HYBRIDITY THEORY AND KINSHIP THINKING

A parallel is posited between the ways hybridity and kinship are thought about in Western contexts, challenging the idea that kinship and biology tend to lead to narrow, roots-oriented, essentialized definitions of identity. Rather than being the opposite of rhizomic, diasporic hybridity, kinship and biology partake of the tension between roots and routes that is characteristic of all hybridity. Anthropological evidence on the character of Western kinship thinking is examined to elucidate some features of its flexibility. Theories of hybridity are seen as being themselves a type of kinship thinking.     

An Examination of the Persistence of the Residual Child Welfare System in the United States: Addressing Charges of Radical Theoretical Myopia with Implications for Social Work Practice

The United States follows what has been termed a “residual” approach to its public child welfare system. This article describes the residual model and contrasts it with the policies of other industrialized nations. It also explores the causes and persistence of the residual model in the United States through the lens of structural-functionalist theory. By doing so, this article attempts to respond to critics of structural social work who maintain that it is overly reliant on conflict theory and has nothing to offer in terms of distinct practice methods. Suggestions for a structurally informed social work practice are made.     

Using E-Health Programs to Overcome Barriers to the Effective Treatment of Mental Health and Addiction Problems

E-Health programs for mental illness and addictive behaviors have recently emerged as potentially useful self-help resources. Health care professionals will soon have the option of referring clients to free-to-end-user online, expert-moderated e-health programs as complementary means of assisting clients. Such programs will have significant implications for developing improved stepped models of care. This article describes various e-health programs and lessons learned related to access, promotion, user demographics, and patterns of use. In addition, validation procedures, effectiveness and attrition rates, fitting and tailoring, and qualitative analyses of social networks are described. It is difficult to validate e-health programs that are completely anonymous and do not require registration, personal interaction, or membership fees. As competition emerges in the budding e-health industry, best practice guidelines will need to be developed for collecting data and evaluating the utility of these programs.     

Exploring the Experiences of Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,and Questioning Adolescents in Foster Care

This article is based on the findings from a subset of gender identity and sexual orientation questions from The Casey Field Office Mental Health Study (CFOMH). It aims to contribute the experiences of youth in the care of Casey Family Programs to the increasing body of research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) youth in foster care, as well as inform future studies in this area. The CFOMH study interviewed 188 adolescents ages 14 to 17 who were receiving foster care services from Casey Family Programs in 2006. The experiences in care of youth who identified as LGBQ (n = 10) are presented in narrative form, along with data from all youth in care (N = 188) regarding their perceptions of the foster care environment for LGBTQ youth. These findings are intended to underscore the need to conduct a larger, more in-depth study of the experiences of LGBTQ youth in foster care and the environment that foster care provides for them.     

The Incident: Not Just Another Organizational Disruption

Issue and crisis: These concepts are well-understood, even though various definitions exist. A third concept, incident, is less defined. This article reports a content analysis of articles from two public relations journals (n = 67) and three prominent public relations industry publications (n = 56) to understand how incident is contextualized and applied. Findings reveal a statistically significant difference in how academic and industry publications contextualize the concept and expose a need for a formal conceptualization. Building on the results of the analysis, this article, then, argues that incident is (a) defined as a theoretical concept and pragmatic communication-management matter, (b) implemented within a continuum of organizational disruption, (c) presented as a necessary concept for greater precision for the reporting and analyzing of disruptive events, and (d) needs to be included in future scholarly research about and models of disruptive events.     

Nomads and mobile places: disentangling place,space and mobility

Though there is a danger that ‘place’ may become subsumed or ignored in research as attention now shifts to questions of ‘mobility,’ discussion of place has burgeoned throughout academia. Many texts declare that place is important, or proclaim the power of place. While place has been shown to be a fundamental part of human existence, what does this then mean for those who are characterized as not being interested in places? Examining nomadic Gypsies and Travelers in Britain, who are often constructed as placeless, highlights that this is not simply a representational concern, but has a tangible empirical affect, impinging on their everyday practices as well as influencing policies and laws that actively deny them their right to place. By exploring various definitions of place and how this impacts the understanding of mobilities, I demonstrate that the meaning ascribed to nomads is dependent upon a spatialized definition of place which is underpinned by the space-place binary. It is this aspect of the discourse that allows for nomads to be constructed as out-of-place wherever they are, and by recognizing this we can avoid framing placelessness as a natural characteristic of nomadism. Reconceptualizing place allows for more nuanced understandings of nomadism, as our identities are constructed in relation to both place and mobility, not just one or the other.     

The Living and the Dead in Education: Commentary on Julian Williams

ABSTRACT

Vygotsky and Ilyenkov were like-minded in their desire to create a materialistic psychology. They were also brought together by the understanding that their dream can be realized only on the basis of Spinozism. However, both theorists understood Spinoza differently. Ilyenkov considered the core of Spinozism to be the principle of object-oriented activity (materialistic monism). By contrast, Vygotsky tried to deduce his theory from the idea of affect, understanding affect not as a subject-oriented activity, but as independent “psychological” entity. Thus, instead of the desired new “Spinozian psychology,” Vygotsky involuntary returned to the classical understanding of life as a mechanical process.