Towards standardization of field work practicum: experiential reflections from Delhi,India

ABSTRACT

Field work is the signature pedagogy of social work. As a central form of instruction, it enables the course of learning by enabling the students to perform the role of practitioner. Field work contains pedagogical norms with which students learn to connect and integrate theory and practice. The current paper delineates the pedagogy of field work practicum in the Indian context and attempts to explore the challenges in transaction of field work curriculum with respect to placement agencies, at the levels of supervisor and supervisee and the ever evolving and dynamic relationship between the two. Based on authors’ experiential accounts, the paper recommends few strategies for enhancing the scope of professional growth and learning within the broad realms of field work placement.     

Social work stories: situated views and larger visions in disciplinary scholarship and education

ABSTRACT

This paper is about the changing imaginations of social work in an increasingly entangled world. It is also about the ways in which literatures shared across time and space encourage us to identify with larger collectivities. My central argument is that if social work is to find a larger vision in the wake of the failure of a range of modern progress narratives, we must engage differently with the challenge posed by multiplying and sometimes conflicting knowledge communities. Thinking with contemporary debates in transdisciplinary critical social theory, I nominate and explore a number of alternative heuristics—‘generational problematic,’ ‘translational space,’ and ‘imagined communities’—in support of future work on the uneven temporal and spatial communities of affiliation that reproduce and change what social work is, or could be, about. I conclude with theoretical suggestions, and some thoughts toward how social work education might better support incoming generations to locate themselves within the broader life-course of the discipline and profession.     

Young people,social workers and social work education: the role of digital skills

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses a key issue in the development of youth-focused social work: the role of digital skills in the relationship between young people and social workers who work with these native digital users. To this end, we analysed data from the International Digital Economy and Society Index 2019 and Eurostat. Information from the sixth European Working Conditions Survey and a survey conducted by the Social Care Institute for Excellence and the British Association of Social Workers supported the empirical analysis. The main findings reveal a gap between the level of digital skills required in the labour market and the actual level of digital skills in both young people and social workers, despite efforts by both groups to improve their skills. Initiatives to foster digital skills are therefore recommended to bridge this digital divide. Lastly, it was concluded that both groups could act as mutual drivers of digital transformation.     

From Adaptivity to Adaptation: Examining the Career Construction Model of Adaptation

The author examined a multiple mediation model and a moderation model for the relationships among adaptivity (in terms of future work self and proactivity), career adaptability, adapting responses (in terms of career decision self-efficacy [CDSE] and career engagement), and adaptation (in the form of academic satisfaction) among 282 university students. Results showed that career adaptability, CDSE, and career engagement fully mediated the relations of future work self and proactivity with academic satisfaction. Career adaptability also had a mediation role in the relationships of future work self and proactivity with CDSE and career engagement. The relationship between career adaptability and academic satisfaction was fully mediated by CDSE and career engagement. Career adaptability did not moderate the relationships between adaptivity indices and adapting indices. These results support the serial multiple mediation model, which is introduced in the adaptation model. Career education and career coaching could improve clients' agency through working on their self-regulation resources, self-efficacy beliefs, and overt career behaviors.     

‘It's not acceptable for the husband to stay at home': Taking a discourse analytical approach to capture the gendering of work

This article illustrates some of the ways in which the notion of (paid) work is actively being gendered, and how these gendering processes take place not only through organizational practices but also in discourses that circulate outside an organization in the private domain. Drawing on 15 in‐depth interviews with women who opted out of their own professional career in order to accompany their husbands on their overseas work assignment to Hong Kong, we demonstrate some of the benefits of using a discourse analytical approach to capturing and identifying the processes through which these women actively (although not necessarily consciously) gender the notion of work, thereby reinforcing the gender order and its male bias. We argue that identifying and making visible these gendered and gendering practices is an important component of, and a potential trigger for, change both in organizations as well as private contexts.     

Young people and the gendered and aesthetic dimensions of ‘enterprise’: stories from a ‘Rust Belt’ city

ABSTRACT

In the ‘Rust Belt’ city of Geelong in Victoria, Australia, discourses of young people’s enterprise and innovation provide a counter-narrative to the prevailing material and symbolic consequences of industrial decline, job losses, and the growing insecurity of employment and income. GT Magazine is a weekly, large circulation magazine in Geelong with a significant focus on the activities and aspirations of enterprising young people. In this paper, we examine, by utilising techniques of content analysis and discourse analysis, the particular ways in which young people’s innovation and enterprise are framed and enacted in GT Magazine. Our analysis reveals that ‘youth’ and ‘enterprise’ are, in GT Magazine, given an embodied form that is powerfully marked by aestheticised, normalised enactments of gender, class and race. In doing this work, we make productive contributions to three key themes in contemporary youth studies: new work orders and the youthful self as enterprise; the gendered and aesthetic dimensions of affective labour in these new work orders; and the emerging spatial turn to examine young people's embodied, place-based experiences of employment and enterprise. We seek to make problematic the sense that solutions to multiple disruptions and crises in capitalism and the environment are to be found in young people’s enterprise. Particularly when that enterprise is given form in ways that are aestheticised, gendered, classed, individualised and responsibilised.     

When the main job tasks are perceived to be ‘irrelevant’ in the workplace: the internal uselessness of corporate social responsibility work in Japan

ABSTRACT

Despite a symbolic shift toward ‘emotional taint’ in dirty work literature, the role of the workplace has not been studied in relation to socially admired professions, such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) work. This article carries out an in-depth, critical examination of CSR as an emotionally tainted occupation in Japan. Its findings, substantiated by an analysis of 34 CSR workers’ rhetoric, help conceptualise ‘internal uselessness’. This emerges when workers feel their organisations publicly foster an image of their work that is decoupled from its internal reality, assigning them chief tasks they consider irrelevant. This leads to negative consequences that damage their workplace social relationships, professional aspirations and emotional well-being. The findings ultimately show that these CSR workers in Japan attempt to counterbalance internal uselessness through a social quest with peers outside their workplace, but also manage their emotions by rationalising their job status as inescapable, influenced by situated commitment norms.     

A Hitchhiker's Guide to caring for an older person before and during coronavirus‐19

Coronavirus‐19 (COVID‐19) has reconfigured working lives with astonishing velocity. Older people have suffered the worst effects of the pandemic, with governments marginalizing or overlooking their needs. Women perform the majority of care for older people, often compromising their working lives and health. Yet in academic articles their voices are often filtered or aggregated in quantitative studies. Based on a weave of personal experiences and secondary research, the article traces a path through UK forms of care and shows how the inadequate response to COVID‐19 stemmed from existing policies embedded in health and social care. COVID‐19 has severed important informal care work, rendering the vulnerable yet more exposed and carers anxious and bereft. Longitudinal research capturing the trajectory of care from the perspective of older people and their carers would lead to improved support hence gender equality.     

习近平关于人民健康重要论述的理论内涵与实践价值

促进全民健康，决胜全面小康。习近平总书记关于人民健康的重要论述，充分彰显了以人民为中心的时代要求，蕴含着以推动全面建成小康社会为战略目标，以维护社会公平正义为价值追求，以社会资源共建共享为方法路径，以中国特色社会主义制度的优越性为条件保证的丰富内涵。在新时代，习近平总书记关于人民健康的重要论述对于加快实施健康中国战略、推动构建中国健康工作体系特别是指导此次新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情防控展现出重要的实践价值。     

‘It simplifies research!’: impact of a song lyrics exercise among MSW students

ABSTRACT

The use of pop culture sources in social work education enhances the learning of MSW students in the human behavior, policy and diversity courses. Pop culture sources can enhance learning because of the potential for a quicker recall of content, revealing hidden talents and sophisticated understanding of the concepts, and making the assignments more enjoyable for students. However, the impact of utilizing pop culture sources among MSW students in research courses remains unknown. It is imperative that contemporary teaching modalities be implemented in research courses because MSW students have mixed feelings about taking research classes and conducting research of their own. The purpose of this article is to report findings of the implementation of a pop culture source-analyzing song lyrics-in an introductory MSW research class at one university in the USA. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from (N = 17) MSW students. Findings lend support to utilizing the song lyrics exercise, as students reported enhanced self-efficacy and knowledge of the research process. Future research should assess the impact of this activity with larger samples.