Teaching a Module on HIV and AIDS for Social Work Students—Strategies,Content and Outcome

This paper outlines the author's experience of teaching a module on HIV and AIDS to social work students over several years at Brunel University. She argues that the relevance of the subject matter for social work students has not changed since the module was first introduced 18 years ago. Similar to their previous counterparts, current students still experience a range of emotions, feelings, fears and uncertainties about their competence and skills in responding to the issues presented by individuals infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. The paper describes the aims, curriculum, teaching strategies, assignment and evaluation of the module. Additionally, the paper discusses the learning environment in which the module is taught, and the strategies used to enable students to confront fears, prejudices, improve their knowledge base and gain skills for working with service users infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. In concluding, the paper emphasises the continued implications and observed benefits of this subject for social work students.     

Untreatable families? Suggestions from literature

The purpose of this paper is to highlight insights from literature, which suggest that some families are unable to respond to intervention and treatment. Discussion of this aspect of family functioning is notably missing from the discourse on family preservation. There will be an outline offered of the factors that may be contributing to this reality, one consequence being that children wait indefinite periods of time for lasting arrangements to be formulated for their future. Suggestion will be offered as to how concurrent planing approaches may help to achieve timely decision-making and lasting outcomes for children.     

‘You Are Germany’– ‘I Am Australian’: The construction of national unity through diversity in select examples from Australia and Germany

This article explores the construction of national unity through diversity by analysing two case studies from Germany and Australia: the television campaign ‘You Are Germany’ and the song ‘I Am Australian’. It places both examples in a broader context of forging national unity through diversity and argues that diversity has occasionally been hijacked as a nationalist argument to advance national identity and unity. This study explores the different aspects of diversity appearing in both cases under study, identifies those parts of diversity being excluded and asks how national unity is being forged through recourse to diversity.     

Developing a factor model of coal miners’ attributions on risk-taking at work

This paper details a survey of coal miners’ views on the bases for risk-taking. While literature exists on the subject of risk-taking in mines, comparatively few studies have sought to elicit the views of mine personnel themselves. An 83-item questionnaire, grounded upon insights from an earlier qualitative study, was developed and distributed to a sample of mine personnel (N=932). Results were analysed by means of principal components, factor analysis, an iterative refinement of the data set resulting in the development of a three-factor model that was considered to reflect potentially important dispositional influences on risk-taking amongst operational staff in mines. Derived constructs, identified as time pressure, management commitment and confidence in ability to control risk, were found to possess moderate to high levels of internal consistency (α statistic) and high face validity. Findings are discussed with reference to insights from both cognitive risk research and more recent work within the safety culture/climate framework.