Building School,Family, and Community Partnerships: Developing a Theoretical Framework

School, family, and community partnerships are among the suite of strategies advocated for improved school outcomes in which social workers can play a valuable role. Such partnerships are complex to implement in practice and there is little systematic research to guide the practitioner. This study evaluated an early intervention partnership program involving school, family, community, and philanthropic partners implemented in two primary schools in rural Victoria, Australia. The findings highlighted challenges in the process of evaluation and program implementation and in the opportunities this provided to identify key enabling factors. These involved having: a shared vision and aims; democratic governance; a supportive policy and organisational environment including external funding; workers with skills and clear roles; activities for project momentum; and ongoing review and evaluation. These factors can be used by social workers and others working with schools as a valuable conceptual framework to facilitate school, family, and community partnership processes.     

Power: A Conceptual Framework*

Symbolic interactionism lacks a coherent conception of power. This paper defines power in a manner consistent with the interactionist perspective. Power is conceptualized as a collective transaction characterized by a division of labor, movement toward a common end, and flexible coordination between opponents. Power is distinguished from other types of collective transactions by asymmetrical interaction, a conflict of interests between opponents, and the intentional production of compliance. Some implications of considering power as a collective transaction are then examined.     

Generative Grandfathering: A Conceptual Framework for Nurturing Grandchildren

Empirical research on grandfather–grandchild relationships is small and undeveloped and has not enjoyed systematic theory construction. The weak theory-research connections in the extant grandfather literature have resulted in a body of research that is not cohesive and lacks scope and depth. To address these criticisms, I propose here a conceptual framework for understanding and investigating grandfathering and grandfather–grandchild relationships. The generative grandfathering framework was developed as a result of reviewing and making extrapolations from the growing literature on grandparents and a limited grandfather literature. It is hoped that this framework will be useful to scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in capturing the contributions that grandfathers and aging men make to grandchildren's lives.     

Toward a Conceptual Framework for Understanding Community Belonging and Well-Being: Insights from a Queer-Mixed Perspective

Although previous research indicates a positive relationship between community belonging and well-being, little is known about how this relationship is experienced within diverse communities. In this study, interviews were conducted with 12 queer-mixed-identified individuals. Proposed is a conceptual framework for understanding how and why experiences of community belonging contribute to and detract from well-being. Specifically, the dimensions being close, being read, being seen, and being heard are explored through participants’ intersectional and often-contradictory narratives. This study may enhance scholarship regarding lived experiences of community; research and practice related to multiracial, queer, and trans* experiences; and community efforts to promote well-being.     

Viable Systems Approach and Consumer Culture Theory: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

The aim of this study is to depict the relational dynamics between the firm/brand and the individual/consumer or communities of consumers. To this aim we propose a conceptual framework, integrating the viable systems approach (VSA) with consumer culture theory (CCT), which considers the individual as an active co-maker of the product/brand (‘prosumer’). The VSA view of the firm overcomes the limitations of CCT research, which is mainly focused on the individual, giving little consideration to the other actors in the context. Among the different approaches under the umbrella of viable systems we chose the VSA because of its emphasis on the analysis of the systemic external relations with the agents in the context, helping to underscore the marketing and social perspectives of CCT. Using a viable systemic perspective, the firm/brand and the individual/consumer can be conceived as viable systems embedded in a social-business context. Therefore, the consumption system can be considered as the momentum for the creation and maintenance of symbolic and cultural relationships between the firm/brand and the individual/consumer or communities of consumers (i.e. brand communities or subculture of consumption). These relationships are finalized to establish a common and consonant language in order to achieve a desired consonance level capable of enabling both the consumer and the firm/brand to co-evolve, maintain, and enhance their systemic viability.     

Organizational Change: A Conceptual Framework to Advance the Evidence Base

There is a vast literature on organizational change, but much of it has a weak evidence base, often using only case studies or axioms based on authors' experiences. Quantitative studies are less common and typically address a limited number of variables. Implementation science research is more advanced but typically addresses only program-level change. This paper presents a comprehensive framework of relevant variables and perspectives from which to view organizational change and offers a research agenda, with particular attention to preconditions for change (e.g., change capacity) and organizational change tactics, and their relationships with change outcomes—promising areas for research.     

Towards a Conceptual Framework of Service User Involvement in Social Work Education: Empowerment and Educational Perspectives

A topic that has recently gained widespread attention in social work education is service user involvement (SUI), a term denoting the call to include users of social work services in teaching social work students. Despite the widespread use of the term SUI, this label includes a wide variety of approaches with different aims and scopes. A conceptual framework that distinguishes empowerment from educational perspectives in current SUI approaches is proposed, and a number of elements that should be discussed in each of these perspectives are introduced: theoretical background, role and tasks of the institution, areas of implementation and role of service users, and effects of SUI and their assessment. Implications for further SUI projects and research approaches are discussed.     

The Formation and Manipulation of Collective Identity: A Framework for Analysis

This paper is concerned with how people involved in ‘local’ protest might come to see themselves as part of wider social groupings and even global forces of resistance. An ethnographic study of the No M11 Link Road Campaign in London examines participants' definitions of their collective identity boundaries at different stages of involvement. Cross-sectional material from the beginning and later in the campaign shows that there was a transformation in collective identity boundaries towards a more inclusive definition of ‘community’. Analysis of participants' accounts before and after involvement in the eviction of a tree suggests the role of conflict with the police in producing an oppositional definition of the collective identity, facilitating links to other groups in resistance to illegitimate authority. Finally, biographical material indicates the implications of transformed identity boundaries for co-action with wider social groups. It is argued that the same intra- and inter-group processes that determine how identity boundaries extend to include a broader community might account for how people come to see themselves as part of a global social movement.     

Human Identity: Child Rights and the Legal Framework for Marriage in Nigeria

Colonial English heritage and its interaction with local customs in West Africa have been the subject of much debate. Its impact runs through the fabric of the life of the nation, from religion to sociological and sociolegal frameworks. The tension engaged is most profound within the framework of marriages and its effect on children's rights. Illegitimacy, for instance, as understood in Common Law is a concept unknown to Nigerian customs. In Nigeria, customary law allows and envisages polygamy, and a man's adultery is perceived as “a heroic feat.” This is not so for a woman, translating to a tension on premarital and postdivorce relationships expressed in diverse ways. It is easily verifiable that in Nigeria, births out of marriage are attributable more to the nature of the marriage structure and patriarchy than to juvenile delinquency. For women, this single motherhood is often a question of self-preservation or survival. Although strengthening welfare systems and according equal rights to children seem to have been effective in catering to the welfare of children and reducing the number born out wedlock in some jurisdictions, this approach is likely to yield the opposite result in Nigeria. Recently, retention of the Common Law doctrine of illegitimacy was canvassed as “punishment for the misdeeds of parents,” which seems to indict misconduct in the question of birth out of wedlock in Nigeria. This article examines the validity of this claim in the light of Nigeria's sociolegal milieu vis-a-vis the right of a child to identity, origin, and self-actualization. It concludes that although discrimination may have short-term benefits for a privileged class, equality provides a society with an enduring platform for conversation, dialogue, cohesion, and realization of developmental aspirations. The article proffers recommendations on reform and policy direction that allow for growth of customary law in relation to family and child rights while engaging masculinity in a constructive manner.     

Mapping the Field of Donation-Based Crowdfunding for Charitable Causes: Systematic Review and Conceptual Framework

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This study compiles the main findings in the field of academic research on pure donation-based crowdfunding (DCF)...     

The Functionalist Perspective on Social Inequality: Some Neglected Theoretical and Conceptual Roots*

This paper outlines the origins of the functionalist perspective as it was used by American social scientists to explain social inequality during the first four decades of the twentieth century. The author then argues against the assumption that the basis for development of the perspective is found in the work of Parsons and his students who applied Parsons’general framework to studies of social inequality in complex industrial society. Instead, it is suggested that the research of social anthropologists, such as Robert and Helen Lynd and W. Lioyd Warner, was equally important to the development of the functionalist perspective. The author further argues that early twentieth-century British social anthropology, with its strong ties to Durkheimian functionalism, greatly influenced the direction of studies on social inequality. The paper concludes with a discussion of the intellectual ancestries between these theoretical pioneers and Parsonians and offers an explanation why Parsons’work dominated sociology during a critical period of the discipline's development.     

A Theoretical Framework Explaining Cross-Cultural Sexual Harassment: Integrating Hofstede and Schwartz

After a slow beginning, research on sexual harassment from a cross-cultural and international perspective has begun to assume more importance in the literature. Several recent studies have given weight to cultural differences in explaining cross-cultural sexual harassment behaviors across samples from various countries. Herein, we synthesize elements of Hofstede's and Schwartz's cross-cultural theories and specifically apply them to the field of sexual harassment. Our model highlights how the integrated conceptualization based on Hofstede and Schwartz's work is consistent with much of the existing empirical research on sexually harassing or exploitative behaviors, directed towards women, in many different countries and cultures. We offer testable propositions for future empirical research as well as theory development in the area of cross-cultural sexual harassment. The derived research propositions suggest that differences in the likelihood to sexually harass by men, as well as the tolerance of sexual harassment by women, vary across different countries due to the fundamental differences in cultures and values.