The Use of Humor With Older Adults Aging in Place

As more older adults seek ways to remain in their homes during their “golden years,” humor has proven to be a worthwhile intervention that reduces stress and provides a hopeful, playful, and optimistic environment. Development of creative and supportive housing situations for older adults combined with the use of modern technology (e.g., the Internet and computer devices used in the home), aid in bringing humor to the older adult. This article addresses some of the challenges that older adults face and the way that the use of humor can assist them to meet these challenges.     

Are extension requests an opportunity to support student self-management skills?

Self-regulation, self-management, and coping skills are essential personal attributes for social work graduates who often work with clients with complex and traumatic histories. This study explored self-management skills in students applying for extensions of time to complete assignments. Participants were 117 students enrolled in a second-year undergraduate social work subject. Requests were analyzed in two ways: (1) did the request meet the university policy criteria for approval; and (2) thematic analysis of requests that did not meet criteria to identify the reasons students were providing to support their request. A quarter of students in the course applied for an extension. The overwhelming majority of requests did not meet the university’s policy criteria for approval, with only two having a valid reason and the required documentation. The primary reason for extension requests in this cohort was poor self-management skills, specifically time-management and coping. Despite not meeting university policy requirements, all requests were approved. The results from this study confirm that most students applying for extension requests are not eligible for an extension. The reasons provided demonstrate problems coping with course requirements because of self-management problems. Implications for supporting students and staff are discussed.     

Being Volunteered? The Impact of Social Participation and Pro-Social Attitudes on Volunteering

While disagreeing over the reasons why the performance of civic obligations seems to be declining, conservatives and liberals agree that people need to be reminded of their duties as citizens for this decline to be halted. But do these exhortations work? This paper tests two theories about how people become volunteers. The “normativist” perspective assumes that volunteer behavior flows from socialization into pro-social attitudes; the “social practice” perspective stresses the formative role of practical experiences and social participation. Using a panel study of high school seniors who were reinterviewed in their mid-20s and again in their early 30s, we show that volunteer work undertaken in high school has long-term benefits as does social participation more generally but that socialization into pro-social attitudes has an even stronger influence on volunteering in middle age. The implications of our study are that mandatory community service programs can boost later volunteer efforts but that socialization into appropriate citizenship attitudes is of equal, if not greater, importance.

     

The lobby as an arena in the confrontation between acceptance and denial of old age

In two anthropological studies on old-age institutions, the lobby is found to be an arena in which one may examine the styles that seniors use to cope with the end of life. The lobby seemingly symbolizes the socioexistential situation of today's elderly and gives us a credible view of two separate types of institutions: sheltered housing and the old-age home. The article examines three levels of context: the static “set” in the lobby, the traffic of tenants and others through it, and the extent of freedom in its access. The article concludes that each institutional context “promotes” a different style of coping. Sheltered-housing tenants cultivate a middle-aged identity in which they deny the fact that they are old; tenants of the old-age home accept the manifestations of old-age and conduct an overt discourse with death. The reality of life in an institution as one that forces people to cope with question of identity in old age creates an appropriate background for discussion of the costs and utilities of each style of coping.     

ACCOUNTING FOR STATE APPROACHES TO ASYLUM SEEKERS IN AUSTRALIA AND MALAYSIA: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF “NATIONAL” IDENTITY AND “EXCLUSIVE” CITIZENSHIP IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST “IRREGULAR” MOBILITY

This article uses the case studies of Australia and Malaysia to examine how diverse states in the Asia-Pacific region approach asylum seekers in practice and in discourse. Using a social constructionist approach to identity, the article highlights how governments in each country have grappled with “irregular” migration and the challenges it poses for national identity through processes of “othering” and “exclusion.” This comparison shows that the process of excluding asylum seekers on the basis of identity is not a Western phenomenon, but one extending to countries across the region. It is maintained that state discourses around asylum seekers within the two countries are framed in similar arguments centred around the concepts of “irregular” mobility, “national” identity, and “exclusive” citizenship. More specifically, it is demonstrated that both the Malaysian and Australian governments have projected asylum seekers in the public realm primarily as “illegal” through their undocumented mobility, and within this discourse as “threats” to national identity and security and therefore “unworthy” of citizenship privileges through resettlement or local integration. It is argued that each government has used trajectories specific to their own nation-building process to make their arguments more relevant and appealing to their constituents. A key premise of this article holds that an understanding of the rationale underpinning each government's asylum approach will contribute to establishing more open and constructive regional dialogue around the asylum issue.     

In the Mind of the Beholder: Evaluation of Coping Styles of Immigrant Parents

The issue of coping with cultural transition, as in the case of immigration, has been the focus of extensive investigation in many domains. There is some diversity among scholars as to the relationship between change, stress, risk and well-being. Children, in particular, are regarded at risk since they experience parental stress and are exposed to two sometimes conflicting socializing systems. Consequently, parental modes of coping with “acculturation stress” are considered major factors in predicting immigrant children’s well-being. This article challenges existing views of a linear relation between parental coping and child well-being, suggesting that there is a great complexity and many variables that affect both parental coping strategies related to immigration and the definition of risk. We suggest that child development is affected by parental values and ideologies which form the “Adaptive Adult” image of the culture in which the children are raised. Immigrant parents confronted with a foreign Adaptive Adult image held by the socializing agents of the host culture may adopt one of the several different copying styles. The article describes three most common coping styles labelled by metaphores from the animal world: the traditional “uni-cultural” style which promotes conservation is represented by the Kangaroo strategy; the “culturally-disoriented” style which calls for rapid assimilation of children is represented by the Cuckoo metaphor; and the “bi-cultural” style, based on a meditative approach, is illustrated by the Chameleon’s ability to change its colour to blend in with the environment. Representatives of four professional sectors who are in daily contact with immigrant families, including educators, social workers, educational psychologists and paediatricians, were presented with three typical coping strategies and were asked to express their opinions regarding the adaptive and risk values of each coping style. By applying a qualitative research approach, results indicate that there are variations in the way the various stakeholders (parents and socializing agents) perceive basic concepts such as adaptation, risk and well-being. Consequently, their evaluations of the different parental coping styles vary, suggesting that it is all "in the mind of the beholder".     

A Collaborative Approach to Service,Learning, and Scholarship

ABSTRACT

This article describes a research course that was a collaborative endeavor between a school of social work and a community organization. This project was guided by learning, service and scholarship goals. Specifically, the participants in this course provided a pro-bono evaluation for a community benefits district. The benefits district solicited assistance from the authors, with the caveat that district members not be involved in the data collection and analysis. The authors situate this project on a continuum of traditional versus participatory research, and propose a “mixed” model for collaborative university-community efforts. The authors suggest ways of engaging students in “real world” research that benefits the community and facilitates their own training as macro social work practitioners. Factors that facilitate and hinder such a project are also discussed.     

Positive Consequences of Parental Divorce Among Israeli Young Adults

Abstract

Within the framework of cognitive theories that define crisis as a challenge to self-development, this study explored the positive long-term outcomes of coping with parental divorce in young adults. Data were collected from self-reports of 158 Israeli young adults whose parents divorced when they were adolescents. Together with painful feelings, almost half the participants reported “more positive than negative outcomes” and less than a quarter thought that the divorce had “more negative than positive outcomes.” The various positive outcomes were found to form three constructs reflecting maturity and growth: empowerment, empathy, and relationship-savvy. Coping styles used by the participants proved strongly connected to long-term outcomes. Reciprocal support was the main coping style used by the young adults and their significant others, and was connected to positive long-term outcomes. Based on multiple regression analyses, the study proposes a sequential model that charts a developmental sequence that enhances long-term positive outcomes. These and other results are discussed within the framework of posttraumatic growth perspective.     

Positive Development in a Disorderly World

Adolescents need to develop competencies to navigate an adult world that is complex and disorderly: a world of heterogeneous macro‐ to microecological systems containing contradictions and catch‐22s. This exploratory essay examines adolescents' conscious processes of developing pertinent competencies for pursuing goals (agency) in these kinds of “real‐world” settings. It draws on qualitative longitudinal research on youth's experiences working on arts and community projects in which they encounter the irregular dynamics of complex human systems. I describe how youth develop “strategic thinking”: executive skills for formulating strategies based on forecasting dynamics in navigating these systems. I also describe how youth learn to manage emotions (in self and others) that arise in these real‐world transactions and how they develop motivation that sustains their work toward goals. Even as we learn more about the biological hardware of development, I argue that we must study youth's conscious, proactive processes in developing their own “software” to navigate complex and disorderly human worlds.     

Racist humor: then and now

While recent scholarship has examined the capacity of race‐based humor to “upend” racial inequalities, or has focused on comedic “heroes” who use humor “subversively” to challenge racism, less attention has been paid to the evolution of racist humor and its continued role in supporting dominant racial ideologies. This article reviews key works on the historical and current functions of racist humor in the United States, in order to situate racist humor as a social practice that has contributed to the development, maintenance, and contestation of an ideology of white supremacy. First, I review the historical role of racist humor in supporting pro‐slavery ideology, in order to see that racist humor played a critical role in racial formation and domination. I focus on literature that examines the way racial ridicule operated in the pre‐civil rights era (e.g., blackface) and the way such race‐based comedy was used as a cultural form of racialization that supported the development of an ideology of white supremacy throughout this period. Then, I point to how the widespread use of racist humor of the pre‐civil rights era was challenged by the civil rights movement, and how this changed the ways in which racist humor was perceived/operated, in public and private, in the post‐civil rights era. Finally, I conclude by suggesting some areas where an examination of racist humor is in need of critical attention and analysis in the current era of “color‐blindness.”     

Adelina Anthony Interview with Aimee Carrillo Rowe

ABSTRACT

This interview explores how performing artist, activist, writer, director, performer Adelina Anthony stages queer women of color affects as a complex terrain to mobilize a decolonial imaginary. Anthony's characters are complex, contradictory, surly, and resilient with whom audience members connect and feel deeply. Especially for queer women of color, who rarely get to see their own experiences on film or on stage, Anthony's work provides a critical forum for discussing, imagining, naming, and envisioning the connections between our personal struggles and broader forces of imperialism, heterosexual capitalism, and settler colonialism. Through the “medicina” of gritty truth-telling and side-splitting laughter, Anthony discusses her own positionality as a coyote curandera. Through the exploratory genre of the interview, Anthony helps readers palpably engage a queer woman of color “theory in the flesh” to imagine their own creative potentialities through a compassionate lens of humility and humor.     

GEOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SAFE MOTHERHOOD IN THE HILL COUNTRY OF SRI LANKA: A CASE STUDY OF THE DORAGALA TEA PLANTATION IN PUSSELLAWA

ABSTRACT

In comparison with other South Asian countries, Sri Lanka maintains well-developed health care systems. Nonetheless, limited health care services are provided to mothers and children in the hill country. This research raises a series of questions concerning current challenges for safe motherhood, such as health care services already present, spatial distribution of health care professionals, and health policy in the hill counties of Sri Lanka. The authors argue that to understand the existing infrastructure of health care systems and future challenges to provision of health care services, it is important to depict the spatial location of health care units and to recognize the complexity of interactions between these units and the social, economic, and health environment. Such assessment provides a human geography approach that investigates health care systems in spatial dimensions. This study uses the geographical techniques of Geographic Information Systems and Global Positioning Systems to answer the fundamental questions of “what is where,” “why is it there,” and “why do we care.” The questions underline the importance of spatial methodology in assessment of safe motherhood and the importance of accurate and precise knowledge about the status of maternal health.     

Conversing about aging and practice

Using four open-ended questions, individual conversations were conducted with 20 professionals from 10 fields of practice in aging. Professionals were over 60 years of age, had worked in the field at least 10 years, and personally considered themselves elders. This project found that they were aware of their personal aging process, were knowledgeable about resources, had considered their values, beliefs, and interests, and had developed an “aging plan” that would optimize a meaningful and enjoyable quality of life. They generally viewed themselves positively, had a strong sense of identity, accepted the changes that come with aging, and maintained an active and engaged lifestyle. They understood the commonalities of aging, but also respected and valued the uniqueness of each individual’s experiences. Aging had significantly affected their professional practice as well, primarily by increasing empathy, sensitivity, understanding, and patience, as well as through greater awareness and special attention to meaningful communication with clients and patients. Their personal aging awareness had a generally positive effect on professional practice. Practitioners’ thoughts and experiences with their own aging can both serve as a model for the general public and be utilized to programs to assist seniors in remaining vital members of society     

‘Just teach us the skills please,we'll do the rest’: empowering ten‐year‐olds as active researchers

This paper discusses the outcomes of an initiative to empower ten‐year‐olds as active researchers. It debates some of the barriers that are commonly cited with regard to children of this age taking ownership of their own research agendas—power relations, competence, knowledge and skills—and challenges the status quo. It describes a study in which a group of ten‐year‐olds participated in a taught programme aimed at equipping them with the knowledge and skills to design their own research. This empowering process resulted in the children undertaking research projects of their own choosing, designed, carried out and reported entirely from their perspective. Reports from two of those projects are presented as part of this paper.     

Geschlecht und Schulerfolg: Ein soziales Stratifikationsmuster kehrt sich um

In this paper, we seek to identify factors that account for the declining school performance of boys and young men. After reviewing and analysing the international literature on gender and education, we integrate various explanatory approaches into a model that is rooted in the theory of socialisation. The model focuses on the developmental tasks which young men face during adolescence. Our central thesis is that the declining school performance of young men cannot be fully explained by their failure to cope with educational challenges, i.e., their problems with respect to the developmental task “qualification”. Rather, a comprehensive explanation requires the incorporation of three other central developmental tasks, “social attachments”, “regeneration”, and “participation”. In the last decades, it has become easier for young women to cope with these tasks than it is for young men. Thus a rare sociological incident has occurred: the reversal of centuries-old pattern of social stratification. Nowadays, young women and not young men acquire the privileged certificates offered by the educational system, and it is them who gain the more promising career prospects. Our thesis can be supported with data from a broad range of international studies. The crucial implication is that supporting young men at school will show only limited results. Rather, to improve the school performance of young men, it is also necessary to address their deficits in coping with the other aforementioned developmental tasks, all of which point to challenges that young people are expected to master in today's individualised, achievement-oriented society.     

The Purposes of Undergraduate Education for Social Welfare

This paper discusses efforts to introduce fundraising courses into the curriculum of graduate social work schools. It suggests that such courses are inadequate to meet the growing need for social workers capable of coping with the economic facts of agency life. It proposes the concept of resource development as a viable alternative. Continued grounding in basic social work skills, values, and knowledge for personnel engaged in resource development is stressed. Questions are raised about the orientation toward money in social work education. The paper also explores the mutual benefits of cooperation between social work and the fundraising field.     

The Use of Humor to Cope with Secondary Traumatic Stress

Professionals in the area of sexual violence often use humor, both lighthearted and gallows humor, in an attempt to counteract the effects of the work on their well-being. There is little research, however, on whether the use of humor is effective in reducing symptoms of secondary traumatic stress. In the current study, more than 500 Internet Crimes Against Children task force personnel were surveyed about their level of secondary traumatic stress and the coping techniques utilized to mitigate work-related stressors. The use of gallows and light-hearted humor were independently related to secondary traumatic stress scores, even controlling for other coping strategies. The two types of humor were not related to secondary traumatic stress in the same direction, nor at the same magnitude.     

Change Research: Narrating Social Change from the Bottom-Up

This essay provides a review of Bent Flyvbjerg’s critique of conventional social science research, including its limitations in applied fields such as social work, followed by a specification of his alternative for a “phronetic social science.” I detail how I with two colleagues practiced phronetic social science in our collaboration with Philadelphia housing activists, including most especially the role of interpretive narrative analysis as part of our case study research. In conclusion, I discuss the somewhat ironic challenges of trying to increase the legitimacy of such activist research in applied fields like social work where an obsession with being seen as scientific is prevalent as a means to improve prestige of applied research. I discuss how we need less top-down research which focuses on a “what works” agenda that serves the management of subordinate populations and more research that provides bottom-up understandings of a “what’s right” agenda tailored to empowering people in particular settings. Real social science research needs to listen to how people on the bottom experience their own subordination so that we can help them overcome their subjugation. Good social science includes taking the perspective of the oppressed in the name of helping them achieve social justice. In the end, there are a number of tension points between the model of conventional social science and phronetic social science that starkly highlight how we need to change research in order do research that promotes positive social change.