Berth Danermark

The purpose of this article is to present some recent contributions to discussions on social justice and recognition in the context of disability research. Nancy Fraser's theory of redistribution and recognition, and her endeavour to include both a materialist and a cultural perspective in a theory of justice is examined. We also discuss Honneth's Hegelian‐informed model of recognition. Critical realism, emphasizing a non‐reductionist perspective, is briefly presented and, finally, we put forward some ideas on how to analyse and understand disability within such a framework.

This article summarizes results from a study of hearingimpaired men and women in the labour force in Sweden. A questionnaire about psychosocial work environment (in accordance with the Demand-Control Model), health and wellbeing was sent out and answered by 445 hearingimpaired people, 20-64 years of age. A large reference group had previously answered the same questionnaire. The results indicate that imbalances between demand and control (i.e. high demand and low control, so-called high stress work type) is more common among hearingimpaired people than in the reference group. The outcome of the combination high demand and low control among hearing-impaired people is (much) worse than among hearing-impaired people with other work types ( passive, active, low stress). Hearing-impaired people with the high-stress work type more frequently report bad physical health status and psychological wellbeing regarding a number of indicators. There is, moreover, a tendency for women to be worse off than men. Our data suggest that those involved in audiological rehabilitation should pay great attention to hearing-impaired people with jobs that can be characterized as high stress. Este artículo resume los resultados de un estudio en hombres y mujeres con hipoacusia, trabajadores de Suecia. Se distribuyó un cuestionario sobre el ambiente laboral psico-social (de acuerdo con el Modelo Demanda-Control), salud y bienestar, y fue contestado por 445 personas con trastornos auditivos, con edades entre 20 y 64 an˜os. Un grupo de referencia grande había respondido previamente el mismo cuestionario. Los resultados indican que los desbalances entre la demanda y el control (p.e., alta demanda y bajo control, el llamado tipo de trabajo de alto estrés) son más comunes entre personas con trastornos auditivos que en el grupo de referencia. El resultado de la combinación alta demanda y bajo control en gente hipoacúsica es (mucho) peor que en gente hipoacúsica con otros tipos de trabajos (pasivos, activos, bajo estrés). Las personas hipoacúsicas con el tipo de trabajo de alto estrés reportan más frecuentemente un mal estado de salud física y de bienestar psicológico, de acuerdo con un número de indicadores. Existe, más aún, una tendencia de que esto afecta más a las mujeres que a los hombres. Nuestros datos sugieren que aquellos involucrados en rehabilitación audiológica deberían prestar más atención a la gente con trastornos auditivos con trabajos que pueden caracterizarse como de alto estrés.

The purpose of this article is to examine differences and similarities in working conditions and health status between men and women with hearing impairments. This article is based on a material collected with a comprehensive questionnaire, looking at psycho-social work environments and health status and answered by a total of 406 patients at two audiological clinics in Sweden. Examination of the data reveals a pattern of unfavourable conditions for hearing-impaired persons/employees when compared to a reference group without auditory impairments. Hearing-impaired women frequently find themselves in extremely trying situations. Health status is worse for those who are hearing impaired as compared to the reference group, especially for hearing impaired women The concept "double workload" is discussed as a possible notion for further theoretical development of the issues discussed in this article.

The aim of this article is to highlight some elements (e.g. the view on truth, causality, context and methods) in three different meta-theoretical approaches to assessment and to discuss their implications', external realism, critical realism, and anti-realism. Although there are many differences between external realism and anti-realism, their main shortcoming is the failure to answer one of the basic questions in assessment research: ‘What works for whom in what circumstances?’ In order to answer this question, one needs a deep-structure ontology and a theory including mechanisms and contexts, which one finds in critical realism. An adequate approach to an evaluation process can be described as follows. The point of departure is a theory describing how mechanisms work in context and what the expected outcomes are. Hypotheses are formulated suggesting answers to the question ‘What might work for whom in what circumstances?’ Data are collected in order to answer the question. Different methods are used which can shed light on the phenomenon. The outcome of the evaluation process is to find the conditions under which a specific outcome is produced.