Editorial

Prof Clare Hocking

For many groups in society, access to valued, mainstream occupations is problematic. Often the barriers are attitudinal, arising from age-old stigma attached to anyone perceived as foreign, infectious, unclean, criminal or cursed. Stigma might be directed towards individuals, such as a person who contracts leprosy, or a whole class or type of people, such as Jews, gypsies, India’s “untouchables” or indigenous populations the world over. There is a sense, however, of permanence – once tainted or identified, being absolved of suspicion and discrimination seems unlikely. Structural barriers to occupation, such as the job shortages that accompany an economic downturn, appear more permeable. Employment rates rise along with economic recovery or when natural disasters, such as the Christchurch earthquakes, necessitate urgent reconstruction work, allowing individuals to more readily secure advantageous work situations.

Feature Articles

This issue of the Journal of Occupational Science explores the intersection of social policies, and shifting attitudes and arrangements, and the people whose access to occupations is in the balance. First up, O’Halloran, Farnworth, Innes, and Thomacos (2018) take heed of futurists’ prediction of a very different occupational landscape in the “post-work” era. Against the forecast intermittent or permanent unemployment of large sectors of society, brought about by population growth and technological advancement, they apply an occupational perspective to current day governmental responses to unemployment. To that end they devised an innovative approach, applying Wilcock and Hocking’s (2015) framework describing the means by which occupations positively create well-being, that is, by sustaining life; as creative, adventurous and adaptive opportunities; as avenues to supportive relationships and belonging; as providing a balance of neuronal stimulation and rest; and as experiences of being and becoming. Of the three mainstream responses for which there is adequate evidence to evaluate – activating people to seek employment, job guarantee, and universal basic income – evidence suggests that activation is more likely to expose workers to poor quality work that negatively impacts health and well-being. This is a well thought through discussion, bringing new insights to structural responses to rising unemployment, despite substantial gaps in the available evidence. I am hopeful that the method devised for the study may find application to other policy-driven responses to inequitable access to occupation.

Also bringing an occupational perspective to social services, systems and policies, Jónasdóttir, Egilson, and Polgar (2018) explore how community mobility is supported and restricted in Akureyri, Iceland. Situated just south of the Arctic Circle, this town is home to about 18,000 people, an estimated 70 of whom have mobility impairments. Using an exploratory case study approach, two different groups were interviewed: users of mobility devices and people responsible for planning or providing services. Of note, being mobile was key to not just meaningful occupations but also a sense of being in charge of one’s own life. The authors conclude that occupational justice and human rights perspectives are needed at the policy implementation level.

Continuing the theme of access to occupation, Lindsay, Chan, Cancelliere, and Mistry (2018) explored how youths with and without disabilities secure volunteer roles, and how such roles influence their trajectory as future workers. While volunteering developed the employment-related skills of both groups, increasing their occupational potential, youths with disability particularly benefitted from enhanced peer networks and feelings of social inclusion. In addition, they became more aware of managing their disability related self-needs. Compared to others of the same age, however, young people with disabilities were more reliant on the availability of accessible transportation and more challenged, having to deal with negative attitudes regarding their presence in the workplace and aptitude for the tasks assigned to them.

Aldrich’s (2018) scholarly exploration of Dewey’s ideas about freedom, equality, growth, and justice may provide a unifying theoretical basis for future research into the interface of policy, those charged with implementing policy, and groups of people reliant on the social conditions thus created to lead their lives. Centring her discussion on “associated living”, which refers to the intentionally constructed social relations that sustain and transform communities, Aldrich argues that the insights Dewey brings will enrich occupational science by revealing concrete possibilities for rectifying structural injustices. In bringing this aspect of Dewey’s legacy to the attention of occupational scientists, Aldrich extends previous discussion of the value of his transactional perspective to the study of occupation. Here, Aldrich contends, lies a philosophical grounding for critical work towards enacting social change.

From the macro perspective of policy, community, and occupational justice discussed in the previous articles, Eakman, Atler, Rumble, Gee, Romriell, and Hardy (2018) draw our attention back to subjectively experienced meanings of occupation. Synthesizing 11 qualitative research articles published in JOS between 1993 and 2010, they uncovered positive meanings derived from Social encounters (belonging and helping), occupations that engender a sense of Selfhood (identity, self-esteem, autonomy, mastery, purposes, continuity, and health and well-being), and experiencing Pleasure (satisfaction, enjoyment, and stimulating). Of particular interest are the ways the themes interconnect to create a web crossing the boundaries of pleasure, selfhood and social. Of particular note is the strength of association that researchers have identified across belonging, enjoyment and continuity, and how mastery links to all of the other meanings identified. This is an elegant analysis: one worthy of follow-up for the subsequent decade’s findings, as well as across studies reporting less than optimal experiences of occupations.

Pleasure, as well as mastery, continuity and other aspects of selfhood, are frequently associated with the pursuit of one’s hobbies. Testing their beneficial effects is problematic, however, because there is no clear definition of what qualifies as a hobby. Troubled by the lack of definition, Daily (2018) tested one commonly cited definition of a hobby as voluntary, solitary, home-based occupations involving relatively simple tools to make things that have economic value. Participants rated 138 statements claiming diverse leisure occupations were hobbies. While confirming that people perceive hobbies as making or collecting something, that finding does not align with occupations actually discussed in the hobby literature. That discrepancy poses an ongoing problem for researchers interested in clarifying the contribution of hobbies to human life and well-being. Despite the problem of differentiating hobbies from other forms of recreation, leisure pursuits or games, the pleasure derived from engaging in them clearly aligns with feelings of self-efficacy and satisfaction with life. Demonstrating that, Caixeirinho, Almeida, and Quaresma (2018) employed the Occupational Questionnaire to identify the occupational patterns of older adults living in two residential care settings in Portugal. In the afternoons, when the occupations reported included crochet, sewing, painting, dominos, reading and writing, playing cards, crossword puzzles and the like, residents reported higher average satisfaction. Interestingly, women were more satisfied than men.

Methodology Papers

Any issue of JOS cannot be considered complete without commentary in some form of research approaches appropriate to studying occupation. This issue features two articles promoting specific methodologies. Jónasdóttir, Hand, Misener, and Polgar (2018) put the spotlight on case study methodology. Although studies utilising this approach have been reported previously in JOS, this is the first article focusing on case study itself; both an overview of the methodology and an integrated review of how it has been used in occupational science. Its strengths lie in explicitly considering occupation in context, and in addressing the complexity of occupation as a phenomenon. To capitalise on those strengths, the authors argue, researchers must take care in defining the boundaries of the case, use multiple information sources and ensure the transparency of their findings. Cheng (2018) offers a broader critique, observing that occupational science has relied on empirical observations in its attempts to generate evidence to support one of the discipline’s core assumptions: that occupation promotes health. Applying syllogisms, a rationalist method, Cheng reveals this premise to be illogical. That argument appears to lend support to recent critique that occupation can have either health promoting or health depleting impacts on individual and population health.

Teaching Occupation

Furthering their analysis of findings from a study of how occupation is addressed in occupational therapy curricula in the US, Taff, Price, Krishnagiri, Bilics, and Hooper (2018) selected data from a single interview where the dual occupations of teaching and learning were richly described. Innovatively applying interpretive processes drawn from a Ricœurian hermeneutic approach, they worked together to uncover a dynamic web of experiences of doing, being, belonging and becoming. The insights gained stimulated the researchers to make new connections between their own teaching and broader occupations, with the same potential open to readers. At a more pragmatic level, Huot, Raanaas, Laliberte Rudman, and Grimeland (2018) provide an insightful account of a partnership between universities in Canada and Norway. Their intention is to showcase how occupational and public health perspectives were integrated into a coherent interdisciplinary educational experience. While the teaching content addressed diverse health determinants, the real value of the partnership was in its mentorship of future researchers and health care practitioners. In a sense, this is the future Wilcock and Hocking’s (2015) Occupational Perspective of Health aspires to bring into being.

Portuguese Translation

The issue concludes on a celebratory note, with publication on the JOS website of our first article translated into another language. One of the top 10 articles downloaded in 2017, Borges da Costa and Cox's (2016) The Experience of Meaning in Circle Dance, was first published in 2016. It was subsequently translated in Portuguese and is now linked to the original article (Borges da Costa & Cox, 2018; doi:10.1080/14427591.2018.1469380). More exciting, this is just the beginning. At its meeting in 2016 meeting, the JOS Editorial Board recruited Dr Lilian Magalhães as the Spanish Associate Editor, charged with developing systems to receive and review submissions in Spanish. Cross translation into English is completed at the point of acceptance. We anticipate the first few articles, submitted from the 2016 Occupational Science Symposium in Chile, to be published before the end of the year.

ORCID

Clare Hocking http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0364-5157