Undergraduate students’ perception of their own strengths and weaknesses as potential social workers

This article offers some insight into how undergraduate social work students perceive their own strengths and weaknesses. This qualitative research study explored responses from 51 s-year students. Participant responses revealed five main themes in strengths and weaknesses categories: characteristic features, client work related, communication skills, expert-centred approach and problem-focused approach. In order to teach students social work core values and perspectives, it is crucial for the educators themselves to explore their own approaches related to the strengths perspective vs deficit-based approach and their willingness to change their own views and teaching methods to prepare future professionals.     

Mapping the structures of international communication organizations’ networks and cross-sector relationships on social media and exploring their antecedents

Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of the alliance theory and the collective action theory, this study examines the global network structures of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and their cross-sector relationships on social media and explains the predictors of the relationships. More specifically, we conduct a network analysis to examine the network structure of international communication organizations and their cross-sector relationships on Twitter. This study found that INGOs and IGOs are more likely to establish following relationships on Twitter with the same type of organizations. Furthermore, educational level and cultural context influence their cross-sector relationships. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are also discussed.     

Multi-faceted psychiatric rehabilitation teams and their relation to social workers’ competencies and self-experience

Psychiatric rehabilitation social workers’ professional activity takes place within a multi-faceted rehabilitation team that includes other professionals, community agents and clients’ family members and its structure changes according to the clients’ clinical status and recovery needs. Participating effectively in such a complex team work requires social workers’ competencies of adapting, communicating, negotiating and collaborating with other professionals and non-professionals. This paper discusses the influence of the constantly changing rehabilitation environment on the social workers’ professional self-experience and suggests a few implications of this phenomenon and conclusions which may contribute to professional development of social workers.     

Child welfare workers’ constructions and causal explanations of poverty

Studying the perceptions of the causes of poverty is warranted because individual perceptions shape behavior toward poor people and actions related to poverty. Prior studies relying heavily on survey methodology fail to capture deeper and fuller meanings participants apply to poverty. This study explores how child welfare workers understand poverty by examining their definitions of, and what they see as causal explanations of, poverty. Individual interviews were conducted with 30 child welfare workers throughout a Midwestern state. Analysis indicated that workers all defined poverty as ‘not getting basic needs met,’ corresponding to the underlying assumptions of absolute poverty measures. Workers simultaneously augmented these definitions using other poverty constructions, namely the federal guidelines and more complex views – conceptually in line with relative poverty measures – that account for factors outside income or consumption. Workers’ causal explanations of poverty were multifaceted. Causal explanations included structural/systemic, individual, family/generational, and luck, with the first three being most prominent. These findings have implications for practice and training in the child welfare system as it relates to poverty.     

Discretionary approaches to social workers’ personalisation of activation services for long-term welfare recipients

Contemporary social policies emphasise labour market inclusion of vulnerable groups through personalisation of activation services. This article investigates social workers’ decision-making when personalising activation measures to suit each client. Data consist of case files for 16 clients participating in a Norwegian activation scheme, and interviews with the clients’ designated social workers. Using Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, the article examines what the social workers consider in their decision-making process and the pivotal factors in their conclusions. Findings show that social workers employ two distinct approaches to personalisation, which have significantly different implications for clients’ pathways towards labour market inclusion. The first approach concentrates on clients’ personal challenges, while the second focuses on feasible short-term employment strategies. The study demonstrates how institutional and political frameworks may lead to social workers’ posing activation requirements inconsistent with clients’ needs and capabilities. It suggests further research into these interrelations to improve social workers’ ability to adapt services to individual clients.     

The Self-Employment of Men and Women: What are their Motivations?

Do men and women carry different motivations for entering self-employment? Earlier researchers have suggested that, as primary care givers for children and families, women face a more stringent time constraint relative to men. Thus, where men see self-employment as a chance for greater financial opportunity, women see a chance to take work that allows more time at home. This paper investigates this hypothesis using unique data that allow analysis of individual self-employment as a function of traditional economic and demographic variables as well as variables that partially capture individuals’ opinions and perceptions of pecuniary and nonpecuniary aspects of entrepreneurism. Results suggest that men who choose self-employment are influenced principally by pecuniary concerns, while women are influenced principally by family concerns and by the opinions of their family, friends, and peers.     

The accomplishments of disabled women’s advocacy organizations and their future in Korea

Since the late 1990s disabled women’s advocacy organizations have fought against oppression and have made great strides in Korea. This paper aims to describe the accomplishments, challenges and future directions of disabled women’s advocacy organizations in Korea. A qualitative design was employed to explore disabled women’s perspectives. Participants were leaders in disabled women’s advocacy organizations and were recruited from each of the organizations existing in Korea in 2007. Among seven potential participants, five were interviewed. Accomplishments to date include significant gains in the recognition and visibility of disabled women, advances in the use of gender‐sensitive approaches to the development of disability policies and the growth of networks among disabled women’s organizations. Disabled women’s advocacy will continue to become stronger in the future through increased organizational membership, the development of a distinct organizational identity, the articulation of more focused policy concerns and continued network development.     

The wellbeing of foster children and their relationship with foster parents and biological parents: a child’s perspective

Most Dutch foster children live permanently in foster families. It is often assumed that foster children have ambivalent loyalties and attachments to their birth parents and foster parents and are torn between the two. In this study 59 children between 10 and 18 years placed in long term foster care completed standardised questionnaires on the relationship with their parents respectively foster parents and their wellbeing. Results show that, on average, foster children have positive feelings of loyalty and attachment towards both their foster parents and biological parents. However, their wellbeing appeared mainly related with stronger attachment representations towards their foster parents. This study found no indications for a competing position of biological parents and foster parents from the perspective of the child. Nevertheless, foster children who see their foster and biological parents as more vulnerable or experience stronger normative boundaries, feel worse compared to children who experience this feelings less.     

Prisoner’s Dilemma payoffs and the evolution of co-operative preferences

We analyse the evolutionary stability of a preference for reciprocity in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. A distingushing and, as we argue, plausible, feature of the analysis is that reciprocal players are not assumed to be able to coordinate on mutual cooperation with probability one. We show how two payoff conditions, one well-known and another new, then become crucial for the evolutionary stability of co-operation. Somewhat paradoxically perhaps, an altruistic preference poses a greater threat to stable cooperation than a self-interested preference.     

The parallel power in organizations’ defense: Exploring faith-holders and their crisis communication

Publics can be active participants of discussions around organizational crises. Through digital media, they can provide information about a crisis, criticize crisis participants or defend the organization experiencing the crisis (Coombs & Holladay, 2014). Limited research exists on the active role of publics in defending the organization. A handful of studies have looked at crisis communication of active organization supporters, including faith-holders (Luoma-aho, 2015); however there is a limited amount of public relations scholarship about the nature of faith-holders, their communication under crisis circumstances, and whether they in fact attempt to help organizations in times of crisis. By using a combination of content analysis and rhetorical analysis, this paper examined the crisis communication strategies offered by the organization’s faith-holders in the comments to the crisis-related articles published on the websites of media outlets. Through a case study of Tesla Motors’ crisis, the paper determined that faith-holders are a powerful force in defending the organization during the crisis, using both traditional reputation repair strategies identified by Coombs (2015) as well as new strategies identified by the study. Faith-holders were not a monolithic group and differed in terms of what aspects of the organization they had faith. Their communication was not restricted by legal and ethical demands. The results provide insights into understanding of faith-holders’ communication during crises, and also highlight the need for reconsidering the situational crisis communication theory in respect to organizations' faith-holders.     

The meaning of “fundamental preferences”

We present the definition and meaning of “fundamental preferences” that are interpersonally comparable, ordinal and endemonistic. We also dispel a number of misunderstandings concerning them. In the article “A cause of preference is not on object of preference” (Soc Choice Welfare (1993) 10: 57–68), Professor Broome misinterprets the notion of “fundamental preferences” in confusing an observer's device for a psychological transformation of the observed (as if an economist studying wealth meant that he becomes wealthy, or if physicians had to be sick — this is well shown in his interpretation of a sentence of mine in p 65 where the crucial switch to the first person is his own). Considering a new set of variables that includes both structural parameters and former variables, hence variables of different kinds, assumes nothing new concerning the observed object; namely, it says neither that the consumption of bread becomes “a cause” of the taste for jam, nor that the individual likes (or dislikes) his own tastes, or anything like this (the accusation of “fantasy”). We shall suggest that certain other views receive a similar treatment in this paper. This misunderstanding is regrettable, since the consideration of fundamental preferences is unavoidable in social ethics, both when one has to compare all-encompassing individual situations, and for the preferences of the hypothetical identical individuals in an Original Position device where they evaluate at once what they might have and what they might be I wish to thank Professor Broome for comments on an earlier version of this note. . Therefore, perhaps the full argument must be stated again (see the works in references). To begin with, we should face the issue relevant for social ethics directly, rather than dealing with it in devious ways. The question arises if: (1) distributive justice is a question (he who says it is not wants to impose his own view of it), (2) individual happiness has any relevance for the quality of society (imagine a society of despaired people). Then, one can show that the relevant issue turns out to be: can one say that a person is happier than another? These persons are in specific situations.     

Tales from the frontline: The experiences of early childhood practitioners working with an ‘embedded’ research team

In late 2006, SDN Children’s Services, an Australian not-for-profit provider of services for children, families and communities, engaged a research team that was ‘embedded’ within the organisation for 1 year. This action represented a significant investment of resources, such as staff time and organisational funds, and demonstrates SDN’s strong commitment to research and evaluation as a means of supporting organisational learning and development. This paper highlights the innovative nature of the approach by positioning the role of the embedded researcher within the current theoretical and socio-political context. It also provides evidence of the success of the approach by reporting on the findings of a study that investigated staff’s experiences of being involved in this type of collaborative investigation of their work. I argue that the employment of an embedded researcher can have positive benefits both for the organisation and the practitioners—but who the researchers are really matters.     

The McDonald’s Equilibrium. Advertising,empty calories,and the endogenous determination of dietary preferences

A comparison of accepted nutritional advice with actual American dietary practice suggests that many people fail to eat well in spite of well-documented health consequences. Popular culture often labels the worst offenders as lacking in self-control, and many blame the aggressive advertising campaigns of the fast-food and snack-food industries for manipulating consumers into poor diets, but these conclusions are not easily reconciled with a neoclassical approach to economic decision theory. This essay considers the consumers diet problem in light of emerging evidence from the medical and behavioral sciences. In particular, it is argued that human evolution in the distant past resulted in an elegant solution to this problem (of search for a suitable diet in an uncertain environment), which any neoclassical economist would recognize. In modern environments, however, the signals that formerly provided information in the consumers search problem are subject to manipulation by food-producing firms. Confirmation by molecular biologists that many human responses to these signals are firmly encoded in our genes suggests a need to re-evaluate the welfare economics of the food industry.This essay was originally developed as part of the authors doctoral thesis. Earlier versions were presented at the 77th Annual Conference of the Western Economic Association in Seattle, Washington (June 2002) and in the workshop of the Bonn Graduate School of Economics (December 2002). Thanks are due to participants in these sessions and to Ted Bergstrom, John Conlisk, Bob Deacon, Ted Frech, David Haig, Jack Hirshleifer, Lynn Hunnicutt, Georg Nöldeke, Bob Schillberg, Chris Stoddard, Charlie Stuart, Walter Willet, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. Financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Graduiertenkolleg (DFG) 629 at the University of Bonn is gratefully acknowledged.This revised version was published in November 2004 with the correction to the title.     

An exploratory investigation of social workers’ knowledge and attitudes about autism

ABSTRACT

Although researchers continue to generate knowledge concerning autism, few have investigated social workers’ understanding about this condition. In this exploratory study, we surveyed licensed social workers (n = 793) to examine social workers’ understanding and attitudes about autism. Overall, we found social workers have accurate knowledge and hold strengths-based attitudes about autism and persons on the autism spectrum. Factors significantly associated with accurate autism knowledge were having special training in autism, having present clinical involvement with autism, and knowing someone on the autism spectrum. Implications for social work practice, education and training, and future research, are discussed.     

Practitioners’ web use and perceptions of their own roles and power: a qualitative study

Four focus group discussions with 35 practitioners were guided by theory about roles from public relations literature and power from strategic management literature to explore how World Wide Web use is related to practitioners’ perceptions of their own status and decision-making power. The web has become essential to public relations. Practitioners use the web extensively for research and evaluation, two-way communication, productivity and efficiency, issues management, and other applications. All four types of practitioners’ power, according to Finkelstein’s [Acad. Manage. J. 35 (3) (1992) 505–538] taxonomy—structural, expert, prestige and ownership—were enhanced by web use. Because, the web is such a great equalizer, web use may contribute to the blurring of practitioners’ roles.     

Adult youth workers’ conceptions of their work in an under-resourced community in the United States

This study examined adult workers’ conceptions of their work with youth in a large, underserved, urban region in the northeastern United States. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 18 youth workers from various organizations, affiliated with a community coalition focused on substance abuse prevention, we explored how adults viewed their role of working with youth. We were particularly interested in whether these workers saw youth empowerment and collaboration with youth for community change as part of their role. Our data suggested that while workers in this study were very supportive of youth, the support and actions they provided were on behalf of rather than with them and that, in general, partnering with youth for community change was not a part of what they envisioned their work to be. While a few of the adults attempted to work more collaboratively with youth, they were clearly in the minority.     

Fathers’ Childcare: The Differences Between Participation and Amount of Time

The main research question of this article was whether and how predictors of fathers’ participation in childcare, defined as zero versus more than zero minutes of childcare, differed from predictors of participating fathers’ amount of time on childcare, measured as minutes on the survey day. The sample was drawn from the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS) and covered surveys from ten industrialised countries from 1987 to 2005. Results showed that there were some similarities, but also remarkable differences between factors influencing participation in childcare and factors affecting participating fathers’ time spent with children. Thus they call for caution regarding findings from existing studies not distinguishing participation from participating fathers’ childcare minutes.