Roles of community interpreters in pediatrics as seen by interpreters, physicians and researchers

Interpreting ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvan Leanza

This paper is an attempt at defining more clearly the various roles of community interpreters and the processes implicitly connected with each of them. While the role of the interpreter is a subject that has been widely discussed in the social science literature, it is less present in the biomedical one, which tends to emphasize the importance of interpreting in overcoming language barriers, rather than as a means of building bridges between patients and physicians. Hence, studies looking at interpreted medical interactions suggest that the presence of an interpreter is more beneficial to the healthcare providers than to the patient. This statement is illustrated by the results of a recent study in a pediatric outpatient clinic in Switzerland. It is suggested that, in the consultations, interpreters act mainly as linguistic agents and health system agents and rarely as community agents. This is consistent with the pediatricians’ view of the interpreter as mainly a translating machine. A new typology of the varying roles of the interpreter is proposed, outlining the relation to cultural differences maintained therein. Some recommendations for the training of interpreters and healthcare providers are suggested.

1988 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thorolfur Thorlindsson

The centrality of the skipper to the economic and social organization of fishing is based on the assumption that he plays an important role in fishing success. This crucial assumption has recently been hotly debated in the social science literature in various contexts. In this study an attempt is made to estimate the role of the skipper in fishing success. The study is based on data from the Icelandic summer herring fishery from the years 1959, 1960 and 1961. The analysis of the data shows a correlation ranging from .59 to .70 for the skippers' catches between fishing seasons. When relevant variables—size of boat and time spent fishing—are controlled for, correlation for skippers' catches between seasons remains high (Beta = .52 and .53). Further, analysis of case histories of individual skippers and other qualitative evidence support the view that the skipper plays a central role in fishing success. Finally, results are discussed in the context of current social science debate around the folk belief in the skipper effect.


Author(s):  
George W. Breslauer

Strategies of modernization are legion within the social science literature. Stalin’s Revolution from Above—but not the Great Terror—is set within this literature as a revolutionary, as opposed to a reformist, strategy. Features of the revolutionary strategy may have been considered necessary to urgently create the capacity to defend the country in a hostile world. But the extent of revolutionary violence against the peasantry cannot be justified in those terms.


2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey Joseph ◽  
Kate Emmett ◽  
Joha Louw-Potgieter

Orientation: Pay-for-performance (PFP) systems emerged during the 1980s as performance improvement tools. However, research findings have shown contradictory evidence as to whether these systems motivate employees to improve their performance. Research purpose: The main aim of this evaluation was to assess whether a PFP system, which a South African university introduced for administrative employees, improved their performance. A secondary aim was to examine whether the university implemented the system as it intended to.Motivation for the evaluation: The motivation for this evaluation was to add to the social science literature on the effectiveness of PFP systems. There are many contradictions in the literature and further exploration of whether these systems deliver their intended outcomes seemed overdue.Research design, approach and method: The evaluators used a descriptive design. They administered a customised questionnaire, to which 391 university staff members responded. Of these, 129 were line managers and 262 were administrative staff.Main findings: The administrative staff, whose working lives the PFP system affected, thought that it did not improve their performance. Both line managers and administrative staff indicated that the pay aspect of the system did not differentiate between poor and excellent performance.Practical/managerial implications: The evaluators made practical recommendations for improving the implementation of the system.Contribution/value-add: This evaluation contributed to the social science literature on the effectiveness of PFP systems by showing that poor implementation rather than poor design often lies at the root of a system that does not deliver its intended outcomes.


Daedalus ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
pp. 140-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan S. Silbey

In American public imagination, courts are powerful but also impotent. They are guardians of citizens' rights but also agents of corporate wealth; simultaneously the least dangerous branch and the ultimate arbiters of fairness and justice. After recounting the social science literature on the mixed reception of courts in American public culture, this essay explains how the contradictory embrace of courts and law by Americans is not a weakness or flaw, nor a mark of confusion or naïveté. Rather, Americans' paradoxical interpretations of courts and judges sustain rather than undermine our legal institutions. These opposing accounts are a source of institutional durability and power because they combine the historical and widespread aspirations for the rule of law with a pragmatic recognition of the limits of institutional practice; these sundry accounts balance an appreciation for the discipline of legal reasoning with desires for responsive, humane judgment.


1962 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Stuckert ◽  
Irwin D. Rinder

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. p39
Author(s):  
Leehu Zysberg

In the popular media and from time to time in the social science literature, voices are heard describing a process of social disintegration and the deterioration of common values in western societies. What may account for this fragmentation? This article uses the theoretical framework of the prisoner’s dilemma to conceptualize the phenomenon, analyze its causes and processes, and to try and outline directions for dealing with it, using processes and data regarding the Israeli society in recent years.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Hoogeveen ◽  
Alexandra Sarafoglou ◽  
Eric-Jan Wagenmakers

Large-scale collaborative projects recently demonstrated that several key findings from the social-science literature could not be replicated successfully. Here we assess the extent to which a finding’s replication success relates to its intuitive plausibility. Each of 27 high-profile social science findings was evaluated by 233 people without a PhD in psychology. Results showed that these laypeople predicted replication success with above-chance accuracy (i.e., 59%). In addition, when participants were informed about the strength of evidence from the original studies, this boosted their prediction performance to 67%. We discuss the prediction patterns and apply signal detection theory to disentangle detection ability from response bias. Our study suggests that laypeople’s predictions contain useful information for assessing the probability that a given finding will replicate successfully.


2000 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. N. Eisenstadt

Japan constitutes a very interesting and paradoxical case from the point of view of the place of trust in the processes of institution building and institutional dynamics. This problem has, of course, been the basic thrust of Durkheim's emphasis on the importance of precontractual elements for the fulfillment of contracts seemingly dealing with purely ‘utilitarian’ considerations. But this crucial insight – and problematic – has not been systematically followed up in the social science literature. Only lately it has been again taken up – initially, perhaps paradoxically – from within various rational choice approaches which have come to recognize that continuity of patterns of social interaction and of institutional frameworks cannot be explained by purely rational-utilitarian considerations (Braithwaite and Levi, 1998; Kramer and Tyler, 1993). At the same time the more recent analyses have also pointed to some of the complexities, paradoxes; and problems of the construction of trust in social interaction and institution building.


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