The History Mystery

Two social studies methods instructors created an assignment that places teacher candidates in leadership roles in partnerships with community organizations to plan and implement projects to increase student learning. This article outlines the project requirements, past project results, and student reflections on the collaborative effort. It provides evidence of the success and effectiveness of collaborative projects at increasing student learning, providing opportunities for leadership, and challenging students to become involved in community issues.     

Group Work in Graduate Social Work Education: The Price of Neglect

Abstract

Although social work practice with groups is on the rise, social work education has neglected to prepare students for group work practice. The results of a 1991 survey show that graduate education has practically eliminated group work as a specialized area of study. Most schools offer group work only as an elective, and few students graduate with a course in this subject. Additionally, students in foundation courses learn little about group work theory and have limited or no group field work experience in which to develop practice skills. The authors discuss the consequences of this lack on student learning, faculty development, field education, and the social work curriculum. They make recommendations for schools and CSWE to revitalize group work in the curriculum.     

Using Single System Design for Student Self-Assessment

This article offers a strategy for students to more rigorously assess their professional growth related to assessment and planning skills, and provides an example of how a program with limited resources designed a strategy to foster curriculum integration by developing a field practicum assignment in which the goals and objectives focus on the confluence and shared mutuality of practice and research content. Discussion surrounding obstacles encountered in the implementation process and recommendations regarding future applications of the pilot model are presented.     

Charity Care in Crisis: Reclaiming a Lost Professional Ethic

Abstract

The concept of “charity care” is a fundamental principle in the practice of medicine. This paper examines the origins of the construct charity, the expansion of charitable care during the Middle Ages, and its gradual secularization throughout the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The paper then highlights the transformation of Almshouses, Infirmaries and Dispensaries into charitable institutions of medical science in the nineteenth century with the birth of progressivism during the early twentieth century. A conceptual model is then presented that depicts the erosion and qualitative changes in charity care as a result ofthe corporatization of health care over the course of the last century. The construct of charity care is now in crisis. The medical profession has gradually disassociated from its obligation of charitable care as an ethical precept for the practice of medicine. The paper ends with a challenge to reclaim and renew the importance of charity in the provision of health services.     

Relationship among Willingness to Listen,Receiver Apprehension,Communication Apprehension,Communication Competence,and Dogmatism

The purpose of this research was to investigate whether people vary in their willingness to listen and whether this variable has any relationship to dogmatism, receiver apprehension, Self-Perceived Communication Competence (SPCC), or communication apprehension. A refined version of the Willingness-To-Listen (WTL) instrument was used to test these relationships. The results indicated that the WTL scale is a reliable and valid measure of an individual's habitual propensity to listen. WTL was found to be positively related to communication skills and negatively related to receiver apprehension, sender-based communication apprehension, and dogmatism.     

‘Whose side are you on?’ Dilemmas in conducting feminist ethnographic research with young women

Drawing on two recently completed ethnographic studies of young women in the West Midlands, this paper explores a series of issues about the application of feminist principles and practice to such research. One study analysed young women's friendships, mainly through participant observation in school, supplemented by participation at a youth club. The other explored the likely success of the former Conservative Government's ‘Health of the Nation's’ targets for aspects of young women's health, through extended attendance at two youth clubs, supplemented by ‘shadowing’ informants at school. Both studies also used interviews, diaries and other data sources. Driven by the researchers' desire to ‘give a voice’ to their informants, this paper reviews power relationships in the production of knowledge; issues about self-presentation; securing access to and winning the trust of the young women; and their resolution of some of the ethical dilemmas which confronted the researchers in the course of their fieldwork.     

House edge: hold percentage and the cost of EGM gambling

Price in commercial gambling is effectively the house edge of the game. For electronic gaming machines (EGMs), house edge is the hold percentage. The paper tracks changes in hold percentage for club and hotel EGM gambling in Australia. We use real gambling turnover and revenue data to show that hold generally falls over time, save for the State of Victoria between 1993 and 2009. In Victoria, hold fell during the roll-out phase of the sector, before rising steadily. We examine local level data, finding that hold varied considerably by gaming operator across the period, before converging. The unique owner/operator corporate duopoly that existed in Victoria is posed as a potential explanation for aggregate price changes. We then calculate estimates of the monetary value of changes in hold percentage. We find increased hold can lead to substantial monetary redistributions of gamblers' stakes toward the house and away from gamblers. Policy options to protect gamblers from the unfairness of undetectable price rises are discussed, including the possibility of a more tightly regulated hold percentage, a tax on windfall profits derived from raising hold, and tying game identities to particular hold percentages.     

Book reviews

The US campaign for ‘pure food’ from the 1880s through 1906 featured a diverse coalition of groups with quite different ways of defining the problem, identifying the relevant actors, and balancing political and consumerist tactics. This paper examines how these differences in framing, rather than undermining cooperation or impeding success, helped to broaden the coalition for pure food and to win passage of the 1906 Food and Drug Act. It pays particular attention to the ways in which women's groups acted as frame brokers, translating pure food issues into a maternalist language and, in so doing, contributing both new support and new tactics to the campaign. The case study is used to address more general issues in the relationship between framing and (1) coalition-building and (2) tactical repertoires.