Focused participation in social work and social action

Focused participation proposes that total participation by clients of social work and communities involved in social action is no participation if it neglects the severe blocks on capacity to participate imposed by oppressed life experience and poverty. Workers should take on the responsibility for including a planned program of participation in every intervention focused on what is most important to the client or community members. Case examples in residential care for elderly people, a child advocacy service concerned with the closure of children's homes, cutting a voluntary organization's budget and family social work illustrate the main points of focused participation.     

Epistemological problems and the personality and social system in social psychology

If we understand social psychology to be an area where sociology and psychology overlap, or more precisely where we try to explain interaction on the basis of psychological and sociological propositions and concepts, we have singled out a field that should be quite challenging not only in theory and method but in the fundamental questions it raises for both sociology and psychology. Actually, the discipline is not that well integrated and is constituted by such disparate approaches as reinforcement theory, field theory, role theory, small group theory, game theory and psychoanalysis. Many sociologists have abandoned the field altogether. Nor have the proponents of these sub-fields made much effort to consolidate, integrate or reconcile their methodologies. Epistemological questions have been notably absent and only now have arguments from the philosophy of science point of view reemerged to revive the critical and potentially fruitful methodological discussions of earlier theorists (F. Allport; Lewin; Mead; Simmel) and their more recent followers (Homans; Malewski). After considering epistemological problems dealing with the generality of theory and explanation, behavioristic vs. action approaches, operational and model structural implications, we want to argue for a better understanding of social system variables besides those of the personality system and of system theory in general. In our discussion we use examples from the area of sport because it composes a complex system, that is not too difficult to observe at the same time that it shows in relative clarity all of the different levels of an action system. It has, furthermore, many features of an almost experimental design in a natural field. In so far it is a model area to allow due consideration for our demand that social psychology rediscover the method of field studies. This will help to reverse the trend characterized by a general neglect of theory that has resulted from behavioral dogmatism and the expedience of research pragmatism based mostly on two-variable linear models. This is not to say that we disfavor rigorous research design and data analysis - to the contrary. We just want it to be done in the context of broader theoretical concerns and in clear recognition of the pitfalls of operationalism and the merits of action theory.     

Is there a field of social work?: Trainees evaluating social problems and social work

My aim was to study the experiences and priorities of two age groups of social work students practicing in client-centered social work. This article is based on the research on rationality and language games in social work. The target groups of the research project as a whole were the actors: the heads and social workers or activists in public social welfare and health care agencies and institutions and in voluntary associations and action groups, and finally, two subsequent classes of students from a school of social work, during their practicing periods. This article concentrates on the trainees. At first, the trainees wrote essays and kept diaries. Secondly, they marked their standings on graphs visualizing different types of information contents and social relation structures. Thirdly, they made their choices of reasons for and solutions to social problems on a problem wheel. The trainees' study, using different data gathering techniques, partly confirms the results of the research of the other actor groups, in which the data were derived using questionnaires and interviews. The trainees' study shows variation in the respondents' priorities within and between specified social problem categories. Qualitatively analyzed, however, the characterizations of social work, both those who currently act in and those aiming to enter this field, resemble one another.     

Inequality and social choice

This paper is concerned with the welfare and inequality rankings of income distributions whose Lorenz curves cross. A simple inequality measure is proposed which gives unambiguous results in many cases.     

Language and social history

Harvey J. Kaye and Keith McClelland (eds), E. P. Thompson: Critical Perspectives (1990), x + 283 (Oxford, Polity Press).

Bryan D. Palmer, Descent into Discourse: The Reißcation of Language and the Writing of Social History (1900), xvii + 289 (Philadelphia, Temple University Press).     

A code of ethics for social work and social care research

Summary This Critical Commentary is the final product of the Economicand Social Research Council sponsored seminar series, TheorisingSocial Work Research to appear in the BJSW. The special editionof the British Journal of Social Work published in August 2000carried several key papers arising from the seminar series aswell as reports of some of the events themselves. The responsibilityfor drafting the Code of Ethics for Social Work and Social CareResearch fell to me and although discussed at the Luton Seminarand at the final conference in Manchester, the text presentedhere is much as it first appeared. This is simply to reaffirmthat it has no particular status and is reproduced in the Journalas a prompt to further discussion, precisely the purpose itwas to serve for the seminar series. Before reproducing the Code, it might be helpful to revisitsome of the main points which were raised in the paper presentedat the Luton Seminar which set the context for the Code (Butler,2000).     

Green social work and its implications for social development in China

Green social work has been significant in introducing new issues into environmental debates and increasing its centrality to social work practice. These have included: the mainstreaming of environmental considerations; a widening of the theoretical and practice base to ensure that social and environmental justice are considered integral to any environmental involvement by social workers; highlighting the need to think of innovative approaches to socio-economic development; and making disaster interventions core elements in the social work repertoire of knowledge, skills, capacity building and curriculum formulation. This paper considers the challenges of China’s rapid industrialisation and its implications for rural people migrating into cities, the urban populations that receive them and environmental degradation. It introduces the idea of green social work and discusses the implications of green social work for social development in China in the context of environmental crises precipitated by the country’s rapid economic development.     

扩大社会保障覆盖面实现社会公平

党的十六届五中全会对社会主义和谐社会建设做出了全面部署,强调“要以扩大就业、完善社会保障体系、理顺分配关系、发展社会事业为着力点,妥善处理不同利益群体关系,认真解决人民群众最关心、最直接、最现实的利益问题。”其中,完善社会保障体系作为一个重要的着力点,而在社会保障制度建设中,目前群众要求最为强烈的是扩大社会保障覆盖面,将更多的社会成员特别是中低收入者纳入社会保障体系。多年以来,尽管我们做了很多努力,但社会保障的覆盖面还是太窄,多数城镇职工未能享有社会保险,而广大农民则基本上被排斥在社会保障体系之外。这种情…     

Understanding 'Going Missing': issues for social work and social services

Correspondence to Malcolm Payne, Professor of Applied Community Studies, The Manchester Metropolitan University, 799 Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester M20 8RR. Summary Recent research about young people and adults who ‘gomissing’ raises important issues for social work and thesocial services. Large numbers of young people go missing eachyear, becoming vulnerable to exploitation and at risk of committingcrime and suffering from other social difficulties. Adults leavebehind families with practical and emotional difficulties. Adefinition of ‘going missing’ should focus on absencefrom social expectations and responsibilities. Five groups ofmissing person are identified: runaways, pushaways, throwaways,fallaways and takeaways, reflecting different social situationsin which going missing occurs. It is argued that going missingis one of a range of choices which people in difficulties maymake, depending on their approach to problems in their livesand the availability of opportunities. Effective local co-ordinationto focus on reasons for going missing, on reunions and returnsto residential care or home, and to provide emotional and practicalhelp to people ‘left behind’, are required, providedthat care is taken to protect people who go missing becausethey are subject to abuse and violence.     

The relationship between non-marital fathers' social networks and social capital and father involvement

Literature and research examining father involvement has focused primarily on outcomes associated with the well-being and development of children. Receiving limited attention in this literature has been the examination of the contextual factors associated with fathers and how these factors shape fathers' involvement with their young children. Addressing this limitation, this study focuses on the intra- and interdependent networks non-marital fathers maintain and utilize in fulfilling their parental responsibilities of father involvement. Results of the regression models indicate that non-marital fathers' relationship with their former spouse or partner and involvement with informal networks is positively associated with their involvement with young children. Policy and practice implications are discussed.     

论社会工作介入社会福利政策的必要性与方式

在我国民政福利体系的改革过程中,最引人注目的是低保制度的出台。低保制度实施过程中所出现的新情况和新问题使专业社会工作的介入成为必要。通过倾听弱势群体的声音,反映弱势群体的政策诉求;参与低保制度的实施过程,作政策与政策对象的调解人;对社会政策的实施进行跟踪调研,提出政策的修订建议;以及专业助人行动,协助低保对象实现自助,社会工作将发挥其他专业不可替代的作用。     

Christian democracy, social democracy and the paradoxes of earnings-related social security

This article compares the retirement policies of Belgium and Sweden in order to reveal the different incentive structures built into the pensions systems prevailing in countries that are taken to represent different approaches to welfare capitalism. It addresses the question of why in a Christian Democratic welfare state that is said to grant pensions rights on the basis of merit and past work performance one can find extremely low labour-force participation rates among elderly workers, while in a Social Democratic welfare state that is supposed to grant pension rights relatively independent of past labour-market performance, one can find quite high participation rates amongst that section of the labour force. This apparent paradox is explained in terms of the different purposes of the early-retirement schemes in the two countries: in Belgium they were primarily part of a strategy to combat (youth) unemployment, in Sweden they had more to do with reforms that sought to accomplish a 'humanisation of work' by softening the abrupt transition from work into retirement.     

网络生存与社会控制

:跨越地域或时间限制的网络从正负两方面影响着人类世界 ,最终会引发全社会生存形态的深刻革命。这标志着一个崭新的变革时代的到来。人类只有掌握稳定的网络空间 ,谋求有序的社会控制 ,才能主宰自己未来的命运