Measures of occupational status in a special population

Previous research has shown that indirect measures of occupational status such as the Duncan Socioeconomic Index (SEI) are more valid than direct measures of occupational prestige, such as those developed by the National Opinion Research Center and by Treiman, for analyses of social mobility. The Professional, Technical, and Kindred (PTK) occupations available for the SEI are a biased sample of all PTK occupations. Do findings on the validity of the SEI pertaining to the general population hold for special populations, such as college graduates? Confirmatory factor analysis comparing the validities of four measures of occupational SES—the SEI, a 1960 counterpart of the SEI developed by Siegel and based on all Census occupations, the NORC prestige scale, and the Treiman international prestige scale—showed that the indirect measure developed by Siegel was clearly more valid than the other three measures. Since these findings indicate that the predictors in a regression equation are more valid than the criterion, there is some question as to what the criterion should really be.     

Evidence-Based Suicide Prevention Screening in Schools

Screening for suicidality, as called for by the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, is a major public health concern. As a place where adolescents spend a considerable amount of their waking hours, school is an important venue for screening adolescents for suicidal behaviors and providing preventive education and risk management. Social workers, as the largest occupational group of mental health professionals in the United States, have a significant role to play in the national strategy to prevent youth suicide, especially at the school level. This article reviews the literature on suicide prevention screening, warning signs, and risk factors to gain a better understanding of evidence-based screening strategies and discuss the implications for school social workers, counselors, and psychologists. It focuses on the identification of research-based information and explication of potential means for guiding preventive screening and clinical practice with suicidal adolescents.     

Counting Young Carers in Switzerland – A Study of Prevalence

An online survey of children in school grades 4–9 (mostly aged 10–15) was conducted in order to determine the prevalence of young carers in Switzerland using a 2‐stage stratified sampling approach. 4082 respondents were drawn from 230 schools. A total of 3991 respondents were included in the analysis and of these 307 (7.7%) were identified as young carers. The population estimate of prevalence was 7.9 per cent. This suggests that there are around 38 400 young carers in school grades 4–9 in Switzerland. Extrapolating to the 9–16 age group gives a figure of almost 51 500.     

Birth parents’ perceptions of professional practice in child care and adoption proceedings: implications for practice

This paper explores non‐relinquishing birth parents’ experiences of contested child care and adoption proceedings. It highlights the perceptions and voices of birth parents which are rarely prioritized in dominant discourses of professional practice in this area. The paper reviews previous related research and also discusses a small‐scale empirical study which elicited the perspectives of three birth parents whose children had been made subject to care proceedings and placed for adoption in England. Drawing on previous research and this study, the paper makes range of practice recommendations for sensitive professional practice with birth parents during contested child care and adoption proceedings.     

Case studies of technology roadmapping in mining

Mining is a long established art with legacy processes and institutional structures that face rapidly changing technological environments. The perception is that technology planning and forecasting receives priority attention only as far as they may be linked to making production tonnage in the short term, thus giving the impression that new technology may be introduced without developing a culture and operational requirements that influence successful implementation of new technologies. With depleting ore grades of existing mines, and the prevailing global financial crisis making it prohibitive to develop richer sources, mining is considered to be short-term risk averse and this accentuates a more conservative approach towards technology planning and forecasting. Based on surveys and interviews with practicing miners, this paper discusses three case studies on the practice of technology planning and forecasting in mining firms. It is evident that technology planning and forecasting, and particularly the use of the roadmapping approach, is not a ‘culture’ common to mining firms.     

Negotiating Stigma: Lessons From the Life Stories of Gay Men

Gay men, like lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender persons, must negotiate their sexual orientation due to the socially constructed negative view of homosexuality in our culture. Stigma is experienced in various ways according to the meaning that the individual applies to it. This study gleans lessons from the life stories of 15 gay men who recognized the stigma of homosexuality and devised strategies to cope with it. An important finding was that mentors, acting as “cultural brokers,” played a significant role in helping to cope with stigma. The intent of this study is to add to the literature regarding mechanisms that social workers can employ to help gay men cope with stigmatization.     

Multi-Systems Life Course: A New Practice Perspective and Its Application in Advanced Practice With Racial and Ethnic Populations

To better respond to social work's directive of increased sensitivity to cultural and ethnic diversity, it is imperative that theory development includes explicit consideration of the complex experiences of racial and ethnic minorities. For a more advanced and culturally relative practice, the authors posit the development of an encompassing perspective referred to as multi-systems life course (MSLC). Using a case example, this article applies a MSLC perspective to practice with women of color experiencing intimate partner violence. Implications for social work practice and an overview on incorporating a MSLC perspective into a graduate social work curriculum are included.     

Housing,memory and everyday life in contemporary Britain

With specific reference to public policy and the housing market in post-Second World War Britain, this article explores the relationship between housing, memory and everyday life. It argues that the house owes its cultural and emotional power to its capacity to separate itself ideologically from what Marc Augé calls the ‘non-places’ of everyday life. The extent to which houses have come to be seen as refuges from the non-place requires a great deal of symbolic work to conceal their sameness and everydayness. The association of the house with nostalgia, in particular, represents a denial of what Henri Lefebvre sees as the ‘residuality’ of the everyday, its capacity to lag behind the more dramatic transformations of modernity. In order to explore these questions, the article focuses on different types of housing in contemporary Britain, which are all based on a serial repetition and collectivity that are often denied. It examines: how the demolished terraced house and the surviving slum reveal the broader structures of everyday life in a way that the refurbished middle-class town house, alternating between a commodified past and a self-promoting futurism, specifically conceals; how the high-rise estates represent the most visible manifestation of the residuality of the everyday; and how new suburban houses are built in ‘timeless’ vernacular styles and sold as well-equipped interiors for exclusively privatized use, in a way that obscures their links to systems of mass production and consumption. The article concludes that the cultural economy of houses denies the reality of uneven development, and the ways in which our carefully refurbished homes are achieved at the expense of other everyday spaces.     

The Emergence of a Community-based Social Assistance Programme in Urban China

To many people, the problem of poverty in China was confined mainly to the rural areas, and the situation of urban poverty was regarded as insignificant. Yet in fact, market-orientated economic reforms have created an urban underclass, made up of poorly paid state workers, the unemployed, and migrants from the countryside. In attempting to respond to the mounting needs of the urban poor, the Chinese government has introduced a means-tested social assistance programme in the cities since the mid-1990s. This paper describes the basic philosophy, structure and operation of this programme, and provides a general assessment of its functions and shortcomings.