Sociologist to Document Workplace Harassment of Older Workers
Contact: Amy Blackstone, 581-2392; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — UMaine sociologist Amy Blackstone has received a $125,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to fund a two-year study of workplace harassment of older workers in Maine.
Conventional thinking may associate workplace harassment with younger or culturally different demographic groups, but given the state’s aging workforce, Blackstone says now is an especially important time to become familiar with the workplace experiences of older adults. Beginning this fall, the assistant professor of sociology will survey as many as 800 Maine workers, age 62 and older, to determine how they perceive and handle harassment at work.
Blackstone hopes to find out how stature at work affects harassment experiences, and how stature at work, home and in the community may affect responses to those experiences.
By bringing together several areas of sociological inquiry, including age, power, victimization and mobilization, the study will provide new information, which could be used as the basis for modifying policies or employment laws to raise awareness about situations that may create opportunities for employee harassment or discrimination. The findings from the study will be published, and used to develop a larger-scale comparative investigation of workplace harassment over worker life cycles.
It also will promote teaching, training and learning by engaging UMaine undergraduate and graduate-level research assistants, offering students experience with data collection, analysis, writing and collaboration with local agencies.