Innovations in Field Instruction in Social Group Work

This paper describes the use of computer-based lessons as an adjunct to classroom teaching for a course in social policy, and shows how the computer was used to meet the common problems of such a course. Six programs were used by more than 350 students. Lesson content is summarized, and the impact on students reviewed. In a one-year trial we found increased student satisfaction with course continuity, and succesful individualization of teaching. Unresolved problems remain—principally technical difficulties and the inadequate development of either a theory or data base for effective policy analysis.     

Organizational Culture in Civic Associations in Russia

The organizational culture of nonprofit organizations is affected by the context in which they are embedded. Based on a qualitative study of local civic associations in Novosibirsk, Russia, this article illustrates how nonprofit organizational culture has been shaped by historical and contemporary social and cultural conditions. The fluid situation for civil society in Russia has generated varied organizational culture across nonprofits. Interview data reveal different value orientations, distinct group identities, and different images of the ideal civic association: as a social establishment, as an outlet for self-expression, as a network of experts, or as a social startup. This resulting diversity of organizational culture has implications for the potential for partnerships among nonprofits, between nonprofits and government, between nonprofits and businesses, and also for the organizational survival of nonprofits in this setting.     

Reclamation Activism in Anti-drug Organizing in the USA

This paper introduces the term reclamation activism to refer to the processes by which social movements make claims based upon a real or imagined status quo ante during a period of transition. The motivation for a reclamation stance is the perception that a social good--such as some combination of social, economic or political privileges or cultural dominance--is being threatened. The notion is applied to the analysis of a modern social movement, the parents' movement against drug use in the USA. Based upon content analysis of movement literature, the claim is made that the movement is organized in opposition to its image of a 'pro-drug culture' rather than actual patterns of drug use. This oppositional stance is shown to have advantages for the movement over other claims-making strategies.     

Ethnic differences in neighbourly relations in urban China

Using data collected in Lanzhou, this paper examines the effect of minority ethnicity on neighbourly relations in China. It shows that the Hui as a whole express a higher level of satisfaction at relations with neighbours than the Han do. It also shows that the Hui advantage is removed with key background characteristics controlled. Finally, this paper shows intra-group variation among the Hui. These findings suggest that social status is a better predictor of neighbourly relations than the focus on inter-group contrast in traditionality in the existing scholarship of the Hui. Both inter- and intra-group variation in urban life must be examined to attain a more balanced picture of Hui Muslims in China.     

Catholic Sociology in Ireland in Comparative Perspective

This paper examines the relationship between the Catholic Church and Irish sociology within a comparative framework. Drawing on archival and documentary research, this linkage is investigated at an institutional and intellectual level, across three stages of the “career” of Irish Catholic sociology, and employing comparisons with Catholic sociology in France, Germany, and the United States. I discern important sources of variation between the four cases including major intellectuals, organisational hosts, and publishing outlets. Irish Catholic sociology’s quite sudden movement in the direction of secular sociology in the 1950s is explained as a result of normative pressure to jettison its value-driven orientation as a result of more frequent interaction with the mainstream discipline via scholarly collaboration, the reforms of Vatican II emphasising engagement with the modern world, the demise of the broader Catholic Action movement of which it was a part, and changes in the national higher education environment.     

Developments in Family Psychiatry in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, Family Psychiatry began at the Ipswich Hospital, in 1949, mainly as a reaction to the then prevailing practice of child psychiatry. The family became the unit not only of theoretical formulations, but also of clinical psychiatric practice. Family psychopathology is understood in terms of real experience; family diagnosis is arrived at by taking into account the total dysfunctioning of the family, and family therapy, a part of Family Psychiatry, is applied with the aim of benefiting the family as a whole. Developments in the inpatient field have followed. The efforts of a number of British workers have been directed to the problem of schizophrenia and the family.     

Consanguineous Marriage in Turkish Families in Turkey and in Western Europe

The paper compares the prevalence and development of consanguineous marriages between Turkish migrants in Western Europe and stayers from the same regions of origin in Turkey. Analyses draw from three‐generational family data of the 2000 Families study. Findings suggest a decline of kin marriage over generations and time in both groups, but a higher prevalence of kin marriage among migrants. Parental impact was influential, but effects of transmission were lower among migrants. Kin marriage was strongly linked with cross‐border partner choice. The results support previous findings and indicate the specific effect of migration on seemingly traditional patterns of marriage.     

Unity in Diversity: Sociology in The Netherlands1

Does accumulation of knowledge occur in the social sciences, and if so, under what conditions? Three research programs in Dutch sociology are evaluated with regard to theory accumulation: figurational sociology at the University of Amsterdam: structural individualistic sociology at the University of Utrecht; and data-based sociological practice at the University of Leyden. In the first two schools, a wide international orientation is accompanied by the use of a closure mechanism, i. e. a publication and citation network that is restricted to members of the same research program. The result is a high degree of theoretical unity within a context of program diversity. The article concludes with some observations on the future of Dutch sociology, followed by a list of publications in each of the three programs.     

Social-movement Unionism in Theory and in Sweden

Many union leaders and observers of unionism in industrially advanced countries have recently argued for stronger links between unions and social movements but their arguments leave the nature of social movements underspecified. This article reviews the literature on social movements and argues in favour of a minimalist theory of the social actor rather than choose between American and European approaches to studying social movements. Both Melucci's European approach and McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly's American approach to integrating the European and American schools of thought on social movements are inadequate to the task of specifying social-movement unionism. Hindess's minimalist theory of the social actor and articulated arenas of conflict offers a stronger approach to understanding social-movement unionism and appreciating its strategic pertinence in particular times and places. Two episodes of contention in Sweden illustrate the advantages of a minimalist theory of articulated social-movement unionism.     

Feedbackarbeit in Lehr-Lern-Prozessen

Working with feedback in schools is often based on the (mis-)understanding that it is a form of teacher assessment carried out by the students. Therefore, this paper starts with demarcating feedback from patterns of expectation and of actions that equate feedback with assessment. It unfolds a concept of feedback which is based on methodically structured discussions, shared responsibility, a dialogue practice and designed working alliances. It reconstructs a practice that avoids assessment and seeks possibilities to support learning processes and lesson development. This concept of working with feedback as a motor for a systematic and collaborative lesson development hasn't been a result of an armchair decision. It is grounded on experiences of teachers in four schools who, for one year, continuously worked with feedback methods in their lessons—not by themselves but collaboratively in a network with other schools and in the context of a scientifically accompanied project.     

Intergenerational Learning in Stockholm County in Sweden

Abstract

This article investigates a practical implementation of strategies for augmenting social capital, as they are being used within the Granddad Project, an intergenerational learning initiative conducted in schools in the Stockholm county area. Indicators for measuring social capital were constructed on the basis of questionnaire data. Responses from a total of 580 pupils, 19 granddads and 27 teachers in 17 schools were collected. Additionally, for the granddads, a qualitative analysis was also carried out using a set of narrative data, reflecting their perceptions and experiences of their work in the schools. The results indicate that the granddads' work itself is forming part of the social capital between individual granddads and the pupils. The pupil responses indicate that boys and girls feel secure in school and that the granddad supports and assists everyone. The responses from the granddads demonstrate that they find their work demanding, but nonetheless rewarding because of the social network it has established for them with the staff and the positive response from the pupils. These results support the assumption that interaction that occurs in the classrooms in schools where there is granddad intervention provides opportunities for increased social capital to be generated on the part of both the younger and the older generation.     

Afterwardsness in film

The spectatorial paradigm proposed here develops directly from the Freudian concept of Nachträglichkeit, which developed out of Freud’s work on traumatic neuroses and the abandoned seduction theory. Afterwardsness, Laplanche’s reworking of Freud’s concept, and the cinema both share a concern with temporality. They also share a common interest in memory and are both bound to a particularly Laplanchean notion of translation. Film has always been thoroughly intertextual and has always sought to remake or (re)translate itself for differing generations and different nations. What I am suggesting in this essay is that spectators also remake films as part of the very process of spectatorship and that beyond the actual cinematic experience they carry a remade and remembered “film” with them. This view of spectatorship therefore takes afterwardsness as its motivating force. The experience of watching a film coincides also with the temporal directionalities described by Laplanche in relation to afterwardsness. Not only is the spectator left with memories from, and of, the film after it has ended, but any number of (frequently traumatic) enigmatic signifiers or messages may have been unconsciously recorded, requiring subsequent de‐ and re‐translation. Following a Laplanchian model, one might surmise that the cinematic spectator develops a cinematic unconscious on the basis of the “repression” of the messages received via the screen. This “repression” occurs as a result of the sheer volume and traumatic intensity of the visual and aural stimuli, which cannot be immediately ordered, understood, de‐ and re‐translated. These enigmatic messages, structured by the temporality of afterwardsness, provoke the spectator into a process of reconstruction, re‐translation. At the same time the visual and aural stimuli of the cinematic experience may also have an immediate effect on conscious perception or trigger the traumatic recollection of a previously unconscious trauma. Subjectivity in this context would thus be, as Laplanche asserts, a process of “auto‐translation”, provoked by the message of the other (see Laplanche 1992a). This other may well be partially or totally inflected by the hegemony of Hollywood; however, the de‐ and re‐translation that is part of the process of auto‐translation might enable an active “cinematographic performance” that may ultimately open up a critical space beyond the dominant discourses. (This notion of “cinematographic performance” is discussed in Guattari (1977).) These (traumatic) memories, enigmatic signifiers, the de‐translated remnants of one’s cinema history are re‐translated and remade, engendering a remaking of oneself around these fragments in a process of “auto‐translation”, what might also be thought of as a kind of re‐narration. There is an active, almost performative, dimension to this process of repetition in translation, in difference; an emphasis on re‐narration as part of a process of translation or re‐writing, a process of transformation. Thus it has been argued that:

Forward movement in life is achieved through a backward movement in memory, but one that is more than a simple regression. In place of the blocked nostalgia or nausea of the perpetual return, the past is transformed in such processes as “working through” and “deferred action”. This is […] performance that is iterative and interrogative—a repetition that is initiatory, instating a differential history that will not return to the power of the Same. (Burgin , p. 273)

The idea of a Nachträglichkeit spectatorship is to express the very dynamism of the spectatorial experience, to speak of the reconstructive and creative aspect of spectatorship. This process of spectatorship recreates the films it “remembers” and articulates a certain kind of love at first sight (always already at second sight) of the cinema, the expression of a kind of après‐coup of the coup de foudre.     

Needed Changes in the Course in World History

Using Lani Guinier's notion of “racial literacy” and the findings from a study that analyzed how recent K-12 social studies textbooks portray racial violence against African Americans, I argue in this article that students come to teacher education programs possessing a limited understanding of racism as a historically situated, institutionalized practice. I consider the implications this gap has on preservice teacher education and offer suggestions on how social education might assist K-12 students and later preservice teacher candidates develop critical racial literacy.     

An Essential Component in Promoting Sexual Health in Europe is Training in Sexology

ABSTRACT

Training programs for sexologists are core activities to promote higher professional standards in sexology and to educate a new generation of sexologists. The summary information from 25 European countries provides evidence that training in sexology consists today of different models. The existing different national training models in sexology in Europe are: (1) a medical model, (2) a clinical model integrating medical and psychological approaches, (3) separated education in clinical sexology and human sexology, (4) sex therapy model, (5) human sexuality model, and (6) the Nordic human sexology model. This information provides basis for future collaboration between training institutes in Europe.     

Individuals in Context and Contexts in Individuals

This presentation will explore some ideas about the impact of both external and internal contexts on what we, whether as clients or therapists, do. It will offer a way of thinking about the internal and external as sides of the same coin, and a justification for working directly with one or the other whilst holding both in mind. In reflecting on how the internal and external affect therapists, attention will be given to both the hidden influence of personal experience in our ideas and the influence of radical doubt.     

Educating for difference in a Romany community in Spain: an exercise in integration

The marginalization of the Romany community in Spain, as elsewhere in the world, has its roots in a centuries‐old history of ethnic segregation. In response, the Romany community has come to feel intimidated and rejected. This has led to the establishment of communities on the outskirts of cities, generally with very poor living standards. In this paper I shall describe the social integration process of Romanies in one particular state school, presenting ethnographic information gathered in the course of fieldwork carried out within a project funded by the European Union on disruptive behaviour in contemporary schooling. A key focus in the project was the creation of a safe learning environment in schools, a matter of concern for all involved in education. Using participant observation and in‐depth interviews I was able to gather abundant ethnographic information on the school relating to the perceptions of students, families and teachers. Where informative, I also relate our findings to the existing anthropological literature on cultural differences and schooling.     

Changes in Agriculture

Currently, there are about 13,000 persons of Doukhobor descent living in the Province of British Columbia (mainly in the West Kootenay area). Roughly 60% still speak Doukhobor Russian. Ritual activities among the Doukhobors depend largely on orally transmitted prayers, psalms, and hymns that are based on Russian Church Slavonic; home life in those homes where Russian is still used is conducted in a 19th century South Russian dialect with both Ukrainian and English admixtures. The effort at preventing a full-scale language shift to English is an example of a communal decision to maintain and revive a language in terms of given needs; there are many spokesmen in the Doukhobor community, however, who advocate an emphasis on shifting to world languages (English, Standard Russian). The percentage of Doukhobors, especially in the generation born after 1970, subscribing to this view is increasing, thus raising the much-debated question whether the decline of a language or of a functional style necessarily entails the loss of a culture and of the disappearance of ritual practices. Many First Nations communities, e.g., Cree in Alberta, are engaged in an active endeavour of reversing language shift partly as a necessary healing process. It seems that their efforts serve at least as partial support for maintaining the Doukhobor ritual style, perhaps in a “reconfigured” form allowing codeswitching between cognitive structures (in English) and contextual-mnemonic devices (in Russian/Church Slavonic).     

Autonomy and Control in Everyday Life in Care of Older People in Nursing Homes

Self-control and autonomy are not guaranteed when people age and are in need of help from others, especially in institution-based housing. This occurs despite the fact that it is a generally accepted belief that care should be delivered with the greatest possible degree of independence and autonomy. This article discusses older people's experiences with and the opportunities for autonomy in institution-based housing. Through focus group interviews and observations, the daily lives of residents at two nursing homes in Sweden were studied through a comparative approach using the theoretical framework of organizational culture. Three themes emerged showing how autonomy was not a reality for the residents. The first theme revealed an ambivalent mission, indicating ambiguity as to whether the nursing home was a place to live in or a place in which to be cared for. The second theme was symbolic power, which encompassed the staff's power embedded in the organization. The third theme was the ageist approach to care, which was noted in the way staff considered the residents to be old people who were unable and unwilling to strive for autonomy. The three themes were embedded in the organizational culture and were created and recreated in the interaction between residents and staff. A key question for further research is how to change the culture to strengthen the residents’ autonomy.     

Risk behavior in decision-making in a multi-person-setting

When people have to make a choice in an individual setting between a known-risk option and an untested situation of uncertainty, the majority prefers the known risk over the uncertainty of the alternative. The confrontation with an unfamiliar situation in an environment including other participants allows for new mechanisms in risk-perception and risk-evaluation. People tend to become other-directed and use the behavior and consequences of actions of other people in the environment to assess risk. Our investigations show that warning signals observable in the behavior of other participants in the setting reinforce people's preference for known risks over uncertainty.