The relationship between work status (working and retired) and the degree of formal and informal social participation among elderly respondents sixty to sixty-nine years of age was studied and analyzed. A national probability sample of 735 elderly Americans provided the major data source. Elaboration model was used to further understand and explain the relationship between work status and the degree of formal and informal social participation. Ten control variables were introduced: work status of spouse, marital status, occupational status, family income, satisfaction with health, size of kinship network, race, gender, and size of community of residence. Indices of formal and informal social participation were constructed.

In the years following the Religious Worship Census of 1851, there was a general increase in anxiety about the state of working-class churchgoing. Many prominent church leaders and social commentators believed that rapid industrialisation and urbanisation had led to the ‘alienation’ of the working classes from the practice of religious worship. The working classes were largely seen as ‘irreligious’ and not interested in aligning themselves to the customs of the rising middle classes who were seen as the stalwarts of the churches. The later nineteenth century was a time of anxiety for many clergy, and prominent social investigators, such as Charles Booth, carried out studies into the extent of poverty amongst various sections of society. A growing recognition of the problem of poverty led to some considering that financial disadvantage was a barrier to the churchgoing habits of the working classes. However, these ‘pessimistic’ perceptions of working-class churchgoing could originate from very different interpretations of the new industrial world, and from different conceptions of human nature. A large part of Karl Marx’s legacy has been his linking of ‘irreligion’ to the oppression of the ‘proletariat’ under industrial capitalism and Frederick Engels legitimised Marx’s theories with his 1845 book on the Condition of the Working Classes in England. However, part of the problem of interpreting Victorian affiliation to the churches is that so much effort has gone into either supporting or refuting the Marxist view amongst historians that the actual purpose of the enquiry has been somewhat lost. There has developed in recent years a rather disconnected debate with the ‘revisionist’ case the strongest and the belief that churches were middle-class institutions overturned by a recourse to ‘social composition analysis’. In effect, the revisionists have employed the use of the occupational analysis of churchgoers from which to discern the social ‘class’ make up of individual churches, which has provided evidence for widespread and significant working-class churchgoing. However, when this methodology is investigated, it is not hard to find critics of the use of occupational titles as a guide to nineteenth-century social ‘class’. This study is an attempt to look at churchgoing from a point of view that does not rely on occupational labels as the indicator of the social make-up of churches. Rather, it employs the use of the Scottish valuation rolls, which provided the official rented value of all properties, as a tool from which to develop a wide-ranging analysis of churchgoing, work and status in a nineteenth-century industrial town. It is, in large part, a study of housing and employment structures as gauged from a systematic analysis of the valuation rolls, the results of which are then measured against the four main Presbyterian churches of the town. The subject of the research is Falkirk because it experienced the transition from a traditional to industrial economy needed to evaluate the impact of industrialisation on working-class churchgoing. The study spans 1860 to 1890 and evaluates both points in time. It is effectively a historical investigation into the social and occupational structure of Falkirk town householders and how the main Presbyterian churches of the area reflected this societal formation. It naturally includes a large component of how social ‘status’ was ordered amongst the core householder population in terms of work, social relations, property and churchgoing. In addition, the methodology employed in the form of property valuations has produced a critique of the traditional system of classification by occupation and somewhat challenged its reliability.

Cette étude dresse un bref historique du concept de la dignité humaine pour observer sa dualité et sa multiplicité à travers les époques. Peu présente dans la littérature, la dignité au travail, tout aussi dichotomique et plurielle, s’inscrit néanmoins dans un cadre singulier, où s’ajoute des paramètres spécifiques à l’organisation du travail. Elle s’avère particulièrement problématique pour les employés atypiques, incluant entre autres les employés à contrats à durée déterminée, les employés saisonniers et les employés temporaires. Effectivement, malgré l’augmentation significative de leur embauche au sein du marché du travail canadien depuis la fin des années 1990, les employés atypiques représentent un groupe peu étudié, vulnérable et plus enclin à subir les répercussions de pratiques contraignantes et nuisibles à la dignité selon la précarité rattachée au statut, d’où la pertinence de s’y intéresser. En ce sens, si la dignité appelle à l’autonomie par la considération de la valeur intrinsèque et inaliénable de l’individu, et que le travail implique qu’il réalise des finalités autres que les siennes, s’interroger sur la dignité au travail, principalement chez un groupe marginalisé par sa présence éphémère, prend tout son sens. La méthodologie de cette étude est basée sur l’analyse interprétative d’entretiens semi-structurés réalisés avec douze employés atypiques. Comparées à la littérature existante et suite à la mise en place d’une typologie du travail spécifique aux employés atypiques et à la dignité, les données recueillies ont montré une réappropriation de la dualité du concept par l’inclusion de l’opposition entre l’être et l’action de la part des participants. Plus encore, ils ont ajouté trois dimensions supplémentaires : l’interaction, les systèmes du travail et le temps. Concept central et pivot, l’interaction permet l’établissement de relations dans l’ensemble des dimensions. L’organisation du travail dans les systèmes et l’éphémérité du statut des employés atypiques, éléments différentiels, banalisent les pratiques nuisibles à la dignité des employés atypiques, où ces derniers finissent par percevoir leur situation comme un rite de passage dans l’attente d’un avenir meilleur. / This study begins with a brief historical overview of the concept of dignity. Despite the multiple meanings given to the notion of dignity over time, a clear duality appears between definitions that privilege the intrinsic, inalienable nature of dignity and those that attribute dignity according to the quality of an individual's actions. While dignity at work has received far less scholarly attention, the emergent literature replicates the same dichotomy that is found in studies of dignity. The question of dignity at work is particularly important for atypical employees who, due to their precarious status, are especially vulnerable to workplace indignity. Surprisingly, atypical workers, a category that includes seasonal workers, temporary workers, workers on short-term contracts, and permanent part-timers, remain on the sidelines of much academic research, despite constant growth in their numbers as a proportion of the Canadian labour market since the late 1990s. The importance of studying dignity at work appears clearly in the following conundrum: how can we understand dignity at work when dignity implies that one recognizes the unique value of every human person based on his/her autonomy to choose his/her own ends, yet the context of work requires that workers commit themselves to attaining objectives imposed by someone else? Using an interpretive methodology to explore the meanings of dignity at work, this study is based on semi-structured interviews with twelve atypical employees. The findings show how participants reconciled the duality between being and doing as a source of dignity. Participants added three other dimensions that are not present in the extant literature: interaction, work systems, and time. These five dimensions are combined to create a typology of dignity at work that is specific to atypical employees. Interaction acts as a core concept that links all of the other dimensions together. The organization of work systems and the ephemeral status of atypical employees work together to trivialize workplace practices that undermine the dignity of atypical employees, who come to perceive their situation as a rite of passage to be endured while waiting for a better future.

In the introduction of the diploma thesis there is discussed the question which every social worker knows: Could I have done something different? This is the question which is asked by almost everyone, especially a social worker. Further there is a brief outline of topics which are delineated in the diploma thesis. First chapter describes the institution Children´s Center JK Strakonice. Father there is a list of necessary knowledge which a social work should have for his or her occupation. Also the liabilities of the social worker to the clients are not left out. In this part there can be found also work with specific types of clients. For better understanding of the demands of social work in Children ´s Center JK Strakonice the thesis contains selected life stories of the women clients. These life stories should help to the reader to see the problems from different point of view and help to understand how much is important so that the clients decides himself or herself to solve his or her problems. In the second chapter there are described psychological and ethical dimensions of the profession, burnt out syndrome which is threat for everyone of us, especially for a social worker. In this chapter there are depicted causes of formation and manifestations of burnt out syndrome. The third chapter is also connected with the burnt out syndrome. The focus in this chapter is on prevention and protection. The attention is also paid to the personality of a social worker, his or her abilities to perceive the problem, but also experiences in moral decision-making and hierarchical position of values. The compliance of the principles of psycho hygiene and presence of supervision plays a very significant role. In the conclusion of the diploma thesis there is the summary of performance of a social worker in Children´s Center JK Strakonice. Every social worker should realise his or her responsibility not only to his or her clients, employer and colleagues but especially to himself or herself and his or her conscience. The interdependence of profession and conscience merges with the diploma thesis.