In the Swedish elderly-care sector the institutions are of different character and the kind of care and food-supply they offer vary in scope and intensity. The aim of this study was to analyse how food and meals were handled and provided to the elderly living within those situations and in this context, how food was expressed as a substance or/and in symbols. This study focus on the social organisation that embraces the diet of the elderly and shapes the provisions of their meals, on the norms, values and behaviours of the different social identities in the organisation. The empirical work included in-depth interviews and participant observations in four different residential care homes, including various hierarchical levels, i.e. politicians and different personnel, in the organisation of food-supply to the elderly. In each care home different types of care and food-supply were studied, i.e. elderly having their meals in 24hour care, partime day care and those who ate in the restaurants. Generally, provision of meals was routine and meals were planned, prepared and served with little or no attention to what substanse and symbol it brought to the elderly. The elderly had limited possibilities to influence their own meals and those with the largest need of care, being the most fragile and sick had the least influence. The views of politicians and different personnel indicated that they considered themself powerless, which resulted in a "freedom of responsibility". It was obvious that there existed a clear discrepancy between how the informants considered the provision of food and meals should be organised and carried out, in comparison to reality. The current unsatisfactory provision of meals to the elderly is attributed to the marginalisation of specifically three areas: the symbolic value of food, the life and needs of the elderly and the traditional knowledge and experiences of women in their role as housewife and carer of the family.

This research is to discuss the welfare stigma and social policy that influences the low-income family of Hope Project. Through the interview with the case individuals, this article is going to analyze the process of socialization within parents and teenagers to see if the poor status of those individuals influences their interactive action with other individuals or group in this social action. Moreover to discuss the client of Hope Project whether has experience of welfare stigma or not. What follows is the goal of this research: 1.What have been low-income client¡¦s experience of discrimination treatment as participating in Hope Project? 2. How do low-income clients perceive welfare stigma and what strategies do they use to manage? 3. How do low-income clients affect their strategies to respond to welfare stigma after participating in Hope Project? The findings from this research are that discrimination treatment results welfare stigma, and poor adult than teenagers are affected obviously by process of socializing degree, but under social control of school that leads teenagers to perceive welfare stigma. Experience of discrimination treatment and individual values produce welfare stigma, and that affects how they use manage to welfare stigma. The series of courses and community service could encourage latent capacity of clients also reduce welfare stigma to promote self-identification and self-confident. Furthermore the experience of community service in the remove poverty program makes teenagers feel that they have ability feed back society not only just welfare recipients but also reduce perception of welfare stigma.

My research uses participants' understandings to look at how people define and use the identities and categories of "vegetarian" and "meat-eater." My research examines what it means to be vegetarian, how ideals and moral hierarchies are understood, and how issues of identity importance, social support, and boundary work are components of vegetarian identity construction processes. My research highlights the unmarked character of the meat-eating identity and investigates the variations and complexities of eating behaviors and identities. Learning more about how both vegetarians and meat-eaters construct vegetarian identities contributes to our understanding of identities and how, despite ambiguities, people experience identities. I further previous work by focusing more on the boundaries and interactions that become meaningful when supporting ones identity. Through one-on-one in-depth interviews, I draw out perspectives and understandings of vegetarian and meat-eating meaning-making processes.This research demonstrates how, despite numerous variations within and between groups, people develop more or less socially shared ideas of what it means to be vegetarian, what vegetarian ideals are, and what moral meanings are produced by various eating behaviors. These ideas run through issues of vegetarian identity, including: identity importance, social support, and boundary work. Vegetarians and meat-eaters' interactions involve cognitive processing, self-presentations, and negotiations that are not as oppositional as stereotypical social ideas suggest. Meat-eaters play an active role throughout many of these vegetarian identity construction processes and provide a more balanced picture of them. Meat-eaters at times engage with vegetarians in the issues of vegetarian ideals, moral hierarchies, identity importance, social support, and boundary work.

ABSTRACT Notions of quality of life dictate philosophies and policies for services for people with developmental disabilities. There is an abundance of research on quality of life, much of which has influenced the significant amount of study of quality of life for people with developmental disabilities. According to specialist developmental disability nurses, however, this research has little meaning for one group of people with developmental disabilities with whom they work - people with severe multiple impairments. Nevertheless, judgements and decisions about the lives of this group continue to be driven by the idea of quality of life. While the literature review found that researchers are urged to seek the perceptions of people regarding their own quality of life by asking them, some authors have noted the difficulty in pursuing such a method with people, such as people with severe multiple impairments, who are unable to communicate in the usual ways. Given, then, that it is difficult to directly determine the views of people with severe multiple impairments, this study sought the perceptions of nurses about the quality of life of the people with whom they work. In order to discover and conceptualise nurses' views, a symbolic interaction perspective was chosen to guide this study and data were analysed using the grounded theory approach. The study was conducted in two stages. Stage One consisted of semi-structured indepth interviews with expert nurses to explore their perceptions of quality of life for the people with whom they worked. A significant finding in these interviews was that perceptions of quality of life are mediated by interaction. Consequently, Stage Two involved a participant observation study in which the interactions of nurses and people with severe multiple impairments were examined. Specialist developmental disability nurses have a unique view of quality of life for people with severe multiple impairments. They refer to it as 'just little things', a phrase which masks complex nursing knowledge and skills, and which can be described by four interrelated categories which emerged from the data: humans being, supporting, becoming intimate, and situated belonging. As nurses become more intimate with individuals, they perceive that people with severe multiple impairments are humans being as they wish, and that quality resides in supporting their everyday lives in a context of situated belonging. This thesis represents a new conceptualisation of quality of life for people with severe multiple impairments, a conceptualisation which may have significance for other groups and, indeed, for the whole quality of life enterprise. This conceptualisation draws on knowledge not usually related to quality of life, that is, knowledge of the body, of the emotions, of identity and of humanness. Such findings demonstrate the power of an interpretive approach in explicating the meanings nurses have regarding quality of life. Further, these findings have implications for how the question of quality of life is approached, for how different ways of thinking about people impact on quality of life, and for the importance of the life in quality of life.

abstract: This study utilized symbolic interaction as a framework to examine the impact of mobility on four veteran elementary general music teachers' identities, roles, and perceptions of role support. Previous research has focused on teacher identity formation among preservice and novice teachers; veteran teachers are less frequently represented in the literature. Teacher mobility research has focused on student achievement, teachers' reasons for moving, and teacher attrition. The impact of mobility on veteran teachers' identities, roles, and perceptions of role support has yet to be considered. A multiple case design was employed for this study. The criteria for purposeful selection of the participants were elementary general music teachers who had taught for at least ten years, who had changed teaching contracts and taught in at least two different schools, and who were viewed as effective music educators by fine arts coordinators. Data were collected over a period of eight months through semi-structured interviews, email correspondence, observations, review of videotapes of the participants' teaching in previous schools, and collection of artifacts. Data were analyzed within and across cases. The cross-case analysis revealed themes within the categories of identity, role, and role support for the participants. The findings suggest that the participants perceived their music teacher roles as multi-dimensional. They claimed their core identities remained stable over time; however, shifts in teacher identity occurred throughout their years as teachers. The participants asserted that mobility at the start of their careers had a positive impact because they each were challenged to solidify their own teacher identities and music teacher roles in varied school contexts. Mobility negatively impacted role and teacher practices during times when the participants adjusted to new school climates and role expectations. Role support varied depending upon school context, and the participants discovered active involvement in the school community was an effective means of seeking and acquiring role support. Reflection experiences in music teacher preparation programs, as well as mentoring and professional development geared toward teacher identity formation and role maturation, may assist teachers in matching their desired school context with their teacher identities and perceptions of the music teacher role. / Dissertation/Thesis / D.M.A. Music Education 2011

In recent years there has been a resurgence of gender inequality in China. Today, women are pressured to get married by the state and their social surroundings, as they told if they remain unmarried and have the "three highs"; high age, education and salary, they will become leftovers on the marriage market. Previous research on the concept of labelling women as "leftover" has 4 shown that labelling women as "leftover" can have several different negative impacts. In this thesis, both the theory of masculine hegemony and the theory of symbolic interaction have been used. The concept creates a hegemonic masculinity as it is a normative practice that promotes the subordination of women. However, as the concept is based on the notion that all Chinese men, or at least those of relevant social standing, would find the "three highs" undesirable, it is relevant to see how Chinese men in fact do position themselves in relation to the hegemonic masculinity on an individual level. In symbolic interaction, the concept of gender is created through social construction when people attach special meanings to the sex of a person, a process which is called "doing gender". Therefore symbolic interaction is used to see what special meaning Chinese men attach to women having the "three highs" and masculine hegemony to put their answers into a larger context. If it could be shown that Chinese men do not comply with the hegemonic masculinity, Chinese women would not have to feel obliged to adjust to the hegemonic masculinity and thereby making it easier for them to pursue higher education, high paying jobs and marrying at a later age. However, as this thesis is a qualitative study, and therefore a limited number of data subjects, the generalizability of the result should not be exaggerated. The interviews that were conducted for this thesis showed that the data subjects were familiar with the concept and that they considered it to be natural for there to be women China labelled as "leftover". Nevertheless, in relation to their own marital choices, the data subjects did not attach the negative meaning as set out by the hegemonic masculinity, a result which to some extent was confirmed by the data subjects’ experiences and other control questions. The result is interesting, and enforces Connell and MesserSchmidt’s theory, that even though a hegemonic masculinity is normative, not everyone has to comply with it. As the cornerstone of the concept is that Chinese men find women with the "three highs" undesirable, the result of the study shows that there is a need for the concept to be further examined and questioned. / 近年，性别不平等在中国又开始回潮。今天，中国女性在婚姻问题上受到来自社会的不小压力。如果这些女性尚未结婚而又具有?三高? ，即高龄、高学历和高薪，那她们将有可能成为婚姻上的剩女。以往研究表明，女性被打上?剩女? 的标签后，这?剩? 字会给她们带来若干负面影响。本文运用两个理论：「支配性男性气质」(hegemonic masculinity) 和「象征性互动」(symbolic interaction) 理论。「支配性男性气质」作为理论说明男性如何建立规范使妇女处于从属地位。此观念基于这样一个已有概念，即中国男性不喜欢?三高? 女性。本文主要讨论中国男人在「支配性男性气质」主导的社会里如何自我定位。根据「象征性互动」理论，性别的概念是经由社会建構创造的性意思，过程被称为「做性别」(doing gender) 。「象征性互动」理论因此被用来观察中国男性对?三高?女性存在的特殊想法。而「支配性男性气质」的理论则把他们的回答放到一个更大的范围内。如果我们能够证明中国男性并不完全赞同「支配性男性气质」的概念，那么中国女性就没有必要认为必须顺应「支配性男性气质」的一些规范，从而使这些女性更愿意接受高等教育，从事高收入工作和晚婚。需要指出的是，由于本论文是定性研究，样本数量有限，结果不一定具有普遍性。本文受访者均熟悉・剩女?这个观念，并且觉得这些・三高・女性很自然地被社会标签为?剩余?。但尽管如此，当谈及他们自己的婚姻选择时，这些受访者却并不在意「支配性男性气质」对女性标签的负面意义。此现象在一定程度上从受访者个人经历和我们附加的对照性问题上得到证实。这一结果相当有意思，根据康奈尔（Connell）和梅塞施密特（MesserSchmidt）的理论，即使「支配性男性气质」是一个常态，但其在统计学上并不一定最常见。由于已有的概念认为中国男性不喜欢?三高?女性，本研究结果显示，有必要对这一概念作进一步的探讨和分析。

The current body of literature within sociology concerning the Internet is problematic. Much has been published on various topics concerning the Internet, but a school of thought that addresses the Internet exclusively has yet to emerge. Sociologists look to the Internet as a new place to do research on existing topics or as a new place to apply old theories. We have sociology on the Internet, but we have no sociology for the Internet. As the Internet continues to grow and internet use is proliferated, the need to understand everyday interaction on the Internet grows. More than this, the effects of the medium on society at large are still wholly speculative. We need to move past narrow research and speculation and toward new theories and correctly applied research. This thesis is largely a work in sociological theory. I will examine the history of the Internet and the history of sociological studies on the Internet. As of yet, there has been no attempt to organize the current literature of sociological studies of the Internet. This thesis is an attempt to do so. There are certain trends in sociological research concerning the Internet, and a few main schools of thought can be found. For a "Sociology of the Internet" to emerge, the literature must be brought together in a synthetic fashion and looked at with a critical eye. This will be an attempt to resolve any theoretical problems that exist and find what type of research we need the most when understanding the Internet. After a thorough review of the literature, it will be shown that what is lacking more than anything is accurate depictions of everyday life online. Thus we need research to address this problem.

National and international research on governmental privatization efforts reflects myriad successes and failures. However, little is known about the effectiveness of family safety privatization efforts in the state of Florida. In Brevard County, Florida, family safety privatization efforts have been underway for several years now, and while evaluations are taking place, they do not reflect one key piece of information—the perceptions of family safety workers. A snowball sample was obtained from former and current child safety workers and open- and closed-ended questions were administered with a total of 15 former and current family safety workers who work or worked for several different public and private family safety agencies within Brevard County, Florida. Information was obtained regarding perceptions of privatization to adequately and more efficiently do the work of public entities. The results show two primary areas of interest. The model of care which has been instituted post-privatization (CARES) has been perceived as more effective than the former state model; the strongest problematic themes that developed concerned power, control, and the perception of unfairness. These themes are explored using a backwards mapping approach and recommendations for continued growth and cohesion are explored.

Virtually the entire body of scholarly literature on professional sport focuses on athletes themselves, rarely directly considering the impact of sport on the significant others in their lives or the role these significant others play in the career path and decision-making processes of athletes. In recent years, a limited, but growing, body of scholarly literature on athlete’s wives and sport marriages has begun to emerge with respect to American sports. However, little work has been done on the role and experiences of football spouses in the Canadian context. This dissertation focuses on football spouses in the Canadian Football League (CFL). I use an ethnographic approach relying on in-depth interview with football spouses from the CFL to explore how they experience their partners’ football careers, with a focus on their identity construction. I also used participant observation (at training camp and football related events) to gather data and collected and analyzed secondary documents (newspaper articles, blogs, tweets). Working from an interactionist perspective, I offer the empirically grounded concept of a “courtesy identity” to explain how these women confront the challenges of being known through their intimate relationships. I argue that these women are active agents who negotiate how much they are willing to transform themselves to meet the demands of football life. The “football wife” identity is always emerging and changing in response to the messages women receive about being a football wife during their interactions with others (both insiders and outsiders in the social world of the CFL) and as they encounter new situations. I demonstrate this argument by exploring: (a) how these women develop the football wife identity by focusing on their day-to-day private lives; (b) how the spousal subculture helps these women to negotiate the challenges of being a football wife while at the same time creating challenges of its own; and, (c) how football spouses negotiate their husbands’ celebrity status by examining how these women manage their presentation of the football wife identity in public. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Book Summary: Part I, 'Theoretical Openings,' of Volume 39 of Studies in Symbolic Interaction contains outstanding contributions by leading interactionists on welfare reform, history, biography and memory. The three chapters in Part II, 'Studies in Social Construction,' interrogate the complexities of social interaction, interpersonal and professional identity, and the cinematic representation of alcoholism. Part III takes up important interpretive interventions on the topics of imagination and intimate deception in everyday life.