Rural Landowners,Energy Leasing,and Patterns of Risk and Inequality in the Shale Gas Industry

Landowners who lease property for shale gas development (i.e., “fracking”) face the possibility of procedural disenfranchisement and risk. They also stand to benefit financially from bonus and royalty payments. This article evaluates the frequency with which these experiences occur and how they vary between landowners. Using a mixed‐methods approach, we combine surveys and interviews with northeastern Pennsylvania landowners with a content analysis of energy lease documents. We find that landowners generally experience relatively infrequent environmental harm, receive substantial financial benefits, and leverage their property rights to secure better lease conditions. However, our findings also demonstrate that procedural disenfranchisement does occur, environmental risks are infrequent but real, and outcomes tend to vary by firm‐specific rather than sociostructural factors. Accordingly, the advantages conferred by private property are not a panacea for the alleviation of risk and inequality in energy development. These findings inject considerable nuance into ongoing discussions of risk, inequality, and shale gas development: Rather than perceiving themselves as victims, landowners tend to see themselves as beneficiaries of industry activity, an experience structured directly by their ownership of property and mineral rights.     

Epistemology of the Bottle: The Social Construction of Alcoholism and Alcoholics in Social Work Literature in the United States Between 1950 and 1959

ABSTRACT

This article examines selected social work literature that has been published in mainstream social work journals in the United States from 1950 to 1959 in order to deconstruct how alcoholism and alcoholics have been historically constructed within the social work profession. The theoretical framework employed is that of social constructionism and deconstruction. The methodology is qualitative research, specifically historical analysis. The findings of this article are discussed for their relevance to social work practice and social work education.     

Legal capacity and the mental health social worker role: an international comparison

ABSTRACT

New capacity laws have been introduced to many jurisdictions over the last decade. These laws have substantially changed the way in which mental health social workers and other professionals approach decisions about, and for, clients. Most notably, there is now an expectation that mental health social workers engage more in supported decision-making to prevent the need for substitute decision-making. This article describes the legal and policy drivers that have led to these changes in practice, with a particular emphasis on the significance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the UNCRPD) and the importance of recovery approaches in mental health services. It then uses selected literature to explore the efficacy of the laws and decision-making in this area. The second part of the article identifies the role that mental health social workers can play in supporting legal capacity, drawing from the authors’ experience and knowledge of mental health social work and law in four jurisdictions: Victoria, Australia; Ontario, Canada; England and Wales; and Northern Ireland. It is concluded that mental health and other social workers need to refine skills, knowledge and values to accommodate this paradigm shift in law, policy and practice.     

Social Problems,by Amitai Etzioni. Foundations of Modern Sociology Series. Prentice Hall,Englewood Cliffs,New Jersey, 1976. $3.95, Paper. 182 Pp.

Abstract

Publication productivity has received increasing attention in the social work literature. A major shortcoming of the social work literature on productivity is the paucity of attention given specifically to the publication efforts of ethnic minority social work educators. This article presents findings from the first national survey to specifically focus on publication productivity among African-American social work faculty. The data generated from the survey reveal that productivity is associated more with individual-level factors than structural factors, a minority of African-American faculty are producing most of the publications, and African-American social work faculty are producing slightly fewer publications than the broader population of social work faculty.     

Sociological Theories of Poverty in Urban America

ABSTRACT

Since the 1950s, American sociologists have developed a substantial literature on poverty in urban American communities. This literature review examines some of these sociological theories of poverty and identifies four major explanations of urban poverty: social stratification, (including segregation and racism); lack of access to social capital; cultural and value norms; and social policies. The literature review concludes with a conceptual framework that focuses on multiple relationships that link theory to practice related to the reduction of poverty in inner-city communities.     

Frank Capra and Leni Riefenstahl: Politics,Propaganda and the Personal

Abstract

The circumstances that led Frank Capra to view Leni Riefenstahl's notorious documentary of the 1934 Nuremberg rallies, Triumph of the Will, is well-known. What is less known is the extent to which the themes inherent in Capra's filmmaking through the 1930s, and Riefenstahl's own interest in ideas of national identity, social commentary and romanticism in her fictional and documentary films, mapped out a set of cinematic coincidences between the two little discussed in the body of literature devoted to these directors. This article lays out a number of those coincidences and, in the process, compares the theoretical strain of political romanticism that winds its way through Capra and Riefenstahl's work. The iconic and symbolic imagery in their films suggests interesting and important comparative aspects to their canon, but also that a fascination in political romanticism led them to differing conclusions about the impact and threat of media and propaganda forces lined up in alliance with totalitarian powers during the 1930s and '40s.     

Social mobilizations and the question of social justice in contemporary Russia

ABSTRACT

Notwithstanding stereotypes of Russian apathy, long-term field research reveals that there have always been grassroots and labour protests in post-Soviet Russia, even as the shock of ultraliberal reforms led to mass precariousness and social disorientation. However, the social mobilizations that do occur are scattered, weakly publicized and mostly small-scale. This paper conceptualizes them as ‘everyday activism’, that is, an activism embedded in everyday life experience and pragmatic sense. Only recently, and in a paradoxical relation to the populist and patriotic Kremlin discourse, some new trends have emerged towards other popular variants of the new discourse that includes social equality claims and what the paper calls ‘social critical’ populism. However, this populism from below does not automatically lead to mass mobilization, although it provides the necessary background for it.     

Social Work Doctoral Education in Australia: The Case for Further Development

ABSTRACT

Social work education in Australia has been based in universities since the 1940s. There are now 32 higher education providers offering social work programs across Australia. The significant growth in master’s level qualifying programs in Australia, along with recent higher education policy changes, has increased the need for social work academic faculty members with doctoral qualifications. This paper presents the findings of a scoping review of literature on social work doctoral education. Despite a growing literature on social work doctoral education in international contexts, the review found that there is a lack of Australian research and evidence on social work doctoral pedagogy, the number and diversity of doctoral students, the doctoral student experience, and doctoral graduate employment intentions and outcomes. Addressing the lack of Australian research in this area would be an important step to enabling Australian social work to address future research training and capacity needs and directions.

IMPLICATIONS

• There is a lack of research on Australian social work doctoral education and this is a neglected aspect of social work scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) research.

• Research into social work doctoral education would provide baseline information on the number and diversity of students, doctoral student experiences, graduate outcomes, and employment intentions.

• Development of social work SOTL about doctoral education would support future research capacity and enable the advancement of social work research knowledge and skills.

     

Reclamation Activism in Anti-drug Organizing in the USA

This paper introduces the term reclamation activism to refer to the processes by which social movements make claims based upon a real or imagined status quo ante during a period of transition. The motivation for a reclamation stance is the perception that a social good--such as some combination of social, economic or political privileges or cultural dominance--is being threatened. The notion is applied to the analysis of a modern social movement, the parents' movement against drug use in the USA. Based upon content analysis of movement literature, the claim is made that the movement is organized in opposition to its image of a 'pro-drug culture' rather than actual patterns of drug use. This oppositional stance is shown to have advantages for the movement over other claims-making strategies.     

Revisiting the biological perspective in the use of biopsychosocial assessments in social work

ABSTRACT

The call for increased attention to the biopsychosocial perspective in social work practice is now decades old in the USA. And yet the challenge of teaching and learning from this perspective for those with limited background in biology calls for more inter-disciplinary examples to assist students with the process of engaging in theory-informed practice. In addition to identifying the key elements of human biology, this review of the literature focuses on four examples of client behaviors that receive little or no attention in most current textbooks on the inter-disciplinary nature of human behavior in the social environment; namely, the psychobiology of sleep, the sociobiology of eating, the neurobiology of post-partum depression, and the behavioral endocrinology of menopause. This review concludes with implications for practice.     

Linking Citizen Participation to Empowerment Practice

Abstract

The author examines the social work literature on citizen participation and empowerment in order to identify key concepts that can be used to define empowerment-oriented community practice. A historical overview of the emergence of citizen participation and empowerment in the practice literature is presented, along with an overview of similar innovations and concepts related to social service delivery: the use of informal help and the Independent Living Movement. This literature is used to develop a model of empowerment practice that focuses on the importance of participatory decision-making structures in community-based organizations.     

Becoming a social work practitioner: The use of live supervision in the practice placement

Abstract

With the practice placement as a focus, this essay explores the process by which the student social worker learns to relate theory and practice, and the way in which the accomplishment of this learning is assessed.

It is argued that the structure of social work education is heavily influenced by Positivist epistemology; that this has impeded the understanding of social work as an organic process; and, further, that it has led to an inappropriate division between academics and practitioners, a schism which the student is forced to negotiate in learning to become a qualified social worker.

The essay attempts to construct a paradigm for understanding the student-to-practitioner learning which will facilitate a more holistic alternative to the current dichotomy between theory and practice. A congruent model for supervision of the practice placement is offered with some concluding suggestions as to how this may be extended to help bridge the academic-practitioner divide.     

User and Carer Experiences of International Social Care Workers in England: Listening to their Accounts of Choice and Control

Abstract

This paper develops a typology of people using social care services’ preferences for care workers and satisfaction with social care services from a large multimethod study that explored international recruitment to the English social care sector (home and health care, including residential homes). We developed this typology with two questions in mind: (a) what led to satisfaction of care and (b) what led to preference and satisfaction with workers? Data were collected from face-to-face interviews with 35 people who were using social care services and carers (2007–2009) and these data were used to develop the typology. Using the theoretical concept of homophily, we explored contentions that people might prefer to receive care and support from individuals resembling themselves. We observed that preferences for care workers and satisfaction with social care services may be linked, but highlighted that the concept of meeting a preference is personal to the individual. The implications of users’ preferences for certain care workers at a time where policy is promoting greater consumer-led care or self-directed support are discussed.     

American Migrants in Australia: An Exploratory Study of Adjustment

Abstract

In the literature on American migration to Australia, there is a debate concerning the ease and degree of post-migration social-psychological adjustment. In this paper a model of migrant adjustment is derived from the literature; relationships among social psychological measures of adjustment (alienation, work orientations, amicability, isolation, and missing family and friends) and socio-demographic variables are analyzed using path analysis. Results tend to support a complex view of migrant adjustment based on differences in socio-demographic characteristics. Certain modifications to existing literature are recommended, and avenues for further research are suggested.     

Literary clinical practice: desire,depression and toxic masculinity in Hamlet

ABSTRACT

This essay introduces the notion of a literary clinical practice for which it remains essential to continue to consider those texts that open up a place for a readership, or audience, or even a civilization to consider the endlessly generative failure of its literature to write mental health. Concerned with mental illness that is an effect of language on the subject, the body, and of the enigma of the truth as cause, psychoanalysis is the crucial interlocutor for any literary clinical concern with the maladies of literature and society. In order to re-assess the utility of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to contemporary problems such as depression – perhaps the dominant symptom of our time – this essay attempts a reconsideration of Jacques Lacan’s famous seminar on Hamlet from the perspective of the contemporary clinic of the Lacanian orientation in psychoanalysis led by Jacques-Alain Miller.     

The Shale Boom and Family Structure: Oil and Gas Employment Growth Relationship to Marriage,Divorce, and Cohabitation

Shale oil and gas extraction technology has caused a large shift in the United States' energy landscape over the last decade. This had a wide range of impacts on rural communities mostly in which oil and gas extraction occurs. While many studies have focused on the economic and environmental impact of shale development, researchers have only begun to study the social changes brought on by the shale resource extraction. We examine the influence of shale oil and gas employment as a share of overall county employment on county marriage, divorce, and cohabitation rates. We find evidence that oil and gas employment growth is associated with decreased marriage rates and increased divorce rates from 2009 to 2014. We test several channels through which oil and gas development may influence marriage behaviors and find that changes in female labor force participation, county sex ratios, and median household incomes are associated with oil and gas development. We also test for differences across the rural/urban continuum and find that our results are largely driven by nonmetro counties.     

Group Work Education in Social Work: A Review of the Literature Reveals Possible Solutions

ABSTRACT

This article examines the growing concerns in the literature that traditional group work education in social work is not providing the foundational knowledge, skills, evidence-based practice, professional uses of self, and adherence to practice standards necessary for effective group practice. An exploration of the best available evidence on group work training provides a framework for competency-based learning that has implications for field education.     

Women in Social Work Education: Progress or Promise?

Abstract

The literature on the status of female social work educators has addressed the problems these educators face in the areas of salaries, academic rank and tenure, publication rates, and level of decision making. Given this attention to the status of these educators, one might expect positive resolutions to these problems. This article, which is based on a review of both the current literature and statistics on US social work faculty, evaluates the status of women faculty in social work academia to determine if progress has been made. Findings reveal that female educators are seeing slow improvment in some areas; however, inequalities continue. The authors suggest strategies for supporting the development and retention of women faculty.     

Methodological Issues in Conducting Community-Based Health and Social Services Research Among Urban Black and African American LGBT Populations

Abstract

Health and social service utilization experiences of disenfranchised groups have recently gained renewed public attention. Reducing and eliminating racial disparities in health care has become a major national agenda. While a fairly substantial literature on Black and African American health outcomes and social service utilization does exist, and may help to influence interventions to reduce disparities, there is no comparable literature for Black and African American lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. In this article the author examines factors affecting research with urban Black and African American LGBT populations. A brief case study is included that demonstrates the viability of the recommended research methods and discusses the possible negative consequences of deviating from these methodological suggestions.     

How to Make the Law Work? Budgetary Implications of Domestic Violence Laws in Latin America,Central America,and the Caribbean

SUMMARY

This study focuses on budgetary implications of domestic violence (DV) laws in the Latin American, Central American, and Caribbean (LAC) region. It is based on a survey of literature and data on DV legislation, literature reviews on the social and economic costs of DV, and an analysis of policies on DV in the region based on a survey of nonprofits working on DV in the region. The study shows DV is not being mainstreamed into ministerial budget line items as would be expected following the passage of law. There is clearly a difference between what is ratified in laws and the implementation of activities that follows those decisions. Funding for DV programs is insufficient to reach the entire target population and address the magnitude of the problem. Even after laws were passed, major sources of funding for DV services have continued to be discretionary funds from the ministries' budgets and international donor funds.