Teaching Note—Teaching Intersectionality: Transforming Cultural Competence Content in Social Work Education

Intersectionality has been gaining momentum among social workers as a framework to allow a fuller understanding of the complexity of diverse social identities and the impact of social structures on power, privilege, and oppression. However, the application of intersectionality to teaching in social work education has been relatively absent in the literature. This article describes a 3-hour graduate-level classroom exercise designed to increase knowledge and proficiency of intersectionality. Critical self-reflections of the participants’ experiences are provided to illustrate the evolving growth and awareness that can result from the educational process using this framework. Examples and suggestions for reading assignments and classroom activities are offered. Implications for social work education and future directions are discussed.     

The Value of the Relationship in Volunteer Home Support Programs Working with Vulnerable Families

This paper reports on a program evaluation project that included interviews with 35 parents from high-risk backgrounds who received home volunteer support as part of the Dalwood Volunteer Home Support Program. It provides insight into the meaning and value parents attach to the volunteer relationship. The evaluation findings suggest that home volunteer support was associated with parent perception of increased wellbeing, decreased social isolation, and an improved relationship with their child. The results also suggest that parents perceived their relationship with their volunteer as significant in providing a secure base relationship.     

Can a Unified Service Delivery Philosophy Be Identified in Aging and Disability Organizations? Exploring Competing Service Delivery Models Through the Voices of the Workforce in These Organizations

Services for older adults and younger people with disabilities are increasingly merging, as reflected in the creation of Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs). Using ADRCs to coordinate services is challenging, primarily because these fields have different service delivery philosophies. Independent Living Centers, which serve people with disabilities, have a philosophy that emphasizes consumer control and peer mentoring. However, the aging service delivery philosophy is based in a case management or medical model in which the role of consumers directing their services is less pronounced. Using institutional logics theory and a qualitative research design, this study explored whether a unified service delivery philosophy for ADRCs was emerging. Based on focus groups and questionnaires with staff from ADRCs, findings revealed that competing service delivery models continue to operate in the aging and disability fields.     

Navigating religious diversity: exploring young people’s lived religious citizenship in Indonesia

Against the backdrop of several concerning reports which have noted growing socio-religious conservatism and intolerance amongst Indonesia youth, this study examined how school-aged Indonesian young people navigate encounters with religious difference in their everyday lives. Recognising the significance of religious and citizenship education curricula, the research included classroom observations and interviews with 20 religiously-diverse Indonesian young people in three purposively selected high schools in Jakarta. The paper reveals that participants in all three schools agreed that religious studies and their personal religious frameworks were central to their approaches toward religious tolerance. However, their lived everyday experiences of rubbing shoulders with religious ‘others’, expanded upon and critiqued the narrowness and rigidity of these frameworks and showed greater religious inclusivity. Through this analysis the paper integrates prior work on ‘lived religion’ and ‘lived citizenship’ to fuse a ‘lived religious citizenship’ concept, arguing that this adds depth to both fields by recognising that religion cannot be separated from the experience of being a citizen. A focus on lived religious citizenship provides a deeper account of individual identity and highlights the importance of qualitative studies focused on the living out of religion and citizenship.     

Contraceptive Method Choice Among Young Adults: Influence of Individual and Relationship Factors

Because decisions related to contraceptive behavior are often made by young adults in the context of specific relationships, the relational context likely influences use of contraceptives. Data presented here are from in-person structured interviews with 536 Black, Hispanic, and White young adults from East Los Angeles, California. We collected partner-specific relational and contraceptive data on all sexual partnerships for each individual, on four occasions, over one year. Using three-level multinomial logistic regression models, we examined individual and relationship factors predictive of contraceptive use. Results indicated that both individual and relationship factors predicted contraceptive use, but factors varied by method. Participants reporting greater perceived partner exclusivity and relationship commitment were more likely to use hormonal/long-acting methods only or a less effective method/no method versus condoms only. Those with greater participation in sexual decision making were more likely to use any method over a less effective method/no method and were more likely to use condoms only or dual methods versus a hormonal/long-acting method only. In addition, for women only, those who reported greater relationship commitment were more likely to use hormonal/long-acting methods or a less effective method/no method versus a dual method. In summary, interactive relationship qualities and dynamics (commitment and sexual decision making) significantly predicted contraceptive use.     

The Work Ethnic and Delinquency

Abstract

Many criminologists argue that delinquency stems, in part, from the abandonment of the work ethnic by adolescents. No longer willing to engage in hard work and self-denial, adolescents become more likely to engage in delinquency. Using longitudinal data from a national survey of adolescent boys, this study found that adolescents with a low commitment to the work ethic were more likely to become delinquent. The effect of the work ethic was explained, in large part, by social control and cultural deviance theory. The implications of these findings are briefly examined.     

Restoring and Sustaining Home: The Impact of Home Modifications on the Meaning of Home for Older People

ABSTRACT

The importance of a supportive home environment to successful aging has been well-established in the literature, with home modifications increasingly acknowledged as ways of removing barriers to function and increasing independence for older people. Home modification literature and practice primarily focus on the home environment as a physical space in which to perform tasks and on the impact of modification on competencies and function. Home, however, is much more than a physical environment. Within a transactive framework, people and places are seen as engaged in a dynamic, reciprocal relationship through which home becomes a place of significant personal meaning. Through a qualitative framework, this study examines the experience of older people living in the community who are recipients of a home modification service. It explores the impact modifying the physical environment has on their experience of home as a place of meaning and provides insight into how home modifications can strengthen the home as a place of personal and social meaning as well as improve safety and comfort for the older person at home.     

A Comparison of Pyramidal Staff Training and Direct Staff Training in Community-Based Day Programs

This study evaluated two methods of training staff who were working with individuals with developmental disabilities: pyramidal training and consultant-led training. In the pyramidal training, supervisors were trained in the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA) and in delivering feedback. The supervisors then trained their direct-care staff and, subsequently, provided ongoing performance feedback. In the consultant-led training, the direct-care staff was trained in the principles of ABA. Both groups learned similar amounts of knowledge of ABA principles, but pyramidal training was more effective in teaching staff to use correct teaching procedures with consumers. In addition, the pyramidal training group maintained the improvement in their teaching procedures at a 3-month follow up, while the consultant-led training group's performance declined.     

Social Exclusion and Poverty: Translating Social Capital into Accessible Resources

This article investigates the dynamic multi‐dimensional processes through which the poor become excluded from social participation. Drawing on social capital literature, it traces how bridging and bonding capital do not always translate into expected levels of social participation. It does so by detailing research findings from low income focus groups undertaken in Dunedin, New Zealand. These describe the experiences of group members in attempting to manage connections around employment, their own broader social participation or the participation of their children. In each case, the study highlights the difficulties of translation they experienced: in particular, translating available bridging or bonding capital into useful social, cultural or economic resources which could mitigate their social exclusion or enable fuller social participation.     

Social Class and Success Goals: An Examination of Relative and Absolute Aspirations*

Aspirations may be measured in absolute terms, by asking individuals how much of a given goal they desire, or in relative terms, by asking individuals how much they desire a given goal relative to other goals . Prior studies on the relationship between social class and success goals have always employed either relative or absolute measures alone, with the absolute measures focusing on desire for education, occupational prestige, or income and the relative measures usually focusing on such goals as job security, advancement, and importance. This paper argues that a focus on absolute or relative aspirations alone can produce a misleading image of the relationship between social class and success goals, and it remedies the above neglect by examining the absolute and relative aspirations of different social classes for the same, set of goals. Using a sample of males from Detroit and Baltimore, it was found that the lower class places more emphasis on economic security, while the upper class places more emphasis on self-actualization goals like job advancement and importance. However, when absolute aspirations were examined, it was found that lower-class people have a strong desire for self-actualization and that middle-class people do not have a strong desire for security. These findings provide a more complete picture of the relationship between social class and success goals, and they are relevant to such topics as Rodman's "lower-class value stretch." social mobility, anomie theories of deviance, and explanations of social movements based on relative deprivation.