A Content Analysis of Career Development Theory,Research, and Practice—2013

This annual review of the career counseling and development literature presents a content analysis of refereed journal articles published in 2013. Four research questions guided the analysis: (a) What content topics were included in career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? (b) To what extent are theory, research, and practice integrated in career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? (c) What variation exists in the characteristics of career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? and (d) What variation exists in the content included in theory, research, and practice articles? A total of 360 unique topics were identified in 357 articles from 24 journals. Results indicated that topic content in journals evolved slowly with limited integration of theory, research, and practice. Implications are suggested for (a) future topic content; (b) better integration of theory, research, and practice; (c) education and training; (d) journal editorial policy; and (e) future content analyses of journal articles.     

Critical Community Practice

How do we conceptualize community development? What are themajor practices and processes behind the development of communities?What is critical community practice (CCP)? What are its fundamentalvalues? What are the objectives of CCP? How is CCP differentfrom the other approaches of community development? How do weoperationalize CCP? Who are the major agents in promoting CCP?Is it true that the process of CCP induces the empowerment ofcommunities? Moreover, how does this process enhance the emancipationof individuals at grassroots level? Finally, what are the     

Professional Distance and Social Work: Stretching the Elastic?

Abstract

Professional distance and the parallel concept of models of practice reliant on professional objectivity have been major platforms in professional education. In social work, these ideas are often seen as contentious, unreasonable and, in some cases, unrealistic. Radical, feminist and rural social work approaches, for example, suggest that the expert role is not only inappropriate, but can be counter-productive and disrespectful of the people with whom we work. Postmodern approaches call for a deconstruction of professionalism in favour of context-specific partnerships between worker and client. How can workers ensure good, professional practice within a more flexible approach to professional distance and expertise? What are the issues and how may they be resolved? Are the boundaries of the professional relationship elastic and, if so, what are the consequences for practice and the individual worker? The present article explores the notion of flexible, elastic boundaries using literature and research from radical, postmodern, feminist and rural social work approaches.     

Resilience for gender inclusion: Developing a model for women in male-dominated occupations

What is resilience in the context of work environments where women face barriers as significant as career discrimination and harassment? In such a context, is resilience an individual responsibility? How can organizations contribute to and support employee resilience? And where is gender in this equation? This conceptual paper explores these questions using aviation, the skilled trades (i.e., carpentry, welding, plumbing) and the military as case studies to understand how gender inclusion could be better supported by resilient organizations. The barriers for women in male-dominated industries include social exclusion, marginalization, discrimination, harassment, and other forms of social closure. How these barriers can be overcome is not well understood. We argue that individual resilience plays a part in women thriving and developing enduring careers but can only occur in combination with support from gender inclusion strategies and organizational resilience. We have developed the Resilience for Gender Inclusion (RGI) model combining gender inclusion strategies with organizational resilience strategies. The RGI model demonstrates how employee and organizational resilience intersect and may lead to the transformative potential of inclusive cultures of diversity. This will improve employee wellbeing and self-efficacy and create a much needed sense of belonging and social inclusion for women in male-dominated occupations.     

Becoming a (Pan)ethnic Attorney: How Asian American and Latino Law Students Manage Dual Identities

Managing professional and personal identities often belabor upwardly mobile racialized individuals. I examine in this article how Asian American and Latino law students negotiate (pan)ethnic identities while learning to become lawyers. I contend that managing dual identities creates (pan)ethnic duty among Asian American and Latino law students. I focus on those planning to work in law firms, at least initially. While there are many career options for law students, most, irrespective of race, pursue initial careers at law firms. What leads them there? How do racialization and expectations play a role in this career aspiration? And how do students negotiate the pressure to give back, or manage the internally/externally imposed duty they feel to serve respective communities? I find that Asian American and Latino law students draw on a repertoire of strategies (marginal panethnicity, tempered altruism, and instrumental ethnicity) that encompass different accounts, identities, and roles enabling creativity and elasticity for professional and personal identities. The findings suggest that panethnicity remains salient for upwardly mobile individuals of color, even those who do not ostensibly appear to be concerned with panethnic communities and causes.     

The “Three Waves” of Industrial Group Work: Historical Reflections on Current Research on Group Work

This paper deals with the three waves of the discourse on group work in social science and industrial practice that have helped pave the way for the current boom in the introduction of group work in companies. These waves are represented by the human relations approach, the sociotechnical systems approach, and the lean management debate. They are reviewed in two perspectives. The first relates to their concepts of work design and group work, following four questions: (a) What emphasis is put on work factors or on subjective orientations, on the design of working conditions or symbolic strategies? (b) How do the various approaches address the relationship between efficiency and control? (c) Which concepts of participation or democracy are involved? (d) How is the role of the social scientist in the process of industrial modernization conceptualized, explicitly or implicitly? The second perspective from a sociology of science relates to the context of production and utilization of social scientific knowledge. In general, two theses are put forward. The first states that a gap exists between the aspirations and reality of group work because the basic conflict of efficiency and control has been overlooked for ideological reasons. The second postulates that there is no linear progress in the theory and practice of group work. It seems that the socioeconomical context determines reasonably which group concept and ideology dominates certain historical phases of industrial modernization.     

Journalistic right in the “first rough draft of history”: a comparative study of news copyright in the United States and the People's Republic of China

As more and more American media products enter the Chinese market, and vice versa, it is becoming increasingly important for legal scholars and journalists to understand how news products are regulated differently by the two countries' copyright policies. This article examines the issue of copyright protection for news in both China and the United States. The following research questions are discussed and answered in order to identify major conceptual and practical differences and similarities in the news copyright regimes of the two countries: How did the copyright law on news evolve? Is news copyrightable? Who owns news products? What rights do copyright owners have? How long is news work copyright protected? What are news work copyright restrictions? What if news copyright owners are foreign citizens? The article concludes by presenting and analyzing a hypothetical case involving both the Chinese and American copyright laws.     

Five artists' valuations of the visual

Abstract

This paper comprises interviews with five practising artists: Terry Atkinson, Torie Begg, Rebecca Fortnum, Lubaina Himid, and James Hugonin. The aim is to gauge the ways in which ‘the visual’ features in contemporary fine art practice, not only at the end of a century in which the visual ‐ at least for much of the first half of that century ‐ was often accorded special status, but also, more recently, after Conceptualism and radical egalitarian interventions have challenged the status of and assumptions about the value of the visual. All five artists were asked the same questions: What/who are the formative influences on your work?; What role does the visual play in your work ‐ to what extent do you value the visual?; Can you say something about (i) aesthetic and (ii) pleasure ‐ however you define them?; How does a work evolve?; How do you define quality ‐ what makes you think one of your works is better than another?; What is the spectator's relationship to your work? ‐ what role does the spectator have? The responses bear witness to significantly different ways in which contemporary artists value the visual.     

Heavy Genealogy: Mapping the Currents,Contraflows and Conflicts of the Emergent Field of Metal Studies, 1978-2010

What is metal studies? How can we define and characterize it? How has it emerged as a body of academic enquiry? What are its dominant disciplinary strands, theoretical concepts and preferred methodologies? Which studies have claimed most attention, defined the goals of scholarship, typical research strategies and values? How has the claim for the legitimacy or symbolic value of metal scholarship been achieved (if it has): over time and through gradual acceptance or through conflict and contestation? How can this process of formation, or strategy of legitimation, be mapped, examined and interrogated and which methods of historical, institutional and cultural analysis are best suited to this task? Working with the most complete bibliography to date of published research on heavy metal, music and culture (the MSBD), this article employs Foucault’s archaeological “method” to examine the institutional, cultural and political contexts and conflicts that inform the genealogy of this scholarship. Such analysis reveals a formative, largely negative account of heavy metal to be found in the “sociology of rock”; a large volume of psychology work, examining heavy metal music preference as an indicator of youth risk, deviance and delinquency; sociological work on youth and deviancy critical of the values of this research and its links to social policy and politics; culminating in the work of Weinstein and Walser, who advocate a perspective sympathetic to the values of heavy metal fans themselves. Following Bourdieu, I interpret such symbolic strategies as claims for expertise within the academic field that are high or low in symbolic capital to the extent they can attain disciplinary autonomy. I then go on to examine the most recent strands of research, within cultural studies and ethnomusicology, concerned with the global metal music diaspora, and consider to what extent such work is constitutive of a coherent subfield of metal studies that can be distinguished from earlier work and what the implications of this might be.     

Macro-Focused Social Work Dissertations: A Preliminary Look at the Numbers

Dissertation research is an important indicator of practice trends and emerging issues. The social work profession relies on this scholarship to build its knowledge base thus reducing reliance on cognate fields. It is worthwhile to note how many dissertations are being completed and to review the categories being pursued in dissertation products to see if there are trends or questions that are dominating or masking larger issues in the field. Social work dissertations focused on macro scholarship efforts are of particular interest for the purpose of this article. This research investigates two simple, yet important, questions: How many macro-focused social work dissertations have been awarded in the past 10 years? and What was the content area of these works?     

Closed Circuits of Interaction?

Are CCTV images of such evidential strength that they speak for themselves? If not, then for whom do they speak? CCTV cameras form a growing presence in Britain's high streets. There are estimated to be 2.5 million cameras in operation in Britain, there is an increase in legislation relating to cameras and there is increasing concern amongst civil liberties groups about cameras' effects. Claims are frequently made such as 'if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about' and 'CCTV evidence is clear to see.' These claims depend upon acceptance of the proposal that CCTV images are simply left to speak for themselves and that CCTV staff do little interpretative work. However, to investigate these claims, we need to ask: How do CCTV systems actually operate in practice. How are identities for CCTV images made 'clear', accounted for and mobilized? What work is done to promote the notion that we have nothing to worry about with CCTV? How do issues such as 'surveillance', 'privacy' and 'public' become implicated within these identity production processes? This article seeks to tackle these questions through the interrogation of a single story involving a high-street CCTV system, local police, local residents, a national television company and civil liberties group. This analysis of interactivity (based on a broadly ethno-methodological remit) augments current sociological accounts of CCTV. Instead of accepting panoptic metaphors as a means of understanding CCTV, the article will open up the closed circuit of CCTV through an analysis of the pantopticon in practice.     

Stumbling towards oblivion or discovering new horizons? Observations on the relationship between social work education and practice

What should social work education be training students for? What should the relationship be between social work education and practice? The first half of this article cautions that social work education, as currently constituted, may 'unfit' people. Principally, this is because social work practice, as envisaged by employer interests, has not been subject to the same critical scrutiny as social work education and has come to dominate perceptions of the training task. The dangers that follow from this position are outlined. The second half of the article proceeds to explore the contribution that practice teachers and tutors can make to enable practitioners to remain confident, credible, critical and creative in this practice environment. The article concludes with some observations on the future as envisaged in the proposals to modernise social services and to create a General Social Care Council.     

‘It's About People and Their Environment’: Student Social Workers' Definitions of Social Work Research

This article considers constructions of social work research from the perspectives of student social workers in New Zealand. There have been many academic discussions of the unique epistemology that can be called social work research but little is known of students and/or practitioner views. Are they interested in social work research? Do they even care about debates on epistemology? Forty-three student social workers considered two questions while attending a social work research methods course: ‘What is social work research?’ and ‘What kind of social work researcher might I be?’. A subset of 18 distance students explored a third question: ‘Should social work research be part of everyday practice or not?’. To answer these questions students provided comments in a short survey, material from their written student assignments and comments from online discussion board activities. The results suggest that student social workers have a preference for social work research that is compatible with their clearly articulated social work value base, and that social work research primarily should benefit the client group with which a social worker is closely linked. Student social workers also recognise the importance of research for their everyday practice, yet at the same time feel there are organisational constraints to this happening.     

Islands of Encounter: A Reflection on the Place of Psychoanalysis

What is an encounter? What is an island? How can discourses on islands speak to our understanding of the place of practice and the placing of affect in the psychoanalytic encounter? Using notions of the island in philosophy and Caribbean Studies, this essay offers a brief reflection on the psychoanalytic encounter as an islanded field of interaction. The psychoanalytic frame islands analyst and analysand, setting the experience in the consulting room off as different from other forms of social interaction. But this is a dyadic island in an archipelago of relations, where overlapping and interlapping waves of relation keep shifting the frame.     

Project Time in Silicon Valley

This article explores the pace of work for highly skilled workers who are employed in the high-tech industry of Silicon Valley. I link the temporal experiences of these workers to systems of domination at work, and to the particular characteristics of flexible specialization in the region. I ask four questions: How can the temporal rhythms of work be described? What factors shape these rhythms? Why do workers comply? How does this pace of work impact on other aspects of individuals' lives? I focus on the organization of work through project cycles, the de-linking of workers and organizations, and the ideology of individualism that constructs workers as entrepreneurs of their own careers as key factors that shape the erratic and quickened pace of work in Silicon Valley. I also show how this pace of work negatively affects other temporal spheres that individuals negotiate, most notably “bodily time” and the “interaction time” of social relationships.

     

Research as part of everyday practice: A finishing student's experience

Abstract

While social work education has come a long way, some of the most valuable lessons are learnt not in the class but in the field. This article explores the relationship between the practice of research and social work practice through my struggles within my final social work placement. How does one come to terms with the relationship between everyday social work practice and the practice of research? How does one reconcile what many see as a gap between research and the practice of social work? Is it possible to incorporate research into everyday practice? In the end it must be argued that both have comparable underlying goals and follow almost identical processes. In many ways a researcher carries out similar investigations utilising similar skills as those of a social worker. Thus being skilled in research and being able to integrate research into everyday practice will produce a better social worker.     

Science and social work: a sketch

While recognizing that understanding of ‘science’ varies across time and countries, there are strands of a shared albeit diverse inheritance. Failures to see where we are located within this inheritance make the social work community vulnerable to simplistic claims regarding what, for example, ‘doing science’ is like. This in turn makes it difficult to deal adequately with questions such as in what ways can or should we distinguish social work science from other kinds of knowledge? Is science in some recognizable way a unified form of knowledge? How ought we to deal with disputes and disagreements in social work science? What kinds of consequences might we envisage from social work science? I deal in turn with each of these questions.     

Tomorrow's Social Needs and Social Work Education

This paper presents a rationale and educational plan for teaching statistical orientation (not statistics per se) by means of a series of practice questions that are, at the same time, basic statistical questions. These questions include, for example, measures of central tendency, “What can typically be expected of the client's problem behavior?” and measures of variability, “What range of variation from the typical is typical?” Set in a context of practice, these types of questions do not seem to provoke the hostility among social work students that often typifies their reaction to traditional statistics courses.     

An other space: between and beyond lesbian-normativity and trans-normativity

What happens when sectors of a lesbian community advocate for a space free of trans women? How do the responses to those types of policies, from within MTF trans communities, impact upon MTF trans women as a whole? How do these types of conflicts impact upon lesbians whose relationship to the term 'born female' is not straightforward? What does the focus upon these instances of conflict in the mainstream media mean and what effect does this focus have upon broader understandings about lesbians, lesbian communities and the complex intersections between lesbian and trans?