The Impact of Managed Care on Field Instruction

Managed care is changing the provision of services to clients and the availability of field placements for students. This exploratory study, reporting on an October 1996 survey of social work field directors nationwide, confirms that placements have been lost because of managed care. Yet, it also notes that schools and agencies are reassessing their relationship and can collaborate to create different learning opportunities in the new environment. The findings have implications for deans, program directors, field directors, and regional and national organizations (such as the Council on Social Work Education) in the areas of revising the curriculum, confronting student expectations, and establishing new relationships with agencies.     

Korean Social Work Students’ Attitudes Toward Homosexuals

For this article, the Hudson and Ricketts Index of Attitudes toward Homosexuality (IAH) was used to measure levels of homophobia in a convenience sample of 124 students enrolled in social work programs in two major universities in the Republic of South Korea. The results indicated that BSW and MSW Korean students had high levels of homophobia, particularly in comparison to U.S. samples. In-class discussion of homosexuality was found to be significantly associated with lower levels of homophobia. The authors review these and other research findings and discuss implications for social work education in South Korea and the United States.     

The Impact of Ethnicity and Phase in Training on Israeli Social Work Students' Satisfaction with the Field Instruction

Students' evaluations of their satisfaction with their field instruction including their field instructors, agency, and learning opportunities have been the focus of earlier and more recent studies. However much less is known about students' satisfaction in non‐English speaking countries. Even rarer are studies on how satisfaction differs among diverse ethnic groups and phase of training. This study focuses on the impact of ethnicity (Jewish and Israeli Arabs), and phase of training (second or third years) on the satisfaction of Israeli social work students with their field instruction. Some 742 second and third year students reported their satisfaction on a self‐administered questionnaire. Third year students who had already completed two academic years of training were more satisfied with their field instruction than second year students. Arab students were significantly less satisfied with their field placement agencies. Second year Arab students were also less satisfied with their field instructors and their field instruction in general than second year Jewish students. The lower satisfaction might be true for other minority groups in Western countries and should be further investigated. We recommend increasing cultural sensitivity in the curriculum of social work education as well as preparatory workshops before the beginning of field practice.     

Application cards: A classroom technique for teaching social work practice

This paper describes the use and evaluation of application cards as a teaching tool designed to enhance students' abilities to apply knowledge learned in social work practice classes. Strengths and limitations of this tool as a means for enhancing students' application skills are discussed, based on qualitative and quantitative evaluative data.     

The role of deliberate and experiential learning in developing capabilities: Insights from technology licensing

We discuss the interdependencies between deliberate and experiential learning in developing a dynamic technology licensing capability, which was termed ‘desorptive capacity’ in earlier conceptual work. We use new three-year lagged data from two surveys of 79 firms to examine the role of dedicated licensing employees and prior licensing experience in developing firms’ sensing, seizing, and transforming capacities in technology out-licensing. The findings emphasize capabilities’ multidimensionality and critical trade-offs due to interdependencies between deliberate and experiential learning in developing capabilities. Besides interdependencies with experiential learning, deliberate learning strengthens sensing and seizing capacity, but it negatively affects transforming capacity based on inertia.     

Gender and nationality pay gaps in light of organisational theories

This paper analyses wage inequality with respect to gender and nationality within German establishments. It is a large-scale analysis based on linked employer-employee data from the Institute for Employment Research (LIAB). Wage inequality is measured as the intra-establishment pay gap by gender and nationality, taking into account that human capital may not be equally distributed across the different groups of employees. Consistent with economic theories of discrimination we find significant pay gaps by gender and nationality, even taking into consideration employees’ qualifications. We can show that pay differentials between men and women are much larger on average than those between Germans and non-Germans, and that both pay gaps exhibit a tremendous variation across establishments. Drawing on organisational theories we inquire as to how selected firm characteristics are related to the variation of these intra-firm pay gaps and derive hypotheses about which establishments have a greater incentive and/or are more able to pursue wage equality in their workforces. By use of regression analysis we then investigate whether variables that reflect the firms’ social, institutional and cultural environment and their resource requirements are empirically related to the sizes of the pay gaps. The results are rather ambiguous, suggesting larger, innovating and foreign-owned establishments with a larger share of non-German employees and with a collective bargaining agreement to have smaller gaps, particularly with respect to gender.     

Fostering families' and children's rights to family connections

Recent federal legislation strengthens children's and families' rights to family-centered practice by increasing the responsibility of child welfare agencies to identify and engage extended family members in providing care and support to children placed out of the home. Preliminary results from an experimental study of a federally funded family finding project found greater involvement of family, kin, and informal supports and a higher likelihood of reunification or relative placement compared with standard child welfare services.     

The sociolinguistic development of Yiddish: Eighteenth to the twentieth centuries

Books reviewed in this article:
Estraikh, Gennady Soviet Yiddish: Language Planning and Linguistic Development
Kerler, Dov-Ber The Origins of Modern Literary Yiddish
Peltz, Rakhmiel From Immigrant to Ethnic Culture: American Yiddish in South Philadelphia     

Episodic Cessation of Gambling: A Numerically Aided Phenomenological Assessment of Why Gamblers Stop Playing in a Given Session

The topic of permanent cessation of gambling behavior has received increased attention as the rates gaming (and pathology) increase with accessibility and legalization. Despite this increased attention there is a paucity of research on why people stop gambling in a given session, i.e. episodic cessation. We propose that the study of first-person experiential accounts of why gamblers stopped engaging in play within a given session will shed light on the progression and maintenance of wagering behavior. Using numerically aided phenomenology, we systematically examined accounts of episodic cessation. In doing so, we were able to identifying recurrent themes and then clustering these accounts according to similarities in theme profiles. People reported that episodic cessation occurred because they had lost all their money or because they were forced to (Cluster I), a sufficient amount of money had been won or lost (Cluster II), and a priori limits on wins or losses had been reached (Cluster III). As predicted, gamblers with maladaptive reasons for episodic cessation (Cluster I and II) reported more illusory perceptions of control and negative attitudes toward treatment seeking than those who engage in responsible gambling behavior (Cluster III). Moreover, illusions of control mediated the effect of cluster membership on attitudes toward treatment seeking. The findings of the present research help to integrate recent studies of gambling progression and maintenance.     

Perceptions of Stepfathers’ Obligations to Financially Support Stepchildren

The perceived fairness of financial arrangements following divorce and repartnering have significant ramifications for social policy and family well-being, yet relatively little is known about public opinion regarding the extent of stepparents’ financial responsibility towards stepchildren’s living costs. This study investigated perceptions of stepfathers’ obligation to financially support stepchildren using quantitative and qualitative methods, and built on previous research by including contextual variables to explore the processes underpinning judgements of kinship responsibilities using a distributive justice framework. Data from a community sample in Western Australia (N = 200) showed a large amount of variability in responses, however most participants believed stepfathers should contribute financially to some extent. Significant reductions in perceived obligations were associated with both cohabiting relationship status and maternal employment, but not with the presence of prior child support commitments by the stepfather. This study highlights the heterogeneity and complexity of attitudes around this issue and associated social policies.