Journal articles on the topic 'Social Work not elsewhere classified'

Documentaries about the use of Shakespeare in applied theatre publicise and endorse the work of practitioners to scholars as well as the general public, and have influenced the growth of academic interest in what this article terms Social Shakespeare: practices in which Shakespeare and social work interact with each other to bring about change. However, in the quest for touching and uplifting individual stories, such media treatments risk ignoring the actual values and strategies governing the work in favour of narratives that normalise social differences through emphasis on the transformative power of Shakespearean theatre, viewed as a sanctified space. Documentaries about three different constituencies – prisoners, young people with learning disabilities, and combat veterans – are examined to determine how far they locate the need for change in society rather than in the individual.

INTRODUCTION: Student hardship in social work has become the subject of research in recent years. Social work students face particular challenges because of the financial, social and emotional demands of long, unpaid, clinical placements. APPROACH: This article reports on a literature review conducted prior to a mixed-methods study commenced in 2019. This review informed the development of a survey of social work students and recent graduates and a set of qualitative interviews that will be reported elsewhere. A further review was conducted in July 2021 to inform the analysis. FINDINGS: A recurring theme throughout much of the reviewed social work literature examined for this project has been the intensity of struggle that students face in their study. Across the reviewed literature, students, educators, and researchers suggest interventions to reduce hardship. Gaps remain in our understanding of the intersectional factors of ethnicity, gender and disability and, in particular, the impact on Aotearoa New Zealand students.

The paper deals with the effects of prescriptivism on the Lithuanian language. The research includes one domain of language use – radio and television, and one aspect of language – lexicon, in the period between 1960 and 2010. The investigation is corpus-based and focuses on the use of words that are classified as “incorrect” by the Lithuanian norm-setters. The study is important both as a discussion of the impact of prescriptivism on language change in general, as well as of the indirect influence of media on language, since media can affect the symbolic evaluation of specific language forms.The paper consists of five chapters. The first chapter “Review of the research” discusses the theoretical assumptions and concepts needed for further analysis: it gives an overview of studies on the effects of prescriptivism conducted in Lithuania and elsewhere, presents the concepts of second-level indexicality and style, and outlines the key characteristics of media change in Lithuania that are relevant to the study. Studies on the success of prescriptivism do not give a definite answer as to whether prescriptivism works. Institutionalisation and a high degree of stigmatisation of the corrected language forms can be listed among the factors that increase its success; prescriptivism is likely to be less successful when the “forbidden” language forms are too convenient to be given up, or when prescriptivist rules are too complicated for lay language users and the rules contradict each other. In the case of media, the effect of prescriptivism is said to be weakened by media commercialisation.When applied to the analysis of non-standard words, first-order indexicality refers to situations when the non-standard forms are used as value-free instances of ordinary speech, in already established meanings; in these cases, the speakers are not aware that they are using “incorrect” forms. Second-order indexicality refers to cases when non-standard words are used for additional function, e.g., to express a speaker’s particular identity or to construct a certain (informal, friendly) speech style. The concept of style, referring to the social differences between individual speakers, is used to analyse the use of words in concrete situations. The paper gives an overview of three sociolinguistic concepts of style that are relevant in this study: style as a degree of formality (e.g., when the speaker accommodates to the formal context of the media and uses less non-standard words); as audience and referee design (e.g., use of non-standard words in programmes for young audiences); and as a speaker design (e.g., play with language by the programme host in order to construct a fun persona).In the study of non-standard lexis, it is important to account for certain features of Lithuanian media development, such as the Soviet period, which was characterised by the use of newspeak, and the commercialisation of the media in the contemporary period. Accordingly, the paper analyses the uses of incorrect words as a part of newspeak and their use for the entertainment-related purposes such as language plays in present times. The paper also addresses the transitory period of radio and TV development, which has features from both the previous and the later periods, as well as some unique characteristics of language use.The second chapter “Radio and TV speech in the prescriptive discourse” presents an analysis of the metalinguistic discourse on media speech produced by Lithuanian prescriptivists from the pre-war period up to now. The analysis shows how this discourse preserved the same dominant idea about media’s role in language standardisation. On the one hand, during this whole time, radio and television were approached as responsible for teaching listeners and viewers the “correct language”; on the other hand, simultaneously, the language of radio and television was perceived as failing to conform to the prescriptive norms set by the norm-setters. The huge societal shifts that happened during this time did not make a major influence on this discourse. It remained very stable during different periods of time. The social, cultural and political changes in society and the media were taken into account only by adjusting the argumentation – by presenting patriotic, moral, ideological or legal motives that were meant to justify the language prescriptions.The third chapter “Research methods and data” presents the Corpus of Radio and TV speech, the concept of non-standard words, and the sources of prescriptivist corrections used in the analysis. The corpus of radio and TV speech includes data from 1960 to 2011 and is constructed in a balanced way to represent the periods of Lithuanian radio and TV development (Soviet, transitory, contemporary), as well as programme genres (talk programmes, information programmes, journals/features/documentaries). The speakers are coded into six types: news reader/voice-over, talk show host, expert, celebrity, hero and vox populi. For the analysis, the non-standard words that are classified as “incorrect” in the normative tradition of the Lithuanian language were coded. These include old (mainly, Slavic) and new (mainly, English) loans, the so-called hybrid words (that have a borrowed part), semantic loans, translations, as well as some lexicalised uses of words and some lexicalised syntactic constructions. Two types of words are analysed – individual lexical words and functional words. The latter include various fillers and discourse markers, as well as pronoun constructions with tai (e.g. kažkas tai ‘some(body)’). Non-standard words were identified from older and present style guides, including the database of language corrections created by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language.The fourth chapter “Change in the number of non-standard words: a quantitative analysis” investigates development of the use of non-standard words on radio and TV, as well as the frequency of usage of the non-standard lexical forms. According to the corpus data, the average frequency of non-standard words by one speaker is 17 per thousand words, which makes up about 2–3 “incorrect” words per minute. Non-standard discourse markers and fillers (9.8/1000 words) are used most frequently, whereas individual lexical words (5.6/1000 words) are much less frequent, and pronoun constructions with tai (1.6/1000 words) are rarer still. Closer analysis revealed that the only statistically significant change between the analysed periods (Soviet, transitory and contemporary) was a decrease of the frequency of non-standard lexical words in the contemporary period compared to the previous ones. The frequency of discourse markers/fillers and pronoun constructions with tai did not change. Regarding the speaker types, the uses of non-standard words decreased in those groups that are within easier reach of prescriptivism – news readers/voice-overs and talk show hosts. Also, to a lesser extent, in the group of experts. Those groups of speakers that are less likely to be subjected to language correction practices (ordinary people) did not seem to change their behaviour: the number of non-standard words in their speech did not decrease, on the contrary, a slight increase has been noticed. These findings confirm the effects of institutionalised prescriptivism. Regarding genres, non-standard words are least frequent in information programmes, which are mostly based on the reading of written texts. Lists of the most frequent non-standard words during the three periods overlap to a great extent, which means that despite prescriptivist practices, the most frequent non-standard words do not disappear from the air.The fifth chapter “Change in the functions of non-standard words: a qualitative analysis” investigates specific communicative situations of the usage of non-standard words and takes into account the media-related and societal contexts, as well as the stylistic and social functions of the corrected lexis. A common trait of the use of non-standard words during all periods, interpreted as the first level of indexicality, is the use of common, everyday vocabulary, most likely without being aware of the “incorrect” status of the chosen forms. Also, non-standard words are used as a part of professional language, in this case the speaker might be aware that he or she is using an ‘incorrect’ word, but chooses to use it nevertheless for convenience or because of its indexical value for professional identity. During all the periods, non-standard words are also used as indices of informal and authentic communication between close acquaintances; this function is performed by all types of the studied non-standard words, particularly old borrowings and frequent fillers.The study identified a few style- and social meaning-related uses of non-standard lexis that explain the choice of the corrected forms instead of the required equivalents. In the Soviet period, some non-standard words were used as a part of Soviet newspeak; old borrowings were used in references to the ideological enemies of Soviet rule, mainly the ones from pre-war Lithuania. In certain cases, these words were employed due to their stylistic value in an intimate and authentic discourse. The late Soviet period saw the first use of non-standard words as markers of informal communication. The use of non-standard words in the transitory period shows some of the functions from the Soviet period, e.g., they are used as an element of newspeak, albeit without the Soviet ideological value, or as expressions of informality. A particular feature of this period is the use of non-standard words as an index of live and authentic speech, which was not allowed during Soviet times, as a means of authentic communication, and the criticism and violation of Soviet taboos. The contemporary period is marked by a huge variety of functions of non-standard words. It brings in a number of new style-related functions of non-standard words: construction of youth-oriented identity and youth-oriented referee design, reference to past times (e.g., by using non-standard words reflecting the Soviet reality), or quoting. Perhaps the most distinctive features of this period are the use of non-standard words in the speech of professional journalists, as well as their use for the purposes of humour and entertainment (for the construction of certain personas), e.g., in language plays and stylisations. These uses can be explained by commercial media requirements, increasing trends of the informalisation of public speech and conversationalisation.The study concluded that the effect of prescriptivism on the use of non-standard words in radio and TV in Lithuania is limited. Firstly, the frequency of non-standard words decreased mainly in those groups of speakers that are subject to the formal, institutionalised power of language gatekeepers (media professionals). Secondly, the data shows a decrease only of those non-standard words that are easier to control by the speakers themselves – lexical words. The frequency of various function words that are more difficult to be aware of when speaking did not decrease. Thirdly, the largest decrease in non-standard lexical forms occurred in those speech situations where a prepared written text is used; this means that prescriptivist requirements have a greater effect when the speakers and the language are controlled, and less effect in spontaneous communication situations. The above-mentioned difference between professional and non-professional speakers demonstrates that speakers are able to control the lexical forms they choose.Analysis of the most frequently used non-standard words during different periods also demonstrates the limits of prescriptivism. The lists of the most frequently used non-standard words during different periods overlap to a great extent, which means that despite prescriptivist efforts, they were not eliminated from being used on air.Finally, the limited success of prescriptivism is demonstrated by the discussed social values of non-standard words, when they are used for various social and stylistic functions not possessed by a ‘correct’ equivalent. The qualitative analysis revealed the particular strength of old borrowings, which are used to create a sincere, friendly speech style, as well as a ludic speaker identity. On the one hand, it can be interpreted as a sign of the ineffectiveness of prescriptivism – if the words are needed, it is likely that they will be further used despite their ‘illegal’ status. On the other hand, when the speakers purposefully (e.g., on account of a particular association, stylistic value) choose a particular language form and are at the same time aware about its “incorrectness”, it is an effect of prescriptivism, only with the opposite outcome.The study is based on the analysis of spoken language on radio and TV, therefore it cannot be used to draw conclusions about the Lithuanian language in general. It is likely that the effect of prescriptivism on written language (because of its more formal style and particularly because of language editing practices) would be stronger. Nevertheless, broadcast media speech constitutes a considerable and important part of language use, thus we can conclude that the impact of prescriptivism on the Lithuanian language does not have far-reaching effects.

FQ Columnist Bilal Qureshi reflects on Deepa Mehta's film Earth at an important moment in Indian and global history. Writing from New Delhi, he had the opportunity to speak to Mehta in person about her life and work, and that discussion is woven into this column. Since making Earth almost twenty years ago, Deepa Mehta has seen her stature grow to include film festival premieres, an Oscar nomination, and a platform as one of the rare women auteurs on the international stage. She has lived in Canada since the 1970s, but her most celebrated films are not about immigrant displacement or hyphenated identity. Rather, she has always told Indian stories. From the groundbreaking story of a lesbian relationship between two housewives in suffocating arranged marriages (Fire, 1996) to the forced exile of widows in orthodox Hindu scripture (Water, 2005), she has confronted uncomfortable social realities in Indian society. Although she has been labeled an anti-national and had sets burned and cinemas attacked by the religious right for insulting traditional values, she has taken the challenges in stride and continued making films.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the motives of female childless self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) in deciding to work abroad, so far under-researched.Design/methodology/approachThe study departs from prior research in using a new methodological approach, i.e. the analysis of online diaries (blogs) to explore the motives of a specific population to relocate.FindingsThe emergent model of motivations is based upon four main dimensions that emerged from the socially constructed experience of these single childless female SIEs: escape as main motivation, confrontation to reality, identity reconstruction and purpose of expatriation.Originality/valueThe findings reveal new elements of motivations to move abroad such as the complete absence of the notion of career from the blog posts, replaced, however, by a feminist and existentialist reflection.

Abstract:Scholars of social policy development in the United States and elsewhere have recently focused on the historical and contemporary importance of complex, delegated welfare state governance. In this article, I outline the emergence of a coordinated urban welfare state in the city of Toronto between 1870 and 1929, describing the creation of both public and private forms of coordination and centralization. I argue that we must understand social policy development in this period as resulting from the interaction of three policy coalitions: municipal traditionalists, municipal progressives, and social work professionals, and that social policy centralization occurred as a result of an alliance between municipal progressives and social work professionals. To explain the long-term development of social policy in Canada and elsewhere, I argue, we must understand the interaction among these internal coalitions in the social policy field and the ways that broader fiscal and cultural changes strengthened or weakened each coalition over time.

Recent research in New Zealand (Beddoe, 2010) and elsewhere (Joubert, 2006) has documented low levels of confidence amongst social work graduates in conducting applied social research. This article will examine the reasons why research literacy amongst students and graduates appears to be at a low ebb, and will report on the early developmental phases of a field education model being piloted in Christchurch, New Zealand, to promote knowledge and skill development in practice research. The process used for planning a suite of practice research placements is outlined, together with examining the application of the communities of practice model for facilitating this intervention. Practical strategies for including research learning objectives and activities are provided, with the view to encouraging routine inclusion of different tasks associated with systematic inquiry into all field placements. The evaluation design for the group of practice research placements is outlined with considerations of the project limitations and potential for future development. A second article on how the project progressed will be submitted later in 2012.

Social work has been largely silent on matters of reproductive rights, particularly in relation to abortion. This may partially be explained by abortion being secured as a part of health care in many countries. However, elsewhere, abortion remains in criminal codes with service access controlled via medico-legal barriers. We make a case for the increased visibility of reproductive justice within education and professional activity, employing case studies from Australia, the Republic of Ireland and New Zealand to illustrate recent social work advocacy on abortion rights. Social work abortion activists report two themes: professional bodies have varied their approach to advocacy for abortion rights due to political sensitivities; and social work involvement in campaigns has reflected individual and grass-roots advocacy. Improved education about reproductive justice for social workers, alongside greater collective professional advocacy, are needed to contribute to campaigns together with women’s and human rights groups, as well as public health champions.

This article offers an approach through administrative and cultural history to the problems associated with gathering and processing data for the Spanish national census of 1920, and by implication for earlier Spanish censuses. It focuses on the Basque province of Guipúzcoa, making use of correspondence between the central statistical office in Madrid, the provincial jefe de estadística and the localities, and of reports on three problematic towns within the province. The issues that emerge regarding ‘undercounting’, the definition of administrative boundaries and the classification of demographic characteristics are set in the wider context of census-taking practices and problems elsewhere in Spain and in other cultures.

In Sweden and elsewhere, work strategies have gained greater significance in social policy, and now also in settlement programs for refugees. This article addresses the level of practice of the refugee settlement program in Sweden, which previously emphasized ‘support’ and ‘social responsibility’, but now emphasizes ‘activation’ and ‘individual responsibility’. Through an analysis of interviews and individual action plans, we investigate how activation is put into practice in the work activities of refugee settlement and how employment officials and refugees articulate and experience the role that activation plays in refugees’ integration processes. The conclusion drawn is that activation is a central feature, but it involves conditionalizing elements that are used as the means to emphasize ‘work’ as the route to integration and to keep the ‘less employable’ refugees activated. The activation techniques applied require refugees to demonstrate that they are taking responsibility for their integration process and for increasing their employability.

Poetry is an ageless craft that helps people find meaning and gives hope and courage. The poetics of social work describes an evolving framework in which poetry is located as a knowledge base that draws out mindfulness in the midst of uncertainty. Examples are provided of how the spiritual and artful aspects of the social work craft can be made more purposeful and explained through a poetic frame. Notions of light, time and space contex- tualise the way authentic relationships are at the heart of our work. Many people talk about the art of social work, often in the context of the more mysterious, intangible, and less ‘scientific ‘ aspects of our craft. Usually such references are around the relational intimacies that our work relies on to be effective. In essence this is the connection between people, and the possibilities and hope that emerge from that authentic helping relationship. An alternative view would be that describing social work as an ‘art’ places the work in a romanticised and nonsensical frame from an era before professionalisation, and the framing of practice in theory, defined skills and qualifications. The professionalisation of social work has certainly meant ‘more than common sense’ (Maidment and Egan, 2004) is expected in the application of theory and practice. This begs the question of the artfulness of practice. These notions of the art and craft of social work deserve exploration.

Texas' social work licensure statute limits the use of social work titles to licensed social workers. Yet the statute provides a loophole that allows human service agencies to employ unlicensed social workers, provided that those individuals do not use licensed titles. This study, which explored the relationship between social work licensure, job titles, and employment salary in an accredited undergraduate program, found that only half of the 1991 and 1996 graduates were licensed. Additionally, survey respondents (whether licensed or not) received comparable salaries, and the majority were assigned generic job titles including caseworker, casemanager, and other nonlicensed titles. Licensure exemptions at the baccalaureate level in Texas and elsewhere may pose a threat to the future viability of baccalaureate social work education.

Despite the growing interest in social entrepreneurship research in the social work literature, very little research examines how social entrepreneurs tackle social work challenges in the HIV/AIDS sector. Consequently, we lack research on how social entrepreneurship might contribute to social work’s domain of healthcare. In this article, we employ grounded theory research to study how a group of social entrepreneurs ( N = 58) selected as Fellows by Ashoka, one of the world’s most influential social entrepreneurship support organizations, solve HIV/AIDS problems. This article identifies four major interventions that social entrepreneurs employed in tackling HIV/AIDS problems: relational, service, economic, and policy. We analyzed these four primary interventions and classified them into a typology based on (1) locus of change (institutional-oriented or macro social work vs agent-oriented or micro social work), (2) resources used (material/utilitarian vs symbolic/normative), and (3) client–social enterprise relations (client as recipient vs client as co-creator). This article contributes to social work research by demonstrating the possibility of integrating multilevel (e.g. micro and macro) and multidimensional (e.g. service, economic, and policy) interventions in addressing HIV/AIDS problems. It also suggests avenues for future research to lessen the gap between social work and social entrepreneurship research so as to advance social work research.

In social policy debates and research over recent years, ‘risk’, ‘social inclusion’ and ‘the life course’ have become influential topics. In this themed section we will revisit these concepts and analyse how they have influenced policy debates and research in Australia and elsewhere. The contributions were developed as part of a research collaboration that brings together expertise from social policy, gender studies, risk sociology, social work, youth studies and research on ageing and old age. This introduction outlines the concepts and dimensions we found helpful for analysing social policy practice and research and the key arguments of the contributions.

This paper brings together and expands methodological ideas on Joseph Alois Schumpeter that I have discussed in detail and at length elsewhere (Shionoya 1997). Schumpeter is known for his wide-ranging work, and I interpret it as an attempt a universal social science consisting of three systems of thought: i.e., substantive theory, metatheory, and pretheory. These three systems stand for the scope and method of his universal social science.

Social work in Aotearoa New Zealand (ANZ) is a contested profession on a journey of professionalisation in an era where contradictory forces impact on its position and strength. Social work education reflects these tensions, being influenced by economic and political forces. The delineation of a benchmark qualification for entry is a core feature of professional status and so the inception of professionalregistration has impacted on social work education in ANZ as it has elsewhere. The aim of this paper is to explore dimensions of the history of social work education in ANZ, the impact of the Social Workers Registration Act (2003) (SWRA) and to examine some current constraints and consider the challenges professional education faces in the next 50 years. It is argued that social work education has been, is and will remain a site of struggle.

AbstractThe author examines Williams’ appraisal of Collingwood both in his eponymous essay on Collingwood, in the posthumously published Sense of the Past (2006), and elsewhere in his work. The similarities and differences between their philosophies are explored: in particular, with regard to the relationship between philosophy and history and the relationship between the study of history and our present-day moral attitudes. It is argued that, despite Williams usually being classified as an analytic philosopher and Collingwood being classified as an idealist, there is substantial common ground between them. Williams was aware of this and made clear his sympathy for Collingwood; but, nonetheless, the relationship between Williams and Collingwood has not previously been explored in any detail. After establishing the common ground between these philosophers, and the areas of disagreement, the author suggests that both may have something to gain from the other.

English Palliative care social work has developed primarily as a specialist health-related form of clinical social work. However, the resource-intensive modernist medicalized practice of Western countries has been culturally inappropriate elsewhere. Broader end-of-life care and community education outside healthcare settings offers opportunities to develop palliative care social work in the direction of social development practice. French Le travail social de soin palliatif s’est au départ développé en tant que forme particulière de travail social clinique en relation avec la santé. Toutefois, la pratique médicalisée moderniste et intensément dotée en ressources des pays occidentaux, a parfois été culturellement inappropriée ailleurs. Plus largement le soin de fin de vie et l’éducation communautaire en dehors des dispositifs de soins de santé offrent des opportunités de développer le travail social de soin palliatif dans le sens des pratiques de développement social concernées. Spanish El trabajo social en el campo del cuidado paliativo se ha desarrollado primariamente como una especialidad del trabajo social clínico relacionado con la salud. Sin embargo, la práctica medicalizada y muy cara de las sociedades occidentales, no es apropiada culturalmente en otros lugares. Un cuidado al final de la vida más amplio, conectado a la educación de la comunidad, y al margen de las organizaciones médicas, ofrece oportunidades de desarrollar un trabajo social de cuidado paliativo que conduzca a una práctica de desarrollo social.

In this paper we review two application areas in the field of IT concerning advanced manufacturing technology and office automation. We argue that new systems in both these areas have been predominantly technology-led in their development and implementation, excluding adequate attention to their human and organizational aspects. We describe two case studies as illustrations of these points and argue that the reasons for this technology-led approach lie in a complex interacting set of social systems that work effectively to marginalize the human and organizational aspects of the new technologies. The applicability of these findings to the domain of Computer Supported Collaborative Working (CSCW) is examined. There are two main sets of lessons that can be learned: those that apply generally to the field of IT, and thereby have relevance also to the special case of CSCW; and those that are particular to the conduct and content of research and development into CSCW. These lessons are outlined in the form of sets of suggestions.

In response to the increase in international migration to Europe over recent years, questions have arisen on how social work practice can respond to the safeguarding risks in migrant camps at borders and to those within the UK who are denied or have restricted access to services. Social Workers Without Borders (SWWB) is a group of volunteers using their professional skills in this context. A qualitative study into the motivations of some of these social workers sought to better understand and theorise the group’s work. The research found that practitioners identified strongly with values of social justice, driving their practice within SWWB and elsewhere. Social work as a profession was conceived of as essentially political, having a role to play in making change on a societal level, along with supporting individuals. SWWB was found to provide an opportunity for participants to practice in a way which they felt was in accordance with their personal values and was effective with migrants. The organisation is described as offering an important critical space for contemporary social work practice with migrants and as a vehicle for a collective professional voice. Several participants placed their work with SWWB in the context of social work as an international profession, whose shared values have the potential to respond to the pressures of hostile immigration policies of national governments.

ABSTRACTDiscrimination against old age and work with elderly people are evident in the practices and organisation of caring professions, of which social work may be taken as an example because of its central role in community care provision. This article examines the implications for the status of professional social work with elderly people of recent proposals to develop the role of care manager in place of the case management model developed in Kent and elsewhere. It is argued that such a move derives from managerial concerns, which ignore the likely consequences for retrenching ageism and other forms of discrimination in services for older people. It is concluded that more careful consideration will be required concerning the context in which new professional models are being developed, if these discriminations are not to be reproduced and reinforced, as well as the benefits from case management systems being lost.

There is a lot of discussion about social work, its forms, and whether social work is needed. If so, then in its existing or a different form? Often, only subjective thoughts or practical experiences are presented. They are subjective because, by pointing out the unfavorable situation, they describe a certain unidentifiable barrier, a shortcoming in building this profession, which social work has not been able to overcome in the past long period. As if we were wasting our chances of change. The performance of social work still has a socialist flavor, and therefore the Western models adopted in our country since the end of 1980's have not met with legislative support. This situation was partly caused by the fact that we took over "a little of each corner", without complexity, as if the richer competencies remained somewhere at the border crossing between Kittsee and Bratislava. It is not possible to compare the beginnings of social care in our country, which began elsewhere in the world in the '30-'40s, because, for ideological reasons, there was a certain effort to discredit some issues, together with other deviant problems. These ideological motivations have already disappeared but were replaced by economic reasons, which continued to prevent social care from undergoing a change of opinion and structure. Evidence of these shortcomings is also the fact that no government has so far embarked on the creation of family social policy, as if this situation suited all actors. Within the EU, considerable financial support comes to the social area, but it disappears in the wallets of non-profit organizations, often without control, and that is why there is no such systematic change. Even very beneficial projects in various "non-profit" organizations work only until the allocated funds are spent, and after the expiration of the time required for the existence of the project by the EU, the project falls into oblivion, and those organizations often apply for a completely different project. Research data is missing for a systemic change. Without the available research data, we cannot even expect a change in paradigms, so we continue to lag behind the more developed part of the world in this area.

Social contact groups offer support and social activities to long-term users of community mental health services. In this study, seven groups in Surrey were compared with 10 groups elsewhere, using information supplied by group leaders. From this comparison, those features that characterise social contact groups have been identified. In addition, those individuals attending the groups in Surrey were invited to identify the benefits of membership. Their positive response indicated the success of these groups in meeting their need for social contact and suggests that this approach should be considered by those developing day services for people with long-term needs. Occupational therapists, with their expertise in analysing and coordinating activities, have a major role to play in organising these groups in conjunction with other mental health workers.

The Practice Pyramid is a learning tool that supports social work students’ ability to integrate their understanding of personal and professional values, theory and practice during field placements. Although it has been used by practice educators in Scotland for over 20 years, it is not well known elsewhere and has yet to be evaluated. This paper, written by a practice educator and a student social worker, describes the Practice Pyramid and provides a case example to illustrate how it contributed to one student’s learning during a practice placement. Four factors that appear to contribute to its success are proposed: its model of pedagogy, the visual and accessible nature of the tool, flexibility and the support it gives to collaborative learning processes. It is suggested that the Practice Pyramid may usefully support learning in a range of social work and non social work contexts, and would benefit from more extensive evaluation of its role in supporting practice - theory integration.Keywords: Practice Pyamid; social work students; field placements; Scotland; collaborative learning

Workers of stigmatized jobs classified as dirty work normalize the physical, social, and/or moral taint of their occupation to cope with the negative aspects of their daily work. Such normalization strategies include recalibrating, reframing, and refocusing (Ashforth & Blake, 1999). Social identity theory proposes that individuals seek to identify with a positively perceived in-group, and dirty work literature suggests stigmatized workers use these normalization strategies to separate their personal and work identities. Additionally, corporate social responsibility meets the instrumental, relational, and moral-based motivational needs of employees, suggesting it may serve as a pathway for managing negative aspects of an occupation. Thus, as a part of the Discussion of New Perspectives on CSR and CSP in the 2020 IABS virtual conference, this proposal theorizes corporate social responsibility initiatives as a possible organizational level intervention to help dirty workers normalize their work and manage its associated stigma through applications of social identity theory.

Deferred custody and supervision order, an intermediate sanction which came into effect in 2003, had never been the subject of a scientific study. In the absence of research data, judges would give the sentence without knowing the outcome. To fill this gap, this study presents the failure rates (technical violations, revocations and new-crime violations) and success rates of all young Quebecers who completed a deferred custody and supervision order between 1 June 2003 and 31 May 2012. As with studies that examined similar sentences elsewhere in the world, success rates are relatively low. Suggestions are made to limit failures associated with this type of juvenile intermediate sanctions.

ABSTRACTThis research tests the extent to which the social processes of leadership, as derived from the full grounded theory method, may be tapping constructs other than those measured by existing measures of transformational leadership. The impact on work unit outcomes of two measures of transformational leadership and the social processes of leadership scale (SPL) were tested. Comparative structural equation modelling was undertaken. It was found that, with one exception – ‘active management processes’, normally classified as transactional management – measures of transformational leadership are probably pre-existing measures of the social processes of leadership in organisations. The use of the grounded theory method to research leadership is supported. Hierarchy of Abstraction Modelling is useful as a training tool and as a representation of research findings.

ABSTRACTThis research tests the extent to which the social processes of leadership, as derived from the full grounded theory method, may be tapping constructs other than those measured by existing measures of transformational leadership. The impact on work unit outcomes of two measures of transformational leadership and the social processes of leadership scale (SPL) were tested. Comparative structural equation modelling was undertaken. It was found that, with one exception – ‘active management processes’, normally classified as transactional management – measures of transformational leadership are probably pre-existing measures of the social processes of leadership in organisations. The use of the grounded theory method to research leadership is supported. Hierarchy of Abstraction Modelling is useful as a training tool and as a representation of research findings.

Purpose: Though social workers are increasingly engaged in the disaster management, there has been a lack of professional guidelines for social work practice and training in this emerging field. This study aims to develop a rudimentary social work competence framework to plug this gap. Method: We conducted an integrative review of 183 international empirical studies and practice reflections, comprising a systematic search, selection, review, and content analysis, guided by ecological systems theory. Results: This rudimentary framework consists of 73 competencies, including 33 micro-level competencies, 18 meso-level ones and 22 macro-level ones, covering knowledge, values and skills in four disaster management phases. Conclusion: Compared to other competence frameworks, this framework further elucidated and classified the salient knowledge, values, and skills in disaster management training and practice for social work.

Abstract This article argues that further enhancement of critical social work education and practice is needed to counter politicised and restrictive policies towards people seeking asylum in advanced globalised market economies. This means social workers giving more emphasis and prominence to the role of neoliberalism rather than solely focusing on the adverse moral and mental health impacts of state responses. Drawing on current debates and practices within critical social work and seven years’ experience in the Australian refugee sector, this article will demonstrate the punitive and deterrent configurations adopted by states like Australia to respond to people seeking asylum. The article then highlights the importance of social workers critically analysing historicised discourses which normalise such people as ‘dangerous’, ‘illegitimate’, ‘othered’ and a ‘burden’. Further interrogation of the social and cultural logic(s) of neoliberalism which serve to justify the former discourses will also be included. Finally, reflections on a range of strategies and solutions will be presented for critical social work educators and practitioners to resist and subvert neoliberalism and to secure better outcomes for people seeking asylum in Australia and elsewhere.

<p>Looking at practices in different locations is beneficial since it helps challenge assumptions that we may take for granted. Groupwork, as a method of social work, is specifically interesting to explore in the light of different contexts since, like social work, it may or may not translate well across cultures. This paper draws from data collected in the context of a research project that aimed to describe the current state of social work with groups in Quebec and to explore trends within social work with groups elsewhere in the world. Specifically, it focuses on the exploration of practices in Quebec and discusses them in relationship to those found in the USA, as a counterpoint. Our findings highlight some differences and similarities between Quebec and the USA with regard to groupwork, which leads us to discuss a range of factors that may impact on groupwork in the different contexts. Of these, the differences of organisational context and organisation of services have emerged as particularly noteworthy, which echoes findings in general social work literature with regard to the importance of local contexts on the definition of practice itself.</p>

INTRODUCTION: In Aotearoa New Zealand, as elsewhere in the world, healthcare providers are seeking better ways to engage with increasingly ethnically and linguistically diverse communities. The use of cultural support workers (CSWs) to act as a bridge between services and such communities is proving to be an effective strategy for achieving this. For the social work profession, the advent of CSW roles presents both challenges and opportunities.APPROACH: A review of literature outlines the challenge of delivering culturally responsive and appropriate services to migrant and refugee communities and describes the role played by CSWs to increase the cultural understanding of healthcare providers and improve health outcomes for these communities. The impact of such roles on health social work is explored and how current social work education prepares practitioners for practice in an increasingly multicultural society.CONCLUSIONS: This article outlines the key issues that arise from the introduction of CSWs, the potential for collaboration and the opportunity that exists for health social work to refocus and redefine its role in the healthcare setting.

Considerations about amputee patients need to go beyond their physical rehabilitation. As an integral process, rehabilitation includes the presence of a social worker, which is indispensable during the treatment; this is a professional that provides a way to gradually provide social inclusion considering their new situation. Objective: This study made a social profile of the amputee inpatients who were treated in the Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation/IMREA, in the city of São Paulo/SP. Methods: This was a retrospective study: quantitative regarding the collection of data, and qualitative as an analysis of the basis of the dialectical materialist perspective. For the development of this study, a sampling of medical records between November 2014 and July 2015 was surveyed. Results: Information was collected coming from Social Assessment institutional protocol, a professional operating and technical tool, such as age; sex; marital status; per capita income; region of origin; level of education; social security benefits, and whether they had access to rehabilitation treatment elsewhere. Conclusion: This work highlights the importance of professional social work as part of the interdisciplinary team in the process of rehabilitation of the amputee, thus enabling one to know the individual in his entirety

The increasing predominance of practices associated with risk and ‘risk management’ within social work has been noted in recent years. Some writers have observed threats to fundamental values of social work and cite the problem of risk-aversion and excessive caution. In residential child care settings in Scotland, the author and colleagues noted an increasing problem of ‘risk averse’ practice in relation to very basic and nonrisky outdoor activities such as trips to the beach or cycling. This article gives an account of various policy and guidance responses that were developed as regulatory authorities began to recognise the dangers of over-protection and the growth of written ‘risk assessments’ within small-scale group homes that were intended to provide ‘homely’ care for children and young people. The article notes the contribution of training in social pedagogy, which has recently been undertaken by some residential staff in Scotland and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. One of the impacts of this training has been a reported decrease in risk-averse practice including a greater willingness to undertake outdoor activities. The reason why the adoption of a social pedagogic approach might challenge risk-averse practice is tentatively suggested.

ArgumentThis article explores historical sociology as a complementary source of knowledge for scientific research, considering barriers and facilitators to this work through reflections on one project. This project began as a study of the emergence and reception of the infant disorganized attachment classification, introduced in the 1980s by Ainsworth’s student Mary Main, working with Judith Solomon. Elsewhere I have reported on the findings of collaborative work with attachment researchers, without giving full details of how this came about. Here, I will offer personal reflections arising from the process, and my work in what Hasok Chang has called history as “complementary science.”

For an industrial worker in late-nineteenth-century America who lost a limb or an eye from a precariously assembled piece of machinery or who suffered some other work injury, compensation could be attained only through litigation. But under the common law, the courts assumed that workers who found themselves in dangerous work situations had the freedom to leave and find employment elsewhere. If they chose not to leave and were injured, the employer was not to blame legally. The doctrine of “assumed risk,” one of three “employers’ defenses,” made it difficult for a worker to win compensation. Only when an injured worker could prove that the employer had directly caused the accident and had done so alone was payment awarded (Downey 1912: 11–13).

Research into foster care is less developed in Germany than in the UK or US and there are few national practice standards. In 2006, a research centre was established at the University of Siegen to improve the situation. Klaus Wolf describes the work undertaken so far and discusses the aims and philosophy underpinning the programme. He explains how research relevant to practice is combined with studies that have theoretical value in their own right, and how a combination of these informs current debates about foster care in Germany and elsewhere.

SummaryThe family registration records from a village population in a small island of Japan are used to assess the effect of demographic differentiation within a population on genetic measures. When the couples studied are classified by birth cohorts and origins, wives of the couples where one spouse came from elsewhere were older at marriage and had a shorter duration of marriage or registration than wives where both spouses were natives of the village. The mean number of offspring is statistically smaller in the former except for the latest cohort, due mainly to out-migration during the reproductive ages which also resulted in low rates of marriage among the offspring within the village. This leads to a small effective population size and an increased likelihood of genetic drift in the overall population.

SynopsisOut of 141 new referrals to a Social Services Department 101 were assessed at inception and twelve-month follow-up using the Present State Examination (PSE), the Social Maladjustment Schedule (SMS) and the Case Review Form (CRF). Mental illness, financial and housing problems were the three problems most frequently identified by the social workers. At inception 72 (51%) of the subjects were PSE cases (ID > 5) and 25% at follow-up. The type of social work help offered to cases and non-cases did not differ.Social and clinical data collected at inception and follow-up were used to classify (using discriminant function analysis) caseness at inception and follow-up and clinical change. Caseness at inception (82% of subjects were correctly classified) was associated with depression, subjective social problems and poverty. Caseness at follow-up (74% correctly classified) was associated with poor coping abilities at inception and clinical features of depression. Clinical change (worsening) (71% correctly classified) was associated with seeing a Community Psychiatric Nurse and poor coping abilities at inception. The ability to classify correctly cases and change was enhanced when additional data from follow-up interviews were used. In the PSE cases, only clinical worsening was correctly classified by a high GHQ score at inception, age and poor coping abilities. The last result is similar to that obtained in general practice by Mann et al. (1981).

The problem with current social work practice in Africa is that following its development in the West, it came to Africa grounded in values and ideologies stemming from capitalism, social Darwinism, the protestant ethic and individualism, all of which are un-African. Western ideas permeated social work institutions despite the ethical conflicts between traditional African cultures and values and the Western Judeo-Christian norms on which social work was based. Despite the political independence of most African countries, the profession has remained stuck in Western methods, values, principles and standards. Some of the traditional social work principles seem alien in African contexts. The social work principle of individualisation, for example, is un-African as it promotes individualism and yet life in Africa is communal. The content used in social work education and training in most institutions in Zimbabwe originated from elsewhere outside the African continent and as a result does not respect Africana values, beliefs, mores, taboos and traditional social protection systems. As it stands, social work in Zimbabwe in particular is a ‘mermaid’ profession based on Western theory but serving African clients. If social work in Africa is to decolonise, practitioners should have an understanding of and respect for African beliefs and practices. This is mainly because there is no clear separation between the material and the sacred among indigenous African people. This article therefore challenges African scholars to generate Afrocentric knowledge that should be imparted to African students for them to be effective in the African context. Afrocentric social work should be based on, improve and professionalise traditional helping systems that were in place prior to the coming of the Whites to the African continent.

Indigenous research as discourse and practice has challenged researchers worldwide to foreground our work with clear attention to knowledge hierarchies and power inequities, ontologies and epistemologies, and critical ethical considerations. Yet, in the recent decade, it is not the rise of Indigenous research agendas but community-engaged scholarship that has been the focus of institutionalization at universities in the USA and elsewhere. In this commentary, we revisit Indigenous research and its political and liberatory agenda and offer a re-centering of research through peoplehood that is founded in Indigenous connections to place, cultural practices, and social justice work.

We quantify the labor supply responses of prime-aged adults to the presence of pensioners in their households, using longitudinal data collected in South Africa. We compare households and individuals before and after pension receipt and pension loss, which allows us to control for a host of unobservable household and individual characteristics that may determine labor market behavior. We find large cash transfers to the elderly lead to increased employment among prime-aged adults, which occurs primarily through labor migration. The pension's impact is attributable to the increase in household resources it represents, which can be used to stake migrants until they become self-sufficient, and to the presence of pensioners who can care for small children, which allows prime-aged adults to look for work elsewhere. (JEL H23, H55, I38, J22, O15)

Purpose This study aims to explore the opportunities and challenges Self-directed Support policy has presented to Scottish social enterprises, thereby increasing understanding of emerging social care markets arising from international policy-shifts towards empowering social care users to self-direct their care. Design/methodology/approach This study used guided conversations with a purposive sample of 19 stakeholders sampled from frontline social care social enterprises; social work; third sector; health; and government. Findings An inconsistent social care market has emerged across Scotland as a result of policy change, providing both opportunities and challenges for social enterprises. Social innovation emerged from a supportive partnership between the local authority and social enterprise in one area, but elsewhere local authorities remained change-resistant, evidencing path dependence. Challenges included the private sector “creaming” clients and geographic areas and social enterprises being scapegoated where the local market was failing. Research limitations/implications This study involved a small purposively sampled group of stakeholders specifically interested in social enterprise, and hence the findings are suggestive rather than conclusive. Originality/value This paper contributes to currently limited academic understanding of the contribution of social enterprise to emerging social care markets arising from the international policy-shifts. Through an historical institutionalism lens, this study also offers new insight into interactions between public institutions and social enterprise care providers. The insights from this paper will support policymakers and researchers to develop a more equitable, sustainable future for social care provision.

This paper makes the case for working at relational depth (Mearns & Cooper 2007) in qualitative work. To establish this case, I trace the roots of psychological methods in qualitative work, and their foundations in the European and American schools of psychology. In particular I describe a split between holistic and elemental approaches, which I believe has done much to undermine the potential of qualitative work. I have also tried to set qualitative work in an appropriate psycho-social context because I feel it can play such a key role in sustaining democratically-based commercial growth and innovation in the UK and elsewhere in these days when consumer choice is as important in deciding our future as any other element of society.

In this interview, Arie Rip talks to Jane Calvert about his life in STS and the history and future of the field. He begins in the late 1960s, when he started teaching a course in “chemistry and society.” He then gives a first-hand account of the formation of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), and the growth of research in the “melting pot” that STS became. He goes on to discuss recent work on new and emerging technologies and responsible research and innovation. His narrative shows the connections, historically and in the present, between the different strands of STS, including sociological work, science policy and innovation studies. He argues that we are seeing a “mainstreaming” of STS as it permeates other academic disciplines and arenas such as government agencies and charities. He suggests that this mainstreaming may mean STS will disappear as an independent discipline. In her reflection following the interview, Jane Calvert focuses on Rip’s point that STS is both a social movement and an academic discipline. She argues that this raises questions about what type of work we want to do as STS researchers, and how much freedom we have to choose.

Latour’s notion of immutable mobiles relates the circulability of certain objects to, among other features, their immutability, readability and combinability. As such it does not distinguish between, say, hand-drawn maps and machine-generated graphs. How, though, does the medial ‘microstructure’ of immutable mobiles matter to socially shared uses? Would, for example, digital images as bounded grids of nonoverlapping square pixels, each representing a numerical value, shape how distributed scientific work unfolds? In this article, I begin with reviewing attempts to link the microstructure of media to their communicative uses, focusing on Luhmann’s relational account of media as loosely coupled substrates in which more rigid forms can become manifest. Drawing on an ethnography of astronomical research, I then inquire into how the scientists involved reasoned about their uses of media from within their practices. They used digital photographic exposures as ‘workable objects’ whose usefulness was not guaranteed initially. Local work was oriented to potential reuses of images (as processed exposures) by researchers elsewhere, as demonstrated by concerns over the integrity of images, the possibility of describing their work with reasonable efforts, as well as by negotiating acceptable elements in calculations so as to reveal stabilized phenomena. In doing so, scientists insisted on the need to play or experiment, suspending sequential work for explorations oriented toward deciding which action among alternatives to make consequential. This was part of a more extended ‘calculative game’ that points, through its orientation to reasonable agreement and delimitations of legitimate efforts, to the social order of this work. The medium, here conceived as images deemed accountable to reuses elsewhere, is a social achievement. Recognizing this may help to better understand the reusability of scientific data and its challenges.

Seasonal workers are increasingly being used globally to provide a short-term workforce, filling positions in the labour market that are often difficult, dirty and shunned by native born workers. Seasonal schemes are promoted in typically economic terms, offering a triple win where the host society gains from flexible labour; the sending country benefits from remittances and skill transfers; and migrants themselves gain from access to the labour market. However, they have been found to support the uneven economic participation of workers in global production processes and they typically marginalise workers socially. Drawing from examples elsewhere and using Nancy Fraser’s three-dimensional perspective of social justice (2005), this article examines the prospect for developing socially just seasonal work programmes. It is logical that most societies seek to promote seasonal worker schemes that allow workers to be treated according to the rules of justice. And yet, research has shown the exploitation of many different types of migrant workers. Following Fraser, the article asks to what extent recognition, redistribution and representation can be achieved through seasonal worker schemes? It identifies key issues for consideration if social justice is to be upheld.

An after effect of the 2008 global financial crisis was a significant generational divide, fuelled by growing inequality, that limited access to necessities such as secure work and housing for the post-crash generation in Ireland. Faced with issues including political upheaval, climate crisis, and austerity, young people in Ireland and elsewhere have recently organized themselves online and on the streets as social, environmental, and political activists. This article examines recent Irish reality television texts that encourage intergenerational cooperation and solidarity, offering visions of mutual reliance and positive relationships between young and old that dissipate any notion of “generation wars.” Familial and community structures are thus reinstated as a safety net for current uncertainties. This article proposes that these programmes reflect a desire that the cohesion and transformation gained through intergenerational exchange and cooperation on social issues in Ireland might also be leveraged towards addressing the more stubbornly divisive economic inequalities.

The well-worn routes of colonial history leading to London, Paris, Lisbon, and elsewhere may remain fruitful for historians of the post-colonial period. Since former colonial powers remained involved, or at least interested, in what was going on in their former colonies, intelligence reports and diplomatic materials from the last fifty years may be of value to social scientists of the present. Historians also have turned to records from the United States, the former USSR, and other states with extensive involvement in African politics. The archives of humanitarian groups, non-governmental organizations, newspapers, and other institutions also contain materials produced by African governments. Some intentionally gathered materials, while others accreted them indirectly over the course of their work. (Samuel Fury Childs Daly 2017).Although Daly's quotation was focused on the post-independence period in Biafra, the sentiments resonate precisely with circumstances elsewhere in understanding African history through the archives.