Soziologie der Aufmerksamkeit

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the theoretical relevance of the concept of “attention” for understanding the social. Against the backdrop of neurological, psychological and philosophical insights into this subject matter, and drawing on both classical as well as current theories on this phenomenon, the article will examine the term’s respective meanings and develop genuinely sociological questions in order to underline the heuristic value of research on this topic. Furthermore, it will be argued that the (post-)modern subject oscillates between being at liberty to bestow his attention at will and being forced to do so, and the social processes accounting for attention gradually becoming an ever more scarce resource will be identified. The field of science is then drawn upon as an example to illustrate the fight for attention, followed by a plea for the comprehensive treatment of attention as a key sociological issue.     

Implementing Single Session Family Consultation: A Reflective Team Approach

Setting up and implementing a single session family consultation in a specialist child and adolescent mental health setting, which for a long time has been an organisation and culture that has undertaken a traditional detailed child and family assessment and treatment, brings with it challenges. This paper will look at the history of single session consultation within the field of child and family services and, in particular, child and family services in mental health. It will also look at the development and implementation of a single session therapy program, and associated research on the effectiveness of the program, at the Alfred Child and Youth Mental Health Service. Clinical examples will assist in illustrating the program and its model and structures. Lastly, it will review the research data and compare this with other research data in the field.     

Therapeutic collaboration: Bridging the gap between statutory and therapeutic work

This paper will consider the clinical effectiveness of child and youth mental health workers and child protection workers employing a therapeutic collaborative model for practice when engaged with extremely at risk and vulnerable families. It will be argued that this approach has the potential to assist professionals work in a meaningful way that enhances therapeutic containment and subsequent engagement with families. The author will advocate for a model that does not demarcate statutory from psychological thinking. Indeed, such a split it is argued, promotes barriers that impede and fragment the helping process. Various examples will be discussed using this practice model, including the need for greater flexibility and professional goodwill across government and non-government agencies.     

Regional Proximity Factor: An Advantage or a Disadvantage for Development?

This paper will focus on the assumption that in the actual globalized system, the role of the State is completely changed due to the new global players that are emerging as international and regional organizations. In this context, the regional proximity factor has acquired great importance, as the three case studies will demonstrate. For this purpose, we will introduce some alternative variables to facilitate the use of economic, political and social tools. Then, we will compare countries’ performances at the global and regional level and their social, economic and political results, in order to improve the utilization of the regional proximity factor as a tool to analyze the international relations dynamics and the innovative national approach to the international opening     

Two's Company,Three's a Crowd: Revisiting Triangles in Family Therapy

In this article I would like to investigate the place of the couple in family therapy intervention. Within this I will look at the usefulness of the concepts of triangulation and triangles in families and as to whether it is a theory that translates to be useful in practice and in technique. Attention will be paid to both the experience of this phenomena and emerging theories of the mind which casts new light on the concept of the emotional triangle.     

Family of Origin Supervision in the Workplace: Impacts on Therapist and Team Functioning

The Adolescent and Family Unit at Redbank House carried out a trial of Bowen's Family of Origin Coaching that has prompted us to comment on the usefulness of this approach as a component of clinical supervision. This article will describe how this trial came about, the process adaptations required to make it possible and how some of the ethical dilemmas raised by this approach were addressed. Personal reflections from the team members will be shared, and our observations in terms of impact of this form of supervision on clinical functioning, team cohesion and service provision will then be discussed. In essence, we aim to provide an anecdotal account of our experience and ask the question, ‘Is supervision that focuses on the therapist's individual functioning as a product of their intergenerational patterns a valid use of resources in a clinical setting?’     

Order in the Secondary School: Strategies for Control and Their Consequences1

Whether one looks at concerns expressed in response to surveys or at the allocation of effort on a day to day basis, teachers and administrators give order a high priority. Order dominates attention because the fundamental character of schools as organizations makes disorder always an imminent possibility. In the first part of this paper, I will consider the reasons that order is consistently problematic in public secondary schools. I will then analyze varying policies for pursuing order in four junior high schools, indicating why different strategies were chosen and with what effects they were practiced.     

WHO BIDS THE MOST FOR MARKET POWER?

In the traditional industrial organization literature market structure is an exogenous variable. However, sometimes market structure is a matter of choice. Firms can choose to operate as monopolists, but only if they pay for this right. When market structure is chosen a natural question is, “What types of firms will pay the price to operate as monopolists, and how will they differ from their competitive counterparts?” This paper develops a model which addresses this question and arrives at results that are novel when compared to the results of the traditional structure-conduct-performance paradigm.     

Ableism,ambiguity, and the Anna Stubblefield case*

This article discusses the ongoing case of Anna Stubblefield, a former Rutgers University philosophy professor who was convicted of the sexual assault of an African American man with cerebral palsy. On appeal, the conviction was reversed, and as of this submission Stubblefield is awaiting news from the state of New Jersey Supreme Court as to whether there will be a retrial. This piece engages with Sherry’s article in this journal, and dissects the many layers of ableism at play in this case, arguing that justice will not be served until the alleged victim gets to be heard.     

Editorial

In this paper I shall provide a self‐reflective account of the development of a psychoanalytic psychotherapy service for the parents and carers of children considered to be at risk of abuse or neglect by social workers or child mental health professionals. I will discuss some of my thinking in setting up such a service and the difficulties, both clinical and operational, that I have encountered. I will draw tentative conclusions about the effectiveness of once‐weekly psychotherapy for parents in protecting their children from harm and promoting their development. I will illustrate the difficulties and my conclusions with clinical material.     

海合会国家与美国的安全合作

美国插手海湾事务,客观上使海湾各种力量重新趋于平衡。美国主导海湾防务,必然会按照美国意志行事,以使海合会国家的安全利益服从于美国全球战略利益,这与海合会国家寻求美国庇护的初衷产生了矛盾。随着时间的推移,这种矛盾越发凸显,海合会国家的不安全感也越发强烈。虽然这些问题目前不会阻碍双方安全合作的进程,但会影响双方全面合作的深度。     

Re-inscribing gender binaries: Deconstructing the dominant discourse around women's equality in science, engineering, and technology

This paper tracks and attempts to unravel a persistently dominant discursive construction of the problem of women's under‐representation in science, engineering, and technology (SET) education and work: the idea that the interaction of gender stereotyping with the masculine image of SET disciplines and workplaces prevents girls and women from choosing SET subjects and going into SET careers. The discursive framework of ‘Women in SET’ will be examined at both macro and micro levels as it operates in the field of activist and pedagogic activity that has grown around the issue since the 1970s. A Foucauldian analysis will be applied in order to explore the kinds of subject positions this framework enables and excludes. It will be argued that the ‘Women in SET’ framework re‐inscribes the gendered binaries that have at a symbolic level defined girls/women and SET as mutually exclusive, and as a result practices based on this framework may be counter‐productive because their subjectivating effects on girls and women may undermine their broad political aims.     

An evaluator of the future

For the evaluator who is part of the management of a human service organization, future expectations will be more demanding than at present. Operating staff, managers, and funders will already be familiar with the methods and the usefulness of capable program evaluation. Improved information tools will help the evaluator meet this challenge, by keeping the organization visible and manageable. A more fundamental change will be an improved “language of accountability”. Program standards, accreditation, and review now focus on structure and process characteristics. What is emerging is a growing consensus on definitions of client problems and program objectives in relation to these problems. This consensus spurs psychometric research on measures of problems and of the attainment of program objectives. Dependable, standard measures and meaningful comparative data will make the evaluation of program effectiveness possible.     

Sociology of Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Social Science Understanding of Terrorist Threat

The purpose of this article is to outline a social science understanding of terrorist threat, with special reference to political violence of new terrorist groups, fundamentalist movements and extremist organisations such as Al-Qaeda. Four main terrorism topics will be examined: (i) Definition of terrorism . We will make explicit the political and moral implications of the word 'terrorism' by tracing a brief history of terrorism; at the same time, a definition of terrorism will be proposed based on an overview of terrorism studies. (ii) Typology of terrorism . The topic to be addressed here concerns the classification of terrorist groups, paying special attention to contemporary fundamentalist movements and extremist organisations (particularly after World War II). (iii) Explanation of terrorism. Criticism will be made of psychological explanations of terrorism that try to trace political violence back to specific personal traits or psychopathological profiles of terrorists. We will offer an alternative explanation, focusing on specific social, cultural and religious factors to be considered the root causes of terrorism. Suicide terrorism will be used as a case study. (iv) C ounterterrorism policy . Here, we will discuss some of the limitations and counterproductive effects of the counterterrorism measures adopted by governments after 9/11, including new antiterrorism legislation, the case of special detention at Guantanamo Bay, and the Iraq invasion. Most of such limitations are due to a misunderstanding of the political culture and ideology of Islamic extremism and fundamentalism (Islamism). Some concluding remarks will summarise the findings of the article and underline the most important suggestions for a future research agenda in the sociology of terrorism and counterterrorism.     

The Singular Freedom of Academic Freedom

In this paper, I want to discuss how particular conceptions of academic freedom can overshadow issues of justice for racialized members of the academy. In particular, the question I will explore is how we can begin to think of academic freedom in relation to, and not against, freedom from structural racial discrimination. I will explore this question in relation to presentations made at a conference on academic freedom, and through the examination of a few notable cases (both historical and contemporary) of academic freedom and racism in the classroom as well as in the blogosphere and social media.     

Involving Service Users in a Problem Based Model of Teaching and Learning

Since the introduction of the new degree in social work in the UK, programmes have been developing ways to involve service users, using differing models. This paper will explore how service users can enhance the inquiry based model of teaching and learning while at the same time emphasising the belief that process and content in teaching and learning cannot be separated. It will also show how this approach, by involving service users as consultants, creates expertise and can provide a ‘legitimate constituency’ and thus allow for meaningful participation of service users at all levels of social work education.     

The social benefits of water and sanitation projects in Northern Colombia: Cost‐Benefit Analysis,the Water Poverty Index and beyond

Water, and Sanitation projects play an important role in alleviating water‐related poverty in developing countries. There are several methodologies that will not only assess the performance of these projects but will also help to better identify the problem and its characteristics, and to improve the efficiency of the investment. The Water Poverty Index is one of them. It is a very useful tool that helps to measure water stress at the household level in a holistic way, and to identify priorities. It is important, however, to complement it with a Cost‐Benefit Analysis that will take into account the costs of the project. A case study in Northern Colombia illustrates this point.     

Sociology of a Newcomer: Muslim Migration to Italy – Religious Visibility,Cultural and Political Reactions

The religious presence of Islam in Europe seems to have become an important issue in the public debate. This also relates to the religious visibility of Islam itself. Some considerations will be proposed on this subject. As in other countries of Europe, Islam has also become a significant religious presence in Italy. I will describe the main aspects of this presence, showing some important elements of the sociography of Islam in Italy, and proposing some interpretative criteria in order to understand the main dynamics at work. Finally, I will focus on how Islam and Muslims have become an object of debate in the Italian public space, particularly in political, religious and cultural circles, drawing attention to some aspects of the present, apparently conflictual situation.     

A model of temporary migration: the Egyptian case

"In this article, a family migration model is introduced where differences in regional amenities and wage rates can result in voluntary, temporary migration. A household production model of temporary migration will be developed and tested to analyse Egyptian temporary migration to the Gulf region. The theoretical model will be a two-period model of temporary migration and will be empirically tested using the well known and comprehensive 1982 Egyptian Fertility Survey, which is part of the World Fertility Survey and covers a period for which temporary migration from Egypt was at or near its peak. This was also before the Gulf War, after which patterns of migration were different." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)