The Changing Conditions of Social Work Research

Summary This paper seeks to make a contribution to the current debateabout the changing nature and purpose of social work research.It identifies several approaches to social work research evidentin the UK and further afield and, in particular, examines differentways of engaging with research participants in the researchprocess. The changing role and relations of research arisingfrom the use of more inclusive practices are then considered;first in terms of the relevance of research for practice, andsecondly, in relation to knowledge claims in the developmentof social work theory and practice. With the ever-growing developmentsin information and communication technologies, where Westernideas and initiatives continue to dominate in relation to bothmodels of social work and research approaches, an argument ismade for dialogue throughout the research process, the centralityof negotiating skills and reflexivity, and a more creative useof conventional research skills. Dialogue, in the form outlinedhere, provides a means of encouraging a ‘connectedness’between research, practice and theory, at all levels—theparticular location where the research takes place, the widernational context and the international or global stage.     

The Impact of Women’s Work on Gendered Health Inequities

ABSTRACT

How does the work that American women perform, both in the formal economy (paid labor) and in the caring economy (caring for children and households) negatively affect their health? The World Health Organization’s social determinants of health model is used to illuminate the causes of gendered health inequities. The social determinants of gendered health inequities that are correlated with women’s work include globalization, cultural norms, an imbalance of power between men and women, the feminization of work, the gendered pay gap, unequal responsibilities in the caring economy, the lack of recognition of the value of caring work, stress, and poverty.     

Validation of multidimensional scale of perceived social support in middle-aged Korean women with diabetes

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to validate the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) among middle-aged Korean women with type 2 diabetes. Methods: Data were collected from 123 middle-aged Korean women with diabetes. Construct and concurrent validity were examined using factor analysis. Results: Factor analysis extracted three factors: spouse, family, and friends. The MSPSS had relatively good concurrent validity (r = .66, p < .0001), construct validity, and strong reliability (Cronbach's alpha = .90). Conclusion: We concluded that the MSPSS is a simple and well-established instrument to measure social support in middle-aged Korean women with diabetes.     

Coordinate-free analysis of trends in British social mobility

This paper is intended to make a contribution to the ongoing debate about declining social mobility in Great Britain by analyzing mobility tables based on data from the 1991 British Household Panel Survey and the 2005 General Household Survey. The models proposed here generalize Hauser's levels models and allow for a semi-parametric analysis of change in social mobility. The cell frequencies are assumed to be equal to the product of three effects: the effect of the father's position for the given year, the effect of the son's position for the given year, and the mobility effect related to the difference between the father's and the son's positions. A generalization of the iterative proportional fitting procedure is proposed and applied to computing the maximum likelihood estimates of the cell frequencies. The standard errors of the estimated parameters are computed under the product-multinomial sampling assumption. The results indicate opposing trends of mobility between the two timepoints. Fewer steps up or down in the society became less likely, while more steps became somewhat more likely.     

Decision-Making of Mothers in Hong Kong Regarding the Occasional Use of Alternative Child-Care Arrangements

This study examines the use of alternative child-care arrangements as an everyday life decision in a family context. Interviews with twenty-four mothers from a working class neighborhood in a new town in Hong Kong were transcribed and analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Results of the analysis outlined: (a) the structural components of making a decision regarding alternative care, which consisted of demands, resource options, definitions of the situation, types of decision situations, and the respective decision-making strategies; and (b) the nature of decision-making processes, varying from ad hoc to standing. Together, these aspects illuminate how mothers make decisions regarding the use of alternative child-care arrangements and, in turn, the characteristics of family decision-making in everyday life.     

Butterfly diversity,habitat and vegetation usage in Hong Kong urban parks

The conservation value of urban parks for butterfly communities remains poorly understood, particularly for tropical butterflies in Asia. We conducted point count and route transect butterfly surveys, and used them to sample four habitats located within 13 urban parks across Hong Kong. We found 1054 individuals and 58 species of butterflies recorded in 60 survey hours over 6 months. This represents approximately one quarter of the entire known Hong Kong butterfly species list. Over 30 % of the individuals counted were Catospilia sp. but six of the species identified are classified locally as rare or very rare. Tree-covered habitats and grasslands showed higher butterfly diversity than open areas. The most common butterfly behavior was “directed flight,” which we also found to be habitat-dependent and most common in ponds and open areas. We additionally observed the use of vegetation in urban parks, which included 40 species of nectar plant and four records of butterfly oviposition. The high butterfly diversity, presence of rare species and usage of vegetation (especially as a nectar resource) we documented in this study suggests that urban parks have some conservation value for Hong Kong. However, the use of pesticides and heavy vegetation clearing may limit significant butterfly reproduction and population growth. Altogether these results emphasize the diversity of uses of urban parks for butterflies in Hong Kong while also providing possible directions for improvement in habitat and vegetation management that could increase urban park value for biodiversity.     

Defining urban,suburban, and rural: a method to link perceptual definitions with geospatial measures of urbanization in central and eastern Massachusetts

Developing greater understandings of socio-ecological relationships across urbanizing areas is increasingly recognized as important for the conservation and management of natural resources in a variety of development contexts. Efforts to do so have been hindered by a lack of consistent measures of urbanization and the challenge of integrating socio-cultural characteristics into definitions of urban. We present a novel method for linking perceptual definitions of urban, suburban, and rural to geospatial characteristics and demonstrate how the method can be used to map urban, suburban, and rural areas at multiple scales in central and eastern Massachusetts. Our method can facilitate comparative approaches to urban ecology, be used to scale up socio-ecological studies, and inform conservation research and practice in urbanizing areas.