In the summer of 2020, the death of George Floyd - yet another unarmed Black man killed at the hands of police - thrust race and racism to the forefront of public attention in the United States. ...Across the country, demonstrators and protestors mobilized to end police brutality, one mechanism of systemic racism in this country's history and present. As this paper explores, occupation too has played a role in the systemic racism against Black people in the United States. In recent years, occupational scientists have critiqued tacit assumptions regarding the qualities and effects of occupation. The following examination contributes to this growing body of critical literature and considers that occupation can be a vehicle for injustice as much as justice. By investigating the construction of race and the dissemination of racism, including its propagation through everyday living, the role of occupation in community formation and development is more fully understood. In pursuing this goal, we hope to reveal the real and often unacknowledged history of racism in the United States that must be recognized and confronted to move toward reconciliation, healing, and social transformation. This exploration uncovers powerful moments when occupation and everyday doing were conduits through which racism was constructed and calls upon occupational scholars to be reflective and critical in their research and practice in order to optimally support the people they serve.
Understanding the effect of the environment is fundamental to grasping the occupational experiences of nonbinary individuals. Current research in occupational science addresses the occupations of the ...transgender population but often fails to distinguish between the binary and nonbinary experience. There is an absence of occupational science research that solely focuses on the nonbinary experience. This study focuses on nonbinary individuals and aims to illuminate the environmental factors that support or hinder occupational engagement for nonbinary individuals. Using a descriptive qualitative research design, we conducted two interviews per participant and photo-elicitation. Data analysis resulted in three themes: binary environments and safe spaces, navigating binary spaces through doing gender and avoiding unsafe spaces, and undoing gender through occupation. These themes capture the experience of occupations within the environment for nonbinary people involved doing, being, and becoming nonbinary gender. Each of these responses depended on how safe and welcoming the environment was perceived to be. Our findings illuminate that the process of doing nonbinary gender is a reciprocal relationship between the person, their occupations, and the environment, and support the complex nature of occupation for diverse populations that fall outside the dominant binary culture.
The percentage of Latinx immigrants over the age of 65 in the United States is expected to more than double within the next 30 years. These elders face particular health and occupational disparities ...emerging from a transaction of individual and sociocultural factors that warrants attention by both service providers and researchers. This study employed an ethnographic approach including interviews, observations, document review, and group mapping activities. It sought to explore a county senior center as it evolves toward greater inclusion of Spanish-speaking members who are increasingly agentic in their community occupations despite facing initial constraints. John Dewey's philosophy is employed alongside critical theoretical perspectives to illuminate the juxtaposition of individual vulnerability and agency interwoven with structural elements. The communal growth experienced by the senior center and the Spanish-speaking elders is characterized by social relationships that transform, and are transformed by, shared occupation. For occupational scientists, the results offer an expanded understanding of communal occupation and its influence on community change, in this case focused on a marginalized population integrating into dominant cultural spaces and practices.
The purpose of the study was to investigate the association between occupational balance and well-being in older adults. The sample was 2,142 older adults (aged 65 and older; mean age=73.4; 59.6% ...female) from the American Time-Use Survey (ATUS). Work and leisure time use was reported as the amount of time (min) spent on work and leisure occupations in the 24-hour day. A median split of total time spent on both work and leisure was used to create 4 time-use groups: high work-high leisure = active balanced; high work-low leisure = work-focused; low work-high leisure = leisure-focused; and low work-low leisure = inactive balanced. Well-being was rated from 0 (the worst possible life) to 10 (the best possible life). Results showed that the active balanced group had significantly higher well-being than the inactive balanced group, after controlling for perceived health and well-restedness (p<0.05). There were no significant differences between any other group combinations (e.g., leisure-focused vs. work-focused and work-focused vs. active-balanced). These findings are consistent with the occupational science literature indicating the importance of active participation in both work and leisure occupations for higher well-being and extended to the older adult population.
Rationale: Only a small proportion of mothers who delivered babies admitted to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) were able to hold them within the first hour following birth. For the majority, ...this separation left them feeling responsible for their infant's ill health and powerless in their recovery. Exploring how these feelings and becoming a mother in the NICU impacts the occupational role of mothering may assist with better supporting mothers during their infant's NICU stay and following discharge. Objective: To examine mothers' lived experiences of their infant's NICU stay and how it may impact their occupational role of mothering. Method: Six online databases (CINAHL, PubMed, PsycINFO, Gender Studies Database, Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts) were searched using key words, retrieving 352 articles. A total of 12 studies were retained for appraisal after screening title, abstract, and full text reviews. Findings: Thematic analysis identified three themes: 1) struggling to claim the maternal role, 2) lack of psychological readiness, and 3) seeking connection with one's infant. Conclusions: This review offers an occupational perspective to the disruption new mothers experience as the result of the NICU environment and psychological distress that might limit their ability to fulfill mothering occupations such as breastfeeding. This shift in perspective may support women to engage more fully in the occupations associated with becoming a mother and adapting into the new situation.
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