Getting your supervisors and managers on the right team

They do a great job. So we promote them. Now they supervise people who don't do the job as well as they did. We give them a big raise. But because they're exempt they make less than their leads. They have the toughest job in the company—managing people. So we grant them an entire day of training to prepare. We ask them to mentor, coach, and have close relationships with their direct reports—all 132 of them. Then when the stock dips, we blame “middle management” and lay a bunch of them off.     

Beyond cultural competence: what child protection managers need to know and do

This article addresses issues for child protection managers, such as hiring, program design, service evaluation, and policy development. It presents three frameworks for levels of organizational change: cultural sensitivity, which modifies existing services to better meet the needs of target populations; self-reflective cultural sensitivity, which calls for managers to be aware of personal and organizational cultural values; and cultural solidarity, which acknowledges that organizational power is vested in managers, which can oppress clients.     

Graduate education in sociology: What do we need to do differently?

Research methods should be the core of a sociology curriculum, but they need to be taught with more emphasis on application and with greater recognition of the importance of managerial and communicative skills. Participation in practicums or where feasible, internships in the private or public sector, should be part of that research training. Departments should select areas of specialization within sociology that reflect the faculty’s expertise, the university’s strengths or distinctiveness, and the social, economic and demographic characteristics of the area. But such basic sub-fields as history, stratification, theory, social psychology, demography and social organization must be included in every curriculum. How to go about selecting a worthwhile research problem and how to communicate results are skills that should be taught in a graduate program. She has been working on immigrants and U.S. immigration policy, and her most recent publication isInternational Migration: The Female Experience (co-edited with Caroline Brettell).     

We must do better: Ableism and fatphobia in sociology

Sociologists have contributed greatly to our understanding of how systems of oppression operate and work together to produce injustice. However, they have paid considerably less theoretical and empirical attention to fatphobia and ableism compared to some other systems of oppression. Worse yet, noncritical sociological research on fat bodies and disabled bodyminds has often contributed to the perpetuation of both. In this critical literature review of articles on disability and body size in the three highest ranking sociology generalist journals and two medical sociology journals over the past 10 years, we illustrate the main consequences when sociologists fail to employ a critical approach to the study of fat bodies and disabled bodyminds, including their use of eugenical logic and language. We conclude by offering suggestions for how sociologists can do better moving forward.     

Factors related to casino dealer burnout and turnover intention in Macau: Implications for casino management

This study examined 172 casino dealers in Macau in order to understand dealers' feelings and attitudes about working in a casino. Several personality variables (emotional suppression, neuroticism, and need for achievement), organizational variables, i.e., organizational socialization (training, understanding, coworker support, future prospects), and distributive justice, were assessed in relation to casino dealers' job burnout, and work and pay satisfaction. All variables were tested as correlates of work and pay satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intention. Regressions found emotional suppression (a behaviour required of casino dealers) to be a strong negative predictor of work satisfaction; while training, distributive justice, and need for achievement were positive predictors. Emotional suppression and neuroticism were positive predictors of burnout; while future prospects and work satisfaction were negative predictors. Also, the future prospects and understanding dimensions of organizational socialization negatively predicted turnover intention. Results are interpreted in relation to casino administration and the management of casino dealers.     

Sex and gender: What do we know?

The study of sex and gender is concerned with documenting the existence of differences between the sexes and explaining why those differences exist. This paper first examines what we know about how women and men differ, focusing on differences in social roles, and in the abilities and traits associated with those roles. The paper then examines why women and men differ. In addressing this question, the roles of both biological and social influences are considered. Although there is reason to believe some sex differences in behavior and attitudes have a biological basis, the existence of historical and cross-cultural variation in gender role differentiation and stratification provides strong evidence that social influences play an important role in the determination of differences between the sexes. Both biological and social factors have influenced the division of labor by sex, and the division of labor provides the basis for gender stratification by affecting the degree to which each sex is able to acquire and control the valuable resources of a society. Reduction of gender inequality in contemporary societies therefore requires reduction of gender differentiation in the division of labor.     

What do child characteristics contribute to outcomes from care: A PRISMA review

This article presents the findings from a systematic review of the literature regarding factors related to positive placement outcomes. Children in care are particularly vulnerable to problems with their emotional and behavioural development. It is important to know which factors affect whether children will have a positive placement outcome or not. Previous research has aimed to examine this, and has found that certain child characteristics can affect placement outcome. Reviews have not reported their search strategy in line with PRISMA guidelines, nor have they always reported the source of the data. This review was particularly interested in which studies had contact with the children or carers themselves, as opposed to a reliance on administrative data. There appear to be child characteristics that affect placement outcome, but findings need to be interpreted with caution due to a high volume of results from administrative data. Future research should aim to conduct full assessments with children when they come into care.     

Women on boards of nonprofits: What difference do they make?

In this article, the authors explore the impact of women on nonprofit boards. From a sociological perspective, they look at the actual proportion of women on boards and, from a more psychological perspective, at the sex of the chief executive officers in order to examine the impact of these variables on board effectiveness, structure, and process. The study results, based on data from a cross section of Canadian nonprofits, indicate that as the percentage of women on a board increases, the dynamics of the board are significantly affected.     

Self-disclosure in treatment: What therapists do and don't talk about

In contrast to the traditional view that sees therapist self-disclosure as a form of countertransference acting-out that either makes the therapeutic process more difficult or subverts it completely, this paper will present a self psychological rationale for the selected use of therapist self-disclosure in treatment. It will discuss the nature of therapist self-disclosure, issues in its use, countertransference issues, and its evaluation.     

What does a nurse need to know and do to maintain an effective level of case management?

The nurse needs to have a working knowledge of the needs of the seriously mentally ill and their families and effective treatment modalities, including therapeutic use of self, networking and social systems, crisis intervention, pharmacology, physical and psychosocial assessment skills, psychosocial rehabilitation, collaborative skills, teaching skills, psychoeducation, management and leadership skills, research, group skills, psychopathology, relevant legislation, biological psychiatry, and community resources. The ANA Standards of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Practice (1982) provides a broad framework for the nurse case manager.     

Teaching self-care: The utilization of self-care in social work practicum to prevent compassion fatigue,burnout, and vicarious trauma

ABSTRACT

Field practicum is paramount to social work pedagogy in the preparation of emerging direct practice professionals. Field students integrate foundational knowledge as they implement practice skills learned in the classroom during the social work practicum experience. Working with clients who are suffering is inevitable in direct social work practice and field practicum students can be exposed to a broad range of intense emotional experiences as they assist clients in need. Integrating self-care skills, techniques and strategies into daily social work practice becomes essential to prevent compassion fatigue, burnout, and vicarious trauma. Incorporating self-care skills into the field practicum enhances opportunities for transformative student learning and helps to strengthen professional socialization during this critical educational experience. This article highlights the implementation of professional self-care instruction, use of activities and written student critical reflection assignments designed to enhance the practice experience through incorporating self-care education and strategies among undergraduate students within the field practicum seminar.