Social Model Theory: the story so far …

Social model theory has been developing in Britain since the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) published their Fundamental Principles of Disability (1976), followed shortly afterwards by Finkelstein's seminal exposition of the oppression that disabled people face (1980). Since then, various competing positions have been elaborated from this original starting point. Through a review of the literature, this paper outlines the course of those developments to date, in order to show the full range and potential of social model theory. In recording some of the commentaries on each of the various theoretical strands which have emerged, it also highlights some areas in which further theorisation may be desirable in order to make more explicit the links between social model theory and disability movement practice.     

The Culture of Giving: Informal Support and Gift-Exchange in Early Modern England

Alain Boureau, The Lord's First Night: The Myth of the Droit de Cuissage (1998), ix + 300 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, $55.00/£43.95, paperback $19.00/£15.25).

Rosemary Sweet, The Writing of Urban Histories in Eighteenth Century England (1997), ix + 356 (Oxford University Press, New York, £45.00/$90.00).

Gilbert M. Joseph, Catherine C. LeGrand, and Ricardo D. Salvatore (eds), Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of US‐Latin American Relations (1998), xv + 575 (Duke University Press, Durham, $19.95).     

Interprofessional education for community mental health: Attitudes to community care and professional stereotypes

Social workers are considered key members of community mental health teams, yet difficulties in interprofessional collaboration between social workers and health care professionals, particularly psychiatrists and nurses, have been reported. This paper examines some sources of these difficulties in terms of perceived differences in models of mental illness, attitudes and values, including stereotyping, professional identification and role clarity. Interprofessional education (IPE) may diminish negative stereotypes and promote multidisciplinary teamwork. A theoretical framework is described and findings from the evaluation of a 1-year programme of interprofessional education for community mental health are presented. These findings suggest that attitudes and values concerning community care for people with mental health problems are largely shared by different professions, but they do confirm the existence of interprofessional stereotypes and of perceived status differences. In contrast to previous research, there was no evidence of changes in stereotypes. These findings are discussed in terms of the theoretical framework and the design of the programme.     

Gwyn Campbell,Suzanne Miers and Joseph C. Miller (eds), Women and Slavery. Vol.I: Africa,the Indian Ocean World and the Medieval North Atlantic

Paul Veyne (ed.), A History of Private Life from Pagan Rome to Byzantium, vol. 1 of Philippe Aries and Georges Duby (eds), A History of Private Life (1987), ix + 670 (Cambridge, Mass, and London, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, £24.95).     

A mixture of experts latent position cluster model for social network data

Social network data represent the interactions between a group of social actors. Interactions between colleagues and friendship networks are typical examples of such data.The latent space model for social network data locates each actor in a network in a latent (social) space and models the probability of an interaction between two actors as a function of their locations. The latent position cluster model extends the latent space model to deal with network data in which clusters of actors exist — actor locations are drawn from a finite mixture model, each component of which represents a cluster of actors.A mixture of experts model builds on the structure of a mixture model by taking account of both observations and associated covariates when modeling a heterogeneous population. Herein, a mixture of experts extension of the latent position cluster model is developed. The mixture of experts framework allows covariates to enter the latent position cluster model in a number of ways, yielding different model interpretations.Estimates of the model parameters are derived in a Bayesian framework using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The algorithm is generally computationally expensive — surrogate proposal distributions which shadow the target distributions are derived, reducing the computational burden.The methodology is demonstrated through an illustrative example detailing relationships between a group of lawyers in the USA.