Science and society: some "made-in-Canada" options for improving integration

In this article, the authors describe relatively recent efforts by scientific research agencies to promote, through various funding programs, the integration of social sciences and humanities with the natural sciences. This "integrated" approach seeks to study science through a broader interdisciplinary lens in order to better anticipate, understand, and address its ethical, legal, and social implications. The authors review the origins and evolution of this trend, as well the arguments which have been formulated by both proponents and critics of integration. By using Genome Canada's "GE(3)LS" Research Program as a case study, the authors discuss the successes and continuing challenges of this model based on evaluation results available to date. The authors then go on to examine and compare three possible models for improving the future success of the GE(3)LS research program, including: 1) enhancing the current integrated research approach through incremental refinements based on concrete evidence and lessons learned; 2) promoting greater interaction and synergy across GE(3)LS research projects through a deliberate, systematic and coordinated "hub and spoke" approach; and 3) taking a broad programmatic approach to GE(3)LS research by creating a central resource of available expertise and advisory capacity.     

Ritual abuse: Consequences for professionals

This paper details the results of a questionnaire survey completed by 71 members of a national support group of workers in the field of ritual abuse, investigating the extent and nature of personal, interpersonal and professional stress factors involved in such work. The results indicate that professional work in the field of ritual abuse frequently gives rise to negative changes in behaviour and in physical and emotional health among workers. Support and supervision requirements are also addressed, as is the possibility/probability of threat and intimidation. The discussion proposes, and considers, three hypotheses: that workers in the field of ritual abuse are currently professionally isolated; that ritual abuse work is qualitatively different from other work; and that ritual abuse work may involve threat and intimidation.     

Criminal justice on trial

The range of initiatives for young or drug-dependent offenders is bewildering, and includes arrest referral (to drugs worker), drug treatment and testing orders, drugs courts, random mandatory drugs testing of prisoners, transitional care between prison and community, and Scotland's now disbanded Airborne Initiative. Yet judges prescribe sentence on lesser evidence about what works, is safe and is cost effective than that relied on by doctors prescribing licensed medicines. Sheila M. Bird and Clive B. Fairweather make a passionate plea for an evidence-based approach to investigating the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of criminal justice initiatives     

Tagging and deportation: who gets it right?

The Home Office in England suffered major embarrassment this year over its failure to deport foreign nationals who had served prison sentences. It could not even supply statistics on how many there were, or what crimes they may have committed after release. Scotland, in contrast, could answer such questions with ease. Sheila Bird investigates English failure and Scottish solutions.     

The Academic Marketplace in Social Work

Abstract

Deans and directors of graduate and undergraduate programs in social work were surveyed to ascertain the number of academic jobs available during 1984–86. They were also questioned about characteristics desired in new faculty. Results showed a stable or increasing overall demand for social work faculty. Demand varied in relation to whether the highest degree offered by the hiring unit was the baccalaureate, master's, or doctorate. The quantity of recent hiring and the desirability of research skills and publications was higher in programs offering higher degrees, but teaching credentials were of equal importance for all three types of units. Implications for the educational system and for job seekers are discussed.     

Architectural and built environment discourses in an educational context: the Gottscho and Schleisner Collection

This essay examines architectural photographs of schools produced for consumer magazines like House Beautiful, which helped create aspirations for the rising American middle class during the period 1935–1959. It reveals the way that schools for the upper-middle classes were promulgated as ‘role models’ for the boom in school construction that accompanied the post-war baby boom. We examined images of exterior and interior school architecture and built environments in the Gottscho and Schleisner photography collection at the Library of Congress. Through Allan Sekula's process of archivisation and the use of constant comparative analysis, we re-organised the images in this collection and identified the prominent middle-class, architectural discourse inscribed on, in and surrounding the schools. We further discuss the maintenance of middle-class ideology through the guiding force of ‘conspicuous consumption’ patterns – the power behind the prominence of the archive and its accumulation process.