'Anti-Oppressiveness': Critical Comments on a Discourse and its Context

This paper identifies and aims to explain an apparent dissonancebetween the dominance in Britain of ‘anti-oppressive’social work discourse and the socio-political context surroundingits use; a context often claimed to feature excessive regulationand control. Pursuing this, some politically radical aims associatedwith ‘anti-oppressiveness’ are spelt out, and thedifficulty of achieving these in an unconducive climate is discussed.Then, a distinction made by Robert Merton between ‘latent’and ‘manifest’ functions is used to suggest thatthe manifest radicalism of ‘anti-oppressive’ discoursecan helpfully be distinguished from some latent largely unrecognisedconsequences of its use – not consequences with politicallyradical impact, but with a social meaning congruent with a climateof control. It is concluded that the ‘success’ ofanti-oppressive discourse might well be viewed as requiringmore of the kind of critical analysis that the discourse itselfwas supposed to espouse.     

Variable precision rough set theory and data discretisation: an application to corporate failure prediction

Since the seminal work of Pawlak (International Journal of Information and Computer Science, 11 (1982) 341–356) rough set theory (RST) has evolved into a rule-based decision-making technique. To date, however, relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the efficacy of the rough set approach in the context of business and finance applications. This paper extends previous research by employing a development of RST, namely the variable precision rough sets (VPRS) model, in an experiment to predict between failed and non-failed UK companies. It also utilizes the FUSINTER discretisation method which neglates the influence of an ‘expert’ opinion. The results of the VPRS analysis are compared to those generated by the classical logit and multivariate discriminant analysis, together with more closely related non-parametric decision tree methods. It is concluded that VPRS is a promising addition to existing methods in that it is a practical tool, which generates explicit probabilistic rules from a given information system, with the rules offering the decision maker informative insights into classification problems.     

Moving the participation agenda forward

This article sets the scene for the other papers in this Special Issue on children's and young people's participation, by outlining the nature of the ESRC Seminar Series from which all are derived and by developing the main themes discussed at the seminars. The focus of this Issue is participation by children and young people as this relates to differing notions of social exclusion and inclusion. This article critically examines participation in the contexts of policy, practice, research and theory. In many respects the environments in each of these domains is supportive of increased participation, yet there is also much evidence of limited impact by recent participative measures and of disillusionment by many young people who have been engaged in consultation and decision‐making. A way forward is suggested, which entails collaboration among all the key stakeholders including children and young people, connects participatory and social inclusion aims and mechanisms, and is committed to achieving tangible outcomes based on the wishes of children and young people.     

On Prejudice and Socialization: Towards Social Work Action

I begin with the assumption that discriminatory attitudes and behaviour between person and person, group and group, nation and nation, are undesirable. They are undesirable for a number of reasons: the first, that they tend to weaken and fragment the culture-cradle of identity formation in the discriminated-against group, or alternatively that they lead to a defensive in-grownness in that culture which may have a number of consequences—a tight constriction of identity development, or an over-investment in the culture which may lead to isolation and impoverishment in the long run, or defensive projection at the group level on to the dominant culture with the possibility of covert or overt fear or war.     

Markov models of mite movements

Continuous time Markov models were used to analyse data from two bioassays to investigate the influence of β-fraction, a by-product of hop processing, on the two-spotted spider mite. The models were fitted to aggregate counts of the numbers of live and dead mites on treated and untreated halves of discs cut from leaves of hop and French bean plants. Some of the rate parameters were time dependent. Although not all parameters could be estimated precisely, the analysis enabled the quantitative effects of treatment over time to be estimated with reasonable precision. The estimated treatment effects were largely insensitive to the assumed values of other parameters. The first bioassay showed a progressive initial response to increasing concentration of β-fraction, although data at the intermediate concentration appeared anomalous. The second bioassay showed similar responses on hop and French bean leaves, with a stronger repellent effect on the lower leaf surface than on the upper surface.     

The moral bases of social work

Social work's conventional “value-talk” presents a professionally neutral value-system for making moral judgements, but paradoxically neglects the professional social role of making moral judgements on behalf of society. Conventional statements of social work's moral values neglect economic, political, and aesthetic value judgements and issues of logic, rhetoric, and epistemology, which should also be included in value debate. Social work's value codes are not 'basic', because they are not usable in practice, are not distinctive, comprehensive, or universal. Historical and sociological evidence suggests that social workers make moral judgements of their clients on behalf of society. These judgements should be earned out within a more comprehensive and better articulated value system, which is applied in the detail of everyday practice.     

Predictors of Relapse in Problem Gambling: A Prospective Cohort Study

To explore the variation of predictors of relapse in treatment and support seeking gamblers. A prospective cohort study with 158 treatment and support seeking problem gamblers in South Australia. Key measures were selected using a consensus process with international experts in problem gambling and related addictions. The outcome measures were Victorian Gambling Screen (VGS) and behaviours related to gambling. Potential predictors were gambling related cognitions and urge, emotional disturbance, social support, sensation seeking traits, and levels of work and social functioning. Mean age of participants was 44 years (SD = 12.92 years) and 85 (54 %) were male. Median time for participants enrolment in the study was 8.38 months (IQR = 2.57 months). Patterns of completed measures for points in time included 116 (73.4 %) with at least a 3 month follow-up. Using generalised mixed-effects regression models we found gambling related urge was significantly associated with relapse in problem gambling as measured by VGS (OR 1.29; 95 % CI 1.12–1.49) and gambling behaviours (OR 1.16; 95 % CI 1.06–1.27). Gambling related cognitions were also significantly associated with VGS (OR 1.06; 95 % CI 1.01–1.12). There is consistent association between urge to gamble and relapse in problem gambling but estimates for other potential predictors may have been attenuated because of methodological limitations. This study also highlighted the challenges presented from a cohort study of treatment and support seeking problem gamblers.