Multimedia Compact Disc: Play Therapy Counseling Skills

Multimedia compact discs have become an important part of counseling education. Many educators recognize the value of compact discs in training and methods of instruction. The purpose of this study was to develop an instructional compact disc and to survey counseling students' perceptions of the compact disc. Participants included 71 counseling graduate students from two universities in the southern part of the United States. Students viewed the compact disc and completed a survey to assess their perceptions of the compact disc. Overall students' perceptions were positive and they believed that the compact disc was a helpful tool in learning counseling skills.     

Understanding the Impact of Using Oral Histories in the Classroom

Oral histories are a powerful pedagogical tool in developing historical understanding and important learning skills simultaneously. Teachers use firsthand accounts of historical time periods and/or events to help develop students' sense of history. In addition to gaining historical understanding, students are able to bring history alive by capturing personal stories and connecting with individuals to better understand their experiences and point of view. The purpose of this interpretive case study was to explore in depth how classroom teachers can develop knowledge of the social studies by engaging students in collecting oral histories of local residents. In addition, this case study explores how these strategies impact students' perception of learning social studies and their historical understanding.     

Exploring Professional Stereotypes and Learning for Inter-professional Practice: An Example from UK Qualifying Level Social Work Education

This paper explores the concept of stereotyping from UK social work students' and educators' perspectives. It discusses findings from an exploration of inter-professional practice with two cohorts of final year social work students in a UK university. The authors adapted a questionnaire to initiate discussion about inter-professional working with BA and MA students participating in a specialist child and family social work module. This paper analyses students' responses to the questionnaire and explores wider issues relating to professional stereotyping and identity, discussing the usefulness of these concepts for social work education and collaborative practice. Results suggest that student social workers held both positive and negative assumptions about specific occupations/professions (such as medicine), and that these acted as a mirror or tool for reflecting back their own views of social work identity/ies. We argue that this pedagogic exercise in identifying stereotypical assumptions about ‘others’ may encourage the building of a positive sense of ‘own’ professional identity. We further suggest that students should be encouraged to construct a core social work identity that is dynamic and responsive to changing contexts.     

Notebooks as Projects in a History Course

This article focuses on high school students' knowledge and notions of citizenship after taking the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Naturalization Test. The students' test results and responses show emerging support for the need to make changes to the test as well as the students' limited conceptions of citizenship. In addition, this study's methodological benefits and challenges are discussed with implications for future research and practice.     

Community Social Structure and Issue Differentiation: A Study in the Political Sociology of Welfare

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze a case of cross-cultural interaction as it bears on attitude formation and attitude change. Three hypotheses on the relationship between interaction, perception, and attitude are tested. Two sets of survey data on the Arab students' experience in the United States were collected before and after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. In absence of conflict (before the war) the Arab students' attitudes toward Americans seemed to be a function of (a) the students' perception of Americans' attitude toward the Arabs, and (b) the extent to which the students interact with Americans. Under conditions of crisis or conflict, however, the students' attitudes toward Americans seemed to be mainly a function of how they perceived Americans' attitudes toward the Arabs.     

Financial literacy education: An opportunity for colleges and sociology

Financial literacy represents the knowledge necessary to manage one's financial affairs in a way that contributes to overall wellbeing, yet financial literacy and financial education are understudied in sociology. While emerging adults have low rates of financial literacy overall, this article focuses on college students due to increasing college access and student loan debt. Based on the limited literature that assesses college financial literacy education, it appears that these types of programs may serve to advance college students' financial knowledge. Additional mechanisms that serve to develop college students' financial literacy include parent socialization, banking experience, and high school financial education programs. However, not everyone has the same access to these resources. Thus, given the magnitude of the US student debt crisis and persistent economic inequalities, college financial literacy education may prove beneficial for all students, particularly those from economically vulnerable backgrounds. This article serves as an invitation to sociologists to consider financial literacy education as both a worthwhile pursuit in application and as a research topic.     

Students' dreams for the future and perspectives on resilience-building aspects of their lives: The view from East Greenland

This study explores how perspectives from students can increase knowledge of how teachers and school authority can support students in building up resilience as a response to social challenges in the community. A locally flexible methodology using structured drawings (including classroom observation), semi-structured interviews, and semantic coding and situated analyses in a case study in East Greenland provided the following results: The students' aspirations were mostly about getting an education and a job and becoming socially successful. The students' motivation for attending school and doing educational assignments often depended on the social interaction with their teachers, and the students requested more involvement in decision-making processes at school to create more meaningful educational practices. If schools are to support the processes of building resilience and motivation for education, schools should include students' perspectives and encourage students' agency by listening to what they have to say.     

What Changes MSW Students' View on the Mission of Social Work?

Little is known about how professional social work education affects students' view on the social work mission. Using a secondary analysis of larger longitudinal data collected from masters in social work (MSW) students in California, USA, this study sought to explore the relationship among the students' demographic characteristics, their primary reasons for pursuing an MSW degree, and their view on the mission of social work at the time of entering an MSW program, whether the students' view on the mission of social work changed in the course of an MSW education, and factors contributing to a change of MSW students' view on the social work mission—individual adaptation vs societal change—between the beginning and the end of the MSW program. The results showed that students' degree of social action involvement, type of field practicum, and ideological variables predicted students' view changes or adherence between entering the MSW program and graduating.     

Utilizing Web‐based Databases to Introduce Social Work Content in Research Statistics Courses

Masters level statistics is often not a course of choice for social work students. Teaching it in such a way that students' anxiety is reduced while facilitating their recognition of the importance of empirical knowledge in their social work practice and their need to have fundamental research skills, can be quite challenging. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a pedagogical tool used in a course on bivariate statistics that involves students throughout the semester in the process of developing and testing their own hypotheses regarding fluctuations in reported hate crimes/capita by states (as reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation). This technique provides continuity throughout the semester and is easily adapted to other issues equally important to social work. The data's unintuitive findings that disagree with most students' hypotheses also challenges students to consider methodological issues and the validity of the data. Because most students do not have a strong knowledge base of hate crimes, students often have to grapple with how their own preconceptions might bias their understanding of an issue and potentially their work with a client or client system. From an instructional standpoint, the method is contained and manageable, and the data are easily accessible.     

Perceptions of students' locus of control of discipline among pre‐service and in‐service teachers in multicultural classrooms

The purpose of this study was to determine teacher perceptions of students' behavior/misbehavior in the classroom, and the differences between pre‐service and in‐service teachers' perceptions of students' locus of control of discipline (i.e. the source of discipline) in multicultural classrooms. The study also investigated perceptions in three related dimensions of discipline: motivation, mechanism and the basis of discipline. Furthermore, the study generated data to determine whether culture was perceived as a factor in teachers' perceptions of students' locus of control of behavior in the classroom. Findings were intended to assist in determining choices for appropriate intervention strategies for use in effective discipline or management of behavior in multicultural classrooms.     

Academic Civic Mindedness and Model Citizenship in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

This study uses interview and survey methods to describe the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme's (DP) development of students' “academic civic mindedness” and “model citizenship” at four public schools in California. Results indicate that the DP pedagogy enables students to develop many of the skills that are necessary for civic advocacy and that the DP places a strong emphasis on students' knowledge of issues related to public policy. The DP develops students' citizenship through promoting their awareness of political and social issues and required active engagement with a local or global issue. Most IB students and teachers feel that the DP develops students' academic civic mindedness and model citizenship to a considerably greater extent than other curricular alternatives. Finally, teachers feel that the strongest limitation to their prioritization of students' citizenship development is their lack of clarity on how to frame the civic implications of what they teach.     

Enquiry and action learning in practice placements

A new approach to social work education is described (Enquiry and Action Learning), and its application to practice placements and practice teaching is explored. A structure for planning and evaluating students' work on placement is given and their use in a Practice Learning Centre discussed.     

The Use of the Arts and the Strengths Perspective: The Example of a Course Assignment

This article reports the findings of a study that explored factors affecting the choice to graduate from social work made by active students in one of the three social work departments in Greece. Research focused mainly on structural factors (students' socio-economic background and demographic characteristics, the educational system and the system of admission to higher education). It also touched briefly upon students' prevailing work values. Findings indicate that students' socio-economic background and the educational system's structure play a significant role in their choice to graduate from social work. These structural factors seem to have caused their educational/ occupational choice to be a rather limited one, since approximately 30% of the students decided to graduate as a form of compromise. Students rated intrinsic work values highly, which is consistent with prior research findings.     

Do We Need More “Doing” Activities or “Thinking” Activities in the Field Practicum?

How do MSW students learn new professional skills in the field practicum? Does students' reflection affect the use of other learning activities during the field practicum? Students in field practica participate in activities that involve observation, doing (participatory), and conceptual linkage. In this study of MSW students, conceptual linkage activities represent students' overall reflective capacity to integrate classroom theory and field practice. The results indicate that conceptual linkage activities are more strongly related to learning outcomes than observation or participatory activities. There is also a significant interaction effect between participatory activities and conceptual linkage activities when students' satisfaction is considered. Discussion includes suggestions for increasing students' reflection to integrate classroom and field.     

Just a paper exercise?

This paper will consider the impact and implications of changing the method of selection for social work students on one BA/Diploma in social work course for mature students with family commitments. The change was instituted following research which suggested that interviewers' preferences were a poor predictor of successful outcome of course completion for students, and further, that other predictors such as quality of written application material and student motivation were factors which had a strong correlation with successful outcome. Consequently, in 1999, selecting students by interview was replaced by paper selection. While it is the long-term aim of academic staff to evaluate the merits of paper selection in terms of students' outcomes, this initial paper considers the organisational and administrative implications of changing to paper selection and the students' and selectors' perceptions of paper selection. In particular, this paper will consider whether it is possible to be objective in selecting applicants, or whether subjectivity will always be part of the process. Finally, the article considers the relative cost of paper selection as opposed to interview. The findings of this study suggest that interviewing is twice as costly on academic and agency staff time - a factor which in the present financial climate has considerable implications for the future of interviewing on social work courses.     

Mitigating the political participation gap from the school: the roles of civic knowledge and classroom climate

Empirical evidence has consistently shown that political participation is positively related with socioeconomic background. Furthermore, recent research suggests that children who come from low status families are already less willing to get politically involved. The present paper aims to analyze the possible impact that schools can have in mitigating the effect of parents' socioeconomic status on students' expected electoral participation, focusing on two variables: civic knowledge and classroom climate. The analyses are based on a series of multilevel models using Chilean data of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2009. The results support the influence of students' socioeconomic background on expected electoral participation. Furthermore, civic knowledge and classroom climate show a positive and similar influence on students' expected participation. However, classroom climate appears less affected by students' background than civic knowledge, opening the discussion about which strategy should be emphasized when aiming to mitigate the political participation gap.     

Health Behaviors,Self-Rated Health,and Quality of Life: A Study Among First-Year Swedish University Students

Abstract

The authors conducted a baseline investigation of male and female university students' health behaviors and self-rated health and quality of life (QOL). The study population consisted of all full-time, first-year students registered in a comprehensive study program offered at a Swedish university in autumn 1998. In spring 1999, the researchers sent self-administered questionnaires dealing with health status, lifestyle, and living conditions to the students at their home addresses. Male respondents used tobacco, were frequent drinkers, and engaged in binge drinking in larger proportions than expected by chance. A majority of the respondents rated their physical and psychological health as very good or good, but male students' ratings were higher than those of female students, whereas the males' average scores on self-perceived QOL were lower than those of females. Both male and female students' self-perceived QOL was more strongly associated with self-rated psychological than with physical health.     

Adult learning styles: Implications for practice teaching in social work

This paper focuses on the current aspiration to further the process of continuing professional development in social work. It contends that knowledge from the field of adult learning theory may be helpful in sign-posting some tangible ways forward here. The particular emphasis is on critically assessing the usefulness of identifying learning styles as indicators of preferred ways of learning. Knowledge of learning styles is explored as one way of promoting students' learning on practice placements. A small-scale qualitative research study with a group of practice teachers and their students is presented as a vehicle for exploring this new terrain in social work. The findings of this research build on key themes identified by the current literature in this area. The author's findings suggest that information about learning styles has direct practical application in the social work practice teaching arena. The data points to the potential value of using such information to guide students' learning on practice placements and has relevance to considerations of their continuing professional development. Suggestions are put forward to highlight how practice teaching and Diploma in Social Work programmes could facilitate this process. The paper stresses the over-riding need to view students as actors in a broader social context, however, and highlights how information regarding learning styles needs to be utilised in this context.     

Understanding African American Students' Experiences in STEM Education: An Ecological Systems Approach

Promoting racial and ethnic minority students' interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers remains a primary workforce goal. To advance this goal, this study examined, through an ecological lens, 18 African American high school seniors' perceptions of their experiences related to their aspirations for STEM careers. All students were enrolled in STEM programs. Using a phenomenological approach to analyze the outcomes of focus group interviews, the authors identified themes at the ontogenic, microsystem, and macrosystem levels. Environmental factors, such as counseling, family expectations, and available resources, played a substantial role in influencing the students' interests, experiences, and perceptions in their pursuits of STEM careers. Implications highlight the importance of counselors in encouraging students of diverse backgrounds to pursue STEM courses and for policy makers to provide resources that support students' STEM goals. Future research is needed to examine the longitudinal effects of high school STEM programs on diverse populations.