Young people’s disillusionment with French education before 1968: sport,the school curriculum and social change

The quasi-revolutionary events of May 1968 have come to symbolize the generation gap between young people and their elders in France, and of contestation over social values, freedom and control. This article demonstrates that this discontent was apparent earlier in the decade, although politicians in charge of youth affairs either did not see it or chose not to publicize its existence. It focuses on debates relating to sport – and its incorporation into the teaching of physical education in lycées – because of its importance both within formal schooling and as an extra-curricular leisure activity. In 1966 François Missoffe, Minister of Youth Affairs and Sport, launched a huge inquiry into the problems facing young people, leading to the publication of an official report in 1967 which, perhaps surprisingly, had nothing to say about unrest among young people. This article aims to access the voices of young people in French lycées by mining the contents of over 2600 files of evidence that were collected during the course of the Missoffe inquiry. We argue that it is important to measure the gap between what the political and educational decision-makers presupposed about the sporting needs of young people and the views these same young people actually expressed. The article highlights examples of young people’s disillusionment with the teaching of sport and physical education, demonstrating that this not only conveyed signs of discontent with educational institutions as a whole but also a wider desire for social change that anticipated the views of angry lycéens (school pupils) in May 1968.     

Professional Power and Managerial Control: The Case of GP Assessments of the Over-75S

The creation of Family Health Services Authorities from the old Family Practitioner Committees in 1990 marked a turning point in the introduction of managerialism into primary health care services. One of the FHSAs' first responsibilities was the administration of a new Contract for General Practitioners, which had generated considerable opposition from within the profession. This Contract included a new requirement for GPs to make, each year, a written offer of a health check, at home, to all patients aged 75 and over. Particular scepticism was expressed by GPs about the value and effectiveness of routine annual assessments's of this kind. Drawing on interviews with FHSA managers and their professional medical and nursing advisors, this paper examines the strategies adopted by FHSAs in tackling the administration of this particularly controversial requirement. Although apparently effective in the short-term, the paper concludes that these strategies may have considerable longer-term short-comings. The constraints and pressures experienced by FHSAs and the strategies employed to deal with them provide a useful insight into the tensions generated in the course of developing a managerial relationship with professional practitioners who have traditionally enjoyed very high levels of autonomy and independence.     

Balancing Research and Action: Reflections on an Action Research Project in a Social Services Department

The relationships between social research, policy development and implementation are complex. External researchers are frequently employed by agencies to research their activities, with the expectation that the results will lead to organizational development. In some research traditions this takes place after the presentation of a final report. In the action research approach the two are integrated and action is a part of the inquiry process. Frequently, however, despite the best intentions of the commissioners and researchers, little action ensues. Influential factors, including issues arising from changes of key research personnel, shifts in organizational staff and roles, multiple agendas, and issues in presenting findings, dissemination and feedback dilemmas, are explored, using a case study of the introduction of care management in one local authority social services department. Finally, the usefulness of this type of research by an outsider in a context of very rapid change is assessed.     

Caregiving Around the Clock: How Women in Nursing Manage Career and Family Demands

Nursing is considered a woman friendly profession; however, career advancement in nursing, as in other fields, is predicated on masculine models of promotion, making mobility difficult for working mothers. To learn more about how women negotiate caregiving responsibilities at home and at work, focus groups were conducted with 26 ethnically and socioeconomically diverse registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, and aides. Three themes emerged from these discussions: tension between the value nurses assigned to paid caregiving and societal devaluation of this work; "costs" of paid caring and emotional labor on family life; and the presence of both obstacles to and opportunities for career advancement. Caregiving experiences were shaped by professional status. Implications for women's well being and career advancement are discussed.     

Comparative Gerontolinguistics: Characterizing Discourses in Caring Institutions in South Africa and the United Kingdom

This article compares and contrasts the interactions between caregivers and care–recipients in two nursing homes in the United Kingdom and South Africa. It is argued that the discourse of caring in the two settings is similar in terms of how residents and nurses use interactional strategies to negotiate role relationships. It is also argued that it is the context of the "total" institution that gives rise to these strategies. Differences in the two settings are most noticeable in compliance–gaining situations. The "power struggle" between nurses and residents is much more overt in the South African data where it is reflected and constructed in racist discourse.     

The Victoria Climbié case: social work education for practice in children and families' work before and since

Based on their research into the Victoria Climbié Inquiry, the authors outline an analysis they undertook of literature which had made substantial comment on either the inquiry itself and/or the subsequent inquiry report. An overview of 18 publications is provided, with four categories of themes emerging. These themes are outlined and then connected with concerns the authors of the current paper identified in journal papers written 10 years or more ago. It is argued that the gap between recognition that society needs competent, well‐trained and skilled social work and other professionals to safeguard the lives of children and families and understanding of what education, training and employment support mechanisms are necessary in order for workers to become and remain well‐trained, skilled and effective, remains as wide as ever. The paper concludes with an outline of teaching approaches the current authors have adopted in pursuit of the kinds of learning opportunities they believe need to be put in place to improve professional practice in children and families' work. These include creative use of child abuse inquiry reports themselves, role plays and simulations and workshops designed to enhance critical reflection skills.     

Urbanization, caring for elderly people and the changing African family: The challenge to social policy

An inquiry into the role of social welfare in the development process in Africa must start by determining the position of the family in the face of all the social changes that are taking place. The role of the traditional African family may be broadly subdivided into its social role, its economic role and its role as an agent for the transmission and renewal of sociocultural values. Intraditional African societies, there is a complex interaction between the members of the family and the community. Social organization centres on the kinship group and the age group. The economic, political and sociocultural values of present-day Africa, with its sprawling urban centres and industrial zones, differ increasingly from its traditional values. In Africa, the concept of development has been greatly influenced by the colonial experience and Western modernization theory which posited that economic development and growth, mainly through industrialization, would automatically raise the living standards and meet the social needs of the population. Social welfare was viewed as a non-productive activity and therefore accorded a low priority in national development planning and resource allocation. In such a context, the scope of social policy is limited and cannot deal with the critical problems of mass poverty and deprivation afflicting the majority of African peoples, especially in rural areas. The family is disintegrating and social change has brought in its wake a host of new social problems which remedial social welfare services are not adequate to meet. Using Ghana as an example, this paper will critically examine these key issues and make recommendations for effective social policies and programmes that must be incorporated centrally into national development plans.     

敬老院老年人精神生活状况的调查与思考——以长沙市F敬老院为例

人口老龄化是世界性问题,中国已经步入老龄社会,人口老龄化压力已经显现,并将随着老龄化的发展而不断加重。机构养老成为越来越多的老年人的选择。为了了解机构老年人的精神生活状况,笔者对长沙市F区敬老院进行了调查。调查发现,老年人对敬老院的日常生活照料满意度较高;但老年人精神生活存在的问题比较多,如：社会交往少、精神负担重、敬老院精神服务能力与水平有限等等。要改善老年人的精神生活状况,一是要加强护理人员的专业培训,提高护理人员的专业水平;二是建立专业的社工站,拓展老年人精神生活的专业支持;三是构建多元服务模式,丰富老年人精神生活;四是建构老年人社会支持网,发挥社会支持系统的作用。     

Roles of the institute of medicine in providing health science policy advice

Studies conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) are one way that government agencies can get presumably neutral advice on health science policy issues. The traditional IOM study is undertaken using a committee of experts supported by professional staff on issues of particular importance related to health policy. The report is usually a consensus document from the group of experts who have various points of view on the topic. After a report is prepared, it undergoes an independent review process to assure that the conclusions are based on the best available science and vigorous analysis of the data. IOM reports make recommendations for further actions that could be undertaken by a diverse audience, and do not just provide a series of options as is done in reports from the Office of Technology Assessment.     

人力资本与高技术产业集聚——以京津、长三角、珠三角为例的分析

目前高技术产业已在京津、长三角和珠三角形成了显著的产业集聚。本文通过考察这三个地区高技术产业集聚的现状与成因,从实证角度探讨了人力资本的重要作用。其中,特殊专业化人力资本是产品研发的主体,而一般专业化人力资本的分布也影响了高技术产业的区位选择。     

HUGH STRETTON AND THE WISE ADMINISTRATOR

His massive textbook, Economics: A New Introduction, is in many ways the culmination of Hugh Stretton's work as a theoretician of the social sciences. From his first major publication in 1969, The Political Sciences, Stretton has wrestled with two major issues. One has been the nature of the social sciences, particularly the role of moral ideas in shaping the theory and practice of social inquiry. The second has been the relationship between social theory and social practice, particularly in terms of policy development. His first book was the most ‘academic’. Since then he has written more in response to the problems of the age than out of a desire to solve merely academic questions. Hence his involvement in issues of housing, the environment and, during the last decade and a half, economic policy. One of his favourite techniques has been to use ‘speculative history’, providing alternative futures to illustrate what he believes to be the consequences of particular policy choices.     

The Attitudes of Social Workers, Health Visitors and School Nurses to Parental Involvement in Child Protection Case Conferences

Correspondence to Mr Neil Cooper, School of Health Sciences, University of Sunderland, Pasteur Building, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. Summary This report presents an analysis of a questionnaire investigatingattitudes towards parental involvement in child protection caseconferences administered to field and area management socialworkers, health visitors, and school nurses in the area of oneChild Protection Committee, during the early stages of a transitionto parental involvement in conferences. Analysis was undertakento investigate if experience of parental presence in conferences.length of professional experience, and occupational differencesaffected views towards parental involvement. Differences inattitude were found between the two professional groups of socialworkers and nurses, and these are discussed with respect tothree areas: resistance to parental involvement; the effectsof parents upon conference dynamics; and the management of parentalinvolvement.     

福利机构老年人的人际关系压力问题及应对策略探析

本文采用质性研究方法,通过对北京市某社会福利机构5位老人的深度访谈搜集资料,旨在对机构老年人所面临的人际关系压力问题进行探析。研究发现,机构老年人的人际关系压力主要集中在时间安排、生活习惯、阶层差异和团体活动等方面;其原因则具有年龄、地域、性格、沟通能力、生活经历、价值观等方面的多样性;而老年人在应对这些压力的过程中表现出了过程性和策略性的特征。过程性应对主要包括自己解决、护士调解和领导介入;策略性应对则主要包括协商、理解、回避和求助四个方面。以上述发现为基础,研究者对机构老年人及机构对于压力的应对提出了自己的建议。     

Psychiatric nursing in the Netherlands and Great Britain: class,status and gender in the making of a profession

ABSTRACT

In most Western countries psychiatric nursing, from the late nineteenth century onwards, developed as a specialization under medical supervision and within one general training scheme for all nurses. In the Netherlands as well as in the United Kingdom (UK), this occupation, initiated by psychiatrists, more or less distanced itself from somatic nursing. A comparison of the twentieth-century development of psychiatric nursing in these two countries shows similarities in its basic conditions and some of the problems it faced, but also some remarkable differences, which are largely of a social nature. We argue that Dutch mental health nurses, in cooperation with asylum doctors rather than in opposition to them, succeeded in establishing a stronger professional identity than their British colleagues: earlier in time and to a greater extent they had opportunities to voice their views on their work and to define the social and didactic nature of their vocation. Our explanation of these national contrasts focuses on gender, class and social status, which had dissimilar effects in the two countries because of some fundamental differences in the hierarchies and religious affiliations of institutional psychiatry as well as in the more general class structure of the Netherlands and the UK.     

Changes of Electoral Politics under the Growing Wealth Gap in East Asia since the Global Financial Crisis: South Korea and China’s Taiwan in Comparison

Abstract

The economic recession caused by the global financial crisis of 2008 affected political change across the world in different ways. Economic and social problems turned into political crises in North Africa. In Europe and America, dissatisfaction over such problems caused social unrest but did not imperil the political order. In East Asia, where competitive party politics have just emerged, the financial crisis sparked a correlative political and economic reaction model involving economic recession—growing wealth gap—public policy transition in electoral politics. Major electoral campaigns over the past five years in China’s Taiwan, the Republic of Korea and other economies in East Asia indicate that prioritizing economic growth and equitable distribution are emerging to be common core issues in different parties’ electoral competition despite remnant historical questions and highly politicized issues. The new electoral politics based on public policy competition has gained greater space for development against the background of an economic recession and a growing wealth gap, and is exerting a profound influence on the political and economic development process in East Asia.     

我国养老机构护工培训模式的类型

养老机构护工素质是制约我国养老业发展的一个极其重要的因素。而护工培训体系的不完善则又制约了护工素质的提高。本文基于中部地区养老机构护工培训工作的调查,把目前我国护工培训体系划分为四个模式类型,它们分别是政府培训模式、市场培训模式、社会培训模式和混合培训模式,这些模式分别适应于不同的外部环境。     

我国养老机构护工培训模式的类型

养老机构护工素质是制约我国养老业发展的一个极其重要的因素。而护工培训体系的不完善则又制约了护工素质的提高。本文基于中部地区养老机构护工培训工作的调查,把目前我国护工培训体系划分为四个模式类型,它们分别是政府培训模式、市场培训模式、社会培训模式和混合培训模式,这些模式分别适应于不同的外部环境。     

'Thoughtful' practice: child care social work and the role of case discussion

Since the publication of Lord Laming’s inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbé there have been a number of insightful and thoughtful papers into the professional context and circumstances that surrounded this tragedy. Those papers highlight the insufficient thought given to the psychosocial dimensions of Victoria’s situation, their impact on professional practice and the support needs of practitioners. This paper explores the tensions between ‘doing’ and ‘thinking’ in contemporary practice and draws on psychodynamic concepts to inform our understanding of why individuals and organizations behave in repetitiously compulsive ways. A case discussion model is outlined and its potential for addressing the psychodynamic demands facing practitioners and front‐line managers is considered.     

Problem‐ and solution‐focused characteristics of parenting support, 3 years after implementation of the solution‐focused approach: A qualitative content analysis

In recent years, solution‐focused parenting support has been developed and implemented as a promising brief and strength‐based approach. Given the fundamental differences between solution‐focused and the historically more common problem‐focused parenting support and the complexity of transforming professional practice, an actual shift towards solution‐focused parenting support can be expected to be limited up to now. However, because research into the specific communication characteristics of professional parenting support is currently lacking, no conclusion can be drawn at present. Therefore, this study aims to explore the current problem‐ and solution‐focused characteristics of parenting support in the Dutch youth healthcare (YH). In total, 15 support sessions performed by 10 public health nurses were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. A detailed qualitative content analysis of professional communication was conducted to identify problem‐ and solution‐focused factual, expressive, relational and appealing aspects of parenting support. Problem‐focused characteristics dominated all sessions of parenting support. This study is the first to thoroughly analyse the problem‐focused and solution‐focused communication characteristics of professional parenting support using a qualitative content analysis. Parenting support practice in the Dutch YH did not shift substantially to a solution‐focused approach. More effort is required to stimulate and facilitate this professional transformation.     

Professionalized through audit? Care workers and the new audit regime in Sweden

The professionalization of social care workers is a policy goal in many welfare states. At the same time, professionalization risks being undermined by enhanced audit. The objective of this article is to analyze whether the audit processes adopted in Swedish eldercare and childcare support or undermine the professionalization of the occupations working there, i.e., nurses, nursing assistants, preschool teachers, and preschool assistants. In particular, we investigate whether the three main forms of audit—standard‐setting, inspections, and quality measurements—support or undermine the occupations’ ability to achieve professional closure and enhance their external and internal autonomy. The findings suggest that audit processes in eldercare risk undermining professionalization, while in childcare the pattern is reversed: audit appears supportive of professionalization, at least for preschool teachers. This finding suggests that audit processes do not have to be detrimental to professionalization.