Automation: is it really different this time?

This review examines several recent books that deal with the impact of automation and robotics on the future of jobs. Most books in this genre predict that the current phase of digital technology will create massive job loss in an unprecedented way, that is, that this wave of automation is different from previous waves. Uniquely digital technology is said to automate professional occupations for the first time. This review critically examines these claims, puncturing some of the hyperbole about automation, robotics and Artificial Intelligence. The review argues for a more nuanced analysis of the politics of technology and provides some critical distance on Silicon Valley's futurist discourse. Only by insisting that futures are always social can public bodies, rather than autonomous markets and endogenous technologies, become central to disentangling, debating and delivering those futures.     

Systemic Therapists' Experience of Powerlessness

In this article we explore and discuss the relevance of the concept of powerlessness in systemic practice. The views and concerns of systemic trainees' groups are compared with those of experienced therapists'. We interviewed 12 experienced systemic therapists and investigated what made them feel powerless and how they dealt with it. Extracts from interviews are quoted and summarised in the text. We argue that therapists' powerlessness is a marginalised subject in the systemic approach and that open discussion about the topic would enhance therapists' self‐reflexivity and contribute to a fuller understanding of the part that power and powerlessness play in the therapeutic relationship. We consider the place of gender, culture and wider sociopolitical contexts in the experience of therapists' powerlessness. Finally we discuss the implications of our findings for systemic therapy, training and supervision.     

Working with Uncertainty: An Unfinished Case Study

A disclosure of sexual abuse, which is then retracted, places the family therapist in a difficult position both ethically and in terms of whom the therapist's primary alliance is to. This case study will examine some of these difficulties and will describe the process of working with a family when child protection issues are suspected but not substantiated.     

More on the measurement of inequality

The article, written in 1973, examines what comparisons of income distributions can be made when Lorenz curves cross, employing the concept of third-order stochastic dominance. “More on the measurement of inequality” as reviewed by Prof. P. Lambert will appear in the Rediscovered Classics section, along with the editorial.     

EXTENDED REVIEW

Deviance, Reality and Society by Steven Box Deviance and Society by Laurie Taylor. Deviance, Crime and Socio-Legal Control by Roland Robertson and Laurie Tayor. The New Criminology: For a Social Theory of Deviance by Paul Walton and Jock Young.     

A co-worker approach to working with families

Summary The co-worker approach offers workers additional armamentarium in working with families. Such advantages may never become manifest unless the workers both recognize possible limitations inherent in team endeavor and develop and even maximize the use of the co-worker relationship.The impact of the co-worker approach, as compared with other approaches, offers both personal and professional advantages. Personally, the worker engages in a continuing educational, self-awareness, and self-enhancing activity that contributes to his growth as a professional and as a person. The joy of relationships, mutual and reciprocal, is a part of this personal enhancement. Professionally, the promotion of therapy through examination and testing of new knowledge and skills based upon another professional's confirmation enhances the professional aspects of therapy. The use of co-workers further develops new styles of working with and in family constellations.     

Randomized trial of the healthy families Arizona home visiting program

The purpose of this paper was to examine the effectiveness of home visiting as a means of improving parental, child, and maternal outcomes and preventing child abuse and neglect. A randomized controlled trial was conducted in a large southwestern metropolitan area. One hundred and ninety-five women were randomly assigned to the Healthy Families Arizona experimental or control conditions. Significant results favoring the experimental group in contrast to the control group were found on some measures in each of five domains including violent parenting behavior, parenting attitudes and practices, parenting support, mental health and coping, and maternal outcomes.     

Lives in Motion: A Review of Former Foster Youth in the Context of their Experiences in the Child Welfare System

In light of the poor prospects facing many former foster youths during the transition to adulthood, it is surprising that so little attention has been given to substitute care contexts during child welfare system involvement. A review of child welfare research finds that many former foster youths go through an alarming number of placement changes and report a high rate of placement into congregate care settings and other unplanned events. Future research should take explicit account of substitute care contexts in designing and carrying out studies examining the adult outcomes of aging out foster care populations. Interventions intended to circumvent high rates of movement in foster care should also be broadened to target multiple aspects of substitute care contexts.     

Auditory status and experiences of abuse among college students

Studies that explore experiences of abuse among deaf or hard of hearing college students are sparse and usually focus on lifetime experiences rather than the college years. A random sample of more than 1,000 college students at a campus in Upstate New York provided the data for this study. An institute for the deaf or hard of hearing was one of the colleges at the university and provided a unique opportunity to explore experiences among this demographic. Victimization rates and experiences by auditory status--deaf and hard of hearing or hearing--were examined. Binomial regression analyses were employed and findings indicated a significant association with being deaf or hard of hearing and physical and psychological abuse at the hands of a partner. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.