Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism

SUMMARY

This paper presents a literature review of social work programs' distance education evaluation studies with an emphasis on the strengths distance education programs offer to students relative to standard programs. The authors discuss quality issues in relation to teaching and learning in distance education programs with a panel of distance learners who will discuss their experiences.     

Subcultural Identity Work in Social Movements: Barriers to Collective Identity Changes and Overcoming Them

Over time, social movements must contend with a vast array of forces that can lead to changes in the movement's collective identity. As such changes may impact the alignment of movements and their membership, this study explores how changes are perceived by members and how they are interactively addressed. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered from two Native American social movement organizations, this study specifically asks why some changes suggested by movement members might be pursued and others are not. While movement members felt that there were a number of barriers to changes in their movements, the study revealed that it was the resonance of collective memories – presented during interactions as narrative commemorations – that encouraged the pursuit of suggested changes or the maintenance of a status quo.     

Using Technological Tools to Enhance Learning in Social Work Diversity Courses

SUMMARY

This study explores the educational benefits of using e-mail and electronic discussion groups as instructional tools in social work diversity classes. The authors look at practical ideas of how these technological tools can be used to aid classroom instruction, increase student awareness of human diversity issues, and enhance cultural competence. Students rated their experience as positive overall, and believe it gave them more opportunity to process the course content and expand their discussions outside the classroom. Students also report that they took more time to think about their responses than they do in traditional classroom discussions.     

Small Voices: Children's Rights and Representation in Social Work Research

The persons who are social work's constituencies are typically disenfranchised and excluded. This is particularly the case with children whose voices are routinely suppressed. This paper outlines why Children's Article 12 Rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to express their views on all matters concerning them should also apply to social work research. The ethical issues around research with children are explored and a number of different research methods are outlined in order to offer a starting point for social workers wishing to place children's viewpoints and voices at the centre of their research.     

Not Ethnic Enough: The Cultural Identity Imperative in International Adoptions from China to Canada

Based on a qualitative research of adoptions from China to Canada, this article analyses changing attitudes and approaches to racial and ethnic differences in adoptive kinship in the last few decades. I argue that culture celebration labour over children adopted from China is shaped by the contemporary Canadian culturalist ethos, the Orientalist imagination, and the Asian model minority stereotype. The cultural identity imperative, a core component of multicultural governmentality, perceives culture as an object, demands non‐white Canadian subjects with rooted belongings, and operates in ways that sanctions and incorporates, as it depoliticises and subordinates.     

Social Justice in the Social Work Classroom: Applying a Professional Value to Social Work Education

Social justice is a primary value of social work and therefore has a place in discussions of social work education pedagogy. This is especially true for conversations pertaining to students who are underprepared, due to educational inequalities, for successful completion of writing assignments at the undergraduate level. If underprepared students are treated as equals to prepared students, then the social inequalities that contributed to or caused a student to be underprepared are perpetuated rather than challenged. The authors explore responses to underprepared students that are consistent with social work's professional value of social justice.     

Learning to Be a Social Worker in a Non-traditional Placement: Critical Reflections on Social Work,Professional Identity and Social Work Education in England

Drawing upon findings from a national evaluation of student social workers' experiences of ‘non-traditional’ placements with a national charity, this article considers what such placements can contribute to the development of an individual and collective sense of professional identity for social work. This is explored against the background of current developments in social work education in England, including changes to the requirements for practice placements and the introduction of ‘fast-track’ routes to qualification, preparing students for social work in statutory children's services. The article suggests that with the establishment of The College of Social Work and the development of the Professional Capabilities Framework, relevant to all social workers throughout their careers, the profession has an opportunity to promote a concept of social work in England beyond that required by statutory sector employers; and that practice learning in non-statutory and non-traditional settings has an important role to play in this.     

Social Movement,Action and Change: The Influence of Women's Movements on City Government in Mumbai and London

This article reports on a research investigation into gender and local government in Mumbai in India and London in England. In both these cities female representation at the political level stands at around one third, achieved in London slowly in recent years and in Mumbai more rapidly through the adoption of a quota, or seat reservation system, implemented in 1992. In considering the experience of the women concerned it is argued that their presence and aspirations have been influenced through the networks of their respective women's movements, operating through civil society and the local state. In considering the ways in which they organize and manage the duties of office and their gendered identities, as well as in their focus on the most disadvantaged in their communities and in their dealings with others, the part played by social movements in influencing change is examined.     

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.     

Understanding the Role of Immigrant Families' Cultural and Structural Mechanisms in Immigrant Children's Experiences beyond High School: Lessons for Social Work Practitioners

The destinies of the contemporary immigrant generation are challenged by the profound reshaping of the U.S. economy and the increasing diversity of new immigrant communities from the Latin American and Asian regions. Family represents a key link between immigrant children's social adjustment beyond high school and relationships with mainstream society. Placing an emphasis on culture and social structure, this article reviews contemporary literature and provides a framework for knowledge that helps social work practitioners and policy planners explore the distinguishing features of immigrant families that confer an advantage within their children's post-secondary education or labor market participation. Also considered is how culture and social structure overlap and interact to exert a significant influence on the future economic prospects of immigrant children.     

Assessment as the Site of Power: A Bourdieusian Interrogation of Service User and Carer Involvement in the Assessments of Social Work Students

The centrality of service user and carer involvement in social work education in England is now well established, both in policy and practice. However, research evidence suggests their involvement in student assessments is underdeveloped and under researched. This study focused on the positioning of service users and carers in relation to other stakeholders involved in the assessments of social work students in England. Using narrative research methodology, 21 participants, including service users, carers, social work students, social work employers and social work educators, were offered a semi-structured individual interview. Participants’ narratives revealed different power relations among those involved in social work students’ assessments and a lack of confidence among service users and carers in making failed assessment recommendations. The paper concludes by arguing the case for social work educators and service user organisations to provide joint training to support service users and carers in their role as assessors of social work students.     

Staying put in the Closet: Examining Clinical Practice and Countertransference Issues in Work with Gay Men Married to Heterosexual Women

Gay men married to heterosexual women seek psychotherapy for numerous reasons, not only to find a way out of their marriages. Therapists must identify their countertransference reactions to avoid pushing the patient either to commit to his marriage or leave it. The patient’s underlying problems should be addressed before the patient can explore the fate of his marriage. Therapists also need to be understanding of the patient’s attachment to his wife. In addition, therapists must be aware of the societal implications of homophobia on gay patients. This article discusses motivations for heterosexual marriage among gay men, examines two clinical cases, and addresses practice and countertransference issues. A version of this article was presented at the tenth national conference of the National Membership Committee on Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work on March 10, 2007.     

Seven Rules to Live by: Accommodations in Social Work Education and the Field

Students with disabilities are a growing population in higher education (National Center for Education Statistics, 2009 National Center for Education Statistics . ( 2009 ). Number and percentage distribution of students enrolled in post-secondary institutions, by level, disability status, and selected student characteristics: 2003–04 and 2007–08 . Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_231.asp  [Google Scholar]). Providing accommodations for students with disabilities can raise ethical and social justice questions and pose challenges for social work faculty, administrators, and field instructors. Social work educators must balance the legal mandates for nondiscrimination and reasonable accommodation against ethical obligations around protection of clients and preparation for practice. This article presents case examples in the context of legal analysis to help social work educators make difficult decisions about student academic performance.     

Repositioning Risk in Social Work Education: Reflections Arising from the Threat of SARS to Social Work Students in Hong Kong during their Field Practicum

The social work profession has always been involved in dealing with uncertainty and risk in the life politics of clients. However, it is not easy for young social work students to translate this philosophical disposition into their real life practice with clients. In spring 2003, when the SARS epidemic broke out in Hong Kong, a group of social work students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong were doing their fieldwork practicum. Suddenly confronted by a collective sense of risk in their role as social workers, the students went through a period of unrest, as performing their helping duties brought with it a simultaneous exposure to personal risk. This paper is based on four focus group interviews with these social work students, to understand how they processed their experience of risk during their exposure to the SARS crisis, and how they connected the experience to their social work practice with clients. It is found that the predicament arising from the exposure to personal risk brought about by the SARS crisis during the students' field placement engendered the reflective process that enabled a renewed and personalized meaning of professionalism. The results provide a basis for reflection among social work educators on the role of risk in the training of prospective social workers, and on how social work education can better prepare students for practice in a high‐risk environment.     

The Portrayal of Children's Mental Health and Developmental Issues from 1890 to 1920 in Mass Print Magazines in North America

Children's mental health and development issues are considered a significant concern today. A century and more ago children's mental health and developmental disorders were likely understood differently. This paper examines the portrayal of children's mental health and developmental disorders in all 41 accessible articles on the topic indexed in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature from 1890 to 1920. It focuses on these three decades as a time of fundamental economic, political and social transition before the first text in Child Psychiatry was published and the first professorship in the field established. It was also before the beginning of the influential child guidance movement. In particular, the research asks (i) what were the ‘disorders’ discussed and of what were they said to consist?, (ii) what was said to cause them? and (iii) what was thought best to be done about them?     

Planning from below: using feminist participatory methods to increase women's participation in urban planning

Women have been often invisible in urban planning. Col·lectiu Punt 6, a feminist organisation of women architects and urban planners based in Barcelona, Spain, has developed planning techniques and tools to include women both as objects and subjects of urban planning, and as experts of everyday life. The article focuses on the participatory tools that Col·lectiu Punt 6 has developed that can be used in the different stages of planning, from assessing to evaluating planning policies and interventions, as well as tools of women's empowerment with the goal of promoting bottom-up models of planning. Evidence is shown of how, using these tools, planning becomes more inclusive not only of women in their diversity, but also of children, youth, the elderly, as well as people of different race, ethnicity, income, sexual and gender identities, and capacities. Examples from different contexts are provided, from Spain and Latin America.     

From Liberal Pluralism to Critical Multiculturalism: The Need for a Paradigm Shift in Multicultural Education for Social Work Practice in the United States

The mandate to educate students to work toward ending oppression and other forms of injustice is clear, but there has been little discussion in the multicultural literature about the kinds of knowledge that are needed to prepare students for such work. This article discusses the need for a paradigm shift from liberal pluralism to a critical approach to social work education and practice. It also outlines a set of core themes to guide multicultural curriculum development. These include (a) culture, (b) race and racism, (c) oppression, (d) multiple identities, (e) power, (f) whiteness and privilege, (g) historical context, and (h) social change. Obstacles to incorporating these ideas into the curriculum and recommendations for overcoming such obstacles are also discussed.     

Subject to Evaluation: How Parents Assess and Mobilize Information from Social Networks in School Choice

A rich literature examines how information spreads through social networks to influence life opportunities. However, receiving information does not guarantee its use in decision making. This article analyzes information evaluation as a fundamental component of social network mobilization. The case of school choice, where the value of information may be more uncertain, brings this evaluative dimension to the forefront. Interviews with 55 parents in Boston show how parents selecting schools assess their social network ties as information sources, privileging information from those they perceive to have affinity and authority. These evaluative criteria map onto disparate networks to engender unequal mobilization of this information. The findings illuminate mechanisms sustaining inequality in social network mobilization and reorient scholars to consider processes underlying information use alongside information diffusion to attain a more complete understanding of how network resources are mobilized in action.