Ecosocial innovations enabling social work to promote new forms of sustainable economy

Social work research and practice that address environmental sustainability have already become prominent. However, a change in unsustainable economic structures is also urgently needed. This study explored emerging opportunities in theory and practice for a sustainable economy that are relevant to the aims of social work. As practical examples, our study concerns ‘ecosocial innovations’, i.e., social innovations that combine ecological and social goals. We analysed how these grassroots innovations in the field of social work reflect crucial shared conceptions of alternative economies. The qualitative data set comprised of 50 ecosocial innovations and six case studies in five European countries. The findings show a rich diversity of ecosocial innovations and describe how they reframe economic purposes, value economic diversity and democratise the economy. We suggest that social work might consider these practices as opportunities for collaboration, especially regarding work with people on the margins of the labour market.     

Social work and the environment: An ecosocial approach

Norton CL. Social work and the environment: An ecosocial approach This article draws on insights from social work, ecopsychology and ecofeminism to inform an ecosocial approach honouring humans' interconnectedness with nature. It re‐examines social work's ecosystems perspective and redefines its central ‘person‐in‐environment’ configuration to embrace a broadened emphasis on the natural world. It identifies insights from ecofeminism on the parallels between the oppression of women and domination of nature, and presents feminist ways of relating that may enhance connection with the planet as a whole. It introduces the concepts of empathy and empowerment from relational cultural theory as important ideas to integrate with social work's ecosystems perspective to promote deeper awareness of this connection. Finally, the ecosocial approach thus derived is examined as a means of promoting environmental sustainability at all levels of social work practice.     

The place of social work in sustainable development: Towards ecosocial practice

Peeters J. The place of social work in sustainable development: Towards ecosocial practice Ecological questions are seldom seen to concern the social dimension and, accordingly, to be of direct concern to mainstream social work practice. However, the current ‘social‐ecological crisis’ demands a major social transition to a sustainable society that touches all dimensions of our lives. So, social work cannot escape this process. This article argues that social work can engage in this transition starting from its social mission and tradition, provided it includes the ecological environment as an important element of practice and develops an ecosocial practice centred on empowerment, social capital formation and resilience building as both a contribution to and part of a process of social‐political change.     

Raising awareness of transformative ecosocial work: Participatory action research with Australian practitioners

This article reports on Participatory Action Research with social work practitioners who collaboratively explored the effects on professional practice when practitioners raise their awareness of an ecosocial work approach. Although contemporary research in the profession has contributed to the ongoing development of ecosocial work, there is a notable lack of collaboration with social work practitioners. Using a transformative ecosocial work model of practice, researchers together with social workers from a range of practice contexts met as co‐inquirers to plan, implement and evaluate ecosocial work interventions. As part of a larger international study, this article reports on research outcomes within the Australian context. Overall, results indicate that practitioners incorporated interventions across personal, individual, group and organisational levels of practice, but were constrained by structural elements at broader levels. Continuing the development of ecosocial work requires further collaborative exploration with practitioners, which takes into consideration communities and broader social and political systems. Key Practitioner Messages: ? This research endeavours to contribute to the evidence‐base for progressing transformative ecosocial work in professional practice; ? Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), this research was done in collaboration with social work practitioners as co‐inquirers to develop ecosocial work interventions; ? A range of ecosocial work interventions were implemented at the personal, individual, group and organisational levels.     

The practices of collective action: Practice theory,sustainability transitions and social change

Developing theory for understanding social transformation is essential for environmental sustainability, yet mainstream accounts of collective action neglect the dynamics of daily life. Theories of practice have proved generative for the study of sustainable consumption but struggle to accommodate the roles of collective actors, strategic action and purposive collective projects in social change. In response, this paper develops a practice theoretical account of collective action pertinent to processes of large scale social change, with specific focus on transitions towards sustainability. We consider three ideal types of collective—bureaucratic organisations, groupings and latent networks—and, drawing on existing social theoretical resources that are ontologically compatible with a practice account, explore the kinds of practices and arrangements which compose them. Processes concerning strategy, bureaucracy, management, social worlds and collective identity are identified as important combinations of practices and arrangements. We suggest a key contribution of practice theory has been to identify a type of collective action we call dispersed collective activity, and we suggest how this type of activity may give rise to collectives. We conclude by suggesting further development for the realisation of the project's contribution to the analysis of sustainability transitions.     

Emotion and relatedness as aspects of the identities of adolescents with severe learning disabilities: contributions from ‘practice‐near’ social work research

This paper considers social and personal/individual approaches to researching identities of adolescents with severe learning disabilities; suggesting that vital components of emotionality and relatedness are largely missing from research and consequently from literature informing social care professionals. This leaves untapped, rich information and communication resources for research which may improve understandings of the experiences of a socially excluded group of young people. A psychosocial view of adolescent identity development, ‘subjectivation’, offers a way forward and a case study on ‘Billy’, drawn from a ‘practice‐near’ observational study, helps to illustrate this. Observation allows the researcher to be sensitive to the subtle ways in which identities of young people with severe learning disabilities are constructed, often with a sense of fragility and uncertainty. Continuities of experience between the young people and the rest of the adolescent community may be seen, but also the impact of living with impairment can be thought about in relation to the particular psychosocial circumstances of each young person. Knowledge of these processes enhances social work practice by encouraging workers to be sensitive to, and healthily curious about, the multiple ways in which identities of young people with severe learning disabilities are shaped in relationship with those around them and the wider social field.     

Making social policy work for economic development: the Nordic experience

The Nordic welfare states offer some lessons in a development context. A main achievement has been sustainable poverty reduction. Another important lesson is that, while democratization often leads to greater pressures for social policy expansion, social policy can also contribute to democratization. The Nordic countries further demonstrate that is possible to unify social protection with a competitive and growth-oriented economy. In a number of policy areas, particularly in relation to social services and labor market policy, the Nordic countries have also become leading modernizers. The women-friendly dual-earner model not only combats poverty among families with children, but also enables women to participate in the labor market. The future sustainability of the Nordic model of social policy hinges on the number of taxpayers that can be mobilized. In order to be successful in this, governments need to take a combined, or holistic, approach, and consider both micro motives and macro considerations.     

Making social policy work for economic development: the Nordic experience

The Nordic welfare states offer some lessons in a development context. A main achievement has been sustainable poverty reduction. Another important lesson is that, while democratization often leads to greater pressures for social policy expansion, social policy can also contribute to democratization. The Nordic countries further demonstrate that is possible to unify social protection with a competitive and growth‐oriented economy. In a number of policy areas, particularly in relation to social services and labor market policy, the Nordic countries have also become leading modernizers. The women‐friendly dual‐earner model not only combats poverty among families with children, but also enables women to participate in the labor market. The future sustainability of the Nordic model of social policy hinges on the number of taxpayers that can be mobilized. In order to be successful in this, governments need to take a combined, or holistic, approach, and consider both micro motives and macro considerations.     

A revisit of ‘moral and character education’ subject in junior-high school in China

Moral education is a practice to promote the moral competence of adolescents, particularly in nurturing their moral judgement and moral behaviour. In China, under the rapid development of social work practice at schools, moral education could serve as a collaborative point between teachers, school counsellors, social workers and policymakers to promote the moral, holistic and healthy development of students. However, moral education is not as yet widely and systematically evaluated? particularly the details of relevant policy, curriculum, textbooks, teaching and learning approach, examination and evaluation. This paper takes an initiative to conduct a comprehensive literature review and theoretical discussion on the subject ‘Moral and Character Education’ (Sixiangpinde思想品德) which is a mandatory moral education subject for Grade 7–9 students in junior high schools in China. It also provides reflections and suggestions on how the subject and moral education could be promoted under the contexts of promotion of adolescent holistic development and involvement of social work practice.     

The implications of dialogicality for ‘giving voice’ in social representations research

Social representations research is often undertaken by scholars who seek to ‘give voice’ to knowledge(s) that are held by socially disenfranchised individuals and groups. However, this endeavour poses a number of problems in practice, not least because it assumes that the ‘voices’ voiced by individuals and/or groups in social research will be unambiguous and uniform, and unchanged by the research encounter. Despite the growth of attention to the critical potential of social representations theory, there remains a lack of scholarship on the relationship between the theory's emphasis on the relational, or dialogical, nature of social life (the Ego‐Alter‐Object relation) and the implications of this for critical research. In this article, I argue that the dialogical epistemology from which social representations research must depart incites reflection upon (i) the design of empirical studies, which must equally attend to both ‘Ego’ and ‘Alter’, and (ii) the researcher‐researched relationship, which may itself be best viewed as an Ego‐Alter interaction. I make the case for adopting dialogical epistemology in critical social psychology, and argue that this is essential to undertaking ethical social research. I conclude by suggesting that claims to ‘giving voice’ have little place in critical social psychology in general, and social representations scholarship in particular.     

Client contribution in negotiations on employability – categories revised?

Eskelinen L, Olesen SP, Caswell D. Client contribution in negotiations on employability – categories revised? Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 330–338 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. In this article, we explore how the institutional category ‘unemployed’ is specified in everyday practice when implementing an active employment policy. We illustrate the process of categorisation as an aspect of the in situ positioning and self‐representation of the client by examining one social worker–client talk: how the category unemployed is shaped and ‘translated’ when the client negotiates her situation with the social worker. Two types of category revisions are identified. First, the employability of the client, rather than her unemployment situation, is the issue under negotiation. Second, the client introduces new categories that are compatible with the demands of the employment system. She contributes by drawing on discursive resources related to the category of ‘active job seeker’ but does this with an own agenda of looking for a suitable job. The analysis elucidates the client's contribution to institutional practice and discusses constitutive and constituted elements of categorisation.     

Social Policy beyond Fear: The Globalization of Strangeness,the ‘War on Terror’, and ‘Spaces of Wonder’

Fear has become central to social scientific understandings of contemporary insecurities. However, this article argues that a focus on fear is not sufficient, and that an exploration of ‘wonder’ is more productive, particularly when trying to understand modes of governance and policy regimes introduced as part of the ‘war on terror’. An appropriate starting point for such an exploration is the globalization of strangeness. The idea that globalization has undermined the familiar territoriality of a world of nation states has become accepted in the social science literature. However, the nature of the resulting unfamiliarity or strangeness of the world is rarely explored. This article focuses on the processes by means of which the world is rendered strange and examines the opportunities for new forms of governance opened up by a world designated as insecure, uncertain and unpredictable. The article pays particular attention to the ways in which this strangeness can generate ‘spaces of wonder’. Examples of such ‘spaces of wonder’ include ‘the world’, the UK's border, now offshore according to the Home Office, and ‘global borderlands’. The article advances a critical reading of contemporary political responses to ‘spaces of wonder’, particularly the ways in which the unknown and threatening are rendered in familiar and cosy terms.     

From altruism to sociality: A switch in perception

The article critically reviews concepts and uses of the term altruism in relation to the emergence of the capitalist welfare state. It argues that altruism may be regarded as a fetishized representation of ‘sociality’ and that notions of altruism tend to obscure or distort understandings of the essential social interdependence that characterises humanity as a species. The article reaches back to anthropological evidence, to religious and philosophical influences, and to insights from scientific inquiry and it makes a case for a humanistic switch in perspective within the study of social policy.     

Badiou and the philosophy of social work: a reply to Stephen Webb

Imre R. Badiou and the philosophy of social work: a reply to Stephen Webb Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 253–258 © 2010 The Author, Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. Stephen Webb's recent article ‘Against diversity and difference in social work’ claims that the work of Alain Badiou has the potential to be of great use in social work practice. Webb is faced with the problem of a discourse that has eroded any practical meaning attached to notions of diversity and difference, he laments the ‘ethical turn’ in social work practice and blames post‐modernism. Webb views the work of Badiou as a way to reinvigorate social work practice. I claim that Badiou's Being and Event is exclusive to ontology. Connections between Being and Event and possible ‘uses’ of Badiou's subtractive ontology, as an instrumentalisation, are not worthwhile. Critiquing Badiou's non‐ontological philosophies and political polemics is a better way to assess the practicality of his thought outside of his ontology. Webb's conflation of post‐modernism, neoliberalism and the difference, diversity and ethics discourse is also problematic and is critiqued here.     

北京社会阶层结构的变迁及优化

通过研究改革开放30多年北京社会阶层结构的变迁,认为北京的社会阶层结构已经从“士字形”“金字塔形”转变为当前的“橄榄形”,但还不是“中产社会”,存在城乡分割的阶层体系和功能区阶层结构的四个世界,而且阶层结构有断裂倾向的特点。因此,提出培育中产社会、提高中间阶层质量、创置下层向上流动机制以及弥合社会阶层结构裂痕的治理对策。     

Everybody needs good neighbours: an evaluation of an intensive project for families facing eviction

This paper presents details of a largely qualitative evaluation of an intensive multi‐method Project, with a residential component, which aims to help families facing eviction to overcome their housing‐related difficulties. The families served by the Project had a host of other problems related to parenting, with child care and protection issues, addictions and mental health difficulties figuring prominently. Just over half the referrals came from the local authority housing services, with nearly all the remainder coming from the social work department. The majority of families made good progress, but in some cases it proved harder to have an impact on parenting than on tenancy‐related matters. Nevertheless, the Project was deemed to have helped some families stay together or be reunited, resulting in substantial financial savings for social work services. Crucial ingredients were good management, stable staff, shared ‘ownership’ by other agencies, a repertoire of challenging methods, and a holistic approach.     

Nested or Networked? Future Directions for Ecological Systems Theory

Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory (EST) is among the most widely adopted theoretical frameworks for studying individuals in ecological contexts. In its traditional formulation, different levels of ecological systems are viewed as nested within one another. In this article, we use Simmel's notion of intersecting social circles and Bronfenbrenner's earlier writing on social networks to develop an alternative ‘networked’ model that instead views ecological systems as an overlapping arrangement of structures, each directly or indirectly connected to the others by the direct and indirect social interactions of their participants. We redefine each of the systems discussed by EST—micro, meso, exo, macro, and chrono—based on patterns of social interaction, and then illustrate how this alternative model might be applied in the classic context of the developing child. We conclude by discussing future directions for how the networked model of EST can be applied as a conceptual framework, arguing that this approach offers developmental researchers with a more precise and flexible way to think about ecological contexts. We also offer some initial suggestions for moving a networked EST model from theory to method.     

Symbols of Terror: ‘9/11’ as the Word of the Thing and the Thing of the Word

This paper adopts a social representations approach to examine the ‘9/11’ symbol which is argued to be a centrally organising, communication oriented, symbolic resource within contemporary representations of terrorism. Within the context of the events of September 11 2001 as a point of shared history which has come to be understood as a significant world event (Liu et al., 2009 ), the ‘9/11’ symbol is argued to fulfil a triple function in contemporary representations of terrorism. Firstly, the ‘9/11’ symbol provides a central anchor for the events of September 11 2001. Secondly the ‘9/11’ symbol acts as a powerful rhetorical resource for objectifying the abstract concept of terrorism. Lastly, alongside the capacity to objectify the abstract, the ‘9/11’ symbol also enables a counter process of transcendentalisation (Billig, 1988 ) whereby it transforms the object into the abstract. As a result the ‘9/11’ symbol is highly suited to widespread mobilisation of easily apprehended notions defining what terrorism is, which do not readily provoke contest and are widely constructed as mundane forms of ‘truth’ amongst a community of users.     

Perceived Challenges to the Sustainability of Community-Based Aging Initiatives: Findings from a National Study of Villages

Concerns have been raised regarding the sustainability of Villages, a rapidly-expanding set of organizations that typically use a participant-directed approach to improve older adults’ quality of life and ability to age in place. Using online survey and telephone-interview data from a 2013 follow-up study of Villages across the United States, this study examined organizational leaders’ perceptions of the major challenges to sustainability. Major challenges identified included: (a) funding, (b) membership recruitment, (c) leadership development, (d) meeting members’ service needs, and (e) limitations of the Village model itself. Findings point to a number of important considerations for the development, implementation, and sustainability of the Village model, including the role of social workers in addressing these challenges.