Say it Loud: The Obama Effect and Racial/Ethnic Identification of Adolescents

The current study examined how self-reported racial/ethnic identification of adolescents living in poverty may be related to significant societal events and seminal public figures. Data from a multiple cohort longitudinal study, conducted in Mobile, Alabama between 1998 and 2011, were used to examine the impact of Barack Obama's nomination and presidency on racial/ethnic identification. The results show that significantly more adolescents changed their self-reported racial/ethnic identification from White or Mixed-Race to Black or Mixed Race after the election than before. These results suggest that a distant public figure can serve as a role model with observable effects for adolescents.     

Taking Feminist Violence Seriously in Feminist International Relations

In this article we explore questions about feminism and violence to constructively complicate understandings about this relationship. Feminism is conventionally positioned as oppositional to direct and structural violences, importantly so, as this has been seen key to feminism's viability as a constructive knowledge project. Yet there are increasingly persistent concerns about epistemic, juridical and other violences circulating around feminism, which render feminism's role in the production of oppositional knowledge and politics suspect. This is especially the case where western feminist ideas have been problematically taken up in neoliberal global policy making and for militarized human rights interventions. As feminist international relations scholars troubled by such associations, we investigate – via an exploration of three provocative feminist texts – how feminism is perceived to be both violated and violating by its contemporary imbrication in the violences of neoliberalism and global governance. We further suggest that metaphors of feminized corporeality, which infuse representations of feminism in these texts (especially in its western homogenized governance form), inhibit the destabilizing potential of feminism through its harmful associations with the ‘failing’ female body. This bodily shaping of feminism, which we examine by following a ‘trail of blood’, tells us something important about the relationship between feminism and violence, about recurring discursive and theoretical closures around feminism and about the possibilities for reinventions of feminism to unsettle the violent degradations, which feminists insistently reveal and decry.     

When Feminists Don't Fit The Case of Pauline Hanson

The rise of the Far Right is a global phenomenon traditionally viewed as antithetical to feminism. However, in Australia from 1996–2001 Far Right politics was dominated by a woman, Pauline Hanson, thus calling into question the dynamics between organized feminism and the Far Right. A significant problem for Australian feminists trying to understand Hanson is that her ideology, activities and life-style are internally contradictory. This article draws on American analyses of similar women and examines the contradictions in Hanson's political philosophy and activism with a view to challenging current Australian feminist analysis of this controversial political woman.     

‘Placements Online’: Student Experiences of a Website to Support Learning in Practice Settings

Social work practice and education in many parts of the world are implementing an elearning agenda. This article considers the experiences of students using a website developed to support learning in agency settings to discover if and how it can be used to create a ‘bridge’ between the learning environments of the university and practice. The website contains a range of features, including downloadable practice assessment documents, links to university based teaching units, electronic personal notification of placement allocation, and an asynchronous discussion forum.

The action research project which informs this article employed focus groups of students to ascertain their expectations and experiences of the website, in particular the asynchronous discussion forum facility, prior to and on completion of the 80 day placement, combined with analysis of the actual usage patterns and content.

Three quarters of the cohort participated in the discussion forum and findings suggest that students used and valued the discussion forum for its ability to enable the student to student and tutor to student relationships underpinning collaborative learning to be maintained during the placement, and to enable resource sharing and networking.     

Mixed‐Method Evaluation of Continuing Professional Development: Applications in Cultural Competence Training

Continuing professional development has been identified as an important tool for advancing the competence of social workers, yet outcomes of professional development are conventionally evaluated using methods that cannot provide trustworthy information about program effectiveness. This paper suggests that innovations in social research can be applied to strengthen the evaluation of educational outcomes from continuing professional development. The benefits of designing a mixed‐method evaluation of educational interventions are explored by reviewing the experience of implementing a cultural competence continuing professional development workshop series in Toronto, Canada. Review of the process demonstrates that the combination of methods results in a richer data set that can answer questions about both the process of the learning experience, and the effect that training has on professional practice.     

Reduction of Face‐to‐Face Contact Hours in Foundation Research Courses: Impact on Students' Knowledge Gained and Course Satisfaction

This study investigated the impact of reducing the number of face‐to‐face contact hours in a Masters of Science in Social Work (MSSW) foundation research course in an urban school of social work on students' knowledge gained and course satisfaction. A quasi‐experimental pretest/posttest comparison group design was used to test the following hypothesis: reducing the number of face‐to‐face contact hours will not negatively impact knowledge gain and course satisfaction in a foundation research course. The findings of this study suggest that reducing the number of face‐to‐face contact hours does not negatively affect student learning as both the comparison and the experimental group demonstrated an increase in foundation research knowledge. The level of course satisfaction was influenced by the number of hours completed in the program, age, and the number of hours worked in paid employment. Students who are especially vulnerable are younger students who have completed less course hours. They tend to struggle at the beginning to get used to new technology as part of their educational experience. This paper demonstrates that it is no longer ‘if’ web‐based and distance learning technologies are appropriate for social work education but rather ‘when’ and the degree to which their integration yields greatest educational value.     

An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of an FE/HE Partnership in the Delivery of a Preparation for Practice Module within an Undergraduate Social Work Degree Programme

The Preparation for Practice module at the University of Ulster is delivered to 170 first year students via a collaborative arrangement between higher and further education institutions. In each of the five sites, students receive large group and small group teaching facilitated by social work training agency workers and academic tutor dyads. An evaluation of the module sought the perceptions of the agency and academic facilitators regarding the overall collaborative arrangement and the model of co-teaching involving social work academics and agency partners. Respondents were asked to complete a semi-structured questionnaire, which generated data from a Likert scale and also invited qualitative commentary. The Likert scale data were analysed via SPSS and the qualitative information was scrutinised using a manual thematic analysis technique. Findings indicated that continuous communication, consistency in programme content and the acknowledgement of the differences in organisation resources were key to a successful collaborative arrangement. It was also noted that a co-teaching model should be viewed as a positive vehicle for achieving module objectives in a safe learning environment.     

Interactions of Behavior and Environment as Contributing Factors in the Discharge of Residents with Dementia from Assisted Living Facilities

While retirement communities have existed for over fifty years, they have received relatively little analysis. A clear consensus on definition does not even exist. Based on a literature review, we offer a definition that includes several criteria related to the housing units, boundaries, services and/or leisure amenities, age restrictions, voluntary relocation, and shared space. We delineate the variety of types of retirement communities and address the current and future challenges facing retirement communities. Such a discussion is urgent, given the lack of current housing policy, when both the potential demand and pertinent financial challenges are greater than ever.