Economic self-sufficiency and the employment outcomes of care leavers: A 10-year follow up

Gaining employment and reaching a stable and self-sufficient livelihood are essential life tasks, especially for young people ageing out of public care. This longitudinal study followed alumni of welfare and educational residential care settings in Israel for 10 years after leaving care. Here, we describe care leavers' employment and economic self-sufficiency outcomes and examine differences over time in their experiences. They were interviewed at the age of 19, 1-year post-care (N = 235), 3 years later (N = 222) and 10 years after ageing out (N = 151). Results paint a mixed picture. While the majority of participants were employed, many in stable jobs, their wages were low even as they grow older. At the same time, they experienced significant economic hardships. For some, economic hardship decreased with time, but for others it remained a cause for concern. Our findings highlight the inherent dependency between experiences at different life stages and suggest that providing more support to care leavers would improve their economic outcomes.     

Intentions to leave supervision among social work supervisors: contributing factors

The study shows the evolution of intentions to leave supervision among students’ supervisors in their first year of supervision. A total of 168 social work supervisors in 10 academic institutions in Israel, during their first year of supervision, answered the questionnaires at the beginning (October 2014) and end (June 2015) of their supervisors training course. The findings indicate that the most powerful predictor of intentions to leave supervision at T2 was intentions to leave supervision at T1. This interesting finding shows that the supervision course does not necessarily address the issue of long-term commitment to supervision, and it is crucial that more attention be paid to this issue. Furthermore, we also found a significant contribution of organizational climate at T1 and of role overload at T2. Practical implications challenge the current structure of supervision courses, in order to encourage students’ supervisors to retain their supervisory role over time.     

Prenatal development in rural South Africa: relationship between birth weight and access to fathers and grandparents

Birth weight is an indicator of prenatal development associated with health in infancy and childhood, and may be affected by the family environment experienced by the mother during pregnancy. Using data from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, we explore the importance of the mother's access to the father and grandparents of the child during pregnancy. Controlling for household socio-economic indicators and maternal characteristics, the survival and residence of the biological father with the mother are positively associated with birth weight. The type of relationship seems to matter: married women have the heaviest newborns, but co-residence with a non-marital partner is also associated with higher birth weight. Access to the maternal grandmother may also be important: women whose mothers are alive have heavier newborns, but no additional benefit is observed from residing together. Co-residence with any grandparent is not associated with birth weight after controlling for the mother's partnership.     

Political authority in a mediated age

The nature and impact of authority have been central to social theory since antiquity, and most students of politics, culture and organizations have – in one manner or another – visited the topic. Theorists recognize that the exercise of authority is conditioned by the environment, but their work has not always integrated fundamental changes in communication infrastructure, and in particular the diffusion of mass media. With the daily evolution of telecommunications, this is a good historical moment to re-evaluate the notion of authority. My goal is to assess ways to both preserve extraordinarily useful categories from the past, and at the same time, make those typologies more sensitive to contemporary mediated communication. Here I synthesize American research on media and political communication with recent theoretical approaches to authority, expanding current views of coercion and submission.     

Population size, perceived threat, and exclusion: a multiple-indicators analysis of attitudes toward foreigners in Germany

The major objective of the present research is to examine the long-standing theoretical proposition that hostility and discriminatory attitudes toward out-groups are likely to rise with relative size of the out-group population. Using data from The German General Social Survey (ALLBUS, 1996) we provide, for the first time, an examination of the impact of both actual and perceived size of the foreign population on discriminatory attitudes toward foreigners. Specifically, by using a multiple-indicators analytical model, we examine the theoretical proposition that perceived threat posed by an out-group population mediates the relations between size of the out-group and exclusionary attitudes toward the out-group. The analysis does not support the theoretical expectation that actual size of the foreign population in the locale is likely to increase either perception of threat or exclusionary attitudes. Perceived size, however, is found to be associated, as expected, with perceived threat, and perceived threat is found to mediate the relations between perceived size and support for exclusionary practices against foreigners—the higher the perceived size, the more pronounced are both the threat and anti-foreigner attitudes. The findings and their significance are discussed in the light of sociological theories on the relations between minority size and discrimination.     

Battling for Survival, Battling for Moral Clarity: "Illegality" and Illness in the Everyday Struggles of Undocumented HIV+ Women Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv

Undocumented migrant workers living with HIV/AIDS in Israel, like their counterparts elsewhere, are doubly abject due to their lack of legal status on one hand and their ill health on the other. Unlike Israeli citizens living with HIV/AIDS, who can access an array of state funded treatments and support services, undocumented migrant workers living with HIV/AIDS are marginalized both by the state's exclusive immigration regime and by its efforts to shake off responsibility for their health needs. At the same time, HIV treatment and care are generally unavailable in migrants' countries of origin. Despite the state's exclusionary orientation and in contradiction of official policies, certain forms of HIV treatment are available to undocumented migrants through the day‐to‐day efforts of a small array of activist Israeli NGOs, (state‐employed) doctors, and state officials. The tension between these simultaneous, oppositional processes of exclusion and inclusion generate a “gray area”— a zone of competing values, claims and interests‐ in which undocumented migrants living with HIV/AIDS and these other stakeholders search for new options and possibilities while continually taking pains to protect their own varied, and often competing, interests. Actors thus constantly bargain with laws, health policies, and one another in a collective battle not only over migrants' chances of survival, but also over the rationality and the morality underlying the state's “and their own” decisions and choices. Anchored within this complex, indeterminate zone, the present article draws upon ethnographic field research conducted among undocumented HIV+ migrant women in Tel Aviv to explore some of the stakes, mechanisms, and outcomes of these complicated, high stakes negotiation processes.     

Professional Commitment in Novice Social Work Students: Socio-Demographic Characteristics,Motives and Perceptions of the Profession

The article attempts to define the characteristics of students at the beginning of their social work studies in institutes of higher education in Israel, including demographic characteristics, motives for choosing the profession, perceptions about the profession, and commitment to the profession. The study was conducted among a sample of 450 students, all beginning their first academic year, at four social work schools in Israel. Study findings show a demographic range, such as: nationality, level of religiosity, and political attitudes. Findings indicate that three of these socio-demographic variables predict commitment to the profession at the onset of academic studies: psychometric score, level of religiosity, and previous academic learning experience.

Findings indicate two profiles of novice students: students who choose to study social work out of a desire to bring about social change; and students who choose to engage only in clinical social work. The latter are not committed to the profession in its essence, but rather recognize the importance of its professional individual activities only. The article discusses these findings and implications with regard to both the social work profession and social work training.     

Psychological Approaches to Values in Organizations and Organizational Behavior Management

Researchers studying individual and organizational value congruence are concerned with the degree to which the values of the employee and the organization for which he or she works agree and the affective outcomes that more or less agreement might predict. While a robust area of research, the applications following from it are somewhat limited. This paper reviews the concepts and research findings concerning value congruence, discusses various behavioral interpretations of the values construct, applies those interpretations to the organizational level, and offers recommendations for how these interpretations might point to more successful organizational change initiatives.