Advanced Standing and Two-Year Program MSW Students: An Empirical Investigation of Foundation Interviewing Skills

Abstract

Fifteen advanced standing and 23 two-year program Master of Social Work (MSW) students interviewed a simulated client. Blind raters working from videotapes of these interviews reliably evaluated the students' use of three core interviewing skills: Facilitation, Questioning/Clarification, and Support/Empathy. No statistically significant differences were found between the two groups of students on these skills. These results support the Council on Social Work Education policy of offering advanced standing to graduates of accredited Bachelor of Social Work programs.     

Characteristics of Homeless Alcohol and Drug Abusers Identified Through an Assertive Outreach Program

Differences between substance abusers and non-abusers, and among abusers of alcohol, drugs, or both substances, were investigated for 1166 persons identified as homeless or at risk of homelessness by an assertive outreach program in a moderate size city. The 603 self-reported substance abusers included disproportionate numbers of male, Black, unmam'ed, and currently homeless persons with a history or symptoms of mental illness, who expressed a primary need for assistance dealing with the social seIVice system. Type of abuse was associated with demographic charaeten'stics, length of homelessness, mental illness status, and primary expressed needs. An accurate picture of subgroup differences can aid design and delivery of services for the homeless.     

Understanding Listening Competency: A Systematic Review of Research Scales

To better understand what constitutes listening competency, we perform a systematic review of listening scales. Our goal was twofold: to determine the most commonly appearing listening traits and to determine if listening scales are similar to one other. As part of our analysis, we identified 53 relevant scales and analyzed the scales qualitatively and quantitatively. We conclude that the most commonly mentioned listening traits include responding or giving feedback, asking questions, and using nonverbal communication. We also show that the scales are relatively dissimilar, thereby suggesting that researchers have different perspectives on how best to characterize competent listening.     

The Subject of History/The Object of Transference

Rather than consider the patient's history as limited to the first years of life, this paper extends the idea of the patient's history to encompass multiple histories–national, colonial, racial, gendered, sexual, developmental, familial, and immigrant–as interweaving threads of personal identity. From this perspective history refers not only to an individual's developmental course but also to the shaping force of events in creating culture or the very subjects that experience culture and cultural events. Within the performative theater of transference, countertransference histories are actually remade through the intimacies of psychic and affective experience revealed in the analytic encounter.     

Vitalizing United States History

The author shares the challenges faced in her social studies methods class due to the constraints of NCLB. By incorporating the jackdaw kit project within her social studies methods course, her candidates were able to connect what they were talking about in methods and apply it to their students teaching situations where there was little time for social studies instruction. The article details first-hand experiences and describes the contents of the jackdaw kits.     

Racial inequality and social control: Historical and contemporary patterns in the U.S. South

Research dealing with disproportionate criminality, arrest, and incarceration among African Americans has tended to emphasize cultural, familial, and structural differences between racial groups while at the same time neglecting patterns and processes of race‐ and class‐based antagonism and subordination that are central, especially in the case of the U.S. South historically. We attempt to address this limitation by posing a model of the contemporary black‐white arrest differential across counties of one southern state. The model itself takes into consideration class‐ and race‐based subordination processes and their impact on local levels of stratification and arrest. Results suggest the continuing influence of racial competition and class dynamics. Racial competition enhances the arrest gap by disproportionately increasing unemployment and family dissolution among African Americans. The existence of a strong and concentrated traditional elite is shown to depress the racial gap, presumably by increasing poverty, unemployment, and family dissolution for both groups or by shaping what it means to go to jail, especially for blacks. In general, the arguments and findings presented suggest that criminological literature and theorizing should take note of local racial and political‐economic processes that, through the perpetuation of race and class inequality, reproduce disparate patterns of criminality, arrest, and incarceration.     

Some aspects of a Housing Officer's work

Abstract

This paper reviews the benefits claimed to flow from the commencement of the Aged Care Act 1997. It is concluded that in restructuring residential aged care services the Commonwealth Government has withdrawn from its regulatory responsibility of ensuring residents receive adequate standards of care. To legitimate its actions the Government contractualised the relationship between service providers and residents, to the detriment of the residents.     

旅游研究中的“真实性”:纷争之后

真实性的内涵如此多义,以致莱辛格与斯坦纳提出应摒弃该概念。然而自麦坎内尔将真实性引入社会学研究的30年来,相关研究蔚为大观,学界就客观真实性、主观真实性与建构真实性展开系列辩论与研究;另一方面,实践中的真实性样态层出不穷,譬如真实的复制与真正的赝品、生命历程中的真实性或人造景观的真实性。在后真实时代,旅游客体的真实性主要由旅游体验来裁决。