History of Research on Process Relevant to Clinical Social Work

Case study research methods and holistic approaches have not appeared in the social work literature for at least two decades due to debate over what constitutes legitimate science. This debate has contributed to alienation of the work of the researcher and the day-to-day practice of the practitioner. Existing intellectual frameworks and measuring tools for understanding clients’ reactions and behaviors through case study research methods can help close the gap between researcher and practitioner. The purpose of this article is to provide a historical review highlighting certain tensions in the field of social work and to provide the foundation for a discussion of the contemporary state of process research—whereby new theory and methods from the natural sciences tender means for the field to pick up where previous process researchers have left off. The article concludes with recommendations for future work and anticipates novel and useful methods for process research.     

Protection studies: Challenging oppression and discrimination

Social work students on qualifying programmes should have abundant opportunities to challenge racism, sexism, disablism and other oppressions in society, that is in the macro environment. Equally they are required to confront oppression in the micro environments of the family home or small institution. One way of achieving this is through integration of the issues into the whole curriculum but also through a specific module devoted to protection studies.

Child and ‘elder’ abuse and the mistreatment of dependent younger adults is at one end of a continuum of oppression with societal discrimination at the other. Oppression, whatever its form, has four essential components: the misuse of power, processes of objectification, the silence of witnesses and the entrapment or accommodation of victims. Social work students who do not fully appreciate the dynamics of the abuse of power, and the perspectives of victims are ill equipped to challenge oppression.

A rationale for a protection studies module is given. The objectives and content of the proposed studies are also suggested. Protection studies, it is argued, are essential because social workers are faced with complex issues of power and control. Those who overlook the need to protect all of society's weakest members can be seen as facilitating abusers in the same way that those who do not embrace anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive practices are perpetuating bigotry and injustice.     

The Home and the ‘Hood: Associations Between Housing and Neighborhood Contexts and Adolescent Functioning

Adolescents from low‐income families face various opportunities and constraints as they develop, with possible ramifications for their well‐being. Two contexts of particular importance are the home and the neighborhood. Using adolescent data from the first two waves of the Three‐City Study (N = 1,169), this study explored associations among housing problems and neighborhood disorder with adolescents' socioemotional problems, and how these associations varied by parental monitoring and gender. Results of hierarchical linear models suggest that poor‐quality housing was most predictive of the functioning of girls and of adolescents with restrictive curfews, whereas neighborhood disorder was a stronger predictor for boys. Implications for future research on associations between housing and neighborhood contexts and adolescent development are discussed.     

Palliative medicine in Britain

In Britain, Palliative Medicine was recognized as a subspecialty of Internal Medicine exactly 20 years after Cicely Saunders founded St Christopher's, at exactly the same time that government was at last recognizing the worth and the needs of general practice. Both had far-reaching effects and implications for patients, doctors, and the future of medicine. For Palliative Medicine it meant units wishing to train specialists going through a rigorous selection process; the development of an equally rigorous training program for the doctors who had already gained a higher qualification before starting Palliative Medicine, demonstrating the need for and benefits of palliative medicine to the sceptics in the profession and, now, continuing to recruit the staff for the steadily increasing number of new services. Today there are more Palliative Medicine consultants/specialists than there are oncologists and neurologists combined, with Hospital Palliative Care Teams in every major hospital and cancer center. With nine Chairs in Palliative Medicine, there is now a drive for research and professional education. The specialty faces major challenges, however, ranging from training to care for patients with non-malignant disease to enabling patients to die in the place of their choice-something that rarely happens today; from defining what is distinctive or unique about palliative medicine to clarifying the respective place of general practice and the specialty. Most would agree that the biggest challenge for the young, thriving specialty is how to share its principles with other doctors wherever they work.     

Social Organization of an Industrial Work Group: Emergence and Adaptation to Environmental Change*

This is a participant observation study of a small work group on the night shift in a food processing plant. Although in the Human Relations tradition, this study focuses explicitly upon the interrelations between the group and salient aspects of the organizational and technical environment. The analysis is guided by the small group theory of George C. Homans. Attention is focused first upon the development of an informal social organization which was functional both in meeting formal organizational goals and group members' socioemotional needs. This informal organization was disrupted by supervisory style changes, however, after which both job commitment and group morale declined dramatically. This was followed by two technical changes; as the group informally and collectively adapted to these changes, a new informal social organization emerged. This new organization clearly reflected the group members' desire for autonomy. Clear support is claimed for the general proposition that commitment to formal organizational goals, group morale, and individual satisfaction is positively related to a lenient supervisory style and high autonomy.     

A BAYESIAN HIERARCHICAL MODEL FOR POISSON RATE AND REPORTING-PROBABILITY INFERENCE USING DOUBLE SAMPLING

We analyse a combination of errant count data subject to under‐reported counts and inerrant count data to estimate multiple Poisson rates and reporting probabilities of cervical cancer for four European countries. Our analysis uses a Bayesian hierarchical model. Using a simulation study, we demonstrate the efficacy of our new simultaneous inference method and compare the utility of our method with an empirical Bayes approach developed by Fader and Hardie (J. Appl. Statist., 2000).     

Mixed Results, Lousy Process: the Management Experience of Organizational Change

This paper reports the findings of a survey of 92 managers, from 14 public and 14 private-sector organizations. The aim was to explore the experience of change, extending the findings of a previous study (Buchanan, Claydon and Doyle, 1999). The survey addressed six themes: communication, evaluation, learning, attitudes and relationships, implementation and change and continuity. Overall, the results present a bleak picture of the process and outcomes of contemporary change. Most managers claim that change responsibility affords valuable personal learning. However, recent change has also been accompanied by stress, work intensification, command and control and management–employee distrust. A comparison of public and private–sector responses suggests that the experience of change in the public sector has been more pressured than in the private sector. Comparison of responses by management level indicates that senior managers are more likely to hold positive views of the change process and its outcomes. Explanations for these differences in experience and perception are considered, along with the implications. It is concluded that an adequate theory of organizational change must address the contradictions and tensions in the lived experience of those implicated, and that effective practice should consider the linkage of change implementation with organizational learning mechanisms which, on this evidence, are absent.     

Risk Factors for Alcohol Use in the United States, 1947–2005

ABSTRACT

National public opinion polls that were conducted from 1947 to 2005 found that Americans' reported alcohol consumption remained fairly constant. Although alcohol use has remained consistent, the findings reveal that consumption levels vary by age, gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The results also show an increase in the number of reported problems within families that are due to excessive alcohol consumption. This article examines the differences in alcohol consumption levels related to these various demographic factors and explores the impact of alcohol use among families and implications for social work practice.     

基于NK模型的组织复杂性情境下管理者认知表征作用的仿真研究

通过分析管理者的认知表征在组织复杂性情境下对组织决策的影响机理,提取出表征强度、表征偏差和经验丰裕度3个重要因素,并基于NK模型进行了相应的仿真。研究结果显示,管理者的认知表征能有效改善组织复杂情境下的决策效果。最后,以此为基础建立了表征强度、表征偏差和经验丰裕度对组织决策的影响机制模型。     

THE IDENTIFICATION OF TARGET MARKETS

This paper demonstrates the use of computer-based multivariate techniques in analysing survey data and segmenting markets. Such techniques are increasingly used to deal with the vast amounts of data currently being collected by market researchers. Three techniques are illustrated and compared in detail-regression analysis, AID, and cluster analysis. These methods have wide application in marketing. A simple data set is used to illustrate their principles and comparative advantages.