Work,Family, and Mental Health: Testing Different Models of Work‐Family Fit

Using family resilience theory, this study examined the effects of work‐family conflict and work‐family facilitation on mental health among working adults to gain a better understanding of work‐family fit. Data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) were used to compare different combinations of work‐family conflict and work‐family facilitation. Results suggest that family to work facilitation is a family protective factor that offsets and buffers the deleterious effects of work‐family conflict on mental health. The results across these outcomes suggest that work‐family conflict and facilitation must be considered separately, and that adult mental health is optimized when family to work facilitation is high and family to work and work to family conflict is low.     

Gender and work orientations in conditions of job insecurity

This paper explores women's and men's work orientations in conditions of job insecurity, arguing that it is time to move beyond essentalist conceptions of work orientations and central life interests in order to understand the significance of paid work in people's lives. Data from a qualitative study are presented which show that the significance of paid work and the priority given to home and work are affected by experiences of job insecurity, changing domestic circumstances and stage in the life cycle and that this is the case for both women and men. Conversely, the significance of paid work can affect how job insecurity is experienced and its impact on individuals and their families. The assumption that men's work orientations are homogeneous and that work is their central life interest is not supported by the findings presented here and it is argued that the significance of work in men's and women's lives is more variable than has hitherto been recognized. To capture this variability it is time to move away from the acrimony of the debate over women's work orientations and notions of a central life interest which underpin it.     

Green collar work: Conceptualizing and exploring an emerging field of work

In this paper, I consider “green collar work,” broadly defined as work intended to counter environmental degradation. I consider what might count as green collar work and compare the greening of work in different sectors, including industrial production, service work, working on “nature,” and expert work. I look also at how organizations affect the “greenness” of work. I stress that “green work” is not consistent across time and place and that it is important to understand the interdependencies between different kinds of work. As this is a new topic in sociology, I draw on research from different social science disciplines.     

“242”模式下连锁经营管理专业顶岗实习的质量保障研究——以南通职业大学为例

顶岗实习是学校培养人才、企业择录员工、学生就业历练的平台。对于南通职业大学连锁经营管理专业来说，在顶岗实习管理方面，还存在着管理难度加大、与实习企业“合作纽带”不稳固、学生素养不高、实习质量不理想等问题。因此，要确保顶岗实习质量，必须构建顶岗实习工作组织体系、加强对顶岗实习指导教师的培训、创新顶岗实习信息反馈方式、完善顶岗实习考核评价体系、完善顶岗实习管理机制。     

Kommunikation – Arbeit – KommunikationsarbeitCommunication – Work – Communication work

Characteristic of modern work in highly developed capitalist countries is, that on the one hand work processes are computerized and on the other hand more and more areas of social, formerly life-world communications are economised. Both goes together in modern communication work. Secular life communication can be continued regardless of a consenting Yes or negative No. This is different for communication work, which is not primarily about understanding but to consent because the work aspect of communication work cannot be realized if the communication offer is rejected. With the hegemonic of communication work and the resolution of the boundary between the world of work and the word of living increases the risk, that social communication altogether becomes strategic in the persuasive organization of approval and criticism is neutralized.     

Work functioning: a conceptual framework

Adequate and reliable methods for evaluation of clients with work disabilities are crucial for both the individuals who are assessed and for society as a whole. Sound and precise work assessments are needed to guide clients to suitable interventions using a minimum of rehabilitation resources. Occupational therapy literature contains evidence that work function assessments are complex and that there is confusion over work assessment concepts. Therefore, further development and evaluation of adequate concepts and theoretical models within the area of work assessment is needed. This article proposes a conceptual framework for different dimensions of work functioning and points out important factors for work assessment. The concepts proposed and defined in the article are: work functioning, work participation, work performance, and individual capacity.     

REREADING UNDECLARED WORK

The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether undeclared work is the same when conducted by men and women. Conventionally, the view is that such work is always profit-motivated market-like work and that women's undeclared work mirrors their subjugated position in the formal labour market in terms of pay, contract type and sector. Reporting evidence gathered during 861 face-to-face interviews in contemporary England, this paper finds that to represent undeclared work as a profit-motivated market-like endeavour is to read such work through the lens of men's accounts of such work. For women, although some undeclared work is of this variety, the vast majority is conducted for friends, neighbours and kin for reasons associated with redistribution and social capital building and thus more akin to unpaid mutual aid than employment. To unshackle narratives of undeclared work from current market-centred readings, therefore, this paper differentiates between profit-motivated market-like informal employment and undeclared work carried out in a moral economy of paid favours so as to unravel the nature of men's and women's participation in this sphere and explore the implications for understanding women's community engagement.     

From vocational to knowledge-based education - an account of Swedish social work education

This article outlines the historical trajectory of Swedish social work education. Important stages and developmental changes in educational programs are described. As well overall structure of Swedish social work education and training is presented. A number of important issues not only specific to Swedish circumstances but also pertinent to social work education around the world are described and their role is analysed. More specifically, the author focuses on issues of social work as a research discipline, identity of the social work discipline, cleavage and relationship between social work research and social work practice. Social work education, social work practice and social work research are seen in a holistic perspective. The author describes and argues that Swedish social work education has gone from being a non-academic vocational training program to a knowledge-based package of academic discipline.     

Two Faces of Information Technology

ABSTRACT

The relationship between social work and information technology (IT) is explored and conclusions are drawn about using IT effectively within a social work value framework. Conceptions of the nature of IT within social work are reviewed, followed by a discussion of different paradigms of social work. Behavioural social work is used as an example of effective interaction between IT and social work. It is argued that IT can enhance professional practice across the whole spectrum of social work approaches without compromising their humanistic value base.     

Merging Micro and Macro Intervention: Social Work Practice With Groups in the Community

Clinical or micro intervention predominates in social work education and practice. The prevailing assumption in social work practice and education is that one engages in either micro or macro intervention. In this article, we describe how these interventions may be merged into an integrated whole through social work practice with groups. The conceptual and evidence base of community work is summarized, as are efforts to identify practice skills that overlap both approaches. We assert that group work is ideally suited to promote individual empowerment and community change. Case examples illustrate the relative ease with which tasks and skills of group work at the micro level can be used in group work practice in the community. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

Family‐Supportive Organizational Culture and Fathers' Experiences of Work–family Conflict in Sweden

This study explores fathers' experiences with work–family conflict and their perceptions of how supportive the organizational culture at work is regarding fathers' work–family needs, and whether a family‐supportive organizational culture is associated with less work–family conflict. A total of 377 fathers working in private Swedish companies were surveyed. While a modest proportion of fathers experienced high levels of work‐to‐family conflict, less family‐to‐work conflict was reported. Further, fathers perceived little work–family support from top managers, supervisors, and co‐workers. Our results indicate that the cultures in the examined companies have norms that separate work and family from each other. Fathers seem likely to experience work–family conflict as long as the family‐supportive organizational culture, especially at the work group level, is not well‐developed. When fathers experience their work organizations as family‐supportive, they are likely to be better able to combine work and family and thus to help Swedes achieve a more gender‐equal society.     

To your happiness? Extra hours of labor supply and worker well-being

Does extra work buy happiness and well-being? Unique survey data are analyzed to consider whether measures of self-reported subjective happiness, psychological health and economic satisfaction bear a net positive or negative relationship with working extra hours. Overtime work hours generally are associated with increased work stress, fatigue and work–family interference. When overtime work is required, this appears to offset the otherwise greater happiness and mental healthiness produced by its additional income. Mandatory overtime work is associated with additional work–family interference and unhappiness for some workers but the opposite for some others. Policies most fruitful for improving individual economic and social welfare should focus on minimizing the incidences where overtime is both mandatory and harmful.     

Agricultural body-building: Incorporations of gender,body and work

This paper is concerned with gendered embodiment of agricultural work, particularly the connection between women's gender identity and the body at work. Focussing on how the body enters into relations with the tools of work, four processes are identified by which women's bodies, work and machinery are incorporated into each other and give each other meaning. In the first category women's embodied competences are merged with the qualities of machinery much the same way as men. The second shows how women work to uphold a definition of their bodies as feminine despite the fact that they operate machinery. The third process shows that when machine work is incorporated into farm women's traditional work on the farm, neither the definition of women's bodies nor the tractor change. Finally, when women do not operate machinery as part of their work, the traditional conception of gendered, embodied farm work is maintained. The analysis establishes that there is no one to one relationship between work and the meaning of the embodied self, and highlights the complex and ironic relationship between machinery and femininities.     

Work–life balance/imbalance: the dominance of the middle class and the neglect of the working class

The paper was stimulated by the relative absence of the working class from work–life debates. The common conclusion from work–life studies is that work–life imbalance is largely a middle‐class problem. It is argued here that this classed assertion is a direct outcome of a particular and narrow interpretation of work–life imbalance in which time is seen to be the major cause of difficulty. Labour market time, and too much of it, dominates the conceptualization of work–life and its measurement too. This heavy focus on too much labour market time has rendered largely invisible from dominant work–life discourses the types of imbalance that are more likely to impact the working class. The paper's analysis of large UK data‐sets demonstrates a reduction in hours worked by working‐class men, more part‐time employment in working‐class occupations, and a substantial growth in levels of reported financial insecurity amongst the working classes after the 2008–9 recession. It shows too that economic‐based work–life imbalance is associated with lower levels of life satisfaction than is temporal imbalance. The paper concludes that the dominant conceptualization of work–life disregards the major work–life challenge experienced by the working class: economic precarity. The work–life balance debate needs to more fully incorporate economic‐based work–life imbalance if it is to better represent class inequalities.     

Anti-Oppressive Social Work Research: Reflections on Power in the Creation of Knowledge

This paper is based on the development of a framework that conceptualises forms of power in social work research. Its aim is to encourage readers to critically reflect on potentially oppressive manifestations of power in social work research. The article draws on Lukes' model of power and Gould's subsequent framework which contributed to anti-racist teaching in social work education. Gould's framework is reinterpreted and applied to a differing context: social work research. The field of social work research is explored through this framework, highlighting potentially oppressive manifestations of power and suggesting anti-oppressive strategies. The model is then applied to social work education and specifically the teaching of research methods. The paper concludes by suggesting curriculum guidelines that promote the teaching of anti-oppressive social work research methods.     

Is Social Work Research Distinctive?

What makes social work research distinctive? And how is our answer linked to how we do social work research? Drawing on UK research council statements about social work research as a starting point, I argue that it makes some degree of sense to ask what is distinctive about social work research. But the more significant question is what might make social work research distinctively good? I suggest six benchmarks. These address the case for methodological excellence; inquiry marked by rigour, range, variety, depth and progression; active conversation with the social science community; consistency with broader social work purposes; attention to aspects of the research enterprise that are close to social work; and taking seriously aspects of the research mission that seem on the face of it far from social work. However, social work and social work research will be the poorer if we over‐emphasize the distinctives at the expense of commonalities in fostering and assessing best practice and best purpose.     

‘It’s like having another job’: the invisible work of self-managing attendant services

Abstract

This reflexive ethnographic study examines the work disabled people do to ‘self-manage’ attendant services. The data reveal diverse facets of work reported by ‘self-managers’, their support networks and program administrators. The analysis found that self-managers’ work is often represented as ‘something other than work’, if and when it is represented at all. In this paper, disability studies and feminist perspectives on work inform a discussion of factors that may be seen to render self-managers’ work ‘invisible’, and implications of self-managed models that require contributions of invisible work.     

Research Note—Is Social Work Education a Form of Social Work Practice?

ABSTRACT

The inclusion of social work education as a form of practice has been missing from the debates on the need for a unified definition of social work practice. This Research Note reports the findings from interviews with 20 social work educators who were asked whether social work education is a form of social work practice and were encouraged to elaborate on their response. The qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis and revealed five themes. The findings contribute to the debate on the need for clarification among social work authorities in shaping the definition of social work practice and the need to provide a clear stance on the extent to which social work education is a form of social work practice.     

The Struggle for the Soul of Social Work in England

There is a debate or struggle for the nature and future of social work in England. This tension is between a narrow or limited type of practice and a broader and emancipatory social work, grounded in the International Federation of Social Work and the wider conception of the profession in other European states. The limited model of social work seems to provide a dominant paradigm, which may result in the loss of a more visionary and humane social work. This is a qualitative study of an undergraduate social work programme in England. There were 48 participants, comprised of academics, students, service users and practice educators. Interviews and focus groups were used and a thematic analysis was undertaken. The key finding of this study is that the paradigm of state or statutory social work in England threatens to replace a broad conception of social work as understood in such definitions as the International Federation of Social Work and social work in other European states.