The Impact of Family of Origin on Social Workers from Alcoholic Families

This study draws on the experience of six social workers who are adult children of alcoholics, to demonstrate that childhood learned responsibility and the capacity for attachment are translated into later professional acuity. The place of resilience in developing an understanding of the linkages between the experiences of adult children of alcoholics and social workers is examined and the consequences for social work practice and the education of social workers is outlined. Undeniably, prior life experience impacts on practice. Less well understood is the positive impact of negative experience. In the case of social workers who are adult children of alcoholics we argue that being part of an alcoholic family may significantly contribute to, rather than detract from, later practice competence.     

Inequalities,Democracy, and Fieldwork in the Chicago Schools of Yesterday and Today

Barriers to public discourse and participation in a democracy were central to the social reform concerns of Mead. Urban ethnographies of the last thirty years that are associated with the University of Chicago and the Chicago School contribute to this aspect of Mead's work. These ethnographies help to illuminate how extreme poverty and racism affect public discourse between groups. The Chicago tradition linked to the work of Park and Wirth has emphasized the importance of persistent inequalities and a lack of public discourse and participation rather than a symbolic interactionist approach that emphasizes the ability of people to create a place for themselves in an open, fluid world. Through field research in poor, often minority urban communities, the sociologists linked more closely to the former group have explored issues of the maintenance of patterns of extreme inequalities, the muting of public dialogue, and blockages to participation while maintaining a focus on the agency of the poor and their efforts to create their social worlds.     

Book Review: Charity Law Matters. By Ronan Cormacain,Kerry O'Halloran,and Arthur Williamson. The Stationery Office,Belfast, 2001

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Local Influence Analysis in AB–BA Crossover Designs

The aim of this article is to develop methodology for detecting influential observations in crossover models with random individual effects. Various case‐weighted perturbations are performed. We obtain the influence of the perturbations on each parameter estimator and on their dispersion matrices. The obtained results exhibit the possibility to obtain closed‐form expressions of the influence using the residuals in mixed linear models. Some graphical tools are also presented.     

How to Get Published: Practical Advice

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Gesture in Instruction: Evidence from Live and Video Lessons

Previous studies have shown that teachers’ gestures are beneficial for student learning. In this research, we investigate whether teachers’ gestures have comparable effects in face-to-face live instruction and video-based instruction. We provided sixty-three 7–10 year old students with instruction about mathematical equivalence problems (e.g., 3 + 4 + 5 = __ + 5). Students were assigned to one of four experimental conditions in a 2 × 2 factorial design that varied (1) instruction medium (video vs. live), and (2) instruction modality (speech vs. speech + gesture). There was no main effect of medium: The same amount of learning occurred whether instruction was done live or on video. There was a main effect of modality: Speech instruction accompanied by gesture resulted in significantly more learning and transfer than instruction conveyed through speech only. Gesture’s effect on instruction was stronger for video instruction than live instruction. These findings suggest that there may be a limit to gesture’s role in communication that results in student learning.     

Teaching in Iran: culture and consequences

The purpose of this paper is to examine cultural effects on interactions within a Canadian MBA programme delivered in Iran. The analysis helps illuminate some of the important cultural differences between the countries and their importance for international education. The study also illustrates how single cause explanations often provide simplistic interpretations of culturally influenced behaviours. Results indicate that underlying cultural differences create issues for teaching and learning, but that their impact is subtle and complex.