From Drama Text to Stage Text: Transitions of Text Understanding in a Student Theatre Production

Exploring how text understanding evolves through interaction in a drama-text-based student theatre production, the present study takes its theoretical point of departure in sociocultural and dialogical approaches to meaning making and creativity. Video data from a Swedish upper secondary school allowed us to follow transitions of text understanding in the artistic shaping of characters from drama text to stage text. We analyze a special kind of communicative side project: short, recurrent student-initiated role-plays, embedded in teacher-led activities. The joint text understanding that was established in these side projects proved productive in the emergent shaping of the stage text.     

Towards Body–Mind–Spirit Integration: East Meets West in Clinical Social Work Practice

Contemporary trends in clinical practice are moving more toward an integrative approach that views the mind, the body and the spirit as inter-connected entities. There is an increasing interest in approaches that utilize physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual components in assessment and treatment. This paper presents an integrative body–mind–spirit approach in clinical social work practice which is informed by the Eastern philosophical traditions of Daoism, Buddhism, and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Our work with a bereaved elderly woman is presented to illustrate how the three key intervention principles: (1) promoting a dynamic balance within the individual through multi-modal intervention; (2) fostering strengths; and (3) facilitating meaning-making can be effective in helping people in a clinical setting.     

Old and novel methods for estimating Feral Pigeons (Columba livia f. domestica) population size: a reply to Amoruso et al. (2013)

In a recent paper Amoruso et al. (2013) proposed a novel method for estimating population size of Feral Pigeons, the Superimposed Urban Strata (SUS) method. In our reply we firstly comment on the lack of a complete review of the available literature. Secondly we point out that the SUS method does not account for birds detection probability and thus it is just a simple index of abundance as many others proposed in recent years. Thirdly, we question the approach used by the authors to evaluate the reliability of their method. To conclude, we believe that the SUS method is not truly innovative and that further investigations are needed before considering it as a reliable way for estimating Feral Pigeons populations size.     

What do social entrepreneurs need to walk their talk? Understanding the attitude–behavior gap in social impact assessment practice

The topic of social impact assessment (SIA) is growing in importance, and this is especially true for social enterprises. The mission of solving social problems is the main feature of these organizations; thus, the need to assess the extent to which this mission is fulfilled becomes essential. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model that could explain the attitude–behavior gap in SIA practice through the development of a coherence/displacement matrix, to gauge if social entrepreneurs are coherent in “walking their talks.” The study is based on a mixed‐methods approach focused on the Italian context. An empirical quantitative analysis has been performed to identify the misalignment between attitude and behavior. The gaps that emerged are then analyzed through in‐depth interviews with social entrepreneurs, to provide a pilot case study that could test the model and gain further insights into how those gaps could be filled.     

Self-identified strengths among youth offenders charged with assault against a non-intimate family member

Youth involved in the criminal justice system are particularly vulnerable to increased risk for continuing offending behaviors since aggressive and/or violent behavior compromise developmental growth. The present study seeks to build on the current literature related to youth offenders by using an exploratory qualitative approach to analyze strength-based asset interviews completed by youth referred to a diversion program. Results revealed four distinctive themes: 1) hardiness, 2) grit, 3) social competence, and 4) empathy. Broadening the scope of research focusing on youth offenders, the present study offers a number of implications for social work practice.     

Armed and Aging: Dementia and Firearms Do Not Mix !

ABSTRACT

The possibility that persons with dementia possess firearms is cause for concern, but only a limited number of research studies have been conducted on such a topic, usually in the form of case reports. Reducing the occurrence of the firearm-related violence requires effectively identifying dangerous individuals and keeping firearms out of their hands. The health care professionals, i.e. the social workers and the physicians, need to work together and to produce a suitable evaluation of patients with dementia to prevent firearm-related injuries and serious and irreparable damage to persons.     

La formation en cours d'emploi en Europe: déterminants et effets sur les salaires

Partant des données du Panel communautaire de ménages (PCM) pour la période 1995–2001 dans six pays, les auteurs étudient les déterminants des activités de formation et les effets de celle‐ci sur les salaires. A partir de quatre indicateurs caractérisant la formation, ils montrent que, si les estimations par la méthode des moindres carrés ordinaires indiquent que, presque partout, la formation valorise substantiellement les salaires, les estimations avec effets fixes font apparaǐtre une incidence quasi nulle. Les effets sur les salaires seraient donc surestimés faute de prise en compte adéquate de la corrélation entre la formation et d'autres facteurs affectant les salaires.     

Income distribution,economic growth and European integration

In this paper I discuss recent theories on the relationship between growth and inequality, and ask whether the two move together or not. Output growth can be due to increases in physical capital, human capital, employment or the level of technology, and I argue that each of these represents a mechanism that relates our two variables of interest. The European integration process has represented a major policy change that has affected not only the opportunities for growth but also the constraints faced by national governments. We can then ask whether such integration has had an effect on inequality, and to what extent it has resulted in a conflict between productive efficiency and distributive considerations.