Tracing the roots of mindfulness: Transcendence in Buddhism and Christianity

The field of social work has embraced mindfulness skills in the training of social workers and as an intervention used in practice. However, there is little discussion regarding the theoretical or religious roots of mindfulness. In addition, social workers often employ mindfulness by practicing within a behaviorist frame. Missing from this behaviorist frame are the historic religious definitions, aims, and values of mindfulness, which lead to a fuller understanding of mindfulness in social work practice. This article traces the religious roots of mindfulness to clarify its goals in both Buddhism and Christianity, with an emphasis on the Mahayana branch of Buddhism and the contemplative and mystical traditions within Christianity. In both religions, mindfulness leads one to an experience of transcendence, assisting the follower to realize that the self belongs in relationship with a divine oneness in Buddha nature, that is believed to be intrinsic to all sentient beings (in Buddhism), or a divine God through the person of Jesus Christ (in Christianity) where the self is retained. Social workers uphold the values of mindfulness and the profession itself when being sensitive to root mindfulness practice within its historical and religious contexts, particularly within Buddhist and Christian faith systems.     

Embodied versus Disembodied Information: How Online Artifacts Influence Offline Interpersonal Interactions

This article examines how the sheer volume of personal information recorded and searchable online (online artifacts) has transformed the situated activity system central to Goffman's dramaturgical theories. In‐depth interviews reveal that individuals believe disembodied information based on online artifacts is a more accurate representation of others than embodied information from spatially and temporally bounded face‐to‐face (FTF) processes because they represent how others have behaved over time and are attested by their online contacts. However, the n‐adic structure of online interaction leads to mismatched expectations about whether disembodied information is taken into account during FTF encounters, and consequently can result in embarrassment.     

Culture Change in Aged-Care Facilities: A Café's Contribution to Transforming the Physical and Social Environment

Objective: To discuss the potential of a café on the premises of an aged-care facility as a vehicle for culture change. Method: Secondary analysis of primary qualitative data that explored the value of a café in an aged-care facility, compared with culture-change principles established from a literature review. Results: Secondary analysis established congruence between culture-change principles and the themes established in the primary qualitative data. A café, in one aged-care facility, has facilitated the following dimensions of culture change for residents: individualized care, facilitation of meaningful relationships, opportunities for participation in life roles, and creation of a sense of belonging. Conclusion: Culture change can be achieved through environmental innovations, such as a café, where food and dining maximize social opportunities and create a homelike environment that facilitates continuation of residents' identity.     

Too Scared or Too Capable? Why Do College Students Stay Away from the H1N1 Vaccine?

Although college students were among the populations that had the highest frequency of infection for H1N1 influenza, only 8% of them received H1N1 vaccine this past flu season nationwide. During the peak of this pandemic, information about H1N1 vaccine was widely available. However, knowledge test and behavioral data indicated that most college students were not equipped with basic facts about H1N1 and the H1N1 vaccine. To investigate socio‐psychological factors that might have deterred this high‐risk population from learning about and getting the H1N1 vaccine, this study tested the utility of a risk information seeking model in addressing this health communication problem. Data collected from an online survey of 371 college students showed that respondents seemed to overestimate how much they knew about the vaccine. Risk information seeking, however, positively influenced their intentions to get the vaccine. Results suggested that to communicate effectively to this population, it is important to emphasize the difference between perceived knowledge and actual knowledge, monitor emotional responses to potential risks, and promote getting flu vaccination as a socially desirable behavior.     

“社会企业”与“食物银行”:澳门特区的社会管理创新刍议

伴随着经济的飞速发展,社会管理体制绝不能产生任何滞后。随着经济社会各领域发生深刻地变化,由政府高度主导的社会管理模式亦需要与时俱进地创新。作为国家特别行政区之一的澳门,近年来在经济上取得长足发展、政府公共财政收入颇为理想的情况下,不断探索"以民为本"的社会管理模式,努力辅助弱势社群,解决社会问题,持续营造良好的社会环境,促进社会和谐。澳门特区近年来推出的"社会企业"和"食物银行",是澳门政府现阶段社会管理的着力举措,体现出澳门特区的社会管理体制创新的特点。     

Modifying the Modifier: Body Modification as Social Incarnation

The notion that body modification occurs when one undertakes practices like tattooing, piercing or scarification, engenders discourses in which: (i) body modifiers endorse such practices as self‐constructive, distancing their practitioners from social regulation and a deterministic biology, whereas; (ii) critics condemn their seemingly violent, corporeal interference. However, in suspecting that such analysis should be attentive to the concurrent individual and social co‐constitution of behaviours, a sociological and post‐structural interrogation of this characterization of body modification as a “sovereign, denaturalizing” endeavour is demanded. An engagement with the originary violence of Derridian deconstruction will duly re‐conceive body modification practice as not something which introduces violence to corporeality. Rather, violence will present as a primordial differentiating process which bodies always already condition, and by which they are conditioned/produced/modified. The second issue at stake in this article will thus develop as a contestation to the characterization of “body modification” as an exclusive category of practice. Such practices do not arrive, pre‐existing, but rather manifest as the originary violence/differentiation of bodies‐as‐modifications‐which‐modify. This re‐defines modification from something that agentive subjects introduce to bodies, to something that subjects‐as‐bodies cannot help but be. Consequently, individual agency is not divorced from behaviour, but emerges as a corporeal, social production.     

Testing the Vision: Preschool Settings as Places for Meeting,Bonding and Bridging

The OECD (2006 Starting Strong II: Early Childhood Education and Care. OECD Publishing: Paris) envisions early childhood education and care settings as meeting places for diverse social groups; places that build social capital. This vision was assessed in a comparison of three preschools types: full‐fee paying, subsidised‐fee and publicly funded. The social composition within each was examined and the connectedness of the children (n = 472) who attended compared. Publicly funded preschools had more socially diverse populations. The quantity of social connectedness did not differ but children in publicly funded preschools described higher quality social relationships. Not all preschool settings are socially diverse but, where they are, the quality of relationships is highest.     

From advocacy to service provision: state transformation and the disability rights movement in Taiwan

This research uses the development of the disability rights movement in Taiwan as a case study to analyze the impact of state transformation, in particular marketization of social welfare policy, on the disability rights movement. First, the institutionalization of the disability rights movement enabled it to expand its organizational structure and become involved in shaping policy. Secondly, when disability rights organizations started to undertake state-funded projects, their focus shifted from advocacy to service provision. Thirdly, competition for limited state-funding gave the organizations led by urban-middle class advocates a significant advantage over small, community-based NPOs and gathered significantly greater resources. Finally, this paper suggests that, in a context in which the state did not provide basic social services for its citizens with disabilities, the institutionalization of SMOs turned advocacy groups into service providers. Although the number of disability civic organizations increased, the voices of advocacy groups were weakened.