Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

The Wretched of the Earth

The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Economy and Society

Background: Most older adults prefer to age in place, and supporting older adults to remain in their own homes and communities is also favored by policy makers. Technology can play a role in staying independent, active and healthy. However, the use of technology varies considerably among older adults. Previous research indicates that current models of technology acceptance are missing essential predictors specific to community-dwelling older adults. Furthermore, in situ research within the specific context of aging in place is scarce, while this type of research is needed to better understand how and why community-dwelling older adults are using technology. Objective: To explore which factors influence the level of use of various types of technology by older adults who are aging in place and to describe these factors in a comprehensive model. Methods: A qualitative explorative field study was set up, involving home visits to 53 community-dwelling older adults, aged 68-95, living in the Netherlands. Purposive sampling was used to include participants with different health statuses, living arrangements, and levels of technology experience. During each home visit: (1) background information on the participants' chronic conditions, major life events, frailty, cognitive functioning, subjective health, ownership and use of technology was gathered, and (2) a semistructured interview was conducted regarding reasons for the level of use of technology. The study was designed to include various types of technology that could support activities of daily living, personal health or safety, mobility, communication, physical activity, personal development, and leisure activities. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze interview transcripts. Results: The level of technology use in the context of aging in place is influenced by six major themes: challenges in the domain of independent living; behavioral options; personal thoughts on technology use; influence of the social network; influence of organizations, and the role of the physical environment. Conclusion: Older adults' perceptions and use of technology are embedded in their personal, social, and physical context. Awareness of these psychological and contextual factors is needed in order to facilitate aging in place through the use of technology. A conceptual model covering these factors is presented.

/pdf/older-adults-reasons-for-using-technology-while-aging-in-3q8szgss9j.pdf

Older Adults' Reasons for Using Technology while Aging in Place

1.. HARD CASES 5. Legal Rights A. Legislation . . . We might therefore do well to consider how a philosophical judge might develop, in appropriate cases, theories of what legislative purpose and legal principles require. We shall find that he would construct these theories in the same manner as a philosophical referee would construct the character of a game. I have invented, for this purpose, a lawyer of superhuman skill, learning, patience and acumen, whom I shall call Hercules. I suppose that Hercules is a judge in some representative American jurisdiction. I assume that he accepts the main uncontroversial constitutive and regulative rules of the law in his jurisdiction. He accepts, that is, that statutes have the general power to create and extinguish legal rights, and that judges have the general duty to follow earlier decisions of their court or higher courts whose rationale, as l

Taking Rights Seriously

Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actor-network theory.

http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/56407/1/WRAP_Procter_1-s2.0-S0277953613003304-main.pdf

What matters to older people with assisted living needs? A phenomenological analysis of the use and non-use of telehealth and telecare

This article argues against the view put forward by Margaret Archer that there is an irreconcilable divide between realist social theory and structuration theory. Instead, it argues for the systematic articulation of the two theories at both the ontological and the methodological levels. Each has developed a range of insightful and commensurable conceptualizations either missing or underdeveloped in the other. Archer's contention that structuration theory rejects the notion of `analytical dualism' central to the realist approach is shown to be mistaken; Giddens's rejection of `dualism' refers to a different conceptualization of the term. Similarly, Archer's critique of structuration's notion of a `duality' involving structure and agency is rejected by showing that Archer's own morphogenetic approach itself relies upon such a notion. A final section distinguishes between six key problematics of social analysis. It is clear that, for a large number of possible questions within the majority of these problema...

Refusing the Realism—Structuration Divide:

Karl Marx, Bob Jessop Max Weber, Lawrence Scaff Emile Durkheim, Whitney Pope Sigmund Freud, Ian Craib George Simmel, Patrick Watier Herbert Blumer, Ken Plummer Talcott Parsons, Robert Holton Robert Merton, Alan Sica Simone de Beauvoir, Mary Evans Norbert Elias, Jason Hughes Erving Goffman, Robin Williams David Lockwood, Nicos Mouzelis Harold Garfinkel, John Heritage Louis Althusser, Ted Benton Jurgen Habermas, William Outhwaite Pierre Bourdieu, Loic J.D. Wacquant Nancy Chodorow, Karin Martin Arlie Hockschild, Simon Williams Michel Foucault, Larry Barth Stuart Hall, Michelle Barrett Anthony Giddens, Ira J. Cohen.

Key Sociological Thinkers

Introduction - Contemporary Developments in Social Theory: The Right Time for a Past-modern Sociology - A Rich and Complex Ontology - Analysis and Textuality: Players, Dreamers and Despots in Sociological Research - The Pivotal Role of the Methodological Focus: A Positive Critique of Anthony Giddens - Contextualising, Floating and Dreaming: Variations from the Sociologies of Politics, Culture and Ethics - A Positive Scepticism Towards Claims about Empirical Evidence - Past-modern Sociology and Textual Critique - Exemplary Critiques of Sociological Modernism I: Comparative Citizenship and State Autonomy - Exemplary Critiques of Sociological Modernism II: The Flying Sorcery of Sylvia Walby's Patriarchal Systems - Conclusion

Rob Stones

Papers

Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actor-network theory.

What matters to older people with assisted living needs? A phenomenological analysis of the use and non-use of telehealth and telecare

Refusing the Realism—Structuration Divide:

Key Sociological Thinkers

Sociological Reasoning: Towards a Past-Modern Sociology