Not Just Social Work Academics: The Involvement of Others in the Assessment of Social Work Students

University regulations typically assume that the assessment of students is essentially a task for paid academic staff. However, this is a far cry from much of the current literature about assessment in social work education, of which one of the distinguishing features is the not infrequent references to stakeholders beyond the individuals who are to be assessed and the academic staff employed to teach them. This paper reviews some of the recent literature on the involvement of persons other than social work academics, including students, practice teachers and service users, in assessing students studying in social work programmes. Implications for programme providers of using non‐academic assessors are explored.     

Effects of an Assisted Living Facility Specifically Designed for Individuals with Memory Disorders: A Pilot Study

Despite evidence suggesting the physical environment can enhance mood and quality of life (QoL) of dementia patients, this issue has not been examined extensively within the setting of an assisted living (AL) facility. This study investigated cognition, QoL, and neuropsychiatric symptoms in 39 individuals with a memory disorder during their initial 6 months at an AL facility designed specifically for this population. Despite continued decline in cognition, participants reported lessening of several negative emotions. No significant changes in QoL or neuropsychiatric symptoms were reported. Findings suggest that moving from home to an AL facility designed specifically for individuals with memory disorders has potential positive implications.     

Prevalence of Psychological Symptoms Among Undergraduate Students in an Ethnically Diverse Urban Public College

Abstract

The levels of psychological symptoms (anger, anxiety, and depression) among 595 college students in an ethnically diverse urban public college were surveyed. The students reported a wide range of symptoms that were quite similar to those reported by a representative sample of adults in the United States in the 1990s. Among these Asian, Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic, White, and other ethnic minority students, women's levels of symptoms were higher than men's (although the differences were small). Older students reported lower levels of anger and depression (the differences were even smaller), and ethnic groups did not differ in manifestations of psychological symptoms. Some of these students, however, reported problematic levels of psychological symptoms that were similar to those reported by more traditional college and university students.     

Characterization of psychiatrically hospitalized college students

Abstract

Objective: To characterize contemporary college students requiring psychiatric hospitalization. Participants and methods: Sociodemographic and diagnostic information was gathered retrospectively and analyzed from the electronic medical records (EMRs) of the consecutive inpatient hospitalizations of 905 college students admitted to a psychiatric inpatient unit. Results: Significantly more females compared to males experienced the following: more hospitalizations, more family and financial stressors, more depression, and less psychotic and bipolar disorder. The most frequent diagnosis was a depressive disorder, followed by bipolar disorder, psychotic disorder, and personality disorder, most frequently borderline personality disorder. Half of participants had comorbid diagnoses with substance abuse most common. More than two-thirds of students endorsed social or intimate relationship, academic, and family challenges as psychosocial stressors. In all, 15% of participants had repeat admissions. Conclusions: The present study provides demographic data from a sample of psychiatrically hospitalized college students. Findings can help improve screening and identification of decompensation in college students.     

“Ovo Je Srbija”: The Horror of the National Thing in A Serbian Film

In this article, the authors discuss the recent horror film A Serbian Film (2010 A Serbian Film (2010). Dir. S. Spasojevic, Invincible Pictures, Serbia.  [Google Scholar]) as a representation of the catastrophic nature of Serbian society in the Milosevic era. The authors start their analysis by talking about the construction of the Serbian ethno-nation under Milosevic, arguing that it emerged as a kind of reaction-formation to the collapse of Soviet-led communism in the Eastern bloc in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Their argument is that Milosevic constructed a new idea of Serbia based on a utopian theory of the ethnically homogenous nation to try to oppose the social, political and economic chaos produced by the end of communism and the related collapse of the ethnically mixed Yugoslav state. Following this work, the authors analyse the detail of Milosevic’s state and, in particular, the criminalization of Serbian society in the 1990s, and attempt to show how A Serbian Film dramatizes these conditions in a horror story about sexual violence and state-sponsored sadism. Throughout the article, the authors employ Freudian–Lacanian theory to argue that what A Serbian Film illustrates is the horror of the Serbian real and the terrible consequences of the state-sponsored collapse of normal civilization into an ultraviolent, hypersexualized, criminalized state of nature. In this respect, the authors suggest that the message of A Serbian Film has relevance beyond the case of Serbia, because even though the social and political context of Milosevic’s Serbia is essential to understanding its historical significance, the authors’ view is that it also speaks about the universal human condition of the death drive explored by Freud in his Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) and Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), and the potential contained in every society to descend into barbarity and sadistic violence.     

And roses too: How “Better Work” facilitates gender empowerment in global supply chains

Women's increasing entry into paid work has not been accompanied by a corresponding change in the gender division of unpaid labor in the household and community. Though women participate in the labor market, the expectation is that they will also take responsibility for the household. To what degree does women's waged work in the garment industry transform gender norms and dynamics in their home lives? To what extent do the choices they make translate to their household-level empowerment? This practice-focused article examines these questions by looking at data collected on gender dynamics at work and at home in the clothing industries of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Lesotho, and Vietnam. While women's empowerment through garment sector employment remains circumscribed by low wages, financial insecurity, and gendered expectations, we find that international interventions, namely the International Labor Organization's Better Work program, has expanded women's abilities to exert agency over their earnings within the context of household resource allocation and has decreased the negative effects of ongoing and systemic financial precarity.     

Childbearing Biographies as a Method to Examine Diversity and Clustering of Childbearing Experiences: A Research Brief

Population Research and Policy Review - Due to increasing heterogeneity in if, when, and under what conditions women have children, the timing, spacing, and other demographic aspects of...     

The News of Inclusive Education: a narrative analysis

This paper investigates a nationally publicised case in the debate over the best method of educating millions of children with severe disabilities. Using Fisher's narrative paradigm, this paper analyses 4 years of the extensive media coverage of the legal battles of Mark Hartmann's family. The 11-year-old's parents took the Loudoun County, VA, Board of Education to court to reinstate their autistic son in a regular classroom. Much media attention focused on the story because it dramatised the issues concerning the national debate about inclusion. The paper provides a synopsis of the narratives about inclusive education within the news media that arose from their coverage of the Hartmann case. Through the press, competing interests told their stories to the public, hoping to win the moral high ground and persuade others of the 'good reasons' that support their understanding of the costs or benefits of inclusion. Although the Hartmanns lost in court, this narrative analysis suggests that the family and its supporters provided more persuasive narrative themes in the news media's court of public opinion, thus advancing the national inclusion movement.     

Moving ahead or falling behind? Volunteer promotion and data collection

Substantial efforts have been expended to promote civic engagement during the 1990s and early 2000s. Yet as significant as volunteerism is economically, socially, and philosophically to the United States, surprisingly little in the way of longitudinal research has been carried out to assess the impact of these promotional activities. Few areas of civic engagement offer reliable trend data. We examine the available data in three areas: individual volunteering, volunteering to stipended government programs, and employee volunteering. We find modest but steady increases in volunteer numbers in all three areas, but point out numerous methodological problems that limit the reliability of present longitudinal data. We conclude by calling for a renewed financial investment in national volunteering surveys with a broader focus than current efforts.     

Bridging the Border between Work and Family: The Effects of Supervisor‐Employee Similarity*

We examine the relationship between supervisor‐employee race/ethnicity, gender, and caregiving similarity and employees’ perceptions that supervisors provide support for bridging the border between work and family life. Employees report greater net perceived supervisor interactional support, but not instrumental support, when the immediate supervisor is the same race/ethnicity or the same gender as the employee, but not when they have similar caregiving responsibilities. Having a supervisor of the same gender is more salient for women and race/ethnic similarity is more salient for men. We also find patterns of difference in the relative salience of gender and race/ethnic similarity within race/ethnic/gender groups.