The Emergence and Benefits of Social Relationships in Two Community-Based Dementia Choirs

Community choir participation for persons with dementia (PwD) confers benefits to health and well-being, including the benefit of socializing which can reduce feelings of loneliness and social isolation. Using the concept of social capital, this study examines the degree to which two intergenerational Voices in Motion choirs facilitate the development of social relationships between PwD, caregivers, and high school students. Data collection involved interviews with 17 dyads of PwD and caregivers, completion of a social relationship questionnaire, and focus groups with a total of 29 high school students. The results show a gradual increase in the level of interactions between all participants, with students in particular interacting more frequently with PwD. Over time, trust and reciprocity emerged within the choirs as more people shared information about themselves. Students’ understanding of dementia changed over time as they learned to appreciate PwD as unique human beings with rich life stories and experiences.

Cultural resistance in occupied Palestine and the use of creative international solidarity through song1

Protest song has been an important component of grassroots political struggles, and the Palestinian resistance to Zionist settler-colonization is no exception. This article draws on original research with activists in the Palestinian popular resistance on the impact of song during the first intifada (1987 to 1993) and more recently in the opposition to the segregation wall and accelerated colonization of the West Bank. The significance of international solidarity to the Palestinian struggle is noted, and the role of protest song in international solidarity is explored. The activities of Edinburgh-based community choir San Ghanny in using song as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinian popular anti-colonial struggle is analysed. Protest song is a globally recognizable form, which can help to build connections with social movements in different parts of the world and in different periods of history, which is both rooted in individual places and struggles, and also transcends these at the level of global solidarity.

Using PAR to Promote Social Justice for Older People and People with Intellectual Disabilities

Qualitative research methods and participatory action research (PAR) share many intrinsic and complementary qualities. We present two cases, one adopted a broader PAR approach, a health promotion project with men with intellectual disabilities, and the other used participatory methods within a longitudinal qualitative study exploring the benefits of community choir participation. We discuss the nature of the methods adopted and how they helped and hindered both research projects. We conclude that despite some common challenges, qualitative studies can benefit from drawing on PAR principles.

Convent Class Struggle: Lay Sisters and Choir Sisters in America

American Catholic sisterhoods of European origin usually featured a subgroup of servant nuns known as lay or coadjutrix sisters. Generally from poor backgrounds and with limited education, the coadjutrices did most of the physical labour in convents and were excluded from many of the privileges of choir sisters. Obliged to wear distinctive clothing that marked their inferior status, they were segregated from choir sisters during meals and recreation, denied opportunities for self-improvement, and excluded from singing the Divine Office and from governance of the community. Choir sisters, on the other hand, monopolized professional work, such as teaching, had access to higher education, and controlled all the leadership positions in the congregation. This paper examines the often difficult relations between lay and choir sisters and agitation by the former for better treatment and greater equality in the United States in the century prior to the Second Vatican Council.

Convent Class Struggle: Lay Sisters and Choir Sisters in America

American Catholic sisterhoods of European origin usually featured a subgroup of servant nuns known as lay or coadjutrix sisters. Generally from poor backgrounds and with limited education, the coadjutrices did most of the physical labour in convents and were excluded from many of the privileges of choir sisters. Obliged to wear distinctive clothing that marked their inferior status, they were segregated from choir sisters during meals and recreation, denied opportunities for self-improvement, and excluded from singing the Divine Office and from governance of the community. Choir sisters, on the other hand, monopolized professional work, such as teaching, had access to higher education, and controlled all the leadership positions in the congregation. This paper examines the often difficult relations between lay and choir sisters and agitation by the former for better treatment and greater equality in the United States in the century prior to the Second Vatican Council.

How the Show Goes On: Using the Aesthetic Experience of Collective Performance to Adapt while Coordinating

Coordinating in action groups consists of continuously adapting behaviors in response to fluctuating conditions, ideally with limited disruption to a group’s collective performance. Through an 18-month ethnography of how members of a community choir maintained beautiful, ongoing performance, I explored how they continuously adapted their coordinating, starting when they felt that their collective performance was fragmented or falling apart. The process model I developed shows that this aesthetic experience—the sense of fragmentation based on inputs from the bodily senses—leads to emotional triggering, meaning group members’ emotions prompt changes in their attention and behavior. They then distribute their attention in new ways, increasing their focus on both global qualities of their ongoing performance (in this context, the musical score and conductor) and local qualities (singers’ contributions). My findings suggest that by changing what aspects of a situation compose their immediate experience, action group members can adapt their coordinating behaviors by changing their heed: the behavior that demonstrates their attentiveness and awareness. The intertwining of attention and emotions helps explain how groups move between heedless and heedful interrelating over time, leading to an aesthetic experience of collective performance as being whole or coherent. My research shows that embodied forms of cognition (what we know from direct experience of an environment) complement accounts of how representational forms of knowledge (what we know from symbols, concepts, or ideas) facilitate real-time adaptation in groups. These insights have implications for a range of organizations engaged in complex action group work.

THE EMERGENCE AND BENEFITS OF SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS IN TWO COMMUNITY-BASED DEMENTIA CHOIRS

Community choir participation for persons with dementia (PwD) confers benefits to health and well-being, including the benefit of socializing which can reduce feelings of loneliness and social isolation. Using the concept of social capital, this study examines the degree to which two intergenerational Voices in Motion choirs facilitate the development of social relationships between PwD, caregivers, and high school students. Data collection involved interviews with 17 dyads of PwD and caregivers, completion of a social relationship questionnaire, and focus groups with a total of 29 high school students. The results show a gradual increase in the level of interactions between all participants, with students in particular interacting more frequently with PwD. Over time, trust and reciprocity emerged within the choirs as more people shared information about themselves. Students’ understanding of dementia changed over time as they learned to appreciate PwD as unique human beings with rich life stories and experiences.

Using PAR to promote social justice for older people and people with intellectual disabilities

Qualitative research methods and participatory action research (PAR) share many intrinsic and complementary qualities. We present two cases, one adopted a broader PAR approach, a health promotion project with men with intellectual disabilities, and the other used participatory methods within a longitudinal qualitative study exploring the benefits of community choir participation. We discuss the nature of the methods adopted and how they helped and hindered both research projects. We conclude that despite some common challenges, qualitative studies can benefit from drawing on PAR principles.