This dissertation is an investigation into intersections of housing and labor markets; community and employment relations; urban and economic inequality. Specifically, it focuses on the ways in which urban change in the form of earthquake risk driven urban transformation in Istanbul, Turkey restructures economic and community relations between employer homeowners and their employees doorkeepers. Doorkeepers are minimum-wage workers and live rent-free in return of providing daily cleaning, grocery shopping, and delivery services to their employers upper middle-income residents, with whom they share the same building and neighborhood. In other words, doorkeepers are members of service workers who serve the urban elite and allow the continuation of the daily lives of the affluent and the city at large. My research demonstrates that doorkeepers are increasingly being priced out of their communities as a result of the urban transformation that acts as an intervention into the labor market by leading to the replacement of formal work with on-demand economies and minimum-wage service workers with gig workers. Hence while urban change is a wealth accumulation mechanism for the urban elite, it aggravates the urban working poor’s precarity by generating the risk of simultaneous unemployment and involuntary displacement. This dissertation enriches our understandings of relational dimensions of service work by examining how urban policies shape construction, negotiation, mediation, and discontinuation of employment relations and in return, how social, class and economic inequalities find spatial manifestations. Therefore, by examining social relations of wage labor, more specifically spatial embeddedness of service work in rapidly transforming metropolitan settings, this dissertation puts various sociological subfields in dialogue and links labor relations to housing policies and urban change. The analysis draws on data collected from 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Istanbul, Turkey, comprising of 110 semi-structured interviews with various urban actors, including urban policy makers, business owners, service workers, and urban residents living in areas designated to be under earthquake risk. These interviews are supplemented by participant observation while volunteering at doorkeepers’ labor union. / 2024-02-23T00:00:00Z

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.

No description available.

Objective. To develop and assess a toxicology module to teach pharmacy students about farming- and mining-related occupational exposures in the context of an existing toxicology elective course. Design. A teaching unit that included lectures and case studies was developed to address the unique occupational exposures of patients working in agricultural and mining environments. Upon completion of this 4-hour (2 class periods) module, students were expected to recognize the clinical signs and symptoms associated with these occupational exposures and propose acceptable therapeutic plans. Assessment. After completing the module, students scored significantly higher on a patient case involving suicide resulting from pesticide consumption. Seventy-three percent of the students scored higher than 90% on a 33-item multiple-choice examination. Eighty-two percent of students were able to correctly read a product label to determine the type of pesticide involved in an occupational exposure. Conclusion. Pharmacy students who completed a module on occupation exposure demonstrated competence in distinguishing occupational exposures from each other and from exposure to prescription and nonprescription drugs. This module can be used to educate future pharmacists about occupational health issues, some of which may be more prevalent in a rural setting.

With advances in neonatal, medical and surgical care there are an increasing number of infants and young children surviving with medical conditions. Many of these children have associated complex feeding difficulties as a result of the disruption to early oral feeding experiences and periods of restricted or non-oral feeding. These children are at risk of developing long-term feeding difficulties associated with sub-optimal nutrition and poor appetite regulation, delays in mastering skills that lead to eating and mealtime independence, and disruptive mealtime behaviours. Managing the extraordinary demands associated with feeding and ensuring nutrition for these children can present significant challenges for parents as well as health care professionals involved in their care. Occupational therapists are often core members of multidisciplinary teams providing hospital-based services to these children and their families. Embracing an occupation-centred perspective, participation in feeding and mealtimes are considered important co-occupations for infants, children and their parents and carers that occur within the context of parenting and family life. Understanding these contextual influences and the occupational needs of parents are essential but have been understated in the occupational therapy literature and clinical practice. This thesis describes a qualitative study using a phenomenological perspective to explore the lived experiences of parents of children with complex medical and feeding difficulties. Parents from fourteen families participated in the study. Data collection involved in-depth interviews, family mealtime observations and demographic questionnaires. Key findings indicated that parents experienced a high degree of stress in their everyday lives as a result of their children’s feeding difficulties, especially in relation to tube-feeding. Mothers’ self-image was devastated because they believed that it was their ultimate responsibility to feed and nourish their children. Differences in how parents identified with and fulfilled their parenting roles and responsibilities emerged, not just in relation to feeding but also for other childcare and domestic activities. Overwhelmingly, it was mothers who assumed the greater share of these parenting responsibilities, and in addition, expressed a sense of responsibility for preserving family unity and the need to get on with family life despite the chronic nature of their children’s problems. These findings contribute to our understanding of the occupational challenges for parents of these children, especially mothers who have a primary role in feeding, and the impact of feeding disruptions on the lives of their families. This knowledge will assist clinicians providing feeding interventions to be more sensitive and responsive to the needs of both parents and other family members. Recommendations for clinical practice are proposed. Limitations of the study are presented along with suggestions for future research.

With advances in neonatal, medical and surgical care there are an increasing number of infants and young children surviving with medical conditions. Many of these children have associated complex feeding difficulties as a result of the disruption to early oral feeding experiences and periods of restricted or non-oral feeding. These children are at risk of developing long-term feeding difficulties associated with sub-optimal nutrition and poor appetite regulation, delays in mastering skills that lead to eating and mealtime independence, and disruptive mealtime behaviours. Managing the extraordinary demands associated with feeding and ensuring nutrition for these children can present significant challenges for parents as well as health care professionals involved in their care. Occupational therapists are often core members of multidisciplinary teams providing hospital-based services to these children and their families. Embracing an occupation-centred perspective, participation in feeding and mealtimes are considered important co-occupations for infants, children and their parents and carers that occur within the context of parenting and family life. Understanding these contextual influences and the occupational needs of parents are essential but have been understated in the occupational therapy literature and clinical practice. This thesis describes a qualitative study using a phenomenological perspective to explore the lived experiences of parents of children with complex medical and feeding difficulties. Parents from fourteen families participated in the study. Data collection involved in-depth interviews, family mealtime observations and demographic questionnaires. Key findings indicated that parents experienced a high degree of stress in their everyday lives as a result of their children’s feeding difficulties, especially in relation to tube-feeding. Mothers’ self-image was devastated because they believed that it was their ultimate responsibility to feed and nourish their children. Differences in how parents identified with and fulfilled their parenting roles and responsibilities emerged, not just in relation to feeding but also for other childcare and domestic activities. Overwhelmingly, it was mothers who assumed the greater share of these parenting responsibilities, and in addition, expressed a sense of responsibility for preserving family unity and the need to get on with family life despite the chronic nature of their children’s problems. These findings contribute to our understanding of the occupational challenges for parents of these children, especially mothers who have a primary role in feeding, and the impact of feeding disruptions on the lives of their families. This knowledge will assist clinicians providing feeding interventions to be more sensitive and responsive to the needs of both parents and other family members. Recommendations for clinical practice are proposed. Limitations of the study are presented along with suggestions for future research.

With advances in neonatal, medical and surgical care there are an increasing number of infants and young children surviving with medical conditions. Many of these children have associated complex feeding difficulties as a result of the disruption to early oral feeding experiences and periods of restricted or non-oral feeding. These children are at risk of developing long-term feeding difficulties associated with sub-optimal nutrition and poor appetite regulation, delays in mastering skills that lead to eating and mealtime independence, and disruptive mealtime behaviours. Managing the extraordinary demands associated with feeding and ensuring nutrition for these children can present significant challenges for parents as well as health care professionals involved in their care. Occupational therapists are often core members of multidisciplinary teams providing hospital-based services to these children and their families. Embracing an occupation-centred perspective, participation in feeding and mealtimes are considered important co-occupations for infants, children and their parents and carers that occur within the context of parenting and family life. Understanding these contextual influences and the occupational needs of parents are essential but have been understated in the occupational therapy literature and clinical practice. This thesis describes a qualitative study using a phenomenological perspective to explore the lived experiences of parents of children with complex medical and feeding difficulties. Parents from fourteen families participated in the study. Data collection involved in-depth interviews, family mealtime observations and demographic questionnaires. Key findings indicated that parents experienced a high degree of stress in their everyday lives as a result of their children’s feeding difficulties, especially in relation to tube-feeding. Mothers’ self-image was devastated because they believed that it was their ultimate responsibility to feed and nourish their children. Differences in how parents identified with and fulfilled their parenting roles and responsibilities emerged, not just in relation to feeding but also for other childcare and domestic activities. Overwhelmingly, it was mothers who assumed the greater share of these parenting responsibilities, and in addition, expressed a sense of responsibility for preserving family unity and the need to get on with family life despite the chronic nature of their children’s problems. These findings contribute to our understanding of the occupational challenges for parents of these children, especially mothers who have a primary role in feeding, and the impact of feeding disruptions on the lives of their families. This knowledge will assist clinicians providing feeding interventions to be more sensitive and responsive to the needs of both parents and other family members. Recommendations for clinical practice are proposed. Limitations of the study are presented along with suggestions for future research.

Historically considered a "gift" from an other-worldly source, today creativity is championed by politicians and business leaders for its economic value. Yet we know relatively little about how people and ideas come to be viewed as creative in real-world business organizations. In this dissertation, I examine the social process of recognizing creativity through an investigation of a quintessential creative industry--advertising. Using a mixed methodological approach, I draw on original data collected through a survey of a probability sample of U.S. advertising agencies, semi-structured interviews with survey respondents, and several months of participant observation in an agency. I find that social exclusion shapes the recognition of creativity in these ostensibly open and tolerant sectors of the labor market. Socioeconomic status and gender affect occupational entry and advancement through evaluations that rely on familiarity with high-status culture and identity characteristics that match artistic stereotypes to signal creativity. Additionally, the assessment of creative work itself is used as a form of boundary work to exclude those outside the profession from making contributions considered creative. Taken together, this dissertation suggests that although creativity has been widely heralded as a force for expanding opportunity and social progress, inequality plays an enduring role in the formation and maintenance of this workforce.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1937 B51

This thesis investigates the co-evolution of the changing structure of occupations and the growth in wage inequality in Britain since the 1970s and the subsequent stabilisation during the 2000s. Occupations provide the single most important unit of analysis for economic inequality in stratification research, providing the basis for socioeconomic status, prestige scales, job desirability scores, and social class schemas. Although there was a ‘massive rise’ in wage inequality, relatively little is known about the relationship between the occupational structure and the growth in wage inequality. Since sociologists tend to place a lot of emphasis on the role of occupations in structuring economic inequalities, we might expect them to play a key role in accounting for trends in overall wage inequality. More recent strands of sociological theory, however, argue that the link between occupations and economic inequalities might have been weakening over time. This thesis assesses these claims in relation to the over time trends in between- and within-occupation-inequality. It finds that the growth in overall wage inequality was largely due to growing inequality between occupations, not within them. The growth in between-occupation inequality was largely due to higher-paying occupations receiving the largest wage gains. Furthermore, and perhaps surprisingly, only a handful of occupations account for the majority of the rise in wage inequality, indicating caution should be exercised in generating accounts about the role for occupations in accounting for overall inequality. Along the way, this thesis attempts to address the extent to which the structuring of the growth in wage inequality by occupations was due to the changing composition of incumbents within occupations (namely the rise in educational attainment), in spite of data limitations. Finally, this thesis takes to task what the implications of the ‘massive rise’ in wage inequality implies for the broader categories sociologists use to capture economic inequalities based on aggregations of occupations.