includes less Parkinson Disease (PD)-targeted content but is more responsive to change than two PD-targeted health-related quality of life measures

To compare validity including responsiveness, and internal consistency reliability and scaling assumptions of a generic (SF-36) and Parkinson Disease (PD)-targeted (PDQ-39; PDQUALIF) health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measures. Ninety-six PD patients were administered for all HRQOL measures by telephonic interview at baseline and 18 months. Relative efficiency and responsiveness were compared relative to four external criteria (self-ratings of PD’s daily effects, global Quality of Life, PD symptom severity, and a depression screener). We examined whether PD-targeted measures explained unique variance beyond the SF-36 by regressing criterion variables on HRQOL scales/items. Adequacy of PD-targeted measures’ original scaling was explored by item-scale correlations. Relative efficiency estimates were similar for generic and PD-targeted measures across all criteria. Responsiveness analyses showed that the SF-36 yielded large (>0.8) effect sizes (ES) for three of eight scales for each of two criterion variables, compared to only one large ES for any scale in either PD-targeted measure. Adjusted R 2 increased from 14 to 27% in regression models that included PD-targeted items compared to models with only SF-36 scales. Item-scale correlations showed significant cross-loading of items across scales of the PD-targeted measures. SF-36 responsiveness was better than that of two PD-targeted measures, yet those measures had content that significantly explains PD patients’ HRQOL