Social Work as a Social Institution

This paper discusses trends in social work in the last twenty-fiveyears. Within the broad theme of social work as a social institution,more detailed attention is focused on: services for childrenand elderly people; manageralism; and social work research andevaluation. Processes of secularization, professionalism andmanageralism have weakened the impetus for social reform. Thishas sharpened dilemmas for social work in balancing benefitsfor service users and public involvement with tight state controland regulation.     

Research as Social Work: Participatory Research in Learning Disability

The social-work literature has already made links between socialwork and research, and has argued in favour of practitioner–research.This paper turns the argument around and looks at how researchcan come to look and feel like social work. This happens particularly,but not exclusively, in participatory research in the learning-disabilityfield, especially in auto/biographical or life-story research,where long-term research relationships are more in evidence.Drawing on the participatory research methodology literature,and her own oral and life-history research, the author exploresthe areas in which research comes to emulate social-work practice.There are, of course, practical and ethical issues to be addressedand, as the author concludes, safeguards are needed to clarifyroles and foster openness in research relationships.     

Peacebuilding as a Gendered Process

Peacebuilding is frequently viewed in terms of post-conflict societal reconstruction without consideration of cultural context and gender. Using a feminist participatory methodology, this study investigated South African women's understandings of peacebuilding and how these are mediated by gender and context. Sixteen women engaged in dialogue over 2 days. Thematic analysis of the recorded dialogue provided insight into how the 16 South African women leaders understand their efforts to build a more peaceful society. The findings pointed to gender- and context-specific aspects of peacebuilding. Most of participants' peacebuilding activities occurred outside of the aegis of national governmental institutions and their peacebuilding priorities focused less upon structural rebuilding and more on processes, people, and relationships. One of the important priorities was the prevention of violence toward women. Whether these findings are gender-specific and contextually unique are topics for future research.     

文凭与社会资源的交换

社会阅览 文凭是个人受教育与教训的凭证。一定的文凭不仅代表着拥有它的人具有一定的技能和知识,而且预示着他将来可能获得知识和技能的能力。因此,文凭具有交换的价值。通过它,人们可以实现不同资本之间的转换,如高薪职业、关系网、声望、生活方式、合法性地位和群体的身份等等。     

Gerontology as a Graduate Social Work Concentration

Abstract

Gerontology education in one graduate school of social work is advancing across a life course. From its origins of three students, now over 100 graduates serve elders and significant others. Grounding, growing, and sustaining gerontology as a “concentration” comes with challenge and reward. This article denotes the origins of a gerontology concentration, describing “community as impetus” and “outreach to students.” It proceeds to concentration outcomes, presenting “alumni as partners” and “community as beneficiary.” Sustainment of gerontology as a concentration is attributed to internal and external investment in a gerontologically- and geriatrically-sophisticated social work force.     

Research as Social Action in the Aftermath of Hurricane Andrew

SUMMARY

A study conducted 14 months after Hurricane Andrew examined the long term impact of this natural disaster on the homeless in the hardest hit areas of South Florida. The effects of a natural disaster on the homeless has not been studied in the past. In addition, this study is presented to illustrate a model of social action research. The foundations for the principles of this model are rooted in the best scientific and social justice traditions. The principles are introduced and described using research methodologies that were utilized in this disaster study. How the findings contributed to changes in policy, procedure, and practice are highlighted.     

Privacy as a Social Issue and Behavioral Concept

This introduction, to an issue on privacy as a social issue and behavioral concept, discusses what privacy is, by examining definitions and theories of privacy, and what privacy does, by reviewing the benefits of obtaining privacy and the costs of failing to achieve and of losing privacy. It provides a possible bridge between social psychological and social issues approaches to privacy and examines privacy as a social issue for Americans as citizens, health-care recipients, consumers, and employees. It then briefly explores behavioral aspects of privacy, including indicators of privacy's importance and the generally overlooked status of privacy in psychology .     

Social Empathy as a Framework for Adolescent Empowerment

ABSTRACT

Adolescent empowerment has been used to develop programs addressing a variety of issues that put young people at risk. Empowerment has been associated with positive outcomes in youth, including increases in resilience, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and civic engagement. This article reviews a selection of applications of empowerment with adolescents to identify how the concept is defined, applied, and measured. Key challenges to implementing adolescent empowerment programs are identified. Based on the review, social empathy is proposed as a framework for adolescent empowerment program developers. Using social empathy as a framework allows for consistency in definition and flexibility in application to apply to diverse groups of youth in various settings. A social empathy framework also establishes key outcomes that can be measured to ensure program effectiveness. By employing social empathy as a framework, service providers can draw on the value that empowerment, both as a process and an outcome, brings to their work with adolescents.     

Comparative Hypothesis Assessment and Quasi Triangulation as Process Knowledge Assessment Strategies in Social Work Practice

Summary Despite a debate lasting some decades, there has been littleor no clear resolution about the way knowledge may be relatedto practice. To a considerable degree this is because of anassumption that knowledge is ‘knowledge as product’:given knowledge, researched and applied to practice. In recentyears, the concept of ‘knowledge as process’ hasemerged, focusing on knowledge of rigorous ways to think aboutpractice situations. This has generated a focus on hypothesisgeneration, testing and falsification, as well as lessons tobe learned from rigorous methods of qualitative analysis insocial research. Rigorous social workers, it has been suggested,would behave like ‘practical qualitative researchers ofthe individual instant’. However, there is little empiricalresearch on the matter. This paper evaluates process knowledgeforms used by social workers. It presents findings that socialworkers vary considerably in the extent to which they develophypotheses about the whole case, or aspects of it, in the depthwith which they analyse cases, and the systematic way they pursuean information gathering strategy. The paper concludes thatthere is clear evidence of social workers behaving as practicalqualitative researchers, but the rigour with which they do sovaries, with fundamental implications for the training process,and the extent to which rigorous strategies, along the linesof research methodology, should be taught.     

Practitioners as Rule Using Analysts: A Further Development of Process Knowledge in Social Work

Correspondence to Professor Michael Sheppard, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK. E-mail M.Sheppard{at}plymouth.ac.uk Summary A new paradigm of ‘process knowledge’ has emergedin recent years, distinct from the dominant ‘product knowledge’paradigm in social work. While the latter refers to existentknowledge, which may be applied, the former refers to the developmentof knowledge about the ‘methodology of practice decisionmaking’, focusing on the processes by which judgementsare made. At its heart is the emerging idea of a reflexivityfor practice, but studies have been, until recently, theoretical.A very small number of empirical studies have begun to identifysome key elements of process knowledge. These have developeda range of concepts relating to critical appraisal, hypothesisdevelopment and hypothesis testing which characterize socialwork process knowledge. These include, for example, focusedattention, querying information, causal inferences, partialcase, procedural, and speculative hypotheses. A process of quasitriangulation is characteristic of social work practice methodology,together with a combination of inductive and deductive thinking.This paper seeks to develop our understanding by focusing onhow social workers develop and appraise hypotheses, and in particularhow the substantive content of hypotheses emerges (these enablesocial workers to make sense of, define, and respond to, situations).To understand this, the notion of rules is used, and socialworkers emerge as analysts employing three types of rules: substantive,application, and practice rules. A significant link betweenprocess knowledge and the content of product knowledge is identifiedin the form of technical language. The concept of ‘probabilisticcausation’ is identified as a key epistemological dimensionin the conduct of rigorous practice.     

Social class as a dimension in casework judgment 1

With few exceptions, outcome studies evaluating batterer treatment groups are inconclusive at best and, at worst, label such treatment programs as ineffectual. This qualitative research study was developed in an effort to understand the forces behind how positive change either happens or is subverted. Through analysis of treatment groups for batterers, the study investigated two questions: How do batterer treatment groups affect the psychological defenses of the members? What types of group dynamics emerge in offender treatment that might be unique to this population and promote defensive change? The theoretical frameworks used in this project include constructs from ego psychology related to defensive maturity and the curative factors in group process, articulated by Yalom (2005).     

"African American" as a new Social Representation

The use of African American as a new denomination for a group previously referred to as Black has rapidly become standard practice in American society. This paper analyzes how the introduction of African American in our ordinary language marks the elaboration of a new social reality. As the concept becomes part of our social life, it is transformed into a real "phenomenon" of social representation that formalizes behaviour and orients communication. Such a transformation requires that the new term infiltrates people's everyday lives sufficiently to concretize it into a common reality. The analysis presented here outlines three key processes in the emergence and formation of the social representation of African American. The first one is anchoring which familiarizes the new object by linking it with preexisting categories in our minds. The second process is objectification which assures the crystallization of the object. A figurative core is created to allow the projection of images. At this point people can talk about the object, and through communication the object takes on meaning. This naturalization is the third process to conclude the transformation of the object into a social reality. These steps have allowed African American to become the carrier for a modification of cognitions and broadening of attitudes concerning the group.     

Social Worker as Client: My Education as a Family Member in a Nursing Home

A social worker's professional experience in providing a service does not necessarily ease her own personal stress when she is the recipient of that same service. The author is a nursing home social worker whose own mother was a resident in the facility where she works. Her first-hand experience with the "system" and with her emotions brought new enlightenment to the practice of her profession.     

Towards a Paradigm for Research on Social Representations

Based on Moscovici's (1961) classical study on the cultivation of psychoanalytic ideas in France in the 1950's and our own research on modern biotechnology, we propose a paradigm for researching social representations. Following a consideration of the nature of representations and of the 'iconoclastic suspicion' that haunts them, we propose a model of the emergence of meaning relating three elements: subjects, objects, and projects. The basic unit of analysis is the elongated triangle of mediation (SOPS): subject 1, object, project, and subject 2, captured in the image of a 'Toblerone'. Such social units cultivate, that is produce, circulate and receive representation which may be embodied in four modes–habitual behaviour, individual cognition, informal communication and formal communication–and in three mediums–words, visual images or non-linguistic sounds. We propose an operational definition of a 'social representation' as the comparison of four characteristics of communication systems: the content structures (anchorings and objectifications; core and peripheral elements), the typified processes (diffusion, propagation, propaganda etc.), and their functions (identity, attitude, opinion, resistance, ideology etc.), within the context of segmented social milieus. Seven implications for research on social representations are outlined: (1) content and process; (2) segmentation by social milieus rather than taxonomies; (3) cultivation studies within social milieus; (4) multi-method (mode and medium) analysis; (5) time structures and longitudinal data; (6) the crossover of cultural projects and trajectories; (7) the disinterested research attitude. This ideal type paradigm leads to an operational clarification to identify new research questions, and to guide the design and evaluation of studies on social representations.     

以创新精神不断推进山东社科院自身建设

认真学习、全面贯彻江泽民关于哲学社会科学发展问题的三次重要讲话,以创新精神,加强地方社科院自身建设,全面促进我国哲学社会科学的繁荣与发展,是摆在我们面前的一个重大课题。近几年来,山东社会科学院适应新形势发展要求,坚持以创新为动力,以改革求发展,以建设做保障,紧紧围绕省委、省政府中心工作做好决策咨询服务,以山东省改革开放、现代化建设提出的重大理论和实践问题作为主攻方向,全面构建以应用研究为主干,以创新性基础研究为支撑、以咨询服务研究为新生长点的科研结构布局,大力实施“人才、精品工程”和国家课题龙头带动战略,事业发展取得了明显的成效。     

社会网研究的架构:以组织理论与管理研究为例

本文认为社会网研究存在于七大领域之中。根据各研究领域,本文以组织与管理研究为例说明每一领域要研究的内容,并阐述了社会网结构与社会关系如何在集体行动与个体行动之间搭起一座桥,而其间的自组织现象更使得集体行动绝非个体行动的线性加总,而有着复杂现象的特性——不同的自组织会产生分歧的行动结果,相同的个体行动可能在不同的结构中产生完全相反的集体行动。解开此非线性行为之谜,正是未来社会网研究要继续努力的重要方向。     

Social Workers as Entrepreneurs

Qualified social workers were employed in the newly established Community Service Centers (Matnas) in Israel to take part in efforts to initiate services and define each Matnas' domain. The organizational structure of a Matnas encourages its workers to use their professional skills in making entrepreneurial initiatives: The local board, the untenured, multidisciplinary staff, and the ability to utilize mixed resources, affords the Matnas the flexibility to easily contract ‘in’ and ‘out’ of programs, giving it and its staff a competitive position within the free market of service providers. This structure also permits the establishment of formal and informal contacts with constituents and authorities. This paper presents the case and discusses the role of social workers in innovating service programs.