Competency‐based Education: Evidence from Social Work Postgraduates from Five Universities in China

Social work education in China has undergone rapid development during last two decades. However, methods to define, measure, and evaluate social work students' competency remain largely unexplored. In this study, we evaluated competency in graduate social work students in China and examined factors that impacted competency, based on learning theory. Findings indicated that knowledge and skills learned in class, field placement, and social context all have effects on competency. How students think about individual development and the social work profession has the most significant effect. These findings carry implications for social work education in the Chinese context. The rapid development of social work education in China requires the effective measurement and evaluation of students' core competencies.     

实物·实事·通考——由王国维商周礼制研究看民国学者对传统考据的科学化推进

王国维的商周礼制文化研究,包含基于实物材料的器物文字考据,基于实事的礼仪制度考据,基于制度变革的文化通考,在考据中加入现代科学元素,有力推动了礼学考据的科学化,实际破除了三代王统道统的经学观念,促使礼学考据向实证礼学、传统经史之学向现代史学转型。     

Countervailing institutional forces: corporate governance in Turkish family business groups

This longitudinal study investigates the impact of national and international pressures to improve corporate governance in an emerging economy from an institutional theory perspective. Recently, family business groups (FBGs), the dominant form of organizing in emerging economies, have been criticized by policy makers for their poor governance structures. A common recommendation to FBGs has been increasing the number of independent, outsider directors on their boards. Thus, change in the board compositions of the quoted subsidiaries of the six biggest FBGs is analyzed over 2002–2006. One-way-ANOVA and t-tests were used as statistical tools. Findings reveal that there has not been a statistically significant change in board compositions over the research period. FBGs were found to resist institutional pressures through ‘avoidance’, ‘defiance’ and “manipulation” strategies due to the absence of coercive pressures and multiple forms of ‘institutional work’ for change.     

The sprawling thicket: Knowledge and specialisation in forensic social work

This exploratory study uses a post-modern framework to investigate and map aspects of the (re)emerging occupational area of forensic social work, broadly defined as practice, which in any manner may be related to legal issues and litigation, both criminal and civil. The study is the result of each author asking questions about the nature of our professional experience in the field and then testing our thoughts against those of other social workers in the field. Our aim was to initiate discussion about the nature of forensic social work and to question whether our work called upon skills and knowledge that differed from those of social workers in other (specialised) fields. We used a cooperative inquiry method and significant themes and issues were raised with agreement for much of the discussion. The most lively dialogue centred upon the benefit or disadvantage of specialisation, with tensions evident around the perceived elitism some participants attached to the specialist title. The initial investigation raised several issues for further investigation.     

A social policy model for the reconciliation of employment and family life from a gender equality perspective

The issue of family–employment reconciliation has rapidly evolved from being ignored to a certain dejá vu perception in public debate, as a result of its media success during the last decade. This is even more the case in Spain, where it was only in the late 1990s, when a law was passed to regulate and extend parental and other leave for workers with close relatives in need of care, that reconciliation policies began to be generally discussed and considered. In a context of quick population aging as a consequence of low fertility, concern on labor force supply in the middle term is high on the agenda. Women are increasingly considered to be necessary both as workers and mothers (of future workers), thus raising awareness of the importance of social policies to make their double presence in both worlds possible. There is now general agreement from the right to the left on the urgency to develop family–employment policies. But what is not generally addressed is the impact of such policies on gender equality, a dimension which tends to be either ignored or taken for granted. Not all reconciliation measures have the same effects on the women and men relationship. Some of them push forward equality, whereas others go backwards. Efficiency in making job and family responsibilities compatible does not always go hand in hand with increasing equality. The paper presents a theoretical model for the reconciliation of work and family life from a gender equality perspective. The three main kinds of instruments available in social policy – services, leave, and cash – are examined in four different cases: care of under-threes, care of sick children, coordination of work and school schedules, and care of children during school holidays. Each case is looked at considering its effects on social and gender equality, as well as child welfare. The model includes as active agents of the system the State (promotes and regulates), families and individuals (those directly implicated), and the market as labor market, on the one hand, and supplier of private services, on the other.     

Low-status work consequences on immigrant workers' organization: the cases of five immigrant groups in Athens

The article centres on the repercussions low-prestige work has on the collective organization and representation of immigrant workers. This micro-sociological analysis focuses on the cases of Egyptian, Albanian, Bangladeshi, Palestinian, and Philippine immigrants in Athens and how the frame of their work and their employment affects their participation in their immigrant work associations. Evidence from in-depth interviews proves that the majority of immigrants do not claim established workers' rights and do not seek membership in any unions. On the contrary, they rely on a network of friends and relatives for support and develop individual behaviours and alternative solutions to achieve survival and protection.     

Social work as gendered issue from a generational point of view

Social work is a gendered activity in terms both of its workforce and of the students who enter this profession. In this paper we analyse the underlying dynamics of this phenomenon in the Italian context, according to the characteristics and points of view of different generations of social workers. Data from a 2008 survey of 1000 interviews and 50 in-depth informant interviews are considered. Two multinomial linear models have been included in order to analyse the perceptions of younger and older social workers with regard to social work as ‘female work’ or ‘male work’. The results show that the perception of social work as a matter of gender is stronger among younger social workers, and that the younger generations appear to be less oriented towards equal gender roles. Longer work experience contributes to explaining different gender models. The chronological age of social workers, however, seems to be a less important variable in explaining the differences between generations.     

Women in corrections: A call to social work

As governments continue to spend more money on law enforcement and prison construction, social workers will be increasingly faced with clients who have connections with the criminal justice and correctional systems. Despite the increasing numbers of women entering the criminal justice system, they continue to be one of the most marginalised groups in Australian society. This article reviews the social work literature concerning this population and proceeds to argue that social work has a significant role to play with women in corrections. Using a conceptual model based on an ecological systems framework, the author examines the mutuality of various social work practice principles at different levels of intervention and the roles that social workers may engage in to enhance the lives of women in corrections.     

Gender and professional identity: A qualitative study of social workers practising as counsellors and psychotherapists

This article presents an analysis of the interactions between gender and class in the career pathways of social workers practising as counsellors and psychotherapists. Gender is one of the strong patterns found in the empirical data generated by a qualitative study of the professional identity of practitioners in social work. Gender was found to have a strong influence on the career choices made by men and women in social work. Women in the sample have pursued career directions that continue to have a strong clinical focus, combined with other roles such as management, supervision and training. They are more likely to express the need to balance their working lives with the needs of their families. Men are more likely to single-mindedly pursue careers in management and to express feelings of responsibility to provide for their families once children are born. However, the analysis of data also found that men were more likely to identify their family origins as working class, while women identify their family backgrounds as middle class. This patterning shows the complex interactions between gender and class in determining life outcomes. These differential pathways and work preferences need to be recognised and addressed to work towards more equitable outcomes for practitioners within social work, so that structural disadvantages on the basis of gender and class are challenged rather than replicated.     

Centrelink: how social workers make a difference for young persons. A model of intervention

It is mandatory for social workers at Centrelink to interview and assess under 18-year-old youth who are applying for the ‘Unreasonable to Live at Home’ (UTLAH) rate of Youth Allowance. The aims of this research project were to identify and describe social work models of intervention when interviewing young persons who applied for UTLAH payments and to examine the way in which social workers developed a response to organisational and legislative changes. The qualitative research consisted of two components: field observations of social work interviews with claimants and an open-ended questionnaire completed by social workers after the observed interaction. The research confirmed the hypothesis that parts of a number of social work interventions could be combined and used to effectively assess and assist clients within the prescribed short-term approach. In addition, it supported the researchers' belief that social work models of intervention could be adapted to organisational and environmental changes. A potential challenge for social workers at Centrelink is to produce a brief social work model of intervention that is flexible enought to be used by professionals across sectors.