Women's working conditions in hospital cleaning: a case study

Hospital cleaning work, as health care work, is mainly performed by women all over Europe. Hospital cleaning activities represent a poorly studied sector although very important also for patient's health. We applied the Method of Organizational Congruencies to study cleaning work in three typical hospital units (Emergency Room, Haematology, General Medicine) of a roman University hospital where 198 women cleaners work. We analyzed the 731 technical actions performed in the three shifts and the related Organizational Constraints (OC). Working outsourcing, no occupational risks training, washing personal equipment at home, standing, long walking, early morning and night shift in emergency room, high monotony (>10 actions per hour) contact with biological and chemicals materials, risk conditions of accidents, artificial lights, hot microclimate and working in a cure setting represent the main Organizational Constraints. Differences among the three Units are discussed together with the importance of considering cleaning hospital as a preventive action towards hospital clinical risk.     

New Perspectives on Jacob von Stählin: Towards an Intellectual Biography*

The article is devoted to Jacob von Stählin, an important figure of the eighteenth-century Russian Culture. The contribution is an attempt to reconstruct his intellectual biography based on new archival researches. The role of Stählin from the 1735 to his death is provided, paying particular attention to his work as a poet and his contribution to the Academy of Sciences and the artistic activities.     

‘What shall I pack in my suitcase?’: the role of work-integrated learning in sustaining social work students’ professional identity

Interest in the reflective practitioner as a model of a ‘good professional’ has increased in several professional fields and is also valued within social work education as a key aspiration to address the uncertainties and challenges encountered in contemporary working environments. Reflecting on their own professional identity, as well as theories, values, and devices used in professional practice, can help practitioners deal with complex work demands and help students be better equipped to transition from university to work. Work-integrated learning (WIL) provides students with an opportunity to integrate academic learning with ‘real-world’ experiences to develop both valuable self-monitoring and professional self-constructive ability. This paper presents a case study in social work higher education in which WIL class-based teaching was combined with the use of reflective journals to explore the role of WIL in developing reflective practices for professional identity formation. 21 reflective journals by social work students are analysed. The findings suggest that teaching practices based on WIL enable professional identity formation by developing reflective practices, and that different learning conditions sustain specific dimensions of professional identity, i.e. professional expertise, membership to a professional community and sense of professional self.