RUNNING OFF-TACKLE THROUGH THE LAST BASTION: WOMEN,RESISTANCE, AND PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL

This article discusses the mechanisms that must be in place in order for women to successfully resist institutionalized gender norms. This research draws on over 200 hours of observations of and 20 in-depth interviews with women playing full contact football, a sport traditionally dominated by men and firmly planted in the culture of the U.S. as synonymous with masculinity. Following the work of recent calls by gender scholars to treat gender as a social institution, this research shows that at least four components must be in place for sustained, successful resistance to a social institution. First, resistance must be a conscious activity. Second, any resistance must involve engaging in an abnormal activity. Third, any deviant or abnormal activity must take place in an otherwise legitimate social context. Finally, as the creation and maintenance of a social institution is an inherently social enterprise, so, too, is institutional resistance. This research contributes to scholarship on gender and social institutions by showing some strategies for increasing possibilities for personal expression.     

A Comparative Study of Two Different Teaching and Curricular Arrangements in Human Behavior and Social Environment

In this paper we examine using social work faculty to teach Human Behavior and Social Environment content to undergraduate social work students versus using faculty from other departments. We formulated three hypotheses: social work students from a program with “IN” (taught by social work faculty) HBSE courses learn a wider range of theoretical orientations, are more capable of utilizing HBSE knowledge in practice, and are more sensitive to. human relations than are those from a program with “OUT” (taught by other faculty) HBSE courses. The data suggested that there were no significant differences between students.     

Imagery in cultural tradition and innovation

Cultural traditions are preserved in the mental images stored and reconstructed from past experiences. Innovation requires the manipulation of this imagery in the course of productive activity. Tool use in the broadest sense is the mechanism enabling these processes. Vygotsky articulated a significant role for instrumental mediation in human psychology. We combine his perspective with insights from phenomenology and cognitive anthropology to develop a cultural psychology of visual imagery in the context of contemporary artist‐blacksmithing.     

Outgrowing childhood problems: A study of the value of child guidance treatment 1

This article is a tribute to Jean Sanville, a distinctive leader in our field whose voice and vision continue to shape the practice of psychoanalysis through the lens of clinical social work. The article highlights Dr. Sanville’s professional contributions while showing her personal impact within a supervisory relationship that becomes a deep and enduring friendship.     

Culturally Competent Approaches for Counseling Urban Appalachian Clients: An Exploratory Case Study

ABSTRACT

The authors examine the application of a strengths-based empowerment approach to working with an urban Appalachian woman and her family. The purpose of this article is to start the research process by utilizing the lessons learned to assist health and human service practitioners. Key points are identified in developing awareness and intervention skills when working with clients who have an Appalachian cultural heritage. This case study utilizes a culturally competent framework for assessing and intervening with Appalachian clients that emphasizes the strengths and empowerment literature. As the foundation for further research, this case study provides a rationale for starting evidence-based practice incorporating a strengths-based empowerment theme. Case study research is limited by its focus on one individual within a specific span of time and cultural context; findings cannot always be generalized to a similar population. Suggestions for further research in this area are provided.     

Image repair in late night comedy: Letterman and the Palin joke controversy

David Letterman, host of The Late Show, told a joke about Sarah Palin's daughter during one of his nightly monologues. During the ensuing controversy, Letterman offered two extended statements about the joke. Approaching Letterman's responses from the perspective of Benoit's image repair typology reveals three primary strategies: denial, mortification, and corrective action. While Letterman's first attempt to resolve the controversy failed, his second attempt was largely successful. Implications for public relations image repair strategies are offered.     

Articulating secession: self-determination,decolonization and stateless independence amongst the Kanaka Maoli

Two assumptions reign supreme in the secession literature. The first is that separatist groups seeking autonomy necessarily fall into one of two camps, one that stresses essentialist criteria for social membership, the other emphasizing instead a socially constructed collective identity. The second assumption is that secession can only be defined as taking place in the context of a separatist group whose claim to independence hinges on the attempt to galvanize a new state. This article challenges both assumptions by looking to a provocative counter-site. Amongst the Kanaka Maoli of Hawai'i secession is increasingly framed precisely as a rejection of those Western idioms that have historically undergirded colonial expropriation and racial subjection. As such, secession is being framed not as a struggle for new statehood, but rather as a reinvigoration of indigenous lifeworlds. In so doing, the Kanaka Maoli are asserting community boundaries in ways that contest the idea that indigenous identity is solely about biological criteria such as blood quantum, but also challenge the notion that indigenous self-determination can be reduced to postmodern identity politics. The argument I defend suggests that articulation theory can offer us orienting power in situating some of the stakes of Kanaka Maoli stateless secession. Articulation theory expresses the idea that identities are volatile collective self-assertions that take place at discrepant scales of interactive exchange. This article argues that we can detect some important emergent practices of articulation at play in the Kanaka Maoli's experimental revisioning of what secession can mean today.     

Crisis subjectivities: resilient,recuperable, and abject representations in the new hard times

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore a range of media representations that center on what we identify as crisis subjectivities. These are subjects presented as embodiments of economic and political crises, coming out of a context best described as the propagation of crisis as an ordinary, everyday occurrence. We trace the development of three main types of crisis subjectivities (resilient, recuperable, and abject) within this context, focusing on the ways in which these subjectivities are subsequently read back as the cause of broader structural crises, especially through their connection to discourses of postfeminism and the postracial. Formed through normative divisions of the population, i.e. racism, classism, and sexism, crisis subjectivities are also presented as disrupting normative temporality on multiple levels, interrupting narratives of progress, individual life trajectories, and the temporality of crisis itself. Within this context, normative discourses of time as linear, constant, and progressive are replaced by representations that emphasize time as discontinuous and disjunct, defined by unexpected accelerations, delays, and deferrals. Finally, we explore the way these crisis subjectivists and temporalities are articulated to discourses that suggest that the proper responses to crisis are individual resilience and self-management, while de-emphasizing structural analysis and collective action.     

Integrating a family-centered approach into social work practice with families of children and adolescents with disabilities

This article identifies a family-centered practice construct for working with children and adolescents with disabilities and their families. The experiences of these families have shifted considerably over the past 30 years. A legislative and historical context provides the basis for an understanding of present policies and practices that influence current approaches to service delivery. Though family-centered practice is emphasized in various practice settings, there is still a need to integrate this philosophy into social work practice with children and adolescents with disabilities and their families. In order to enhance the ability of the social worker to integrate this construct into practice, a framework for exploring the experiences of children, adolescents and families is provided. This framework provides an overview of factors related to the individual child, the family and siblings for the social worker to consider when working with these families. The social worker's role as collaborator, advocate, team member and family resource is highlighted.