Research Article
Jenna S. Abetz, Lynsey K. Romo, Katelin A. Mueller, Mary Obiol
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 1-19
ABSTRACT
Although conflicting rhetoric around body image––namely the “thin is best” mentality and the body positivity movement––exists in the U.S., the ways in which these competing discourses surface and interact within dieters' communication has not been comprehensively examined. Thus, utilizing Relational Dialectics Theory 2.0 to conduct an in-depth analysis of 38 interviews, our study sought to uncover how weight discourses are negotiated by individuals who have reported weight cycling. Participants voiced two overarching discourses: the discourse of body acceptance and the discourse of the superiority of thinness. We found that synchronic interplay was present in participants’ talk, where they negated, countered, or entertained these centered discourses. Our findings help elucidate the nuanced feelings toward weight present in society and highlight the power of weight-related messaging. In doing so, this study aims to provide insights into how weight-related discourses are experienced, communicated, and resisted in everyday interactions, offering a richer understanding of how interpersonal and societal forces intersect in shaping body image and health behaviors.
Keywords: Weight cycling; relational dialectics theory; contrapuntal analysis; dieting
Research Article
Dimakatso Joseph
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 20-41
ABSTRACT
Most of the developing countries are experiencing an increasing population of elderly persons aged 60 years. The main contributing factor to this is the increase in life expectancy, which has been experienced in recent times thanks to improvements in general health. A majority of these elderly persons reside in rural areas, with an increasing number of them residing alone in a household. Consequently, a majority of the elderly residing in rural areas face challenges impacting their lives. This paper reports the findings of a study that explored the lived experience of elderly persons living alone in rural areas of Botswana. The study used a case study research design and collected data from a sample of 12 elderly persons aged 60 years and above living alone, using in-depth interviews and observation. Data were analyzed manually following a qualitative data analysis procedure developed by Faherty (2010). Five key themes emerged to explain the lived experiences of elderly persons: (i) level of autonomy, (ii) multiple losses in life, (iii) attachment and belonging to a place, (iv) problems with basic necessities of life, and (v) dissatisfaction with living alone. These themes capture positive and negative situations experienced by elderly persons. Positively, living alone has given these elderly persons a certain level of autonomy in managing their lives. In contrast, most of them experienced distressing multiple losses structuring their lives. They receive inadequate social support from their family and community. Some of them lived in poor housing conditions, and they relied solely on old-age pensions for survival. The study concluded that elderly persons living alone in rural areas need integrated support services from family, community, government and non-governmental structures in order to live dignified lives. The introduction of an all-encompassing program of care and support involving all these key stakeholders is thus recommended.
Keywords: Botswana, elderly persons, lived experiences, living alone, rural areas
Research Article
Sara Santarossa, Ashley Redding, Dana Murphy
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 42-61
ABSTRACT
Long COVID-19 has emerged as a significant public health problem, and understanding the long COVID-19 journey is paramount to patient-centered care. Virtual body mapping (VBM) was used to gain a deeper understanding of both shared and differing experiences of patients with long COVID-19. There were 3 VBM sessions (each 2 hours). Session topics included (1) The Long COVID-19 Experience, (2) The Life of a COVID-19 Long Hauler, and (3) Resilience and Coping. Guided and structured by VBM sessions and corresponding exercises, an adapted method for visual analysis influenced by constructivist grounded theory focused on the following data outputs: body maps, testimonios, and keys. Robust data outputs included 19 COVID-19 long haulers who primarily identified as women (N = 15) and of White race (N = 11). Visual data included powerful colors, images, and words to describe the embodied experience of people living with long COVID-19. Textual data narrated journeys of COVID-19 long haulers, providing heartfelt and honest depictions of ‘Life before, during, and after COVID-19’. This study adds to the limited literature around in-depth qualitative interpretation of body maps and introduces VBM as a relevant person-centered qualitative method for exploring chronic disease.
Keywords: Arts-based Methodology, Body Mapping, Long COVID-19, Patient-centered, SARS-CoV-2
Research Article
Vedat Demir
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 62-78
ABSTRACT
This article examines the growing prevalence of populism in global political communication, with a focus on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It analyzes the interplay between Erdoğan's populist discourse and hate speech, with the aim of highlighting the central role that hate speech against political opposition plays in his rhetoric. The article argues that Erdoğan’s polarizing populist rhetoric functions as a euphemism for hate speech and seeks to trace its development in his political speeches. Additionally, the research identifies the specific expressions of hate speech employed by Erdoğan, evaluates their intensity, and explores how his discourse constructs and perpetuates a political 'other.'
Keywords: Populism, populist discourse, polarization, hate speech, Turkey, Erdoğan
Research Article
Allan Edward Barsky, David Simpson
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 79-96
ABSTRACT
In 2023, the state of Florida enacted legislation that imposed significant restrictions on access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender and gender-diverse individuals. These restrictions included a comprehensive ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors, with some exceptions for minors already receiving treatment. For adults, access was restricted by prohibiting nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and physician’s assistants from prescribing or administering hormone therapies. Further restrictions were effected by prohibiting Medicaid from funding gender-affirming medical care and by requiring in-person consent, thereby excluding telehealth options for consent. This study investigated the impacts of these restrictions by inviting licensed mental health professionals to share their experiences of how their practices with transgender and gender-diverse clients had changed since implementation of this law. Upon analyzing the interviews with these mental health professionals, six themes emerged: (1) Some participants stopped or reduced their services for transgender and gender diverse clients; (2) Some participants changed their practice to ensure safe and affirming spaces for their clients; (3) Some participants became more involved in advocacy and adaptating their services to help transgender and gender-diverse address the new challenges posed by SB-254; (4) Some participants experienced confusion, fear, and anxiety as a result of SB-254; (5) Some participants focused more on education and legal understanding; and (6) Although most participants indicated substantial changes in their practice, two participants suggested that SB-254 had no substantial impact on their practice with TGD clients.
Keywords: Gender-affirming medical care, transgender, gender diverse, mental health practice, law
Research Article
Christina Gilbert, Peter A Hausdorf, Harjinder Gill
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 97-117
ABSTRACT
When coping with a stressful event, some individuals attempt to alter the way in which the situation is understood or appraised to manage their negative emotions and promote adjustment. This is a form of coping known as meaning-making. Meaning-making has been discussed extensively in the coping research literature, however, the variability of terminology, theory, and measurement has hindered researchers’ ability to interpret, understand, and apply the concept. To address this issue, six individuals participated in in-depth semi-structured interviews to discuss their experience of using meaning to cope through a stressful event. Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used to examine how meaning was used throughout their coping process and how meaning contributed to the outcomes of their experience. Emergent themes were discovered and compared to two dominant meaning-making theories to identify consistencies, discrepancies, and novel findings. An integrated theory of meaning-making is proposed. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of the study are discussed.
Keywords: Meaning-making theory, coping, traumatic events, interpretive phenomenological analysis
Research Article
Lizet Zuñiga
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 118-134
ABSTRACT
Special education teachers face multiple professional career challenges, resulting in mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion. Although previous research has explored professional stressors and burnout for teachers, limited research has examined the interaction between professional and personal stressors and how teachers cope with these complex and compounding factors. This qualitative study explored special education teachers’ experiences working with students who faced emotional and behavioral difficulties and on work-life balance, and the strategies that these teachers employed to keep burnout at bay. The results reveal how stress associated with their jobs has impacted these teachers’ personal lives and their ability to cope with work-related burnout and prioritization of self-care. This study has strong implications for teachers and administrators and makes recommendations for both parties. These recommendations include establishing sustainable measures that can help alleviate teacher burnout, such as the implementation of mental health support and specialized training for staff and administrators to foster a supportive work environment.
Keywords: Burnout, work-life balance, self-care, coping, surviving, special education teacher
Research Article
Natilene Irain Bowker, Ella McLeod-Edwards
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 135-157
ABSTRACT
Under the umbrella of a critical feminist theoretical framework, this exploratory paper unpacks how six young women, residing in New Zealand, Canada and the UK, within the hospitality and tourism industry, discursively managed their COVID-19 lockdown and related experiences, amidst the social-psychological dilemma of being available and/or wanting to work, yet not being able to work. This study adds to a current gap in critical feminist tourism research by deploying six young women’s emotional experience of vulnerability as hospitality and tourism workers during a global crisis to generate nuanced understandings about how they used this vulnerable experience to gain empowerment and transformation. Data was collected via interviews between April and May 2021, and a discourse analysis was carried out on the interview transcripts underpinned by a social constructionist framework. The finding of an “adversity creates serendipity” repertoire and its resources of “luck,” “having the time,” and “appreciating things” offer ways of managing the challenges posed during the lockdown. Interwoven through an adversity creates serendipity repertoire was a social connectedness theme, which is examined in relation to the indigenous Māori concept of whanaungatanga. The findings are relevant because they demonstrate effective strategies for managing the adverse psycho-social affects of the COVID-19 lockdowns. The findings have application for a range of occupational sectors within society, where working remotely is not possible during a national pandemic lockdown or during other events leading to similar workplace limitations.
Keywords: COVID-19, discourse analysis, hospitality and tourism, young women, social connectedness
Research Article
Rebecca Zeidman, Sarah Prieto, Kimberly Muellers, Jenny Lin
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 158-175
ABSTRACT
To evaluate patients’ perception of treatment side effects associated with breast cancer and concomitant diabetes. Breast cancer survivors who had received chemotherapy or hormonal therapy for stage I-IIIA breast cancer in the preceding five years and had pre-existing type II diabetes were interviewed about their illness beliefs and experiences of treatment side effects. 19 women were interviewed, with a mean age of 63. Five (26%) self-identified as Black, six (32%) as White, and five (26%) as Latina. Four themes were identified: (1) Types of side effects, (2) Impact of side effects, (3) Attribution of side effects, and (4) Communication about side effects. Participants reported more side effects and a greater emotional and physical burden due to breast cancer treatment. Participants also reported insufficient communication from providers regarding treatment side effects for both breast cancer and diabetes, which further impacted patients’ illness perception. Participants reported a greater frequency, impact, and range of side effects from breast cancer treatment than from diabetes treatment but experienced confusion about which side effects were attributable to which treatment. Enhanced communication between healthcare providers and patients may mitigate confusion about treatment side effects among breast cancer survivors with comorbidities.
Keywords: cancer survivorship, breast cancer, diabetes mellitus, comorbidity, illness beliefs
Research Article
Jacinda Dariotis, Dana Eldreth, Sohyeon Kim, Liza Berdychevsky, Ye Rang Park, Rebecca Smith
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 176-206
ABSTRACT
The global COVID-19 pandemic had both detrimental and positive impacts on children, youth, and families. To inform policy and public health recommendations for future services, resources, and mandates, there is a need to take a more holistic approach to understanding stress, adaptations, role shifts, and resilience from multiple perspectives. Using an open-ended question format, this study surveyed parents, childcare providers, and youth (ages 12-17) about their experiences with the pandemic in general and changes observed in their children (adult participants) and themselves (youth participants). Data from 479 participants were analyzed. Via thematic content analysis, nine themes emerged that are organized into five categories: (1) Developmental, (2) impact on loss, (3) modified connections with others, (4) adjustment, and (5) mandate and financial woes. With developmental maturity also came developmental delays. Participants reported heightened anxiety, sadness, and fear of death and illness that is related to the fact that many experienced grief in many ways. Participants reported a variety of adaptive coping strategies that helped them appear resilient. The change to online schooling was particularly challenging for many parents and educators. Some perceived the pandemic mandates to be harmful without alternatives being considered. There is a cautionary tale to be told about public health acceptance and relevance for physical, psychological, and financial health. Families shifted their priorities. Connections with others were strained due to different opinions. Recommendations are offered in preparation for future pandemics that may help families, adults, and youth experience more silver linings and fewer thorns.
Keywords: COVID-19, parents, perspectives, qualitative, youth
Research Article
Barbara Dennis, Xiana Bueno, Ronna Turner, Brandon Crawford, Wen-Juo Lo, Kristen Jozkowski
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 207-235
ABSTRACT
Early on, researchers discovered that people’s talk about their attitudes and their behavioral manifestations often did not match up. In other words, asking directly about one’s attitudes does not necessarily reflect attitudes implicit to one’s behavior. This may be particularly relevant for socially contentious topics like abortion. Because some attitudes are not directly observable, researchers must figure out how to study them. Most attitude research has been conducted using large-scale surveys and questionnaires. While some survey research has posited scenarios through which respondents can manifest their attitudes, typically, asking people to construct hypothetical narratives is not common practice. However, for this study, we analyzed 155 in-depth interviews conducted in 2021 with English- and Spanish-speaking U.S. adults, asking interviewees to imagine making a movie or documentary about abortion. We used follow-up questions to dive more deeply into the details of their imagined films. These films were remarkably similar despite the interviewees’ placement on a quantitative spectrum of abortion attitudes from anti-abortion to endorsing reproductive choice. The authors used reconstructive techniques such as meaning field and reconstructive horizon analysis to articulate implicit attitudes central to the imagined films—those attitudes included “abortion is a choice,” “imagined gender assumptions about women,” and “abortion itself is unspeakable,” among others. These attitudes were pervasive regardless of the interviewee’s explicit abortion stance. These implicit attitudes emerged through the hypothetical opportunity to talk about abortion. Thus, this methodological paper primarily explores the potential of using hypotheticals in studying particularly polarized or sensitive attitudes.
Keywords: Abortion, hypotheticals, qualitative analysis, implicit attitudes
Research Article
Tunde Szecsi, Marianela Rivera, Thomas Szende
AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 236-256
ABSTRACT
The growing impact of globalization on communities underscores the importance of intercultural competence development in higher education. Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), a platform for global academic exchanges and cross-cultural engagement through digital storytelling, holds significant potential for enhancing intercultural competence. A COIL project focusing on the exploration of culture was designed and implemented in two courses, one in the United States and one in France. This case study examined how digital storytelling was used for students’ meaning-making process of culture and its impact on the emergence of their intercultural competence. We used content analysis of students’ digital stories about culture, their virtual conversations, and reflection papers to answer the research questions. The findings indicated that students used a variety of digital storytelling tools such as personal narratives, visual storytelling, reflective audio narration, and multimodal storytelling to represent their culture. With these tools, students demonstrated emergent outcomes of intercultural competence. This study supports the notion of creating authentic international learning communities in which students effectively use digital technologies to express and negotiate cultural representation. Implications for students, higher education professionals and administrators are offered.
Keywords: Digital storytelling, multimodality, intercultural competence, Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), meaning-making