Social Justice,Social Policy,and Social Work

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the models underlying the conceptualization of social work functions affect the costs of integrating policy issues into practice, and, therefore, the probability that social justice goals will be pursued. An inclusive approach to policy design is seen as lowering those costs. The nature of the costs and how they vary between the models is discussed.     

Social Work,Knowledge and Social Responsibility

A beginning has been made in regarding the mentally retarded as people of worth and dignity in our society. As the social work profession endeavors to find ways to bring significant service to the retarded, social work education must respond and prepare practitioners for this specialization. The student's preparation must include substantial cognitive background, as well as emotional maturity and the ability to objectify and quantify case movement in extremely small steps. Basic concepts and principles of helping people are briefly reviewed as they relate to work with the mentally retarded.     

The Relationship Between Schools of Social Work,Social Research,and Social Policy

This paper outlines a curriculum model for the continuing education of graduate social workers. The curriculum plan is based on the assumption that western industrial man has entered a new era—the cybercultural era. The paper argues that the graduate practitioner must be retooled to fit the conditions and circumstances of the new era. Eight knowledge areas are explored as priorities in this continuing education plan: the nature of global ecology, the nature of mass organization, the nature of youth, the nature of the new economy, the nature of contemporary politics, the nature of inter group communications, the nature of professionalization, and the condition of social work theory. Through the exploration of these knowledge areas, it is felt that a new updated social work practice theory will be developed.     

Human Behavior,Social Environment,Social Reconstruction,and Social Policy: A System of Linkages,Goals, and Priorities

The idea of a wholesome relationship between human behavior and the forces of social environment is the focal point of this article. The author seeks to reconceptualize the goals and foci of the HBSE¹ component in the light of knowledge that underscores the need for social reconstruction. A conceptual model is offered to show appropriate linkages between different focal units. It is recommended that the HBSE and social policy components be taught in harmony with the mission of social work and in the context of humankind's prevailing condition rather than at mere systems levels.     

Social Work,Social Policy and the Journal

There are problems associated with mainstream sociological and criminological research into youth violence. Conventional frameworks ignore the interpretive component of violence and thus fail to treat youth violence as a form of action in which motivations, moral impulses and feelings are constitutive of the action. Young people historically have had little opportunity to enter into dominant discourses about violence. This paper reports on the accounts of 29 young people who have been directly involved in violence. Those young people were asked to define violence and describe what personal and collective meanings they attach to their actions.     

Meta-Power,Social Organization,and the Shaping of Social Action

Interactionist analyses of social organization stimulate examination of how social situations and collective activity are shaped. Meta-power, the creation and control of distal situations, and organization as a structuration of meta-power are used as tools for exploring the shaping of situations. Five meta-power processes are presented: strategic agency, rules and conventions, structuring situations, culture construction, and empowering delegates. These processes illustrate how situations are created or altered. This paper offers a view of social organization that emphasizes relations among situations, linkages between consequences and conditions, and networks of collective activity across space and time. The conclusion calls for additional research to make more explicit the nature of social organization and its social conditions.     

Violence Regimes: A Useful Concept for Social Politics,Social Analysis,and Social Theory

Theory and Society - This paper critically interrogates the usefulness of the concept of violence regimes for social politics, social analysis, and social theory. In the first case, violence...     

Interactionism,Social Organization,and Social Processes: Looking Back and Moving Ahead

With its roots in American pragmatism, symbolic interactionism has created a distinctive perspective and produced numerous important contributions and now offers significant prospects for the future. In this article, I review my intellectual journey with this perspective over forty years. This journey was initiated within the American society, sociology, and symbolic interaction of circa 1960. I note many of the contributions made by interactionists since that time, with particular focus on those who have contributed to the study of social organization and social process. I offer an agenda for the future based on currently underdeveloped areas that have potential. These are inequality orders, institutional analysis, collective action across space and time, and the integration of temporal and spatial orders. The article concludes with calls for further efforts at cross‐perspective dialogues, more attention to feminist scholars, and an elaborated critical pragmatism.     

Social Exclusion,Social Identity and Social Work: Analysing Social Exclusion from a Material Discursive Perspective

Within this article I explore the concept of social exclusion, considering how it has been defined and the implications of this for social exclusion policy. It is suggested that the current use of the concept focuses on material definitions of exclusion, obscures the discursive origins of exclusion and tends to individualise the problem. I argue that we need to adopt a broader approach to defining and analysing social exclusion which understands social exclusion as a process which is influenced by both material and discursive factors. The connections between discourse, identity and marginalisation are discussed and these arguments are illustrated using examples related to different aspects of social identity. Finally the article presents a framework for analysing social exclusion from a material discursive perspective and suggests that adopting this perspective clarifies the role of social work in working with people who experience exclusionary processes.     

Social Protection,Gender, and Poverty: Application of Social Protection Index

Literature on social protection, inequality, and poverty suggest that social protection programs are the policy tool for the eradication of poverty and inequality. The exact targeting of beneficiaries is the most important pillar behind the success of every social protection schemes. Asian Development Bank introduced Revised Social Protection Index in 2010, which is used by several studies for the evaluation of social protection schemes. The current study estimates the revised social protection index of Pakistan for the years 2011 and 2013. During 2011, the average per capita expenditure on social protection was 5.1% of the poverty line expenditure, whereas during 2013, average per capita expenditure on social protection was 5.3% of the poverty line expenditure. The disaggregated form of social protection index indicates that the coverage of social protection programs are low in Pakistan. The expenditures on social protection programs are high for the non-poor and very low for poor. The gender-based disaggregated form of social protection index shows that women have a lower value of social protection index than do males.     

Social Justice and Social Work,A Fierce Urgency: Recommendations for Social Work Social Justice Pedagogy

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the challenge of understanding the meaning and pedagogical application of social justice in social work by presenting and applying the circle of insight framework I created and proposing a social work definition of social justice. In particular, the circle of insight is presented as a tool and a process for critically examining learnings from social justice courses, transforming social justice social work pedagogy, and defining social justice in social work. In the fierce urgency of now, consistent with research findings and the social work profession’s ethical codes and statements, social workers are invited to use the circle of insight process and proposed definition of social justice to engage in social justice–infused social work curricular transformation.     

Information,Interactivity, and Social Media

The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual theoretical framework to the term “social” in a social media context. This is done by exploring the relationship between three central terms in a social media environment: information, interactivity, and sociability. We suggest a model that describes the relations between these terms in a social media context. As the model suggests, information is the basic unit of a communication process, but social media users are the ones that decide whether and how much information to share, and when and whether to comment on a social media platform. Hence, not solely the technological features of a platform determine its level of interactivity and sociability, but the actual performances of its users.     

Social Constructionism,Sexuality, and Politics

No abstract available for this article.     

Social Participation,Social Status and Extremist Political Attitudes*

Two measures of extremist political attitudes are used to test the relationship between social participation, social status, and extremist attitudes. The expected relationships are found only for a measure called “support for democratic institutions.” Another measure of political attitudes, vigilantism, was found not to relate to the independent variables. We conclude that people who may adhere to abstract democratic ideals, at the same time may not reject the use of extralegal force to further their political goals. The findings also suggest that the “mobilization function” of social participation will need to be further specified.     

Social work,postmodernism, and marxism

This article sets out to question two dominant trends in social work theorizing: ‘pure postmodernism and those attempts to revitalize emancipatory social work by combining elements of postmodernism with elements of a broadly Althusserian Marxism. The article starts by addressing the foundations of postmodern theorizing in social work, rejecting its claims for emancipatory theory. It proceeds to look at the concern with language and identity within this paradigm and suggests that, as formulated, neither offers an adequate understanding of the material hardship and oppressions facing clients. Writing from a classical Marxist perspective, the authors argue that the influence of postmodernism is a backward step in trying to understand the poverty, oppression, and inequality facing the majority of social work clients.     

Women,Computers, and Social Change

Summary

Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tamlc's research and data on gender differences in learning arc used to introduce some experiences of autonomous women's group use of computers. Database applications and telecommunications uses are reviewed from a wide variety of different projects. Follow-up information is provided.     

Spirituality,Religion, and Social Work

Abstract

Social work scholars and practitioners have approached the question of how to integrate religion and/or spirituality into their profession in one of four typical ways: (1) resistance or avoidance; (2) an overly-generalized syncretism; (3) radical separation of the terms spirituality and religion; or (4) a genuinely interdisciplinary conversation between the disciplines of social work and religious studies. This latter approach not only identifies social work's conflictual founding legacy, but also recognizes broader contemporary intellectual traditions which do not easily separate “religion” from “spirituality.” Such awareness and common grounding allow social work to more substantively and creatively partake in cross-disciplinary research and discussion.     

Culture,Development, and Social Theory

The following comment was written in response to conference presentations by John Clammer and Raymond Apthorpe. In his paper, ‘Development Futures and Cultural Choices’ (in this issue as ‘Culture, Development and Social Theory’), Clammer traced recent emphases in conceptualisations of ‘culture’, in order to ask whether these better serve an integration of culture and development: (1) the idea of culture as process, (2) the rediscovery of indigenous knowledge, and (3) the integration of economy and culture. I argue that, while each of these has something good to bring, even taking account of all of them would leave us with a rather anorexic version of what is needed: systematic and sustained analysis and theorisation of social relations; and the attempt to weigh up the implications for proposed or negotiated social intervention and directional change. I exemplify issues with a discussion of the Papua New Guinea elections of 2002. Apthorpe's contribution builds on his explorations of tendencies inherent in development practice and discourse, to which I add its claims to serial progress, consistent with its technocratic tendencies.     

Social Justice,Research, and Adolescence

In what ways might research on adolescence contribute to social justice? My 2014 Presidential Address identified strategies for social justice in our field. First, we need research that is conscious of biases, power, and privilege in science, as well as in our roles as scholars. Second, we need research that attends to inequities in lives of adolescents, and as scholars we need to question the ways that our research may unwittingly reinforce those inequalities. Third, we need research that attends to urgencies, that is, issues or conditions that influence adolescents’ well‐being which demand attention and action. I draw from a range of concepts and theoretical perspectives to make the case for a framework of social justice in research on adolescence.