The Impact of Using Personal Learning Audits as a Means of Preparing Students for Practice: A Small‐Scale Evaluation

This paper examines the ‘effectiveness’ of a tool used by students to enable them to reflect upon their skill, knowledge and abilities in order that they can prepare for direct practice. The evaluation of the Personal Learning Audit (PLA) was carried out with a cohort of students on the part‐time BA/DipSW programme at Glasgow Caledonian University and was based on a direct practice placement undertaken between April and August 2005. The research was based on a range of methods that considered both the participants' perception of the PLA and its impact on their written work on placement. The intention of this mixed method approach was to obtain outcomes at a number of levels in relation to the efficacy of the tool. While the findings have to be considered in the context of the small‐scale nature of the research, the evidence of this study suggests that the PLA process is at its most effective when fully integrated into the students' learning structures both within the placement and the university setting.     

WHAT PREDICTS RELIGIOUS PARTICIPATION AND GIVING? IMPLICATIONS FOR RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES

In this article, we test whether or not positive/negative sanctioning increases religious behavior. Using data from the 1998 congregational module of the General Social Survey we find that, net of other predictors, immediate positive sanctions (receiving help from the congregation) and immediate negative sanctions (receiving criticism from the congregation) significantly increase the amount of money given by respondents to religious organizations. Our results also indicate that sanctions promised in the future (belief in Heaven and belief in Hell) have little to no effect on religious giving. Furthermore, we find that immediate positive and negative sanctions as well as future negative sanctions predict greater participation in religious organizations, while future positive sanctions show no such effects. The results are discussed in the context of the emerging trend of waning religious involvement in the contemporary United States.     

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SOCIAL PATHOLOGY? CONCEPTUAL FASHIONS AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEVIANCE

Social scientific concepts go in and out of fashion. Social pathology was once a popular title for undergraduate sociology courses and textbooks, but it fell out of favor about fifty years ago. Similarly, there is evidence that fewer contemporary sociologists are using the concept of deviance in their analyses. This article sketches a natural history of sociological concepts that denote categories of troubling conditions; it argues that such concepts pose definitional problems that make them pedagogically helpful but analytically problematic.     

The racialisation of African youth in Australia

In this paper I argue that patterns of reporting on ‘African youth’ in Australia show how both the constraints under which the media operates and the wider sources of institutional racism contribute to new applications of racialising frames. I seek to establish specific patterns of racialisation through an analysis of newspaper articles appearing in Melbourne over a roughly two month period when media attention was focused on a series of violent incidents in which African refugees were identified as either victims or perpetrators. Initial reporting is determined by journalistic reliance on police accounts of incidents involving a racially defined ‘problem group’ as evidence of the predispositions of this group within a wider narrative of worsening gang crime. The racialising premises established by police are retained even in subsequent coverage framed by the problematic of ‘integration’. Despite racism being identified and named in the course of reporting, it remains subsumed under the weight of frames which assume that the problem lies essentially with the ‘problem group’.     

Mechanisms of religious trauma amongst queer people in Australia’s evangelical churches

Clinical Social Work Journal - Christian communities teaching traditional theology and ethics, which treat diverse sexualities and gender expansive identities as sinful, can be places where...     

Developmental stability and leadership effectiveness

Developmental stability is the degree to which we can withstand environmental or genetic stressors during development. Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), concerns the extent to which the right and left side of the body is asymmetrical and is one way to measure developmental stability. Two studies were carried out that examined both the predictive value of leader FA with leadership behaviors and its role in facilitating group performance. The first study examined the hypothesis that a leader's FA is correlated with scores on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). The results revealed individuals with a more asymmetrical morphology scored higher on the transformational, but not transactional, dimensions of leadership behavior. A second study examined the hypothesis that asymmetrical morphology and leadership effectiveness would share a positive relationship. In this study participants who led a business game exercise, revealed a positive relationship between FA and self-reported well-being and task satisfaction. Importantly, there was also a positive correlation between the leader's FA score and group performance. The role that developmental stability may play in leadership effectiveness is discussed in the wider context of evolutionary psychology.     

Global operations strategy: Coordinating manufacturing networks

This paper presents a concept that describes how companies can manage their international operations so as to facilitate the coordination of their manufacturing networks. The research presented originates from a model that was developed at the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson in the mid-1990s, but has since then been further elaborated. More specifically, the purpose of this paper is to show how Ericsson Radio Systems incorporated the recent research on manufacturing networks found in literature in their global operations strategy, and to present the conceptual model that was the result of these efforts. The conceptual model described in this paper focuses on the blending of cost competitiveness, flexibility, and innovativeness; a combination termed the “transnational solution” in the literature. In addition to a literature review on manufacturing networks and global operations and the proposed conceptual model, the paper also contains a case illustration showing how Ericsson has implemented a version of the conceptual model so that their global operations strategy realizes the transnational solution.     

The role of support person for Ngaanyatjarra women during pregnancy and birth

BackgroundThis study took place in a remote community on the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, Western Australia. Ngaanyatjarra women's cultural practices have been subject to erosion during the past 70 years. Women are now expected to birth hundreds of kilometres from home and, due to financial barriers, without family support. Older women lament their lack of input into, and control of, contemporary birthing services.Research questionIn order to provide culturally appropriate maternity services we asked: What issues would the Ngaanyatjarra women of the community like to see resolved in the area of antenatal and birthing services?Participants and methodsEligible participants were any Ngaanyatjarra women of the study community who had birthed at least once. We utilised a participatory research methodology. 36 women were interviewed.FindingsThis paper discusses one finding related to support for child-bearing women. The role is important in many ways. Ngaanyatjarra women did not traditionally have their support persons with them during labour and birth, nor do they necessarily expect them to be present in current times. Most women do, however, wish to have a support person with them during antenatal checkups and when they travel to town to await birth.ConclusionAboriginal women from remote communities should be able to have a support person with them when they access regional birthing services, but the nature of this role must not be assumed. A culturally appropriate service has input from the community, provides options and respects choices.     

Sample Attrition and Labor Supply Response in Experimental Panel Data

Sample attrition is a potentially serious problem for analysis of panel data, particularly experimental panel data. In this article, a variety of estimation procedures are used to assess the importance of attrition bias in labor supply response to the Seattle and Denver Income Maintenance Experiments (SIME/DIME). Data from Social Security Administration earnings records and the SIME/DIME public use file are used to test various hypotheses concerning attrition bias. The study differs from previous research in that data on both attriters and nonattriters are used to estimate the experimental labor supply response. Although not conclusive, the analysis suggests that attrition bias is probably not a serious enough problem in the SIME/DIME data to warrant extensive correction procedures. The methodology used in this study could be applied to other panel data sets.