Implementing media literacy training for social work programs at HBCUs: A literary analysis of barriers and opportunities

ABSTRACT

The image of the social work profession in the media is problematic for many reasons. Social work and its practitioners are often depicted as incompetent, ineffective, and unnecessary. Despite the necessity of the services provided to the public by social workers, public opinion of the profession remains low. To reverse the current trend, social work programs, particularly those at historically Black colleges and universities, can begin to provide media literacy training and media awareness within the curriculum to assist future social workers in stemming the tide of negative coverage and portrayals of the profession in the media. Using the media diffusion of information theory as an overview, this literary analysis provides a historical view of the profession and highlights current trends in social work practice, education, and media training.     

From Political to Material Inequality: Race,Immigration, and Requests for Public Goods

Studies of political participation typically analyze voting, contentious collective action, or membership in voluntary associations. Few scholars investigate a more mundane—but highly consequential—form of neighborhood politics: requests for basic city services. We conceptualize city service requests as a direct, instrumental contact with local government that alters the geographical distribution of public goods. We hypothesize that rates of service requests vary with the ethnic and immigrant composition of neighborhoods, due to differences in these communities’ expectations of local government. We test this hypothesis using administrative data from the City of Boston. We find neighborhoods with high concentrations of first‐generation immigrants less likely to request services, relative to need. The concentration of African Americans, however, is associated with large increases in neighborhood service requests. We conclude with implications for the study of race, inequality, and political incorporation.     

Harmonizing databases? Developing a quasi-experimental design to evaluate a public mental health re-entry program

Our study is the first-ever initiative to merge administrative databases in Massachusetts to evaluate an important public mental health program. It examines post-incarceration outcomes of adults with serious mental illness (SMI) enrolled in the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH) Forensic Transition Team (FTT) program. The program began in 1998 with the goal of transitioning offenders with SMI released from state and local correctional facilities utilizing a core set of transition activities. In this study we evaluate the program's effectiveness using merged administrative data from various state agencies for the years 2007-2011, comparing FTT clients to released prisoners who, despite having serious mental health disorders, did not meet the criterion for DMH services. By systematically describing our original study design and the barriers we encountered, this report will inform future efforts to evaluate public programs using merged administrative databases and electronic health records.     

Does Activism in Social Science Explain Conservatives’ Distrust of Scientists?

Data from the General Social Survey suggest that conservatives have become less trustful of scientists since the 1970s. Gauchat argues that this is because conservatives increasingly see scientific findings as threatening to their worldview. However, the General Social Survey data concern trust in scientists, not in science. We suggest that conservatives’ diminishing trust in scientists reflects the fact that scientists in certain fields, particularly social science, have increasingly adopted a liberal-activist stance, seeking to influence public policy in a liberal direction.     

Efficient ways to impute incomplete panel data

We find that existing multiple imputation procedures that are currently implemented in major statistical packages and that are available to the wide majority of data analysts are limited with regard to handling incomplete panel data. We review various missing data methods that we deem useful for the analysis of incomplete panel data and discuss, how some of the shortcomings of existing procedures can be overcome. In a simulation study based on real panel data, we illustrate these procedures’ quality and outline fruitful avenues of future research.     

Comparison of some common ratio estimators using pitman measure of nearness

In this article we compare some common ratio estimators for estimating the population total of a given characteristic. The sampling schemes considered are simple random sampling (S.R.S.) and S.R.S.under stratification. The comparisons are made using the Pitman Nearness criterion under the model-based approach. The error term is assumed normal with mean zero and variance σg(x). The function g(x) is a known function of the auxiliary variable x. Special interest is on the cases of g(x) =l and x. The result is found the same as that using MSE criterion, although the PN is very different from the MSE intrinsically.     

Establishing χ2 Properties of Sums of Squares Using Induction

The between-classes sum of squares in a between- and within-classes analysis of variance has, under normality, a χ² distribution. Although “substantial mathematical machinery” (Stigler 1984) is often used in classroom derivation of this distribution, it can be avoided by using induction and independence properties of standard normal variables. This is the derivation given here for unequal subclass numbers data. Independence of the between- and within-classes sums of squares is also shown.     

Toward an integration of ecological psychology and industrial psychology: Undermanning theory,organization size,and job enrichment

The research on the effects of organization size and subunit size on participants' attitudes and behavior is reviewed from industrial psychology and ecological psychology perspectives. It is suggested that conceptualizing organization or subunit size in terms of Barker's undermanning theory is a more heuristic approach than traditional methods employed by industrial researchers. Moreover, undermanning theory is shown to possess similar assumptions as job enrichment strategies in terms of its effects on organizational behavior. A theoretical model integrating these two theories is presented and discussed.