Power,poets and the people: Mozambican voices interpreting history

This article analyses the relationship between the state and the nascent African trade unions in South Africa between 1918 and 1948. It shows how the government's attempts to deal with African workers separately from white workers became increasingly difficult during this period. Pressures from African unions themselves, from liberal groups and from the increasingly important role played by Africans in the economy, forced the state to seek a coherent way of handling African trade unions. The paper shows how the state was divided over this issue, with Native Affairs and Labour Department officials conflicting with each other and with government ministers. Although the cabinet held ultimate power within the state, civil servants played a significant role in shaping government policy and determining how it was implemented. The paper concludes that, although circumstances have changed greatly since 1948, the pre‐apartheid era has important lessons for state/organised labour relations in the post‐apartheid South Africa which is currently taking shape.     

Getting Active in the Gulf: Environmental Attitudes and Action Following Two Mississippi Coastal Disasters

The current study examined the impact of the Gulf Oil Spill and Hurricane Katrina, environmental attitudes, and environmental action among residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The authors sought to determine if disaster impact, worry about the environment, or connection to nature was associated with environmental action following the oil spill and in general. We hypothesized that disaster impact and environmental attitudes would be significantly associated with environmental action. Surveys were administered to 1,108 individuals receiving mental health services in connection with the Gulf Oil Spill. Results indicated that disaster impact was correlated with environmental worry, connection to nature, and action. Additionally, environmental worry and connection to nature were significantly associated with action, as were the effects of Hurricane Katrina to a lesser degree. This study supplements the existing literature by examining environmental attitudes, disaster impact, and their association with environmental action following two disasters.     

Partial Partial Likelihood

The maximum likelihood and maximum partial likelihood approaches to the proportional hazards model are unified. The purpose is to give a general approach to the analysis of the proportional hazards model, whether the baseline distribution is absolutely continuous, discrete, or a mixture. The advantage is that heavily tied data will be analyzed with a discrete time model, while data with no ties is analyzed with ordinary Cox regression. Data sets in between are treated by a compromise between the discrete time model and Efron's approach to tied data in survival analysis, and the transitions between modes are automatic. A simulation study is conducted comparing the proposed approach to standard methods of handling ties. A recent suggestion, that revives Breslow's approach to tied data, is finally discussed.     

Inter and Intra Professional Social Work Differences: Social Works Challenge

Social work historically has had two overarching domains. One domain is concerned with communities and policy development, the other with direct practice involving individuals, groups and families. Both the macro and micro domains are infused with concerns of social justice and advocacy. Conflict in the profession between social justice and casework began over a century ago, with early social work leaders Mary Richmond and Jane Addams. Controversy within the profession continues today. This paper will present many of the differing viewpoints within the ever-changing kaleidoscope of the profession. The paper will objectively present the issues of debate regarding micro and macro foci and recent debates related to professionalization, licensure, and the education of social workers. It will challenge readers to critically think about their own practices and view points. The synergy of the profession is much more than either people changing or society changing. As a profession we must move beyond the discord to the embodiment of harmony. The problem of AIDS will be discussed in order to demonstrate the challenges of working at both the micro and macro levels. Dorothea Marie Epple, PhD, LCSW, BCD is an Assistant Professor in the MSW program at the University of St. Francis. She received her PhD in 2002 at the Institute of Clinical Social Work Chicago and an MSW from Loyola in 1982. Dorothea has 25 years experience in Clinical Social Work in mental health, hospital and hospice settings.     

Nonverbal behavior and attitudes toward touch

A measure of comfort with touching was found to predict whether or not subjects would volunteer to participate in an experiment involving hugging strangers of both sexes and also to predict levels of personal space. Among those volunteering to give hugs, subjects reporting greater comfort with touch rated those hugs more positively, but this seemed to reflect a readiness to interpret touch positively rather than any clear differences in the nature of the hug actually given. Earlier findings that women report greater comfort with touch than do men were replicated. It was found that reported touch comfort was directly related to such constructs as satisfaction with life, with oneself, and with one's childhood, as well as to self-confidence, assertiveness, socially acceptable self-presentation, and active rather than passive modes of coping with problems. Touch comfort was inversely related to expressed concerns with touches which might reflect status differentials, homosexuality, or negative affective states. It was concluded that the touch comfort construct reflects the degree of one's openness to expressing intimate behavior, the degree to which one adopts an active, rather than passive, interpersonal style, and the degree to which one's social relationships are satisfactory.     

Psi in the family

Summary The case of Mark, age four, is presented in which his viral infection and conversion symptom of tonic arm spasm disappear one afternoon after his father naps at his side. Later the same day, in play therapy with his grandmother, the boy verbalizes a fantasy concerning the manner in which her old dog had died some months ago. The same night, after the children are asleep, the father reports a nightmare which he had during the nap as he lay beside his son. In manifest detail and also interpretively, the nightmare corresponds closely to the boy's play therapy fantasy. At the time of his play fantasy Mark had no knowledge of the fact or content of the father's nightmare.The familial dynamics surrounding the parallel phenomena are discussed from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, with emphasis on the fusion of oral and oedipal correspondences between father and son during a period of situational stress for the family. The data are considered illustrative of the need to treat families as a unit rather than to focus on their most symptomatic members.A comparison is drawn between this type of involuntary transfer of the pain or sickness and the ritualized healing procedures among many so-called primitive ethnic groups, where such transfer as took place between father and son is ceremonially practiced between patient and shaman through various modes of physical contact.     

How Japanese partners help US manufacturers to raise productivity

Cross-border alliances are useful strategies for technological innovation and as a basis for the adaptation of foreign technologies. This study provides evidence that through strategic alliances US automotive firms are effectively adopting manufacturing technologies from Japan, and are adapting them to the US industrial context.

The results show that US firms without foreign affiliations use fewer modern manufacturing technologies than US firms with Japanese strategic alliance partners. Furthermore, US firms with Japanese strategic alliance partners believe that manufacturing cycle times for product introduction are more efficient that US firms without foreign affiliations.     

A "READER'S THEATER" INTERVENTION TO MANAGING GRIEF: POSTTHERAPY REFLECTIONS BY A FAMILY AND CLINICAL TEAM

The sudden and accidental death of a child can be one of the most devastating events in the life of a family. This paper describes one couple's reflections of their grief and mourning following the death of their adolescent son as well as the clinical team's reflections of therapy. The uniqueness of this paper is that it offers a "reader's theater" intervention that enabled further change to occur. The clinical team used a belief model, emphasizing that altering constraining beliefs is at the heart of healing from such tragedies as sudden death (Wright, Watson, & Bell, 1996). This approach is operationalized through therapeutic conversations between family members, clinician, and clinical team. Interventions such as reflecting teams, therapeutic letters, and "homework tasks" were used to modify or challenge constraining beliefs of both the family members and the clinical team members. However, the intent to co-author a paper with this couple provided the serendipity intervention of a "reader's theater" that further served to identify, affirm, and solidify facilitating beliefs.