Discourse, care and control : an ethnography of residential and nursing home elder care work

Metadata merged with duplicate record (http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/877) on 20.12.2016 by CS (TIS).This is a digitised version of a thesis that was deposited in the University Library. If you are the author please contact PEARL Admin ([email protected]) to discuss options.This thesis presents the notion that paid elder care work is often more involved with ordering individuals, than caring for them. It discusses this issue via ethnographic data about care assistant and nursing auxiliary work, which was collected in two elder care homes: Hazelford Lodge residential home and Bracken Court nursing home. The thesis uses care, control, and knowledge as the main themes for the discussion of work in both homes. The first chapter sites the thesis within the context of the academic literature on the discourses of the body, the nature of care work and residential care. It focuses especially upon care work as body labour. Chapter two presents the ethnographic methodological approach of the thesis, in two sections. Firstly, the use of the Foucauldian notion of discourse is explained, and secondly, the research process and research relationships are explored through a reflexive account. Chapters two and three present social, structural and spatial aspects of the two settings. They discuss the different ways in which the homes were organised, and that spaces were utilised and had different meanings, within the homes. Chapters four and five are based upon data from Hazelford Lodge residential home, and illustrate the care assistants' work as centred upon created order in the home, based upon the typification of residents and others. Chapters six and seven explore the auxiliaries' work in Bracken Court and present three control issues as central to their jobs. Firstly the overt ordering of patients around spaces in the home. Secondly, the normalisation of individuals into patient, and objects, of body work. Thirdly, the auxiliaries' resistance to heir role and status. Chapter eight compares the work of the assistants and auxiliaries in terms of resident and patient construction, the nature of the two forms of work, their knowledge, and lastly, their constructions of place and status. The thesis argues that both groups of workers are involved in ordering bodies that they perceive to be problematic and degenerating. In Hazelford Lodge order and discipline is practised as care and in Bracken Court the auxiliaries use more overt forms of control, but both 'caring' and controlling are effective methods of creating order. By introducing notions of body labour and ordering, the thesis presents a unique critique of paid care

Stakeholder analysis report: Presenting the results of the study on preschool education in Bosnia & Herzegovina

This report presents an analysis of stakeholder views, conducted in the framework of the Erasmus+ funded TEACHER Project, which is part of the Work Package 1: Developing a curriculum in accordance with the labour market needs (assessing competences the labour market requires). This package included plans for the design and implementation of an analysis of stakeholders’ views on pre-school teaching, to capture what is currently on offer and stakeholder views on the requirements and personal attributes of a teacher within this contexts. The report elaborates on the stakeholders’ roles and responsibilities in the Early childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in the country, and their relevance in the TEACHER Project as a key stakeholder groups. The report integrates pictures, drawn by children who were interviewed separately as beneficiaries of the project, to represent some of the ideas that stakeholders had about teaching in pre-school contexts

Technostress and academic motivation: direct and indirect effects on university students' psychological health

Introduction: Research has well demonstrated that the pandemic entailed several implications among university students worldwide in terms of increased use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), technostress, disruptions in academic goals and motivation processes, and growing psychological suffering. Responding to the new research need to go in-depth into the processes linking technostress and motivation dimensions to inform current research/interventions, the present study aimed to explore the direct effects of perceived Technostress dimensions (Techno-Overload, Work-Home Conflict, Pace of Change, Techno-Ease, Techno-Reliability, and Techno-Sociality) and Academic Motivation dimensions (Amotivation, Intrinsic, and Extrinsic Motivation dimensions) on students' perceived levels of Anxiety/Depression and test the potential indirect effect (mediating role) of Academic Motivation dimensions in the associations between Technostress and psychological health conditions. Methods: Overall, 1,541 students from five European countries (Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Serbia, United Kingdom) completed a survey comprising a Background Information Form, the Technostress Scale, the Academic Motivation Scale-College, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Hayes' PROCESS tool was used to test direct and indirect (mediating) effects. Results: Data revealed that Techno-Overload, Work-Home Conflict, Amotivation, and Extrinsic Motivation-Introjected had a direct negative effect, whereas Techno-Ease, Techno-Reliability, Techno-Sociality, all Intrinsic Motivation dimensions, and Extrinsic Motivation-Identified had a direct protective role for students' psychological health. The significant indirect role of motivation dimensions in the associations between Technostress dimensions and Anxiety/Depression was fully supported. Discussion: Findings allow gaining further insight into the pathways of relationships between technostress, motivation, and psychological health, to be used in the current phase, featured by the complete restoration of face-to-face contacts, to inform the development of tailored research and interventions, which address lights and shadows of the technology use, and which take into account the necessity to enhance its potentials yet without impairing students' motivation and psychological health

Working with emotions in complementary medicine: the case of aromatherapy practitioners

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasingly popular in the UK (Cant 2004:173). Along with distinct therapeutics, these emerging occupations often allege that they use different notions of the emotions (Campbell, 2002). But without conventional practitioner/patient roles, how do aromatherapists negotiate and manage emotional boundaries? This paper discusses an interview based study with aromatherapists that focused upon how the aromatherapists constructed and worked with emotion at work. Whilst not suggesting that the same issues are important in all forms of complementary medicine, the paper argues that more research is needed to uncover the emotional landscape of CAM practice