The return of the political in social work

This article is a follow-up to our article 'Revisiting social work as art' and in part a response to Karen Healy's reply [both published in IJSW 17(2)]. It is, however, also a significant extension of this material since it engages with more general concerns about the critical project that is intrinsic to social work. Social work is not just about self-foundation based on knowledge, values and skills formation, but also about self-assertion. Crucially, it is through this notion of self-assertion that social work can be best understood as an agent of change. This transformative aspect of social work is our central focus. We are not concerned with structural conditions of power and domination but with theorising what a transformative politics would look like for social work using the lens of the French political philosopher Alain Badiou as a conceptual medium for permitting the return of the political for social work.     

The Role of the West in Evolving World Order,and Russian Politics

The coexistence of modernities of different structural types, with different historical foundations, and with different systemic modes of structural organization leads to the coexistence of traditional and new actors within a single spatiotemporal arrangement of international relations and to the differentiation of macroregions and nation-states in accordance with structural principles of organization. In the final analysis, the type of political access in specific nation-states and the combination of different types of political access in macroregions with different modes of structural organization and at different stages of historical development influence the developmental strategies of states and the character and priorities of their foreign policies; these in turn continue in significant measure to shape the processes that form the space of world politics. The identification of such interconnections makes it possible to analyze the influence of the type of sociopolitical access in states, coalitions of states, and global regions on the formative processes and character of the space of world politics and to engage in social engineering of the format of national and world space with a view to optimizing conditions for national development. Theoretical and practical conceptualization of the interconnection between external and internal processes, including their political component, will enable us to work out applied theories of competitive models of cooperative regional and national development and strategies for national modernization and development with adequate protection of national interests.     

留下还是离开: 政治社会资本对农民工留城意愿的影响研究

本文利用2009年“X市外来农民工调查”数据,分析来自不同组织类型的社会资本,尤其是政治社会资本对农民工留城意愿的影响。研究发现,政治社会资本比一般社会资本对农民工留城意愿的影响更大;弱关系型政治社会资本比强关系型政治社会资本对农民工留城意愿的影响更大;强弱关系兼有型政治社会资本比单一型政治社会资本对农民工留城意愿的影响更大。本文比较来自不同组织类型的社会资本,深入分析政治社会资本对农民工留在打工城市的意愿的影响,进一步延续和深入了社会资本对农民工留城意愿影响的研究。     

Family‐centered kindergarten social work services in Hong Kong: A pilot project

Social work services at schools in Hong Kong will begin a new chapter in kindergartens in 2018–2019 school year. Early childhood professionals have long considered family‐centered service delivery best practice. This paper reports a pioneer project on a family‐centered approach in kindergarten social work services in Hong Kong. The project was illustrated according to the following family‐centered principles: (a) The family as the unit of attention, (b) Linking families with community resources, (c) Flexible and individualized service provision, and (d) Creating partnerships and supportive relationships. The value and contributions of family‐centered social work services in kindergartens and implications for social work training in Hong Kong are discussed.     

The Bruce Report and social welfare leadership in the politics of Toronto’s “Slums”, 1934–1939

Slum clearance and rebuilding first became a serious political project in Toronto during the 1930s. Following the release of a systematic housing survey known as the Bruce Report (1934), a set of actors distinguished by their planning authority with respect to social agencies, influence over social work education, coordination of social research, and role as spokespersons of religious bodies inaugurated a political struggle over state power. While the campaign failed, it called forth a reaction from established authorities and reconfigured the local political field as it related to low-income housing. This article gives an account of these processes by drawing upon correspondence and minutes of meetings of city officials and the campaign’s organizers, newspaper clippings, and published materials.     

Bottom Up and Top Down? Community Development in Post‐Soviet Armenia: The Social Fund Model

The main objective of this article is to discuss the effectiveness of bottom‐up, community‐driven approaches in promoting community participation and building local capacity within the post‐Soviet social, institutional and political context of Armenia. In exploring this issue, the article examines the nature of local participation and social relations in rural communities in Armenia and the impact of the World Bank‐supported Armenia Social Investment Fund (ASIF) project on the existing forms of local social organization. One of the objectives of the ASIF project was to promote the participation of local communities in their own economic and social development. The research finds that the project did not change the existing patterns of local social organization and had no significant impact on the nature of participation in the beneficiary communities. Bottom‐up, capacity‐building interventions that mainly focus on changing patterns of interpersonal social relations may not be effective in fostering sustainable civic institutions without changes in the nature of a country's governance.     

Segregated behind the walls: residential patterns in pre-industrial Copenhagen

ABSTRACT

This article presents a longitudinal study of residential patterns in the fortified city of Copenhagen. It uses a Geographical Information System (GIS) approach along with the HISCO and HISCLASS coding schemes for occupational titles to discuss residential segregation in Copenhagen between 1711 and 1845. In a period of population growth, spatial expansion of Copenhagen was prevented by building restrictions related to the fortress. As the city grew increasingly dense into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, historians have assumed that distinct areas of high or low social status (horizontal segregation) were non-existent and that the city was only socially stratified within buildings (vertical segregation), with basements and attics housing the economically deprived. Already in the early eighteenth century, however, the social landscape of Copenhagen was divided into areas of high and low status. Further, towards the middle of the nineteenth century, social status increased in the city centre as it decreased in peripheral areas. This change stands in contrast to the models of Sjoberg and Vance, in which socio-geographical change comes with urban expansion. Instead, I argue that fires and other disasters offered similar opportunities for change, with the extent of socio-geographical change determined by the political circumstances surrounding reconstruction.     

论新时期社区弱势群体思想政治工作的创新

创新是新时期加强和改进社区弱势群体思想政治工作的动力之源。我们应以社区建设为主旨 ,在社区弱势群体思想政治工作的观念上创新 ;应以集体主义教育为核心 ,在社区弱势群体思想政治工作的内容上创新 ;应“以人为本” ,在社区弱势群体思想政治工作的方法上创新 ;要适应科学化、现代化要求 ,在社区弱势群体思想政治工作的队伍建设上创新。从而努力开创新局面 ,为切实做好社区弱势群体的帮扶工作 ,促进社区建设 ,维护社会稳定提供强有力的保障。     

企业社会工作介入员工关系管理的新探索——以深圳市B企业员工为例

企业社会工作作为社会工作的一项重要实务领域,是将社会工作的专业理念与手法运用到企业之中服务企业员工,在协调企业内部员工关系方面发挥着重要作用。目前,我国的企业社会工作还处在探索阶段,相关研究和实务经验均有限,而且在企业内的应用也充满了挑战。文章以笔者所在社工机构中的社工在深圳市B企业开展的项目服务为例,探索企业社会工作在员工关系管理中的应用,并就项目实施过程中所存在的困惑进行简要分析,以期为我国企业社会工作的发展提供些许借鉴。     

Increasing aging and advocacy competency: the intergenerational advocacy pilot project

The Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) Strengthening Aging and Gerontology Education for Social Work (SAGE-SW) project, funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation partnered with the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) to develop an Intergenerational Policy and Advocacy Project (IAP). This curriculum pilot project, based on a community organization model, was conducted with 13 baccalaureate social work (BSW) and master's social work (MSW) programs across the country and 122 students. The project was one method to pursue CSWE SAGE-SW's efforts to infuse aging content into social work foundation curricula, to support intergenerational teaching, to strengthen social work advocacy skills, and to provide social work students with positive experiences working with older adults. Pilot sites were asked to carry out the project as part of an existing course foundation or field practicum course. Project activities included collaboration with a variety of community agencies, holding issues or "town hall" forums in order to educate community members about critical policy issues affecting older adults; making contacts and establishing relationships with local, state and/or federal legislators; and conducting assessments of the service needs of older adults in the students' communities. Questionnaires, feedback, pre-post evaluations as well as brief accounts of each project are presented. Participants considered the IAP to be a successful project in terms of the objectives of increasing awareness and competency among social work students of aging issues and of promoting intergenerational linkages between older people and social work students.     

农村老年人进城养老：挑战及社会工作干预

农村老年人进城养老是随着中国城市化和农村老年人口分化而出现的社会养老新问题。农村老年人进城养老对现行的家庭养老、机构养老、社区照顾等养老模式形成挑战。应对农村老年人进城养老问题,在制度层面需取消城乡二元户籍限制;在养老服务理念和方式上则需社会工作的介入和干预。     

In Whose Interests? A Case Study of Community Work in a Voluntary Welfare Agency

This article traces the development of a community work project sponsored by a voluntary welfare agency. The context of its birth is outlined, as are the struggles it encountered during its operation. These struggles hinged on questions of accountability to the local community and the resistance to this concept from the sponsoring agency, resistance which led ultimately to the demise of the project. Community work has been regarded at times as the ‘radical’ form of social intervention, the means of working for dramatic social change in society. Whether or not it can be that, it certainly need not be. The events to be related here concern a welfare agency of essentially conservative orientation seeking to redefine its role within the changing welfare environment of the 1960s and 1970s. In the event it was quite prepared to embrace the outward forms and codes of community work, so much a part of the new welfare ethos of the Whitlam era, while maintaining unaltered its conservative orientation. For its field staff, however, the situation was hot so easy. Themselves influenced by the thoughts and practices in community work, they found a real tension between accountability to local community on one hand and to the sponsoring agency on the other. Conflict was inevitable. It was only when the agency was faced with demands regarding community accountability, a concept cutting across its traditional practice and presenting a perceived threat to agency autonomy and control, that it moved away into other, safer directions.     

Participatory community organizing revisited: political involvement and social development in two post-socialist villages in north China

The paper, based on seven months of intensive ethnographic fieldwork in two neighbouring villages in north China, describes a more complicated relationship between members' political involvement and community social development than is generally perceived in literature. The intriguing mechanisms and contents of political participation presented call for a close examination of grassroots political economy, local authority, democratic institutions, and community organizing in the specific social contexts of post-socialist rural China under reforms. The study argues that a context-sensitive understanding of participatory democracy and community development is necessary for the success of macro social work practices, and therefore needs to be built into the curriculum of community organizing and international social work and addressed in social work professional training.     

Capacity Building and the Reconception of Political Participation: A Role for Social Care Workers?

This paper explores a citizen-based approach to social workwhich may counter modern negative managerialist pressures onpractice. It links the discourse concerning the growth of userinvolvement in public policy with the discourse about participationin political activity and suggests a role for social workersin supporting service users in initiatives such as self-help,campaigning and community action which offer a new interpretationof community-based social work. By engaging in this activity,health and social care professionals can support people to participatein emerging forms of active and inclusive citizenship. Whileparticipation in traditional political activity such as votingand political party membership is declining in the UK, peoplein marginalized groups are finding ways to have their voicesheard about issues which directly concern them. Increasingly,groups such as disabled people, older people and mental healthservice users/survivors are taking part in activity which marksa shift of focus to include both self-help and campaigning.In contrast to their disillusion with traditional politicalactivity, people across a range of groups have gained strengthand encouragement from campaigning achievements. The paper drawson a national research study which offers fresh insights onthese issues as a basis for exploring participative approachesto social work practice.     

Youth Political Development: An Introduction

Research on political socialization during the 1950s focused on early precursors of political attitudes and treated children as rather passive participants in the process. A second wave of research in the 1960s considered youth a force creating social change and held that the transition between adolescence and adulthood was a period uniquely suited to examining political issues. Developmental research during the past two decades has emphasized lifelong plasticity and the importance of the sociohistorical contexts in which children grow up. This change in views of development has occurred at a time when populations in all societies are becoming more diverse and when there have been dramatic economic and sociopolitical upheavals throughout the world. Thus there is a renewed importance for research on the political development of young people and the potential for examining this topic in increasingly meaningful ways. This issue highlights a new generation of research in this domain, paying particular attention to international and comparative work and to those studies that bring a fresh and developmental approach.     

How Using a Marketing Approach Helps Social Work Students to Develop Community Projects Successfully

With only one academic year in which to develop a communityproject, social work students can hardly gain the experiencethey need in this field, while providing their clients witha suitable service. The present study investigates the relationshipbetween implementation of the marketing approach and the successfulexecution of a community project. Four aspects of this issueare probed: adherence to the programme implementation plan,the programme’s effectiveness, its contribution to theorganization it is intended to serve, and client empowerment.Participants were 146 social work students at a university inIsrael; the findings show a statistically significant connectionbetween the market variables and each of the project’ssuccess variables. On the multivariable level, all the successvariables proved to be clearly influenced by different marketvariables. The application of a marketing approach by socialwork students undergoing their training in community practiceis discussed.     

Rethinking Politics for a Green Economy: A Political Approach to Radical Reform

Because the process of achieving a green economy is bound to be political, it is important how politics is understood. This essay employs a three-dimensional model of politics (functional, constitutive, performative) in developing an approach to radical reform that accentuates political potentialities—understood in terms of debate, open exchanges of differing opinions. By exploring a central tension between the formal economy (associated with administrative and policy arenas in modern society) and the informal economy (associated with the enhancement of community), the argument concludes that achieving a green economy involves a key role not simply for the rational economic individual or the cooperative community member, but also for the citizen.     

Trust,distrust, and the end of politics-as-we-knew-it: the mood of the nation prior to election 2017

ABSTRACT

New Zealand’s party-political system has, in the past, undergone significant transformations. And recent political events around the world have been marked by anti-establishment distrust, electoral disruption and the rise of populist parties. So the present article asks if this country could be on the verge of similar disruption, and whether there is a mood among the public that could precipitate a phase of populism. An online survey run in May 2017 by Stuff.co.nz and Massey University (supported by comparable opinion polls) is used to investigate this. In spite of significant levels of dissatisfaction and desire for changes, the survey did not reveal a mood for disruptive or systemic political change in the short term. Nonetheless, political fragmentation of the kind seen in proportional systems in Europe could occur in New Zealand in the long term.     

Assessing the effects of neighborhood councils on urban policy and development: The example of Tacoma,Washington

Neighborhood councils form an important and sometimes problematic layer in the governance system of many cities across the USA. The literature on these institutions has focused mainly on their hypothesized role in facilitating citizen participation in neighborhood and city planning. Less work has explored the experiences of neighborhood councils as placed-based institutions theoretically embedded within, and therefore ostensibly reflective of, the overall social and political geography of the city. In particular, little research documents the actual local development priorities, fund-raising capacities, project achievements and scalar tensions associated with neighborhood councils operating in different neighborhoods of the same city. Using a perspective based on extant literatures in urban politics and public administration, this paper offers an analysis of the neighborhood council experience in Tacoma, Washington, USA. While these councils are still “segmented” from the core of urban politics, the paper argues, certain institutional reforms could unlock their long term potential as more “transformative” spaces of local governance.     

别一种城市化——走出城乡二元对立深谷的新思路

大城市病问题和城乡二元对立问题是两个横亘在中国前进之路上的巨大障碍,桎梏着中国的和谐发展.传统的头疼医头、脚疼医脚式的机械碎化思维在解决这些重大问题上暴露了它的无能.从一种建设性后现代有机整体思维出发,提出了破局之道,认为城市问题与城乡对立问题是相互关联的一体两面问题,因此不能简单地只在城市范围解决城市问题.同样,农村的问题也不能只在农村范围解决.要运用同体思维,树立城乡一盘棋思想,将城市化问题和城乡对立问题当作一篇大文章来做,发展一种具有中国特色的城乡并茂的有根城市化.这种有根的城市化追求人与自然的和谐相处,视城市和乡村为一个多元共生的有机整体,强调工业与农业的相互滋养,推重城乡之间的互补并茂.对于我们走出城乡二元对立的深谷,实现城乡一体化,“让发展成果更多更公平惠及全体人民”,这种有根的城市化不失为一种健康的选择.