RESHAPING FAMILY SYMBOLS: A SYMBOLIC-EXPERIENTIAL PERSPECTIVE

This paper represents our understanding of the role of symbols in symbolic-experimental therapy. We believe that the best way to convey our understanding of the symbolic process of family therapy is through sharing our fantasies, metaphors, and stories. We hope that this paper will generate ideas on how to reshape the symbolic world of families in therapy.     

Migration,rural development and policy formation in the South Pacific

This paper examines the reasons for migration in the South Pacific region and the impact of migration on rural development. Consideration is also given to the policies that have been or should be developed in order to encourage rural development and thereby reduce migration flows from rural areas.     

Exploring global recognition of quality midwifery education: Vision or fiction?

Background

Midwifery education is the foundation for preparing competent midwives to provide a high standard of safe, evidence-based care for women and their newborns. Global competencies and standards for midwifery education have been defined as benchmarks for establishing quality midwifery education and practice worldwide. However, wide variations in type and nature of midwifery education programs exist.

The aftermath of oppression: in search of resolution through family photographs of the forcibly removed of District Six,Cape Town

Reflecting on a body of family photographs from forcibly removed ex-residents of Roger Street, District Six, Cape Town, I shift frames, from aesthetics to restorative justice, to open a set of questions around trauma, memory and freedom in the aftermath of oppression. Intimate documents of family life, the photographs speak of the destruction of community and of the multiple valencies of place and home. They also speak of historical catastrophe and of the unfinished business of apartheid. Approaching the notion of archive as being open-ended, and not bound in time and space, I suggest a principled and forceful space for engaging a set of debates that lie at the centre of post-apartheid society, even as they are generally disavowed.     

Contesting Racialized Discourses of Homophobia

In the course of research concerning the experiences of gay and lesbian teachers in public schools, I discovered that teachers often construct racialized explanations of potential homophobia in their schools, including the expectation that black and Latino coworkers, parents, and students were more likely to be homophobic. By taking an intersectional approach to these narratives as a case study in the discursive construction of race and sexuality, this article shows how racism and homophobia are mutually sustained in everyday talk. This process of racializing homophobia not only further alienates gay and lesbian teachers of color, it also reinforces racial inequality more broadly. In addition to racializing homophobia discourse, many white research participants used racial discrimination as a comparative rhetorical strategy to make sense of the discrimination they experience as gays and lesbians. While this strategy was purportedly useful for combating discrimination, it is also troubling. First, it assumes a false dichotomy between race and sexual identity that further erases the experience of queer people of color, who must contend with both kinds of discrimination. Second, it posits a false equivalence, when in fact the unique histories and operations of each kind of marginality resist such facile comparisons.     

Behavior Skills Training with Voice-Over Video Modeling

The present study used behavior skills training (BST) to teach three adult participants to implement a video modeling intervention aimed at teaching social skills to adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). During baseline trials, participants were given access to written instructions before role-play with two actors (who simulated a quiet conversation) and one confederate (who played the role of an adult with ASD). During treatment, participants were given a video model with voice-over instruction depicting how to implement the video modeling intervention to teach social skills, repeated roleplay trials, and feedback following their performance. All participant scores (percentage of steps correctly implemented in each session) increased from baseline to treatment, and generalization was demonstrated with an actual consumer diagnosed with ASD. Additionally, after training participants to use a video model to teach one social skill, there was generalization to teaching as many as three additional novel social skills. Participants showed maintenance of skills during a treatment study that involved training adult clients with ASD to engage in the social skills.     

In Praise of Sociology

This reflection on the relevance of sociology starts with the different forms of social knowledge, and some autobiographical reflection on my engagement with the discipline. A research‐based social science is made urgent by the prevalence of distortion and pseudoscience in the public realm. However, the research‐based knowledge formation is embedded in a global economy of knowledge that centers on a privileged group of institutions and produces major imbalances on a world scale. Sociological data collection has important uses in policy and public discussion. But data need to be embedded in a larger project of understanding the world; this is what gives excitement to the work. Sociology has a potential future of marginality or triviality in the neoliberal economy and its university system. There are better trajectories into the future—but they have to be fought for. Cette réflexion sur l'utilité de la sociologie commence avec les différentes formes de savoir social, ainsi que quelques réflexions biographiques sur mon engagement avec la discipline. Le besoin d'une science sociale orientée vers la recherche est devenue nécessaire suite à la prédominance de la distorsion et de la pseudoscience dans la sphère publique. Par contre, ce savoir centré sur la recherche est lié à une économie globale de la connaissance qui est proche d'un groupe privilégié d'institutions et produit des déséquilibres majeurs au niveau mondial. La collecte de données sociologiques a une grande utilité en politique et dans les discussions publiques. Mais ces données doivent être liées à un projet plus large de compréhension du monde ; c'est ce qui rend ce travail excitant. La sociologie risque la marginalisation ou la trivialité dans une économie néo‐libérale et son système universitaire. Il existe de meilleures trajectoires pour l'avenir — mais elles doivent être défendues.