Tuning‐in to Teenagers! Using Radio Phone‐in Discussions in Research with Young People

Since the 1990s, research with children has witnessed epistemological changes which have challenged traditional research methods and have attempted to deconstruct notions of children as passive and incompetent. Such changes, epitomized by children‐centred research methods, aim to redress power imbalances by encouraging participants to select their own forms of communication. Participation and innovation are central to this approach. Simultaneously, but quite distinct from research methodology, community radio has become an important mechanism in promoting social inclusion. Globally, this means of community participation has been advocated by organizations that have utilized radio as an educational tool for promoting children’s rights. This paper suggests that the synthesis of radio phone‐in discussions with the ‘New Social Studies of Childhood’ forms a constructive basis for developing a participatory research method. Methodological issues arising from a teenage‐centred radio phone‐in will be explored. The paper concludes by discussing the viability of the radio phone‐in as a meaningful method for promoting teenagers’, often unheard, voices.     

A Multi‐Program Collaboration in Field Education

This paper describes the development of a US‐based field education collaboration among three social work programs that includes: field instructor orientation, continuing education for field instructors, an advisory board, a joint website and database, a field instructor manual and selected joint forms. Benefits, challenges, considerations and strategies will be offered for programs that wish to embark on similar projects.     

Teacher‐Pupil Interaction in Bulgarian Romani Classrooms

The aim of this paper is to present the manner in which teachers and pupils interact in Bulgarian primary schools that are characterised by Roma attendance. For this purpose research was conducted with three groups of Roma children — Romani‐speaking, Turkish‐speaking and Romanian‐speaking children, who live in different parts of Bulgaria. The research results showed that teachers use more or less the same oral instructions, approaches and methods for introducing Bulgarian to Roma children as they do for teaching Bulgarian to children who have Bulgarian as their mother tongue. The teachers fail to take into consideration the limited knowledge that Roma children have of the Bulgarian language and expect the children to understand their instructions. There are no special methods or approaches for introducing Bulgarian to Roma children that take into consideration the fact that they are bilingual, and they cannot be taught in the same manner as monolingual Bulgarian children.     

Inter‐ethnic conflict: a role for social work in sub‐Saharan Africa

African social work educators have consistently argued that conventional social work tasks and practice fail to address the critical socio‐economic needs of communities living in the sub‐Saharan region. This paper identifies inter‐ethnic conflict in Africa as both cause and symptom of the inequitable distribution of natural resources and public goods between ethnic groups in conditions of pressing material need. Reporting on results from a survey of social work students at the University of Ghana which explored their own experiences of inter‐ethnic conflict, this article considers alternative strategies for training in anti‐discriminatory practice. Training approaches developed in the United States of America and the United Kingdom are critically examined and the problems of their direct applicability in an African context discussed. In conclusion the need for a distinctively African approach to conflict management and anti‐discriminatory training is advanced.     

Developing a Common Language in Children's Services through Research‐based Inter‐disciplinary Training

Two sources of inertia to improving services for children in need are the difficulties of getting evidence into practice and the complications of inter‐agency working. Current training arrangements in social work and disparities between children's services professions as regards training requirements are contributory factors. The Common Language project is a work in progress, adopting a research‐based, inter‐disciplinary approach to working with social workers and other children's services professionals. It comprises core ideas and methods to complement the more specialist knowledge and skills required in each profession. Underpinned by a child development perspective and a scientific development cycle, it rests on a conceptual framework including need, threshold, service and outcome. The approach has three components (each of which includes training): (1) the implementation of practice tools; (2) the planning and development of integrated services; and (3) supporting materials, including practitioner‐orientated modules and a curriculum for PhD students. Distinguishing features include research utilisation, notably a focus on inculcating research‐mindedness as opposed to imparting findings, and also collaborative professional working, in particular via practical connections between different agencies, stakeholders and countries. The project is being evaluated in terms of uptake, change in professional thinking and practice and effects on child well‐being. Next steps for the project relate to broader lessons for social work training emerging from research and development elsewhere.     

From guest‐motif to lost homeland and re‐found exile: the development of a paradigmatic motif in the assimilatory process in Russian‐Jewish literature

Jews were strangers when they started to live within the borders of Tsarist Russia at the end of the eighteenth century, and they continued to be outsiders even when the integration, acculturation and assimilation process went on. The guest‐motif is an essential element of the home and exile dichotomy, often quoted in general terms, but rarely investigated closer in the texts. This motif may represent a special interest in Russian‐Jewish literature as one of the more emblematic topics of literature on assimilation that became a paradigm. The panoramic overview of the motif includes prose works by Iakov Rombro, Grigory Bogrov, Aleksandr Kipen, David Aizman, Andrei Sobol, Lev Lunts, Isaak Babel, Vladimir Jabotinsky and Friedrich Gorenshtein.     

A cross‐cultural study of the phasic progression of self‐esteem in teen challenge

An attempt is made to analyze the effects of the Teen Challenge program in the self‐esteem of rehabilitants, and to determine if, indeed, any relationship exists. The importance of self‐esteem as a psycho‐social concept has emerged in recognition of man's needs for feelings of self‐worth. Central to this concept are the seminal formulations of White, Cooley, Coopersmith, Goffmann, and Harris. Additionally, Maslow's “hierarchy of needs” brings this concept into focus. Cooley notes that self‐concept emerges as a result of a series of interactions and appraisals of other people. The self‐concept, as it relates to self‐esteem, is also of major concern to the Teen Challenge program, the subject of this research. Teen Challenge is a therapeutic community seeking the resocialization of drug addicts, criminals, juvenile delinquents, prostitutes, alcoholics and other deviant types. This program is a three‐phase (orientation; training; re‐entry), one‐year residential program which uses the soteriological approach (conversation‐catharsis) as the starter‐mechanism to resocialization. According to a recent, federally funded, follow‐up study, 86 per cent of those who graduated from this program seven years previously had not recidivated. If indeed these statistics are valid, this would merit further research to determine variables significant to the resocialization process. This research assumes that self‐esteem is one such variable, though perhaps only one of many. It is further assumed that this would be low upon entry, and would progress consistently in a positive direction throughout one's stay in the program. Data was collected from centers in six different countries for a cross‐cultural comparison. To avoid contamination, all residents immediately upon entry into the Teen Challenge program in 1975 were tested using the Rosenberg “Self‐Esteem Scale.” Residents were tested again at the mid‐point of their stay using the S.E.S., and retested again when eligible for graduation one year later. Although an analysis of variance did not indicate a consistant increase in self‐esteem as hypothesized, low scores upon induction zoomed up in phase one, dipped slightly during the second phase, then resumed their climb in phase three, reaching an apex at the time of graduation. The over‐all trend for all centers, however, from low to high was highly significant. These results have heuristic potential.     

Developing Anti‐oppressive Ethics in the New Curriculum

This paper describes the development of an anti‐oppressive ethics and values module appropriate for the new social work degree. It is contended that there has been insufficient attention paid to ethics teaching in social work education generally in the UK, and in particular there has been:

• ?failure to develop discrete modules on ethics and values in social work;

• ?minimal critique of conventional ethics with social work values that take oppression and diversity seriously;

• ?insufficient use of recent feminist ethical contributions relevant to social work;

• ?limited development of interprofessional ethics teaching that take service user and social work values seriously; and

• ?neglect of ethical decision‐making guides that can encompass legal, ethical and social work values.

The paper proposes a rationale for an anti‐oppressive ethics module that will enable traditional ethical theories to be placed within an anti‐oppressive social work values context, and aim to provide students with a more adequate guide for decision‐making. The module will be developed in consultation with service users and interprofessional colleagues. It will take into account the British legal and policy framework, the General Social Care Council code of practice, as well as the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education requirements, but placing them within an anti‐oppressive framework drawn from the authors' current and previous work in this area, and will have special reference to recent feminist moral philosophy. The authors have recently been re‐located into a Faculty of Health and Applied Social Studies and will be developing the new module on ethics in consultation with health lecturer colleagues specialising in ethics with the aim of developing interprofessional co‐operation and sharing of perspectives between staff and students. They write with long experience of both practising and teaching social work, and with diverse experiences of ‘race’, gender, class, and also being both service users and providers.     

Palimpsest African urbanity: connecting pre‐colonial and post‐apartheid urban narratives in Durban

Durban, a city situated on the east coast of South Africa in the province of KwaZulu‐Natal, has always been marked by layered, imbricative and intricate meanings. Through narrative slices, this paper considers the interwoven relationships between identity and urbanity and presents Durban as a palimpsest space. The paper illustrates the co‐constituting nature of pre‐colonial Durban's form and society, highlighting the manner in which the context of contact left an impression on identity, urbanity and cultural memory. It thereafter suggests that contemporary attempts, through arts and culture, to contour the city in a more inclusive manner, have a long embedded precedent and history.     

Analgesia produced in women by genital self‐stimulation

This study investigated the relative effectiveness of specific genital regional self‐stimulation in elevating pain thresholds. Anecdotal reports in humans suggest that sexual activity and orgasm decrease a wide variety of human responses to pain and touch, but the phenomenon has not been evaluated objectively. Two types of self‐stimulation, pressure and pleasurable, were applied by 10 women to the anterior vaginal wall, the posterior vaginal wall, and the clitoris. Significant increases in pain thresholds but not tactile thresholds occurred when pressure stimulation was applied to the anterior wall of the vagina or when “pleasurable” self‐stimulation was applied to any of the three areas. Tactile thresholds were not significantly affected by any genital stimulation condition. However, there was a significant increase in tactile threshold but not pain thresholds in the distraction control condition. On the basis of these findings, we conclude that (a) a sensation of pleasure evoked by genital stimulation can elevate pain thresholds, (b) these pleasurable stimuli were not general “distractants” because they elevated pain thresholds but not tactile thresholds differentially, and (c) genital pleasurable stimuli activate an analgesic process that is distinct from a distraction process.     

Experiences of Post‐Qualifying Study in Social Work

This article is based on a research project to explore the experiences of past and current candidates for post‐qualifying awards in social work in England. Also included in the study are the Leads of the post‐qualifying consortia in England. The study used questionnaire survey and nominal group techniques to gather data, which were coded and categorised into themes. The main findings relate to the perceived purposes of post‐qualifying study, motivations for undertaking post‐qualifying study, the factors that sustain and hinder study, the advice that those who have or who are experiencing post‐qualifying study would give to those about to start and future plans and hopes in this area.

Post‐qualifying study is generally valued, especially in relation to the opportunities it provides for professional development. The support of a mentor who has direct experience of the candidate's programme is highly prized, as are clear and consistent guidance from the programme and meaningful study time and workload relief from employers. There are also frustrations for some candidates who do not feel that their post‐qualifying study has stretched them beyond qualifying standards or who experience the teaching as divorced from the realities of daily practice. The appetite for a wider choice of post‐qualifying modules suggests that providers of post‐qualifying study will need to collaborate within and across regions in order to achieve a critical mass of candidates for more specialist or focused learning. The study suggests a need for further research to understand the impact of post‐qualifying study on candidates' social work practice.

The article concludes with two checklists of questions, one for individual candidates and another for agencies and programmes. These questions arise from the findings in the research.     

Putting the Post‐Human in the Loop: Future Combat Systems and Post‐Disciplinary Training

The US Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) is a large‐scale procurement program that will introduce a number of “manned” and “unmanned” platforms, all of which will be completely interconnected into one layered network. Hailed as revolutionary, all of the FCS platforms, in addition to being networked, will include on‐board or embedded training systems. This article contends that the integration of embedded training systems into the US Army’s Future Combat Systems exemplifies a form of Deleuzean post‐disciplinary control that is endemic to contemporary discourses of strategic virtuosity.     

Phenomenology and Integral Pheno‐Practice of Embodied Well‐Be(com)ing in Organisations

Aiming for developing a comprehensive understanding this paper investigates the multidimensional phenomenon of well‐being in organizations as an embodied and integral process from a phenomenological perspective. In particular, the paper will show how the advanced phenomenology of Merleau‐Ponty (1962 Merleau‐Ponty, M. 1962. Phenomenology of perception, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar], 1964 Merleau‐Ponty, M. 1964. The visible and the invisible, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.  [Google Scholar]) can help to render an extended understanding of the ‘incorporated’ dimensions of well‐being. Phenomenologically organizations will be understood as situated in an embodied life‐world in which well‐being takes place. Based on this phenomenological understanding, the article proposes an integral pheno‐practice of well‐being, by which the interior and exterior dimension as well as individual and collective spheres of well‐being and its interconnected processes are integrated. For overcoming a dualistic orientation, then a processual turn is suggested, allowing a decentred perspective of well‐be(com)ing as an emerging and inter‐relational event and accomplishment. In addition to some practical effects and implications by concluding some perspectives of further research of an integral well‐be(com)ing are discussed.     

Asian migrants in Australia: A socio‐economic study

This paper presents a socio‐economic profile of Asian migrants in Australia, using data from the 1981 Census of Population. It shows that Asian migrants are highly educated (large proportions are university graduates and are in professional occupations), English‐speaking (many are bi‐lingual) and mostly Christian. The paper then goes on to estimate the economic benefits Asian migrants bring when they migrate to Australia, as well as the costs they might impose on the economy. Benefits were estimated by measuring the costs of education and training that Australia avoided by allowing skilled migrants to enter the country. In addition, migrants brought in financial capital when they came to Australia. They also contributed to the supply of goods and services by participating in productive employment. The costs that migrants might impose on the economy relate to the possibility of taking jobs and other resources (such as education, health and other public services) which might otherwise have gone to other Australians. Careful estimates of these factors indicate that, far from imposing a burden, Asian migrants make a substantial net contribution to the economy. In addition, the findings do not lend support to the view that they may be a cause of societal dissention, or a threat to Australian democratic institutions. On the contrary, the social attributes they possess indicate that they are well placed to settle successfully, and to make a substantial contribution to the development of Australian society.     

Race‐gender variations in the demographic characteristics of doctoral scientists

Most of the research literature has given little or no attention to the social backgrounds and traits of black scientists and female scientists. The present study, based on survey findings on a national sample of American scientists, helps to fill this gap. Female scientists are compared with their male colleagues, and black scientists with their white colleagues. Race is a better predictor than gender of certain demographic characteristics. However, a clearer picture of variations in social background and current family patterns is derived from an analysis which controls for both race and gender. This analysis includes data on social status of parents, marital status of scientist, number of siblings and number of offspring, religious identity, and region of origin. The implications of these survey findings for the future development of scientific talent are explored, including some implications for researchers, sociologists of science, and social planners.