Educating children with special needs: An interorganizational perspective on policy implementation

Educating handicapped children is dependent upon the relations among organizational and agency implementors. In this paper, factors influencing successful policy implementation are examined relative to the implementation of Massachusetts Special Education Law, Chapter 766. Case exploration suggests several possible strategic points of intervention for other states faced with implementing a later, but similar law, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94–142). Seen within the larger context of degree of change required by a policy and consensus on policy goals, recommendations at the guideline development, resource distribution, and oversight stages can affect such implementation problems as organizational capability, dispositional conflicts of key actors, and interorganizational communications. The paper supports early analysis and feasibility estimates of policy implementation to enhance the needed interorganizational coordination for the education of handicapped children in the least restrictive environment.     

The role of local businesses in addressing multidimensional needs of homeless populations

ABSTRACT

Contrary to the perception that the business community can be hostile and exclusive toward individuals experiencing homelessness, local businesses can and do serve homeless populations at multiple levels. This article proposes a theoretical framework that links the versatile roles that local businesses can play in addressing various dimensions of human needs. This theoretical framework is illustrated through two models in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, which focus on the role of business improvement districts (BIDs) and a social enterprise intervention (SEI), respectively. These models demonstrate that the business community can meet not only physical needs but also the emotional and self-actualization goals of homeless individuals. This article suggests that social work education and field education curricula can benefit from engaging the business sector in addressing complex social issues, such as homelessness.     

Social Work Practice and Education in México

Social work education and practice in Mexico has emphasized need for social change, family, and community involvement. Education includes casework, group work, and community organization with extensive field work experience that is community based. Education programs rely heavily on literature from South American countries including liberation theory such as that espoused by Paolo Friere. Social work education at the college level prepares graduates for practice, with a licencia. Social Workers in Mexico work in medical settings, children's services, rehabilitation, family services, work settings and a variety of community based programs. Mexico has begun to develop graduate education. Education in the US, Canada, Mexico and other countries could be enhanced with further exchanges of faculty, students and literature.     

Response to Comartin,Kernsmith, and Miles' (2010) Michigan Sex Offender Registration Study

We investigated demographic predictors of support for juvenile sex offender registration policies, including education level, gender, political orientation, and age. Participants were 168 individuals recruited from public places in a Midwest community (45% women; M age = 42). In line with hypotheses, as education level increased, support for juvenile registration decreased, as did the belief that juvenile registration protects the community. In addition, as education level increased, belief that the juvenile understood his actions decreased, as did support for juvenile registration when it is framed as ineffective at reducing sex crime. These beliefs mediated the relationship between education level and diminished support for juvenile registration. Implications of these results for the advancement of effective juvenile sex offender policy are discussed.     

Obituary

Luck is by definition a random event. However, many people believe luck to be something it is not – an internal, personal quality. An obstacle for understanding personal luck and its sequelae among gamblers has been the lack of a psychometrically sound measure. The current paper reports the development of the Personal Luck Usage Scale (PLUS). In Studies 1 and 2 (Ns = 347 and 361, respectively), a one-dimensional, eight-item scale emerged and was subsequently confirmed among university-aged gamblers. Importantly, the PLUS was distinguishable from a general belief in luck (Study 2). In Study 3 (N = 60), a behavioural consequence of belief in personal luck was assessed among a community sample of gamblers. Specifically, PLUS scores were positively associated with the average amount of money spent in a gambling session. The implications of a belief in gambling-related personal luck for the progression and maintenance of problem gambling are discussed.     

Principles and Application of the Cooperative Model in Continuing Education

This article sets forth a philosophy of cooperative planning for continuing education and lists eight major principles that guide its development A cooperative education planning venture between the Division of Continuing Education at the Boston University School of Social Work and Rhode Island groups spearheaded by social workers illustrates how the application of these principles culminated in the Rhode Island Consortium for Continuing Education in Social Welfare. Plans are currently underway to expand the concept to include other groups in order to build a state-wide model of continuing education in human service and community welfare.     

Critical Experiential Pedagogy: Sociology and the Crisis in Higher Education

Higher education is in crisis, especially in the public sector. Over the past few years, tuition at state universities across the country has increased dramatically, their budgets have been slashed and federal funding for need-based financial aid has been reduced. The results are increased class sizes, fewer course offerings, more adjunct faculty and fewer working-class students at public colleges and universities. In Massachusetts, where we teach, these trends are particularly pronounced. In this paper, we describe “Crisis in Higher Education,” a critical experiential course we offered to raise student awareness about the crisis and to encourage them to work for change on our campus. This course is an example of critical experiential education because it integrates classroom learning with political activism. This article describes the context and rationale for teaching the course, reports on students’ responses to its form and content, and discusses what we learned from this experience.     

Mental Health Workforce Change Through Social Work Education: A California Case Study

The 2004 CaliforniaMental Health Services Act requires large-scale system change in the public mental health system through a shift to recovery-oriented services for diverse populations. This article describes an innovative strategy for workforce recruitment and retention to create and sustain these systemic changes. The California Social Work Education Center Mental Health Program provides stipends to master's of social work students at 17 California universities. In return, students must work for 1 year postgraduation in community mental health practice. Results of a 5-year study show that stipend recipients closely mirror the diverse demographics of the state, and 94% have remained in community mental health practice. The article also discusses lessons learned and implications for social work education in California and other states.     

The LGBTQ Supportive Environments Inventory: Methods for quantifying supportive environments for LGBTQ youths

The social environment in which lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youths live influences health and well-being. We describe the development of the LGBTQ Supportive Environments Inventory (LGBTQ SEI), designed to quantify the LGBTQ-inclusiveness of social environments in the United States and Canada. We quantify aspects of the social environment including: (1) presence/quality of LGBTQ youth-serving organizations; (2) LGBTQ-inclusive community resources; and (3) socioeconomic and political environment. Using geographic information systems (GIS) tools, we aggregated data to buffers around 397 schools in three regions. The LGBTQ SEI can be used to assess the role of the social environment in reducing health disparities for LGBTQ youths.     

Abuse during and before pregnancy: prevalence and cultural correlates

This study examined the prevalence of abuse during pregnancy and the influence of cultural norms and acculturation on abuse in 1,004 Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, Central American, African American and Anglo American women. Women were recruited from consecutive delivery logs in general community hospitals in Florida and Massachusetts. The Index of Spouse Abuse and the Abuse Assessment Screen ascertained history of adult physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, abuse during pregnancy, and childhood sexual abuse. An Interview Protocol assessed cultural attitudes, acculturation, and demographic information. Hispanic American women, as a whole, did not differ significantly from Anglo American women in their prevalence of abuse during pregnancy, after controlling for sociodemographic variables. However, Cuban American and Central American partners were significantly less likely to abuse their pregnant partners than were other groups even after adjustment. Women who spoke only Spanish (less acculturated) were less likely to report physical abuse from their partners both before and during pregnancy. Cultural norms, such as a partner's belief in wife/mother role supremacy and cultural group acceptability of men hitting women, were significantly positively related to both physical and emotional abuse. Other risk factors for abuse were the abuser not being the biological father of the baby, low income and little education, and being unmarried.     

Mock Ebonics: Linguistic racism in parodies of Ebonics on the Internet

This study describes and analyzes outgroup linguistic racism in parodies of Ebonics (‘Mock Ebonics’) that appeared on the Internet in the wake of the December 18, 1996 resolution of the Board of Education of the Oakland (California) Unified School District on improving the English-language skills of African-American students. We examined 23 World Wide Web pages containing 270,188 words, from which we chose nine pages containing 225,726 words for in-depth analysis. Drawing on a characterization of Mock Spanish, our analysis shows that Mock Ebonics is a system of graphemic-phonetic, grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic strategies for representing an outgroup's belief in the imperfection and inferiority of Ebonics and its users. We show how producers of Ebonics parody pages employ these strategies, which are common in speech stereotypes, to articulate an anti-Ebonics language ideology and shift the blame for the poor academic performance of African Americans from a racist society to learners and the community from which they come.     

转型期农村教育社会分层功能弱化的制度性因素

学校教育制度应该促进农村学生的向上社会流动,然而在我国社会转型过程中的教育制度以城市教育为中心,优先发展城市教育,以"市场能力"和学业成绩作为学校选拔规则,以及重点学校制度对农村学生获得高一级教育机会的制约,导致了对农村学生的"教育排斥"。教育制度的城市化、市场化、精英化取向是转型期农村教育社会分层功能弱化的制度性原因。将现阶段农村教育主要功能定位于促进农村学生城市化和社会地位升迁,确立教育制度的正义原则,实现对农村学生的"差异补偿"是解决这一问题的主要思路。     

Profiles of Systems Involvement in a Sample of High-Risk Urban Adolescents with Unmet Treatment Needs

This study examined profiles of involvement in four systems (education, child welfare, legal, and treatment) in a sample of 253 high-risk urban adolescents with unmet behavioral health needs. Self-report data were collected on multiple dimensions of involvement within each system, demographics, and DSM-IV diagnoses. Latent class analysis revealed four profiles: Education System: Academic and Disciplinary, Education System: Academic Only, Legal/Juvenile Justice Involved, and Multiple Systems/Child Welfare. Profiles differed based on gender and psychiatric diagnoses. Boys were overrepresented in Education System: Academic and Disciplinary and Legal/Juvenile Justice Involved, and girls were overrepresented in Multiple Systems/Child Welfare. The two education system focused classes were characterized by depressive disorders and ADHD. Youth in Legal/Juvenile Justice Involved and Multiple Systems/Child Welfare were characterized by conduct disorder and substance abuse. Implications for assessment and treatment planning for high-risk youth and for the organization of community-based behavioral health services are discussed.     

Incorporating human sexuality content into a positive youth development framework: Implications for community prevention

As approaches to positive youth development (PYD) gain momentum, the issue of sexuality – a critical component of human development – is being subsumed by ideological debates. In the current political climate, sexuality education is often relegated to biological and/or values-based approaches, neglecting essential relational and collective aspects of sexuality. Through the explication of sexuality as an important component of youth's social ecology, this paper provides a conceptual link between the goals of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States' (SIECUS) Guidelines for comprehensive sexuality education and those of PYD. We argue that sexuality, as a normative part of human development, culture, identity, and relationships, be approached from an asset-based perspective, rather than a deficit-based perspective. We propose a framework that illustrates how aspects of sexuality are embedded within PYD contexts, and demonstrates how a sexuality education program rooted in SIECUS guidelines can further PYD goals across community contexts.     

Changing Social Work Students’ Perceptions of the Role of Government in a Policy Class

Understanding student political attitudes—feelings about government and perceptions of its role—has long been of interest to social scientists. One factor that may influence political attitudes is belief in a just world, a complex psychological construct well established in the literature. Our study explores changes in social work students’ perception of a supportive role of government and their beliefs in a just world after one policy course using a pretest and posttest design. Student perceptions changed toward a more supportive government role, but there was no significant change for belief in a just world. The study contributes to empirical evaluation of the social work education policy class in terms of the Council on Social Work Education competencies.     

The Socio-economic Integration of the Ethiopian Community in Israel

Using data from the 1995 Israeli Census of Population, this study examines the demographic, human capital, and labour force characteristics of the Ethiopian community in Israel and its determinants of employment. The results provide strong evidence for the overall disadvantaged socio‐economic status of the Ethiopian community and reveal substantial gaps in educational and occupational attainment between Ethiopian Israelis and members of other ethnic groups in Israeli society. Ethiopian Israelis have substantially lower levels of education, lower employment rates, and are more likely to have low‐skilled occupations. However, multivariate analyses show that the determinants of employment of Ethiopian Israelis are relatively similar to those of other ethnic groups. Education and veteran status are found to be especially important factors associated with increased odds of employment. Although the rates of return from education are lower among Israelis of Ethiopian origin compared to other ethnic groups, this study suggests that education constitutes the major avenue for upward mobility in the Ethiopian community. Nevertheless, considering their current disadvantaged position, the question of whether Ethiopian immigrants will manage in the long run to climb up the socio‐economic ladder and significantly improve their status, or whether they run the risk of becoming a marginalized ethnic group in Israeli society, remains a major concern. Implications for the formation of a new cleavage in Israeli society and the emergence of a stratification system based on race are discussed.     

Developing a Community Attitude Assessment Scale

The Community Attitude Assessment Scale (CAAS) measures citizens'attitudes toward 15 community Life Areas (e.g., Education, Employment,and Health) on four dimensions—Importance, Influence,Equality of Opportunity, and Satisfaction. Residents generallyrate these Life Areas high on Importance and Equality of Opportunity,but feel only limited Satisfaction with them and perceive themselvesas having fairly low Influence on their operations. The scaleis discussed as an instrument, and in terms of community theory,attitude theory and research, and public policy applications     

Mothers and children alone: The stamp of poverty

The contributions from a variety of potential sources of emotional and economic support are evaluated as well as their impact on female-headed households in a university community. A qualitative, in-depth interview investigation of 36 single mothers is summarized; illustrative quotations and marginal tabulations are provided.The single mothers considered in this study report great difficulty in balancing their own needs for a social life with the needs of their children. These low-income mothers are well educated; their life situations can only be described by the word struggle. Same-sex friends offer considerable support, but economic and child care needs stand out strongly as needs that are often unmet. Their dependency on the welfare system is determined to be an interim need. Mothers in this sample were trying to find work, go to school, and parent while maintaining some social life for themselves and for their children. Coping strategies are discussed, as are the strengths of mother-headed families.Barbara Goldfarb is a social worker at Victim Services Agency, New York, New York, and Roger W. Libby is a professor at the Center for the Family, Division of Home Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. A University of Massachusetts Faculty Research Grant to Roger W. Libby supported this study.     

Intercultural education and practice in Greece: Needs for bilingual intercultural programmes

During the last ten years, intercultural education has gradually emerged in Greece as a new type of education. This paper focuses on several aspects of the implementation of intercultural education in the Greek context. Specifically, it highlights and addresses the following issues: (1) the multicultural situation in Greece and the discourse on intercultural education; (2) Law 2413/96, entitled Greek Education Abroad, Intercultural Education and Other Provisions, as well as the official regulations relating to the establishment and functioning of reception and tutorial classes; (3) the difficulties and obstacles present in the current educational system, as well as teachers' and pupils' needs; (4) the language policies associated with the Greek educational system, as compared with the language policies of England and Australia. Finally, it reflects on matters of social justice and equality of opportunities for the new student population of Greece.     

高职院校学生理论社团思想政治教育效能实现的基本路径——以佛山职业技术学院“理论学宣会”为例

以佛山职业技术学院“理论学宣会”为个案,简要分析了高职院校学生理论社团存在的问题,提出实现高职院校学生理论社团思想政治教育效能的基本路径：推行社团导师制度,保证思想政治教育的方向；开展特色社团活动,拓宽思想政治教育的渠道；塑造社团论坛品牌,彰显思想政治教育的时代性；促进社团企业文化互动,增强思想政治教育的渗透性；创新社团社会服务平台,拓展思想政治教育的实践性.