Five-Way Experiential Learning Model for Social Work Education

Social workers exercise their practice skills by helping clients find strengths and solutions. In order to comprehensively practice skills for diverse client situations, it is crucial to practice and fine-tune the applications of various therapeutic approaches through clinical drills. This paper presents an experiential learning model, expanded from Kolb's Learning Cycle, which fits the dynamic pedagogical needs of the social work profession. It examines the implementation of the use of the ‘Five-Way Experiential Learning Model’ based on practice learning through personal reflections and professional evaluations. This practice learning study helped 79 MSW students define their ‘five-way learning’ and to analyze its impact on their acquisition of social work skills and clinical practice competencies. This process demonstrates the importance of the transtheoretical connection to achieve a better understanding of clients' situations through the process of change and peer input. Discussions will focus on the model elements, results on experiential learning, and ethical considerations.     

Minimizing the maximum travel time in a combined model of facility location and network design

This paper presents a combined Facility Location/Network Design Problem which simultaneously considers the location of facilities and the design of its underlying network so as to minimize the maximum customer-facility travel time. The model generalizes the classical p-center problem and has various applications in regional planning, distribution, telecommunications, emergency systems, and other areas. Two mixed integer programming formulations are presented and compared. Several valid inequalities are derived for the most promising of these formulations to strengthen its LP relaxation bound and to reduce the enumeration tree. Numerical results of a series of computational experiments for instances with up to 100 nodes and 500 candidate links are reported.     

Environmental and social predictors of phosphorus in urban streams on the Island of Montréal,Québec

Researchers have identified the importance of social characteristics for understanding ecological patterns in cities but the use of these characteristics in urban stream research has yet to be fully explored. Urban development is currently the second-largest cause of stream impairment in North America due in part to nutrient loading. However, research into factors that influence nutrient concentrations in urban streams is lacking. We sampled seven streams on the island of Montréal daily to measure phosphorus (P) concentration and P flux in each stream. We then compared stream P concentration and flux to several watershed characteristics commonly used to predict stream nutrients (e.g., watershed imperviousness, land use, existence of a riparian buffer) as well as several socio-economic characteristics of the watersheds (e.g., average home value, median household income). Overall, impervious surface cover and measures of land use were most effective at explaining the variation in P concentration and P flux in streams on the island of Montréal, while the riparian buffer and socio-economic variables were less effective. However, dollars spent on fertilizer per hectare of residential land and percent residential land use became important predictors of stream P concentration when impervious surface cover was removed from the regression model. This suggests that after accounting for the impact of physical watershed characteristics, social factors may be important predictors of urban stream P concentration. The results of our study suggest that more research is needed to determine the role that socio-economic variables play with respect to urban stream P.     

Willingness for mobility amongst European fishermen

The global trend of fisheries overexploitation and collapse has resulted in the need to reduce fishing effort, and providing alternative employment for fishermen is a frequently mentioned policy option in order to achieve this goal. Reducing fishing effort is central to the European Commission Common Fisheries Policy and over the years, the Commission has developed a number of socio-economic measures to encourage labour mobility among fishermen, and as such mitigate the impact caused by the structural adjustment. Considering this aim, this paper seeks to identify European fishermen's willingness for occupational and geographical mobility and the characteristics that influence this willingness. A survey was conducted with the participants in the inshore commercial fisheries of the Highlands of Scotland (UK), the Algarve (Portugal) and the South Evoikos Gulf (Greece), and logit models fitted to identify the characteristics that influence willingness for labour mobility. The paper argues that there are differences in attitudes towards labour mobility among fishermen from the different countries and that personal preferences, demographic characteristics, job-related and financial reasons influence the willingness for both occupational and geographical mobility. The paper concludes by pointing out the importance of taking local conditions and the heterogeneity that characterizes fishermen's behaviour into account, in order to achieve successful policy measures aimed at providing alternative occupations for fishermen.     

The Dynamism of Organizational Practices: The Role of Employment Blueprints

This paper explores how founders’ blueprints affect the dynamism of organizational practices, and in particular the capability to sustain as well as change practices. First, a theoretical argument is developed on the critical role of founders’ blueprints of the employment model, which are difficult to alter and mark firms’ future paths by affecting the dynamism of organizational practices over an extended period of time. Subsequently, case studies of several organizational practices in three management consulting firms in the USA, the Netherlands and the UK illustrate how founders’ conceptions of the employment relationship (i.e. their employment model) affect the way in which competing demands of continuity and renewal are addressed. Moreover, engineering‐ or commitment‐oriented blueprints appear to facilitate the capability to adapt, while autocratic blueprints do not.     

Psychological Abuse in Young Couples: Risk Factors

ABSTRACT

In a study conducted at a major university in Spain, 648 university students between the ages of 17 and 23 years were assessed to identify the manifestations of psychological abuse prior to the consolidation of marital status (e.g., matrimony, start of cohabitation). To evaluate psychological abuse in the students’ intimate relationships, the authors created a Questionnaire on Psychological Abuse. Results show coercive patterns of interaction in the students’ dating relationships. Significant differences were found between men and women, with behavioral factors such as hostility, blaming, and abusive insistence. Future research is suggested that would permit changes in attitude and behavior to be introduced into dating relations.     

Volunteerism During Young Adulthood: An Italian Investigation into Motivational Patterns

This paper explores the motivational frame of Italian young adults involved in volunteerism and its relation to several variables included in Omoto and Snyder’s Volunteer Process Model framework. Some 461 Italian young adults (aged 24–31) involved in voluntary activities with children and adolescents were considered. Referring to Omoto and Snyder’s functionalist and motivational framework, a Ward’s method cluster analysis was performed to identify specific patterns of motivations originating from the aggregation of 4 factors of motivation (social, career, ego-protective, and values) measured with the Voluntary Function Inventory (VFI). The results show that young volunteers are inspired by a distinctive and composite pattern of motivations, including both self and other-oriented motivations. Multiple motivations underlying the activities are associated to satisfaction and good integration in the organization confirming that people spurred by more than one motivation are less vulnerable to costs related to the activity and are more likely to maintain a longer involvement.

Identity and the developmental origins of fusion: an exploratory approach / La identidad y los orígenes de la fusión en el desarrollo: un enfoque exploratorio

Abstract

Identity fusion involves a visceral feeling of oneness with a group, despite personal and social selves remaining differentiated. Previous research on identity fusion has focused on samples of adults and adolescents. The present studies aim at exploring how and when identity fusion develops in childhood. Our first goal was to find out to what extent personal and social identities must be developed for fusion to become possible. We conducted two exploratory studies where school-age children (six to 12 years old) participated in either focus group sessions or individual interviews. Our results show that although children are able to feel strongly connected with a group and express willingness to make significant personal sacrifices for the group, they fail to show fusion as it is found in adults, since their personal identity is not fully developed yet. Instead, these findings suggest the existence of a prior feeling that we called ‘protofusion’, the core of which is the strength of the relational ties with the members of the group.     

Parental Influence and Academic Achievement among Middle School Students: Parent Perspective

This study examined the effects of parental influence on middle school students' academic achievement. The sample included 32 parents of middle school students. The questionnaire measured: parental pressure and support; parental help, monitoring, and press for literacy; and communication. There was a relationship that approached significance between communication and academic achievement: as communication increased, academic achievement increased. There was also a relationship that approached significance between parental help, monitoring, and press for literacy and parents' highest level of education: the higher the level of education of parents, the more involved parents were. The implication for school social workers is discussed.