Rhetoric vs. reality in social work supervision: the experiences of a group of child care social workers in England

Whilst the contribution of good supervision to high‐quality social work practice is widely recognized, research exploring practitioners' experiences of supervision is surprisingly limited. Set within the context of the supervision framework for employers of social workers in England, this small‐scale survey, using an extended questionnaire, examined the experiences of supervision of a group of child care social workers. The aim was to find out what aspects of supervision worked well and where there was room for improvement. The findings suggest that whilst the majority of employers had appropriate supervision policies in place, day‐to‐day practice varied enormously, frequently falling well short of national standards, with the quality of supervision often depending more on the characteristics of the supervisor and the agency context than the needs of the worker. Supervision sessions typically focused predominantly on case management, with much less attention paid to the worker and opportunities for them to reflect on their practice. Only a quarter of the social workers in this survey could be considered to be satisfied with their current supervision, with a much higher proportion clearly dissatisfied.     

Research Online: Digital Commons as a Publishing Platform at the University of Wollongong, Australia

Since 2006, Research Online, the University of Wollongong's open access institutional repository has utilised Bepress' Digital Commons software to make available published research outputs and digital theses. This article discusses the outcomes of recent academic demand for its use as a publishing tool of university journals and conference proceedings. The Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice is provided as an example. Digital Commons includes the editorial management software, EdiKit, which assists in managing submissions, editorial functions, and peer review. Also considered are changes to scholarly communication patterns arising out of the new open access, electronic only, publication regimes.     

Postimmigration investments in Education: a Study of Immigrants in the Netherlands

We use a unique data source to examine postimmigration investments in education among four immigrant groups in the Netherlands. We derive hypotheses from the Immigrant Human Capital Investment model (IHCI), which argues that immigrants' investments are an outcome of settlement intentions, skill transferability, and opportunity costs. The multinomial and ordered logistic regression analyses show that educational investments are stronger among immigrants with higher premigration education, immigrants from former colonies, immigrants who migrated for family reasons, and immigrants who arrived in periods of high unemployment. These findings generally support the IHCI model.     

Ethnic penalties? The role of human capital and social origins in labour market outcomes of second-generation Moroccans and Turks in the Netherlands

In Western Europe, the children of Moroccan and Turkish migrants were found to be significantly disadvantaged in the labour market. This ethnic gap was found to persist after considering differences in schooling, which was argued to reflect ‘ethnic penalties’ driven by cultural, religious, or racial factors. This study uses data from the 1st Wave of the ‘Netherlands Longitudinal Life-Course Study’ (2009–2010) to revisit the analysis of ‘ethnic penalties’ for second-generation Moroccans and Turks. Unlike in previous research, empirical analyses not only consider differences in schooling, but also skills and social origins. Results show substantial ethnic inequalities in the labour market, with the exception of women from Moroccan origins. For men, these ethnic inequalities do not disappear when human capital factors are considered, but they do when accounting for the unprivileged social origins of ethnic minorities. For women, the disadvantage of second-generation Turks in achieving privileged occupations clearly disappears when human capital and social origins are considered. Yet, the chances of being unemployed among women of Turkish origins persist after controlling for education, skills, and social origins. Overall, this study has global academic and public policy implications to understand the socioeconomic integration of the Moroccan and Turkish second generation in Western Europe.     

Deconstructing Family Time: From Ideology to Lived Experience

“Family time” is often uncritically accepted as a uniform, coherent concept and a universally desirable goal. In order to fully understand the meaning of family time in experience, interviews were conducted with parents in 17 dual‐earner and 11 single‐parent families, and 8 observation episodes were done with 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children in childcare. What emerged was a dramatic discordance between the expectations and experiences of family time. Although families have held on to an expectation of a positive experience of togetherness, they are typically left with a feeling that there is never enough, that it is in the service of children, and that they are duty‐bound by it. There is a structural contradiction between the ideals and experience of family time that is typically expressed through disillusionment and guilt.     

The challenge of introducing low-carbon industrial practices: Institutional entrepreneurship in the agri-food sector

Contemporary agricultural practices account for a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions. Inspired by the emergent literature on institutional entrepreneurship, we seek to explore mechanisms that affect an actor’s propensity to act in ways that imply suggesting and promoting emission-reducing practice changes. As influences originating outside the organizational field are assumed to constitute such mechanisms, the paper explores their role through a case study of a project run by a public agency. Unlike extant theory, results show that the agency’s propensity to act is not necessarily enhanced by extra-field influences but that such influences also limit the scope for suggesting change that challenges existing industrial practices.     

Affect and leader-member exchange in the new millennium: A state-of-art review and guiding framework

The idea that affect plays a key role in leader-member exchange (LMX) processes is not new, but it has become a subject of considerable research attention since the turn of the Millennium. This interest has, however, resulted in a multiplicity of views that have tended to obfuscate rather than clarify the affect-LMX nexus. To deal with this lack of clarity, we conducted a systematic integration of affect-LMX literature published in leading journals since 2000, including the role of personal affectivity, discrete affect, emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and affective climate. We structured our review using a multilevel framework of affect that encompasses five levels of analysis: (1) within-person, (2) between persons, (3) interpersonal, (4) team, and (5) organizational levels; as well as consideration of cross-level effects. We address in particular three fundamental issues that we argue may have hampered the development of the affect-LMX nexus in the literature: theoretical diversity, problems of data analysis, and measurement issues. We conclude by discussing opportunities for future research across the different levels and develop a set of research questions that we hope will help to promote research into the role of affect in LMX.     

Advancing social inclusion in the neighbourhood for people with an intellectual disability: an exploration of the literature

The shift from segregated facilities to community settings did not automatically lead to social inclusion for people with an intellectual disability (ID). Policies are increasingly decentralized but little is known about the factors that are important to realize social inclusion in the neighbourhood. This literature study identifies five domains barriers and facilitators for social inclusion in the neighbourhood: individual characteristics, informal network, professional care, neighbourhood characteristics, and government policies. The findings suggest that social inclusion in the neighbourhood is a dynamic process that shows a series of complex interactions between environmental factors and personal characteristics to provide opportunities for people with an ID. It is recommended to include the perspectives of people with an ID and other neighbourhood residents in future research on social inclusion. Specific attention is needed for the role of neighbourhood social capital in achieving social inclusion in the neighbourhood.