Happily Ever After? The Journey From Foster Care to Adoption

Providing the foster child with a forever family through adoption is often seen as a happy ending to the long and painful journey through foster care. This qualitative study explores this complex journey from foster care to adoption from the perspective of 30 young adults aged 18 to 25 who were adopted from the foster care system after the age of 8. The results indicate that the foster and adoption experience for these youth cannot be compartmentalized when trying to understand the impact adoption has had on their overall sense of self. Implications for future research to explore the emerging concept of foster/adoptive identity for older youth adopted through the foster care system are provided.     

Contextualizing Race,Culture, and Identity for Transracially and Internationally Adopted Persons: Lessons from a Personal and Professional Journey

Abstract

To better understand the path towards identity formation for transracially adopted persons (TRAs), this paper analyzes the issues that must be considered when examining the navigation of racial and cultural identity for individuals who were adopted transracially. This paper includes an analysis of the issues of oppression, power, and privilege for individuals who were adopted by parents who are racially different from the adoptees themselves. The complexity of how culture, race, and adoption status affect the oppression, internalized oppression, privilege, and power experiences of transracially adopted individuals is explored, with particular attention to the implications for identity development.     

The Journey to Inclusion

ABSTRACT

This article examines the effectiveness of a standing committee on diversity in addressing issues of diversity in a predominately white school of social work in the Midwest. The work of this committee is viewed through the lens of a transformational model of diversity. A transformational model of diversity refers to moving organizations from an ethnocentric paradigm to the infusion of diversity at every level of the organization. This moves beyond an affirmative action approach, in which success is measured by representation alone, to one of full incorporation, in which the roots of the organization are grounded in liberatory worldviews. This is the second study in a series on “The Illusion of Inclusion”(Roberts & Smith, 2002). This qualitative study is based, in part, on a survey of faculty and staff perceptions of the mission, vision, and actions of the committee on diversity over its 30-year history. It was discovered that while diversity committee did have a role to play in the journey toward inclusion, its work and to some extent, its leadership were marginalized. Participation in the committee was alternately a source of fulfillment and great stress for its members. Themes associated with membership and leadership, ownership, operationalizing the mission, and the demise of the committee are highlighted. The authors offer suggestions for moving academic organizations beyond illusion toward infusion and full incorporation from African-centered, alternative, and liberatory paradigms.     

A Journey Through the Prism of Race: An Evolution of Generational Consciousness

SUMMARY

Race consciousness is examined over the life course of three social work professors of color during different generations. This narrative method illustrates their journey through self-affirming families and communities that served as protective factors against hostile individual, community, and institutional forces that attempted to marginalize, subjugate, and oppress their will. Each experienced similar bouts with racism, albeit in less blatant forms, while all benefited from earlier leaders who served as ladders. Implications for diversity, social justice, and social work education are discussed.     

Journey towards independent living: a grounded theory investigation of leaving the care of Girls & Boys Town,South Africa

The journey out of care and towards independent living is a challenge for many care-leavers. There has been little research into the social processes involved in this care-leaving journey. This paper presents the results of a grounded theory investigation into the care-leaving journeys of nine young men who had, several years previously, been in the care of Girls & Boys Town in South Africa. Working from a resilience perspective, with an ecological emphasis, four central social processes emerged that together explain the care-leaving experiences of the participants. These processes are striving for authentic belonging; networking people for goal attainment; contextualised responsiveness and building hopeful and tenacious self-confidence. These four processes are located within contextual boundaries and at the social environmental interface. The paper presents these processes in detail, drawing on selected narratives of the participants and integrated with additional theory. It is hoped that this paper may contribute to theory building concerning care-leaving processes and enhance youth care practices for youth in care and leaving care.     

The Resilient Survivor—A Student Social Worker's Journey on Placement

This paper represents the continuation of my ‘personal and professional journey’ from social work student to social work practitioner focusing on my first Practice Learning Opportunity (PLO). Recognising the potential impact of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in a classroom environment is as important as the potential impact on actual practice learning and practice. This is salient in the real world of social work practice as the potential misuse of a painful childhood experience has greater ramifications. Utilising the ideas and assumptions of social constructionism (including context and multivocality) the significance of silence from social work educators shall be examined in relation to self-disclosure as a means of aiding PLO learning and practice. This paper will also focus on the concept of critical reflection and its significance in exploring the transferability of a childhood experience such as CSA and personal and professional dilemmas regarding self-disclosure. This paper concludes by highlighting areas for consideration for both students and social work educators and conveys an important message regarding the importance of communication between students and social work educators.     

Decolonizing my hair,unshackling my curls: an autoethnography on what makes my natural hair journey a Black feminist statement

ABSTRACT

There is unquestionably a buzz in US Black women’s communities about a trending “natural” phenomenon. Sales of chemical relaxers (sometimes dubbed “creamy crack” among the US Black community) have dropped 34 percent since 2009, while sales of “natural” hair care products that promise to non-chemically enhance or beautify “natural” curls are up exponentially. Corresponding to the rise in sales of “natural” hair care products are beauty blogs, YouTube instructional videos and supportive social groups—such as “natural hair” meet-ups, which have organically emerged for, and been mostly created by, Black women as a tool to support and nurture women as they take this journey. In this article, I use Black feminist P.H. Collins’s work because her understanding of the relationship between knowledge, consciousness and empowerment provides a framework or point of departure for grasping my own lived experience of going “natural” with regards to modes of oppression and methods of resistance.     

Sentencing Male Sex Offenders Under the Age of 14: A Law Reform Advocacy Journey in Hong Kong

The common law presumption that a boy under the age of 14 is incapable of sexual intercourse has provoked controversial debates in Hong Kong. This article describes a 6-step advocacy journey to examine how community efforts have helped modify this law so that juvenile male sexual offenders under the age of 14 who have committed the crime of having sexual intercourse with underage females can be sentenced to receive appropriate treatment. Seven court cases provided by the magistrates’ courts in Hong Kong were used in this advocacy effort for the removal of the presumption in July 2012. Although this effort has yet to reveal signs of effectiveness, it represents greater public awareness about providing rehabilitation appropriate for juvenile sex offenders through a formal sentence. Restorative justice, as opposed to retributive or punitive justice, places an emphasis on rehabilitation of the offender and restoration of victims to a place of wholeness.     

Four contexts of institutional oppression: Examining the experiences of Blacks in education,criminal justice and child welfare

ABSTRACT

Institutions are key sites of oppression. Institutional oppression is defined as the mistreatment of people of a particular group that is enforced by society and its institutions. It is a system of invisible barriers that emerge from institutional laws, customs and practices, thus producing inequities for particular groups across race, gender and class. Woven together, the web of institutional oppression is vast, cumulative and multi-faceted, including both overt and covert discriminatory practices and behaviors. Based in a critical review of the literature, the authors of this article introduce and describe four characteristics of institutional oppression that specifically impact the lives of Black Americans. Furthermore, we provide a case vignette that illustrates these characteristics of oppression. The article concludes with recommendations on dismantling institutional oppression and highlights the roles that social workers can play in collaboration with educators and other professionals.     

Imagination,Hope and the Migrant Journey: Iraqi Asylum Seekers Looking for a Future in Europe

Europe received an unprecedented number of asylum seekers in 2015. This article examines Iraqi asylum seekers who journeyed through Europe in search of an idealized version of Finland, which they had imagined based on word-of-mouth and social media information. Through cognitive migration, the act of pre-experiencing futures in different locations, Finland was seen to offer both subjective hope of personal growth and advancement and objective hope of safety and physical security. This hope motivated them to embark on a journey of 6,000 kilometers to the European North. Based on interview data and relevant studies, the article concludes that hope of a better, imagined future abroad acts as a powerful magnet for persons with poor prospects in their countries of origin. Hope is a kind of critical emotion strongly shaped by beliefs and real-time opportunities; and as such, beliefs are notoriously difficult to change. Imagination, therefore, should not be overlooked when planning and implementing migration policies.     

Theoretical Voices Directing the Career Development Journey: Holland,Harris‐Bowlsbey,and Krumboltz

The counselor's role in facilitating career development remains dynamic as lifelong learning, expanding lifestyle options, and the changing workplace present new opportunities. In response, most practitioners follow some common theoretical assumptions as their foundation. As the career development field celebrates its place and embraces the millennium, the work of John Holland, the developmental perspective promoted by JoAnn Harris‐Bowlsbey, and John Krumboltz's social learning theory are captured through this personal view of the career development journey. Unique insights about the context of their work and view of the future workplace are shared.     

Teaching Note—Oppression of People With Mental Illnesses: Incorporating Content Into Multiple-Issue Diversity Courses

Many social workers practice in settings serving people with mental illnesses, but social work education in the United States has given minimal attention to helping students understand the systemic nature of prejudice and discrimination experienced by this population. Some courses address prejudice (stigma) toward people with mental illnesses, but a critical consideration of systemic oppression appears to be lacking. We explain how an oppression framework used to understand the systemic nature of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression is useful in illuminating experiences related to (perceived) mental health status. We offer suggestions for incorporating content into courses that focus on diversity and oppression with the goal of preparing students to engage in antioppressive practice with people who have mental illnesses.     

Reshaping Clinical Practice for the New Millennium

In the new millennium, oppression will continue to affect social workers’ clients. This article discusses training clinical practitioners to address oppression. Drawing on poststructural, postmodern, feminist, and social constructivist theories, the article argues that to challenge oppression, clinical practice must address the dialectical relationship between private troubles and public issues while transforming professional relationships that disempower clients. The article describes a second-year MSW clinical practice sequence taught from feminist, poststructuralist, postmodern, and social constructionist perspectives, where students learn to assess the impacts of oppression, discover clients’ strengths, and respond in personal, social, and political contexts.     

Infusing Content on Oppression into the Social Work Curriculum

Abstract

The 2003 Council on Social Work Education standards of accreditation mandated the inclusion of course content to educate students about the systemic factors that contribute to populations being at risk of oppression, as well as strategies to redress them. In response to that mandate, this article discusses oppression in its biopsychosocial complexity and suggests ways that confronting oppression can be integrated into the core curriculum of social work.     

Imagining Gender Research: Violence,Masculinity, and the Shop Floor

This paper starts by arguing that visual data enriches gender research in management and organizations. Through an analysis of drawings by factory shop‐floor workers, we show that organizational climate is interwoven with gender dynamics, that shop‐floor masculinity is not necessarily heterosexual, and that masculinity in the shop‐floor context includes oppression as an element of man's symbolic violence against man. We discuss the usefulness of this type of data in gender research in organizational analysis and explore the ways in which gender violence is expressed in organizations. Moreover, the drawings gathered at a newspaper printing site located in the North of England provide a means of showing the relationship between gender violence and the exercise of masculinities, sexuality and oppression. We conclude that the exercise of hegemonic masculinity is associated not only with sexuality but also with the oppression of subaltern enactments of masculinity.     

‘Journey to the future’: imaginaries and motivations for homeland trips among diasporic Armenians

This article highlights diasporic migrants' transnational linkages with and trips to their homeland. Second and later generations of diasporic Armenians, predominantly from the USA and Canada, claim to travel to the ancestral homeland in Armenia not as heritage tourists to see the holy Mount Ararat but to invest in local development through social work. Based on ethnographic research, in‐depth interviews with volunteers and text materials, this article identifies those specific features of the contemporary diasporic ‘sacred journey’ that differ from conventional return migrations. This new inter‐continental migratory path between North America and Armenia has a temporary character. By analysing the range of reasons why young professional Armenian‐Americans and Armenian‐Canadians should choose to travel the long distance to offer their services, this article provides insight into the decision to become a volunteer in Armenia and the ways non‐profit diasporic organizations channel and mobilize this transnational activity. The study shows that ‘ethnic’ volunteers are highly conscious of the modern understanding of mobility as being a marker of personal social status within the society in which they grew up. The study of a variety of imaginaries among members of a paradigmatic diasporic group, such as Armenians, shows how second and later diasporic generations take advantage of their multi‐cultural background to become transnational global actors.     

Conceptualizing Violence Against Gay,Lesbian, Bisexual,Intersexual, and Transgendered People

Abstract

This article provides a conceptual model for defining antigay violence that incorporates the diverse manifestations of such violence, its multilevel nature, and its structural and ideological foundations. Interconnections are made among oppression, power, moral exclusion, and stigmatization. In particular, the impact of heterosexist oppression, including its roots in the moral and medical paradigms, and gender oppression are explored.     

Translating Race and Caste

In the late nineteenth century, Indian and African American social reformers began to compare struggles against racial oppression in the United States with movements against caste oppression in India. The majority of these reformers ignored what was lost in translating messy particularities of identity, status and hierarchy into the words “race” and “caste” and then again translating between these words. While exploring the limitations of such a double translation, this article argues that race/caste analogies were often utilized in opposition to white supremacy, caste oppression, and other forms of injustice.     

The Concept of Oppression and the Development of a Social Theory of Disability

In this paper it is argued that a social theory of disability can best be developed through the use of the concept of oppression. This concept is outlined, and special emphasis is placed on the importance of the social origins of impairment in such an analysis. The ways in which this approach would utilise data gathered from other theoretical perspectives is indicated. General features of a theory of disability as oppression are specified.     

Elder abuse and oppression: voices of marginalized elders

The voices of elderly people from marginalized groups are rarely solicited, and the relationship between elder maltreatment and belonging to an oppressed group has not been adequately investigated. This article reviews the literature on oppression and elder abuse and describes findings from the secondary analysis of data from focus group discussions on elder abuse held with marginalized older adults and (quasi)professionals caring for them in two Canadian cities. Participants identified that increased vulnerability to elder abuse was related to oppression experienced as a consequence of ageism, sexism, ableism/disability, racism, heterosexism/homophobia, classism, and various intersecting types of oppression.