The Effect of Volunteering for Community Activity on the Social Resources of Low-SES Residents: Differences Between Volunteer Community Activists and Other Residents

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Community interventions seek to increase volunteer activists’ social resources in order to further the establishment...     

Social Activists: Lessons for Community Psychology

In a graduate class in community psychology, each student studied the lives and achievements of social activists. This article integrates the work and accomplishments of 5 social activists into a conceptual and methodological framework for social change within community psychology. These activists worked on issues including national liberation, women's suffrage, the rights of migrant workers, and community development. The methods used by these activists are particularly relevant to the field of community psychology. The article discusses the implications of the work and accomplishments of these social change agents.     

EMPLOYMENT SECTOR AND VOLUNTEERING: The Contribution of Nonprofit and Public Sector Workers to the Volunteer Labor Force

In capitalist societies, jobs are sorted not only by occupational status, but also by the employment sector in which they are situated. Research has demonstrated that public- and nonprofit-sector workers have more prosocial values than private-sector workers. We used recent data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) Special Supplement on Volunteering to examine sector differences in the likelihood of doing volunteer work and the number of hours volunteered. Regardless of occupation or education, nonprofit-sector employees are the most likely to volunteer and with the most hours, followed by public-sector workers and the self-employed. This finding is robust across most types of volunteer work.     

Community Connections: Social Capital and Community Success1

This article examines the impact of two types of community social capital—ties between civic organizations formed through shared members and ties between residents formed through socializing in local gathering places—on residents’ subjective appraisals of community success. Community social capital studies tend to focus on the first of these types of ties, networks of civic engagement, while the second, gathering place networks, has received relatively little scholarly attention. Studying both allows me to assess the formal and informal arenas of community sociability, providing a more thorough understanding of social capital and community life. I assess the effects of community‐level social capital networks on the individual‐level experience of residing in the community using survey data on 9,962 residents from 99 small towns in Iowa. This rich data set allows me to avoid two shortcomings common in social capital research: I construct genuine network measures of social capital (rather than infer network structure from community attributes) and conduct multi‐level analyses (rather than rely on disaggregation). My findings indicate both types of social capital are positively and significantly associated with resident ratings of community success, suggesting community networks—in both the formal and informal sectors—have important consequences for small towns and their residents.     

Schools of Social Work Contribution to Community Partnerships: The Renewal of the Social Compact in Higher Education

ABSTRACT

Embracing the concept that the social compact between university and community can provide a cornerstone for true social change. This article details how partnering with outside organizations in collaborative relationships can help fulfill higher education's obligation to educate for the good of a democratic and learned populace. Often the social conscience of a university, schools of social work can serve as leaders in the development or facilitation of university and community partnerships to address or intervene in areas of social need. One research institution of higher education provides successful examples.     

The Preparation of Volunteer Workers With Adolescent Groups

The Victorian Association of Youth Clubs is a voluntary organization, the primary function of which is the provision of consultative services and training programmes for volunteer workers to locally based and autonomous youth clubs.² These clubs are admitted to affiliation with the Association subject only to evidence that they have a satisfactory pattern of administration and that they have no ruling which would prohibit the membership of any particular category of young people. The Association provides a wide variety of services, the most important of which are concerned with leadership training and consultation from professional staff on any problems encountered by the club in its own development. These services operate through four separate divisions, one of which provides research or consultation services on a fee-charging basis to local government or other bodies concerned with overall planning, while the other three provide services to the affiliated clubs, these divisions being established according to the various types of club programme. This paper will only describe the preparation of volunteer workers in one such division, namely, the Keystone Clubs Division.     

Economic Contribution of Migrant Workers to Thailand

In the past decade or two, an increasing number of migrants from countries neighbouring Thailand have moved to Thailand temporarily or permanently in search for jobs and life security, causing an increase in the labour supply in the Thai labour market. This paper attempts to find the economic contribution of these migrant workers to Thailand using various data sources and a collection of related findings. We find that capital gains from migrant workers show an increasing trend from around 0.03 per cent of the real national income (880 million baht) in 1995 to around 0.055 per cent of the real national income (2,039 million baht) in 2005. Using the adjusted labour share, the net contribution of migrant workers is on average 0.023 per cent of the real national income per year, or around 760 million baht per year.     

外来务工青年志愿服务参与行为研究

外来务工青年从事志愿服务活动与推动志愿服务的全民化是一种互构的关系,也是他们去标签化,重构身份系统的现代性行为表达。志愿力作为研究的概念工具,剖析了志愿力的三个维度,即意愿、能力和可为性。研究结果表明,外来务工青年的志愿服务参与意识、能力和可为性对于志愿服务参与行为具有显著影响。基于此,要从志愿服务意识的唤醒、能力的提升和便利性增强三个方面提高外来务工青年的志愿服务参与性,减少新的社会排斥,促进社会融入。     

The Contribution of Law and Social Work to Interdisciplinary Community Development and Peace Building in the Middle East

SUMMARY

Reducing inequity and strengthening civil society are both intrinsically related to peace building. This article outlines how social work and legal theory, coupled with an interdisciplinary practice framework, advance the development of community networks for the promotion of social rights as a medium for peace building in the Middle East. The combined effect of human rights advocacy, civic engagement, and the structuring and building of community, work to reduce inequality and promote civil society. Examples of interdisciplinary practice as implemented through the initiative of the McGill Middle East Program in Civil Society and Peace Building are presented. Finally, implications for interdisciplinary training for schools of social work are discussed.     

Stability and Change in Nonprofit Organizations: The Volunteer Contribution

This paper reports on a study of the microprocesses of stability and change in a nonprofit welfare organization in Australia. We position volunteering and voluntarism as core constitutive phenomena in and of nonprofit organizations and the nonprofit sector more generally, and examine volunteer agency in action. Developing a model drawn from neoinstitutional theory and adopting an ethnographic approach, the paper illustrates theoretically and empirically how volunteers create and revise institutional orders operative within organizations in ways hitherto poorly articulated and understood.     

Promoting Financial Capability of Incarcerated Women for Community Reentry: A Call to Social Workers

ABSTRACT

Female incarceration rates are increasing at unprecedented rates. The majority of women are poor single mothers, serving sentences for nonviolent drug-related and property offenses. Among challenges faced when transitioning back into society are a history of interpersonal violence and financial instability. This study examines literature with regard to the barriers women experience with an emphasis on financial struggles and explores outcomes of one initiative to begin addressing the financial capability of women in a minimum security prison. Findings reveal women benefited from the class experience. Social workers are called upon for additional financial capability programming and research in this area.     

The Attitudes of Social Work Students and Practicing Psychiatric Social Workers Toward the Inclusion in the Community of People with Mental Illness

Abstract

This study measured and compared the attitudes of social work students and practicing psychiatric social workers to the inclusion in the community of people with mental illness. The Community Living Attitude Scale Mental Illness (comprising the four subscales of Empowerment, Exclusion, Sheltering, and Similarity) was administered to a random sample of 68 Israeli BA social work students (first year: n = 35; third year: n = 33) and 28 practicing psychiatric social workers. Overall, the participants endorsed Empowerment and perceived the Similarity of persons with mental illness to themselves more than they agreed with the Exclusion attitude of segregating those persons from community life. First-year students rated Empowerment and Similarity significantly lower than did the third-year students and rated Sheltering significantly higher than did psychiatric social workers. Psychiatric social workers did not differ from third-year students and did not have stronger attitudinal commitment to the inclusion paradigm. They differed from first-year students only in the sheltering attitude; they showed lower support for sheltering people with mental illness.     

Insights on Professional Identification and Licensure from Community Practice Social Workers

ABSTRACT

This article describes a qualitative study designed to explore both how community practice social workers identify professionally and to examine their view towards professional regulation. Thirty-five MSW-level social workers in a large metropolitan region who self-identified as community practice social worker participated in in-depth interviews. The respondents shared their views regarding professional identification as social workers and the impact of professional identity on their work as community practitioners. Approximately half of the respondents indicated that they only sometimes or never identify as a social worker. The respondents were generally critical of the licensing burden placed upon them as community practice social workers.     

The Contribution of Social Movement Theory to Understanding Terrorism

The study of terrorism and political violence has been characterized by a lack of generalizable theory and methodology. This essay proposes that social movement theory can contribute a necessary conceptual framework for understanding terrorism and thus reviews the relevant literature and discusses possible applications. Terrorism is a form of contentious politics, analyzable with the basic social movement approach of mobilizing resources, political opportunity structure, and framing. Cultural perspectives call attention to issues of collective identity that allow for sustained militancy, and movement research recommends alternative conceptions of terrorist networks. Previous research on movement radicalization, repression, and cycles of contention has direct bearing on militancy. Emerging perspectives on transnational collective action and the diffusion of tactics and issues informs an understanding of contemporary international terrorism. Research on movement outcomes suggests broader ways of considering the efficacy of political violence. Finally, methodological debates within the study of social movements are relevant for research on terrorism. In sum, a social movement approach to terrorism has much to contribute, and research on terrorism could have important extensions and implications for social movement theory.     

E-technology and Community Participation: Exploring the Ethical Implications for Community-based Social Workers

ABSTRACT

To date, much of the work on social work, ethics and technology has been focused on clinical social work and micromorality—the ethical practices of the worker and their clients in one-on-one or therapeutic group interactions. In contrast, this article foregrounds social workers engaged in community work and the ethical implications at a macromoral level. Central to community-based social work, also known as social development work, is the principle of participation. In observing the ways e-technology is affecting community participation, the focus is upon communicative and social technologies, rather than assistive technologies, or technology enabled assessment. The article explores the intersection of these three themes of community participation, technology, and ethics to examine the implications for social workers located in the complex context of community work.     

The Role of Social Workers in Welfare to Work Programs

Summary

Welfare to work is an important arena for understanding the changing nature of social policy and practice in Australia, the UK, Hong Kong, and the United States. This article discusses some key policy and practice issues in respect to social work professional training and practice. Welfare to work programs focus on “active” measures and stress the importance of “responsibilities” for all people of working age to support themselves through employment. The programs are being implemented in different ways across these different countries but in all cases the focus is increasingly on groups of people who may require substantial levels of assistance to meet their needs and to help them find and sustain employment.     

Preparing Community Health Workers for Their Role as Agents of Social Change: Experience of the Community Capacitation Center

Current efforts to better integrate Community Health Workers (CHWs) into the health and social service systems are promising, but may be less effective if they fail to support the role of CHWs as social change agents. The way CHWs are trained influences the roles they play. In this article, we review the literature on CHW training and summarize lessons learned to date. We describe how the Community Capacitation Center in Oregon uses a combination of content, methodology, and values to prepare CHWs to make an optimal contribution to health. Recommendations for CHW training programs and policy makers are provided.     

An Andragogical Application to the Training of Social Workers

This paper presents a critical consumer model for teaching social work research. Critical consumption is defined as the ability to understand, evaluate, utilize, and apply the results of social work research. The authors describe the use of this approach in their classroom and summarize a battery of “critical questions” they have used successfully to teach the skills of critical consumption. Although this model was developed in an undergraduate context, it has considerable relevance for teaching social work research at other educational levels as well.