A lonely society? Loneliness and liquid modernity in Australia

This paper reviews recent studies of loneliness in order to assess whether it is becoming endemic in Australian society. It develops the idea that loneliness is an embedded social structural feature of contemporary Australian life likely to affect people through the life course, creating psychological stress, ill health and social dysfunction. Zygmunt Bauman's writing on liquid modernity is used to trace a sequence of less binding social bonds from the community the workplace, intimate relationships, friendship and kinship that may account for a more generalised distribution of loneliness. Empirical evidence from recent national surveys in Australia demonstrates how Bauman's gloomy prognosis is particularly applicable in Australia. The paper argues that it has been invisible as a social issue until recently, but that its scope and scale have grown such that robust policy initiatives are now warranted. It argues that Australia's gendered pattern of loneliness indicates that Bauman's broad theory of liquid modernity must be mediated by several factors relating to national cultures, historic patterns of family formation, and the gender role distribution in the creation and maintenance of social bonds.     

Enhancing Critical Reflection amongst Social Work Students: The Contribution of an Experiential Learning Group in Care Homes for Older People

As part of a Practice Learning Centre, representing a partnership between an English University social work department and a non-governmental organisation, 12 students were placed in care homes for older people for their first period of assessed practice. The aims of this initiative were to facilitate: development of critical reflection; deployment of social work skills in a care home setting; and opportunities for social work students to work with care home residents. The learning was captured via four Experiential Groups facilitated by the Practice Educator with responsibility for assessing the students' practice. On-site supervisors also participated. Key learning included understanding of: the importance of critical reflection as a key social work skill; the influence of organisational norms and care home culture on the quality of care practice; the complexity and emotion-rich nature of person-centred care; and the pivotal role of relationships in work with people with dementia. Links made in the Groups—between the experiential and theoretical, the emotional and cognitive, and the structural and personal—demonstrate their value as learning platforms. Placements in care homes have considerable potential to enrich practice education; this is especially important in the context of an ageing population.     

Religiosity,Citizenship and Belonging: The Everyday Experiences of Young Australian Muslims

Abstract

Since 11 September 2001 Muslim Diasporas have emerged as objects of anxiety in Western societies. Underlying this (in)security-driven problematisation is the question of whether Muslims living in the West have the capacity to become fully active citizens while maintaining their religious beliefs, rituals and practices. This apprehension has prompted reactionary government programmes, particularly targeting young Muslims. Such responses fail to recognise the societal capacities that practising Muslims possess, including those informed by the ethical precepts of Islamic faith. This paper argues that it is timely to explore expressions of Islamic religiosity as they are grounded in everyday multicultural environments. The paper draws on survey data and interviews conducted with Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia. We take into consideration key variables of age and generation to highlight how young, practising Muslims enact citizenship through Islamic rituals and faith-based practices and traditions. The paper will draw from key findings to argue that these performances provide a foundation for exploring ways of ‘living’ together in a manner that privileges ethics central to Islamic faith traditions.     

A Critical Look at Risk Assessments for Global Catastrophes

Recent articles by Busza et al. (BJSW) and Dar et al. (DDH) argue that astrophysical data can be used to establish small bounds on the risk of a "killer strangelet" catastrophe scenario in the RHIC and ALICE collider experiments. The case for the safety of the experiments set out by BJSW does not rely solely on these bounds, but on theoretical arguments, which BJSW find sufficiently compelling to firmly exclude any possibility of catastrophe. Nonetheless, DDH and other commentators (initially including BJSW) suggested that these empirical bounds alone do give sufficient reassurance. This seems unsupportable when the bounds are expressed in terms of expectation value-a good measure, according to standard risk analysis arguments. For example, DDH's main bound, p(catastrophe) < 2 x 10(-8), implies only that the expectation value of the number of deaths is bounded by 120; BJSW's most conservative bound implies the expectation value of the number of deaths is bounded by 60,000. This article reappraises the DDH and BJSW risk bounds by comparing risk policy in other areas. For example, it is noted that, even if highly risk-tolerant assumptions are made and no value is placed on the lives of future generations, a catastrophe risk no higher than approximately 10(-15) per year would be required for consistency with established policy for radiation hazard risk minimization. Allowing for risk aversion and for future lives, a respectable case can be made for requiring a bound many orders of magnitude smaller. In summary, the costs of small risks of catastrophe have been significantly underestimated by BJSW (initially), by DDH, and by other commentators. Future policy on catastrophe risks would be more rational, and more deserving of public trust, if acceptable risk bounds were generally agreed upon ahead of time and if serious research on whether those bounds could indeed be guaranteed was carried out well in advance of any hypothetically risky experiment, with the relevant debates involving experts with no stake in the experiments under consideration.     

Common factors and our sacred models

In this article we argue that much of what makes one treatment effective is common to other forms of effective treatment--both in psychotherapy generally and in marital and family therapy (MFT) specifically. Yet MFT has largely ignored the research on common factors. In this article we present a moderate view of common factors that, while repudiating the extreme position that there is no difference among treatment models, stresses that there are common factors and mechanisms of change that undergird most forms of successful treatment. These common mechanisms of change should be given more attention in our field, which has tended to emphasize the uniqueness of our sacred models. We delineate some of the major common factors, review the empirical evidence for them, and discuss implications of adapting a common factors informed approach to family therapy.     

A politics that is shared,bounded, and rooted? Rediscovering civic political culture in Western Europe

Theory and Society -     

Quantitative refinements for comparisons of institutional performance

In the context of the data and issues discussed by Goldstein and Spiegelhalter, we suggest refinements which can be used by decision makers when confronted with ranking problems associated with 'league tables'. Two ranking criteria are defined and their performance illustrated for one of the studies reported by Goldstein and Spiegelhalter.     

The Subjective Wellbeing of High-School Students: Validating the Personal Wellbeing Index—School Children

The Personal Wellbeing Index—School Children (PWI-SC) is designed as a parallel form of the adult PWI-A, to measure subjective wellbeing. This study examines the psychometric properties of the PWI-SC. Data from 351 students, aged between 12 and 20 years, were collected by two independent studies over the years 2005–2006. Using the combined data, the results indicate good psychometric properties for the PWI-SC. It is also found that females have higher SWB but that both genders show an age-related decline in SWB from early to mid adolescence. Notably, School satisfaction meets the criteria for a new domain for the PWI-SC and should be considered for inclusion in a future revision of the scale. The use of the PWI-SC in schools can provide important information for the development of educational policy.     

An Application of Expectancy Theory to Explain a Manager's Intention to Use a Decision Support System

A continuing gap exists between the capabilities of sophisticated computer-based information systems and the extent to which these systems are used by individuals. Studies which have examined the relationship between system utilization and various user, system, implementation, and organizational variables have provided few consistent findings. A new approach to this topic is suggested by a recent study by Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw [11], which indicates that individuals' intentions to use a system determine subsequent use. A large body of psychology-based research also supports this relationship between behavioral intentions and subsequent behavior. This study employs expectancy theory, which has often been used to examine behavioral intentions, to explain managers' intentions to use a decision support system (DSS). The results imply that the variables of the expectancy force model are determinants of a manager's behavioral intentions to use a DSS, and the variables of the expectancy valence model are determinants of the attractiveness of using a DSS to a manager.