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This chapter explores the parental experiences of 21 mothers of young and/or adult children who have been diagnosed with developmental disabilities (DD). Specific attention is paid to mothers’ reflections on marginalization, stress, and resiliency. Intersectionality of marginalization was explored with a select number of participants who identified with minority racial groups, with the LGBTQ community, and/or as a single or young mother. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews and analyzed using the constant comparative method. Eighteen mothers reported experiencing elevated levels of stress specifically related to challenges associated with DD; the need for greater investments of time and money was emphasized. However, nearly every participant highlighted stories of resilience and acclimation to these challenges associated with raising a child with DD. Thirteen mothers overtly discussed experiences of discrimination and marginalization. Some of these scenarios included being stared at or criticized in public, being excluded from social events, and facing discrimination within school settings. Select participants from marginalized backgrounds (being as a young parent, or as Black, single, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender) provided insight into how layers of marginalization negatively impacted their parental experiences. These personal accounts provide additional evidence that mothers of children with DD experience courtesy stigma. In addition, they provide a holistic illustration of motherhood experiences that does not center on only negative or positive aspects. Finally, the reports of mothers who identified with multiple marginalized identities strengthen the call for additional empirical focus on intersectionality as it concerns mothers of children with DD.

Current open innovation (OI) and external knowledge search (EKS) research primarily shows a positive linear relationship between EKS and innovation at an individual level. However, organizational scholarship argues that excessive EKS may harm innovation. This study combines the knowledge-based view (KBV) and attention-based view (ABV) to articulate a nonlinear theory of EKS and innovation at the individual level.

The authors constructed a multi-sourced dataset covering 59,798 USA pharmaceutical patents spanning from 1975 to 2014 and employed negative binomial fixed-effect models to examine theoretical hypotheses.

We find a significant concave curvilinear relationship between EKS and innovation quantity as well as innovation quality at an individual level. An individual’s knowledge breadth and depth moderate the relationship between EKS and innovation, such that the threshold at which EKS has diminishing returns for individual innovation is higher for inventors with a broad range of knowledge and those with deeper expertise in the domain where they are innovating.

Managers should guide inventors toward a moderate investment of time and effort in EKS and should caution against over searching. Besides, managers should recognize that an inventor’s capacity for EKS is determined in part by their breadth of knowledge across various domains as well as the depth of knowledge they have in the knowledge domain where they are innovating.

We provide both parties with a clearer understanding of when EKS can begin to deteriorate an individual’s innovation performance why that deterioration occurs, and we also highlight two individual-level knowledge characteristics to take into consideration when deciding when to cease the EKS process.

This study provides a novel holistic understanding of OI and knowledge management for policymakers and organizations to nourish innovation dynamism and make the best of knowledge stocks in the community, which in turn will create endless power for sustainable social change and inclusive development.

This study contributes to OI theory by highlighting the non-linear nature of the relationship between EKS and innovation on an individual level. This represents a fundamental shift in theory on EKS and individual innovation by suggesting a major rethinking of how the two concepts relate, revealing the dark side of EKS in knowledge management if inventors engage in excessive EKS. Likewise, our study’s incorporation of the ABV informs KBV scholarship by highlighting the role of the limited attentional capacity of individuals in firm knowledge management.

This paper presents an updated summary of a meta-analysis of qualitative research on parenting children with disabilities published over the last 50 years. In this summary, we explore whether shifts in academic discourse and changes in professional training are reflected in research on parenting and/or the experiences of parents who are the subject of such research. The detailed findings of the original analysis were published in Volume 7 of Research in Social Science and Disability.

An extensive literature search was conducted, and 79 peer-reviewed qualitative studies on the experience of parenting a child with a disability were included in the sample. Themes were extracted from the reviewed literature and compared across decades.

The findings of the present review suggest that some aspects of the parenting experience have changed very little. In particular, parents continue to experience negative reactions such as stress and anomie, especially early in their children’s lives, and socially imposed barriers such as unhelpful professionals and a lack of needed services continue to create problems and inspire an entrepreneurial response. In addition, stigmatizing encounters with others continue to be a common occurrence. In contrast to earlier decades, studies conducted in more recent years have begun to use the social model of disability as an analytic frame and also increasingly report that parents are questioning and challenging the concept of “normal” itself.

Additional improvements are needed in professional education and services to reduce the negative reactions experienced by parents of children with disabilities. The findings of this meta-analysis can serve as a guide to future research on parenting children with disabilities.

This chapter reviews qualitative research on parenting children with disabilities published over the last 50 years to explore whether shifts in academic discourse and changes in professional training have affected research on parenting and/or the experiences of parents who are the subject of such research.

An extensive literature search was conducted, and 78 peer-reviewed, qualitative studies on the experience of parenting a child with a disability were included in the sample. Themes were extracted from the reviewed literature and compared across decades.

The findings of the present review suggest that some aspects of the parenting experience have changed very little. In particular, parents continue to experience negative reactions such as stress and anomie, especially early in their children’s lives, and socially imposed barriers such as unhelpful professionals, and a lack of needed services continue to create problems and inspire an entrepreneurial response. In addition, stigmatizing encounters with others continue to be a common occurrence. In contrast to earlier decades, studies conducted in more recent years have begun to use the social model of disability as an analytic frame and also increasingly report that parents are questioning and challenging the concept of “normal” itself.

Additional improvements are needed in professional education and services to reduce the negative reactions experienced by parents of children with disabilities.

The findings of this meta-analysis can serve as a guide to future research on parenting children with disabilities.

Using queer/crip theory as a frame, I examine the narratives of 17 mothers raising children with disabilities.

Results show that the mothers’ narratives of an imagined future for their children often involve the idea of success in terms of production and reproduction. However, some mothers do question this idea of normalcy, challenge deeply seated ideas about neoliberal inclusion, and reframe disability as a different way of existing as opposed to a deficient way of being.

The focus of this paper is on how mothers imagine different kinds of social arrangements. Some mothers, instead of embracing success as narrowly defined under neoliberalism, challenge the idea and instead offer queer narratives of parenting. This study illustrates how counternarratives can be constructed to resist prevailing narratives of disability as deficiency.

The role of caregivers and issues of parenting are controversial in research on disability. While appreciating the historical and political reasons to critique power relations in care systems and care relations, we argue that it is important to consider parents' and other caregivers' positions. A reconsideration provides insights into pervasive effects of ableism defining not only the individual child but parents and other relatives as well. We draw from extensive research on couples parenting a child with disability in Germany (Tröndle, 2022a). This study seeks to understand how parents of a child with disability cannot avoid understanding themselves as “special parents.” Through analyzing shared life stories of couples and individual biographies, the study reconstructs how identities evolve differently depending on their work-sharing arrangements. Based on our findings, the couples experience difficulties in maintaining dual employment arrangements. They become “unable” to step outside of the logic of welfare and health provision and structures of the labor market. Couples begin to explain their situation and the discrimination they experience by reflecting themselves as “special parents.” Heteronormative and ableist expectations hinder them in articulating resistance and gaining agency as allies of their children, facilitating positions of complicity. We argue that the approach suggested by this study – namely including the ambiguous situation of caregivers in Disability Studies – can encourage other researchers to consider othering and ableism of and by caregivers.

Public librarians throughout North America now support physical activity. One sees this function in the emergence and diffusion of new programs and services, such as librarians checking out exercise equipment, as well as in librarians actually sponsoring exercise classes. This chapter focuses on understanding this type of work. The first part looks at five different frameworks – the library as place, community-led librarianship, whole person librarianship, community health, and recreation and leisure – that each in different ways enable one to understand how supporting physical activity could become part of the work of public librarians. Focus then shifts to understanding empirically how public librarians in the US and Canada enact and understand this work. Research shows that this role has become more integral and expected in youth services than in adult services. Library staff themselves are more likely to lead movement-based programs for youth than for adults. The discussion then shifts to the implications of this trend in terms of evidence-based practice and multidisciplinary discussions on how and why to increase physical activity throughout society. The conclusion suggests additional work needed to understand this and other poorly understood functions of public librarians.

Purpose – The transition into motherhood is a major life course event for most women, and is one that can be fraught with difficulties due to the uncertainty and instability which accompanies it. Previous research has explored what factors interplay within this transition with identity changes being considered a key attribute. By using assemblage theory, this study aims to undertake an innovative approach to conceptualising identity. Assemblage theory permitted an exploration of how an identity comes to be assembled and embodied through a mother’s relationality with the social world around her as opposed to merely exploring identity as a static entity of a fixed, organic whole as has predominantly been done previously. Assemblage theory is premised upon understanding processes of becoming as opposed to states of being and as such takes a machinic approach to understanding wholes. Rather than being organic totalities, they are conceptualised as being transient and fluid entities comprising an amalgamation of interchangeable components which collectively stabilise to make up the whole. At times of change, an individual’s ties to an identity undergo deterritorialisation, or weaken, as their sense of self and identity readjusts before then experiencing reterritorialisation once they (re)established their ties to a new identity or role. By conceptualising the mothers as assemblages in this manner, it became possible to understand how the women reconstructed their selves and identities through the situated practices and experiences in their everyday lives as they established ties to their new role as a mother.

Methodology/Approach – Results are presented from biographical narrative interviews with 10 mothers each at different stages in motherhood. The interviews focussed on inducing uninterrupted narratives detailing the lived experiences of these women as they transitioned into and across motherhood. These interviews highlighted key stages in the transition into motherhood where a woman’s identity and sense of self would become destabilised and reformulated as a result of changes in her everyday lived experiences and routines.

Findings – Transitioning into motherhood proved to be a multifaceted process that comprises numerous stages where the new mothers identities would become unstable and deterritorialise as they faced new routines in their everyday life as they became a mother and settled into the role. Four dominant themes emerged during data analysis; emotional turmoil, the reconstruction of relationships, getting comfortable with their baby as well as rediscovering the self. The women largely experienced emotional turmoil as their identities became deterritorialised and reported that the relationships they held with others around them often changed or broke down entirely. It was not until they became comfortable with their baby and their role as a mother that they were able to rediscover their ‘self’ beyond simply being a mother. Once they reached this stage in the transition their identity was able to reterritorialise, becoming more stable as a result.

Originality/Value – This study not only presents an innovative method for conceptualising identity but also demonstrates the value of assemblage theory for conceptualising identity formulation and capturing the fluid and emergent nature of such processes. It demonstrates how assemblage theory can be utilised to further understandings of the multifaceted and ongoing nature of life course transitions. This study sheds light on the potential for assemblage theory to be utilised across a range of sociological topics relating to identity formulation, with such studies having the potential to really broaden the scope of sociological understandings of identity formation and life course transitions.

Although economic and entrepreneurship scholars have argued that high income inequality has a positive impact on entrepreneurship by increasing the incentives for high quality human capital to take entrepreneurial risk and by enabling talented entrepreneurs to accumulate and reinvest capital into new businesses, we suggest that the relationship between economic inequality and entrepreneurship may be more complex than initially indicated in light of recent research on the topic of social trust and entrepreneurship. We propose that income inequality is likely to have a curvilinear effect on entrepreneurial activity. Although moderate levels of inequality can increase entrepreneurial activity, very high levels of inequality will begin to reduce rates of entrepreneurship due to diminished generalized social trust in the community. Lower generalized social trust decreases the sharing of information and resources leading to fewer entrepreneurial opportunities, and as a result, lower levels of entrepreneurship.