Children Making a Difference: Developing Awareness of Poverty Through Service Learning

Service learning is an accepted practice in many middle and high schools as a means to develop empathy for others and promote character. In elementary classrooms service learning may be considered a one time a year occurrence and carried out as a school-wide project. This article addresses a more integrated approach to service learning, wherein children can participate in a year long approach to contributing to their community. Teachers direct them in making connections to the local community while at the same time developing life long habits of participation and service.     

Leaving Poverty Behind: A Radical Proposal for Developing Bangladesh Through Emigration

This article argues that the most efficient way of developing Bangladesh is to encourage more emigration. This argument is made in three steps: (i) proposing that 10% of the population be encouraged to emigrate to member states in the Bangladeshi Aid Consortium; (ii) outlining the anticipated costs; and (iii) describing the anticipated gains, which in the light of any feasible alternative, and when contrasted with the relatively meagre costs, are phenomenal and encouraging. By providing individual Bangladeshis with such an opportunity the hopes of the millions remaining behind are strengthened.     

Improving Understanding About Tanning Behaviors in College Students: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Objective: Melanoma is the second most common cancer diagnosed among 15- to 29-year-olds. This pilot study assessed behaviors, barriers, and beliefs relevant to sun exposure and protective behaviors. Participants: The sample comprised 153 undergraduate students at a large state university in western New York. Methods: Participants completed an online survey about sun safety habits, barriers to using sunblock, and beliefs about tanning and sun exposure. Results: Response rate was 90.8% (n = 139). Most students (87.8%) reportedly spent ≥ 3 hours per day outside in the summer, but only 17.3% reported always using sunblock during this time. Sixty percent reported recent indoor tanning and 41% reported more than 10 lifetime sunburns. The greatest barrier to using sunblock was forgetting (84.2%). Conclusions: Demographics coupled with inconsistent and low levels of sunblock use, high annual prevalence of indoor tanning, and multiple lifetime sunburns indicate that this sample is at high risk for skin cancer.     

Learning Through Partnering

Abstract

Organizational partnerships offer a variety of benefits to participants. Besides being able to leverage resources and accomplish broad objectives, organizations can also learn about themselves through the experience of partnering. The article addresses how partnerships, especially those involving universities and community organizations, can best benefit from the learning potential in a partnership. Drawing from the 13 conference presentations of successful partnerships, we conclude that significant organizational learning can occur within these four frameworks: formulating shared objectives; managing personal relationships; creating structures and processes to support, rather than impede, collaboration; and reflecting on purpose and consulting data to assess outcomes.     

Asking About Sexual Orientation During Assessment for Drug and Alcohol Concerns: A Pilot Study

ABSTRACT

An assessment tool was designed to assist service providers in identifying lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) clients who present for assistance related to substance use concerns. Items were designed to facilitate self-disclosure of the individual's sexual orientation and identify concerns of LGB clients that will be relevant to treatment planning for substance use concerns. Therapists in general assessment and LGB-specialized services of a large treatment agency were trained to use the tool. This paper presents client and therapist comments made during the pilot study regarding the use and value of the assessment tool.     

Learning Phrasal Verbs Through Conceptual Metaphors:A Case of Chinese EFL Learners

Recent researches in cognitive linguistics suggest that enhancing awareness of conceptual metaphors embedded in the individual words may help second language students to learn idioms. This study examined whether enhancing awareness of orientational metaphors of particles facilitates acquisition of phrasal verbs by Chinese English as a foreign language(EFL) students. The students in the control group learned a set of phrasal verbs through traditional instruction, whereas those in the experimental group received the same input through a cognitive linguistic approach. The students in both groups were then asked to fill in the missing adverbial particles of the phrasal verbs. Results showed that the students in the experimental group performed significantly better than those in the control group, implying that when the target idioms are not stored as a unit in learners' mental lexicon, learners who are aware of conceptual metaphors may rely on metaphorical thought to produce an appropriate adverbial particle. This highlights the implications that EFL learners need to be explicitly taught about the notion of orientational metaphors before they can actively comprehend and produce appropriate phrasal verbs.     

Learning About the Candidates: The 1976 Presidential Debates

In this study of the 1976 televised Carter-Ford debates, theauthors find that the debates produced a heightened politicalawareness in viewers in the critical days just prior to theelection. The information obtained from the debates focusedlargely on candidate competence, performance and personalityattributes rather than on issues, but some increase in informationon issues and policies can be linked to the debates. The majorimpact of the debates may have been to reinforce partisan predispositions.Arthur H. Miller is a Senior Study Director at the Center forPolitical Studies, Institute for Social Research, and AssociateProfessor of Political Science, University of Michigan. MichaelMacKuen is an Assistant Professor of Political Science, WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis, Missouri.     

The Learning Relationship: Working Through Disjunctions in the Classroom

This paper advances a relational perspective to teaching social work practice. The reflective use of this relationship aids the instructor in conceptualizing interactions with students in ways that further the students' understanding of social work practice. We argue that students learn first-hand about social work through the instructor-student relationship. Inevitably, parallel to clinical practice and the client-worker relationship, disjunctions in the learning relationship occur. Drawing on the literature pertaining to the client-worker relationship and to the supervisor-supervisee relationship, this paper explores the use of this relationship to address ruptures in the learning process and to enhance students' professional development.     

高职大学生试验工场训练计划的实践与思考

以高职生物制药技术专业为例,介绍了以创新能力培养为目标的大学生试验工场训练计划(SPPT)的设计与实施,倡导在高职中开展基于生产的、专业技能与GMP实务相结合、创新能力培养与专业课程教学相结合的训练。     

Poverty orderings: A graphical illustration

This note graphically illustrates the power of various poverty ordering conditions. Using the Kolm three-person simplex, we are able to show that (1) for a fixed poverty line the power may be increased as higher degrees of stochastic dominance are considered, (2) for a single but variable poverty line the power is reduced as the line increases, and (3) for a range of poverty lines the power of the third degree ordering condition may be reduced to that of the second degree if the lower bound poverty line is arbitrarily close to zero. Received: 9 September 1998/Accepted: 11 January 2000     

Learning About Marriage from the Divorced

Questionnaire and interview data from 138 men and women who experienced divorce in the middle years give insight into the process of coming apart. It was found that conflict was not an important variable because there often was no communication whatsoever occurring between the couple. For the majority of the divorced couples, time spent together in pleasurable pursuits diminished with the years; the marriage was not examined nor found lacking until some crisis occurred in the middle years-usually the husband developing a relationship outside the marriage that provided the companionship, sharing and intimacy lacking in the marriage. Recommendations for young couples entering marriage today which can serve to enhance the relationship are drawn from the research.     

Micro-Enterprise Development: A Response to Poverty

Summary

All over the world, micro-enterprise development initiatives are demonstrating that they are a viable response to poverty. This paper discusses a field study of 40 slum-dwellers, 17 of whom had taken out a loan for a micro-enterprise, conducted in Calcutta in 1995. This study helps demonstrate the crucial elements of the Gra-meen model of micro-lending. Findings show there is a significant difference in income of borrowers versus non-borrowers, and that micro-enterprises create a culture that has rippling effects on the community. Lessons learned are relevant for social workers promoting micro-enterprises for community economic development in the United States.     

Young Children as Wayfarers: Learning about Place by Moving Through It

This article describes the walking and moving of young children around places. It is based on an ethnographic study of children aged between 24 and 36 months visiting a museum. Drawing on Ingold's (2007) concept of wayfaring, the author argues movement through place creates embodied, tacit ways of knowing and experiencing the world. This embodied and tacit knowledge is not well‐accounted for in dominant models of how young children learn. In this study, wayfaring both enabled the children to learn about places and routes, and led to the development of traditions, in which collective meanings and actions were attached to particular locations.     

Learning Life Skills Through Challenging and Negative Experiences

Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal - Youth who are socially vulnerable are disproportionately confronted with culminating risk factors that impact their everyday lives. Within positive youth...     

A Therapeutic Summer Weekend Camp for Grieving Children: Supporting Clinical Practice Through Empirical Evaluation

Through collaborative action-oriented community research, agency-based clinicians, and university-based researchers engaged in a two-year theory-driven evaluation of a therapeutic summer camp for grieving children. The evaluation examined the camp practice model and children’s engagement in therapeutic camp activities and psychosocial functioning based on the camp staff and parental caregivers’ assessments. The first year findings led to a synergistic decision-making process that strengthened one of camp therapeutic activities. The overall results reveal a high consistency among staff on assessments of engagement and psychosocial functioning, and parental caregivers’ satisfaction with the camp. Limitations of research evaluation and implications for practice are considered.     

A New Poverty Decomposition

This note proposes a new poverty decomposition that can be used to explain changes in poverty over time. The change in poverty is derived as the exact sum of four elements: (i) the overall growth effect, assuming inequality in the distribution does not change; (ii) the impact of differences in growth rates between the groups; (iii) the effect of the change in inequality within the different groups; (iv) the impact of changes in the population shares of the various groups.     

Student Self-Assessment as a Teaching Tool: A Pilot Study of the Sequential Criterion-Referenced Educational Evaluation System

Abstract

This report discusses the use of a student self-assessment system (Sequential Criterion-Referenced Educational Evaluation) in social work education. It reports a pilot study which examines the system's reliability and validity. The results support the utility of this repeated assessment in social work education.