The Relationship Between Self and Activity in the Context of Artists Making Art

Art is an activity that has historically invited self-reflection, self-immersion, and self-exploration—for example, in self-portraits, exhibitions, experimentation with media—and that as such may open a window onto the relationship between self and activity. In this article, we describe two cases studies involving observation of and interviews with two artists to explore what it feels like to invest oneself in an activity emotionally, cognitively, sensuously, and reciprocally to “make oneself” through this activity. These case studies highlight the importance of authenticity in both the activity of making art and the making of self through making art. The implications for agency, emotion, and ethical activity are analysed and some of the implications for a sociocultural approach to activity discussed.     

Four contexts of institutional oppression: Examining the experiences of Blacks in education,criminal justice and child welfare

ABSTRACT

Institutions are key sites of oppression. Institutional oppression is defined as the mistreatment of people of a particular group that is enforced by society and its institutions. It is a system of invisible barriers that emerge from institutional laws, customs and practices, thus producing inequities for particular groups across race, gender and class. Woven together, the web of institutional oppression is vast, cumulative and multi-faceted, including both overt and covert discriminatory practices and behaviors. Based in a critical review of the literature, the authors of this article introduce and describe four characteristics of institutional oppression that specifically impact the lives of Black Americans. Furthermore, we provide a case vignette that illustrates these characteristics of oppression. The article concludes with recommendations on dismantling institutional oppression and highlights the roles that social workers can play in collaboration with educators and other professionals.     

Relationships between work–life balance and job-related factors among child welfare workers

This study examined the relationships between work–life balance and several job-related factors among 573 public child welfare workers in a northeastern state in the United States of America. It explored job-related correlates of work–life balance and the possible mediating role of work–life balance between these factors and job satisfaction. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that the job-related factors organizational support, job value, work time, and income were significantly associated with work–life balance among child welfare workers. It also confirmed that work–life balance partially mediated the associations of organizational support and job value with job satisfaction. Implications for child welfare research, policy, and practice are proposed based on the empirical findings.     

Engaging Students in Social Work Research Education

This article discusses existing issues in social work research education. It includes challenges to delivering research education at the MSW level such as student anxiety and disinterest, and incorporates an exploration of post graduation interest in research. The authors recommend that professors increase the emphasis on practical applications of research and encourage students to disseminate research results via publication. The article concludes with the implications of encouraging student research within the social work profession.     

The costs of immigration to taxpayers: Toward a uniform accounting framework

Large scale immigration to the United States and a sluggish national economy have brought to the forefront of the current immigration policy debate, the question of whether immigrants fully pay—in the form of taxes—for the public services they use. Recent estimates of the costs of immigration differ so widely that they have confused rather than enlightened that debate. This paper argues that a uniform accounting framework must be agreed to if future studies are to provide credible and reliable estimates of costs and benefits upon which immigration policy can be formulated. The key conceptual, factual, and accounting issues that are to be addressed for the development of such a framework are outlined.     

The Enduring Significance of Racism: Discrimination and Delinquency Among Black American Youth

Prominent explanations of the overrepresentation of Black Americans in criminal justice statistics focus on the effects of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage, racial isolation, and social disorganization. We suggest that perceived personal discrimination is an important but frequently neglected complement to these factors. We test this hypothesis with longitudinal data on involvement in general and violent juvenile delinquency in a sample of Black youth from a variety of communities in 2 states. We examine the direct effects of concentrated disadvantage and racial isolation and the direct and mediating effects of social organization, support for violence, and personal discrimination. Consistent with our hypothesis, perceived personal discrimination has notable direct effects on both general and violent delinquency and is an important mediator between neighborhood structural conditions and offending; moreover, its effects exceed those associated with neighborhood conditions.     

Environmental and social supply chain management sustainability practices: construct development and measurement

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise and operationalise the concept of supply chain management sustainability practices. Based on a multi-stage procedure involving a literature review, expert Q-sort and pre-test process, pilot test and survey of 156 supply chain directors and managers in Ireland, we develop a multidimensional conceptualisation and measure of social and environmental supply chain management sustainability practices. The research findings show theoretically sound constructs based on four underlying sustainable supply chain management practices: monitoring, implementing systems, new product and process development and strategy redefinition. A two-factor model is then identified as the most reliable: comprising process-based and market-based practices.     

Ethno-Religious Mobilisation and Citizenship Discourse in the People's Republic of China

In the post-Cold War world, 'identity politics' is seen by many as posing the greatest threat to peace and political institutions, liberal or otherwise. In light of the carnage of Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda and former Soviet republics, cultural identity politics would seem to be a politics, or antipolitics, of the most virulent and savage sort. Yet research conducted among three Chinese minority nationalities - the Dai, Bai and Muslim Hui of Yunnan Province - reveals that the relationship between cultural activism and minority nationalist sentiment is not always so clear-cut. I show that such activism, which includes linguistic promotion and religious education, can in fact express claims derived from a national political identity, a conception of minority membership in the Chinese national community. Certain instances of minority cultural activism are efforts to put teeth into the party-state's promises of autonomy and to reject the stereotype of shaoshu minzu as backward and uncivilised. Such activism is thus a means of asserting minorities' rightful place in the contemporary Chinese body politic. At the same time, such cultural activism may cement cross-national ethnic and religious identities, thereby consolidating the material and ideological resources that make anti-state behaviour more feasible. Even when cultural activism shows acceptance of inclusive nation-state norms, minority inclusion may be limited by the behaviour and attitudes of the state, or by the content of national identity itself. In discussing these issues, minority cultural activism will also be juxtaposed with a very different sort of ethnic mobilisation, one which does pose a serious threat to the integrity of Chinese boundaries and the ability of the state to enforce its rule. The paper thus also shows how ethnicity within Yunnan Province can be a resource for anti-state behaviour, even when the aims of such actions are not ethnic in content.