From these roots: The role of historically Black colleges and universities in preparing the nation’s gerontologists for an aging society

ABSTRACT

The aging of the United States population is creating an increased need for social workers and other helping professionals with training in gerontology. Recent estimates indicate that less than 3% of MSW students are enrolled in an aging concentration, as compared to 19% enrolled in children/youth concentrations. In addition, the phenomenon of a diverse baby boomer generation joining the ranks of persons age 65 and older has created a plethora of scholarship and curriculum development aimed at readying the aging network for the unprecedented growth of older persons. Social work can make unique professional contributions to the field of gerontology and older persons. This study asserts, however, that social work is not adequately prepared to practice in an increasingly diverse aging society. The social work profession has articulated commitments to acknowledging and affirming how diversity and culture shape the human experience and to developing social workers who can competently engage in research-informed practice and practice-informed research. However, there remains a need in social work education for more widespread use of culturally relevant pedagogies that can help achieve these goals. Informed by both the Afrocentric and Black perspectives, this study presents a content analysis of the curricula infused at two historically Black universities. The nature and extent of the contributions of historically Black universities to social work education is the focus of this article. The scope of this investigation also includes the identification of prominent Black social work educators and discusses the implications of these perspectives for more culturally informed gerontology curricula that promote culturally competent gerontological social workers.     

Applying a social model of disability across the life span

With an estimated 21.3% of persons aged 15 and older experiencing disability in the USA, social workers will see clients present with disabilities across all practice settings and stages of human development. Yet, the training and terminology of social workers—which often closely aligns with medical professionals—may seem to occur in isolating silos or disciplinary theories. Social work education often views the needs of older adults and people with disabilities as two distinct populations, despite the fact that many of these individuals share similar needs for access, resources, and support. Furthermore, when discussing human development, the focus may skew to individual affective, behavioral, and cognitive processes and indicators of abnormal development and frailty. Thus, by clarifying terminology and applying a social model of disability across the life span, we identify how educational efforts related to human behavior and the social environment can promote intersectional and inclusive social work related to aging and disability.     

The practice of ‘Othering’ in reaffirming white working-class boys’ conceptions of normative identities

This paper considers how the practice of ‘Othering’ is used by white working-class boys in Boremund, South London to mark identity boundaries and reaffirm their habitus. Through unearthing themes of difference within the young men’s accounts, the work identifies various ways of ‘doing masculinity’ in two social groups, ‘Boremund Boys’ and ‘emos’, who contrasted greatly in style but who were of the same race, class, and ethnicity. Focusing on the identity negotiations of a small cohort, aged 14–16, the data indicate how a normative white male identity specific to this locale is policed and how ‘Othering’ is employed as a strategy. Using Bourdieu’s tools alongside the hermeneutic of heteronormativity, the research explores how emos, through inverting a traditional working-class masculinity, brought the habitus of Boremund Boys into disjuncture. Within the field of masculinity, the habitus of Boremund Boys, through a process of reorientation, reconciles competing and contrasting conceptions of what it is to be a white working-class male in South London.     

Poking a sleeping bear: the challenge of organizational recruitment for controversial topics

ABSTRACT

Researchers often approach employers to investigate employees’ work and family experiences. Organizational willingness to grant access to employees can vary, especially when the research topic is seen as controversial or contentious for the employer. This paper explores this methodological challenge using a research example from Manitoba, Canada, which explored the use of parental leave by male employees and the impact of managerial attitudes and corporate culture on usage. Sixty large employers were recruited with only seven of those organizations agreeing to participate. In this paper, the reasons organizations gave for declining to participate and the implications of their decisions for the research are examined. Although the final sample included 905 managers and employees, participating organizations tended to be employee-focused and family-friendly employers. Organizations declined participation for a variety of reasons: avoiding raising the issue with unions, awareness that their policies unfairly benefited female leave takers, and simply not seeing the relevance of a topic relating to men’s work–family experiences. A dialogue often absent from the literature, it is important to understand how employers can limit researchers’ access to employees on controversial topics. The existence of such barriers suggests alternative avenues to recruit participants directly when topics are contentious for employers.     

‘The house belongs to both’: undoing the gendered division of housework

This article studies 28 dual-income Spanish childless couples who were undoing gender in routine domestic work. We understand ‘undoing gender’ as defined by Deutsch [(2007). Undoing gender. Gender & Society, 21, 106–127, p. 122]: ‘social interactions that reduce gender difference’. The dual-earner couples came from different socio-economic backgrounds and were interviewed in four different Spanish towns in 2011. The analysis shows that resources in a wide sense, time availability, external help, ideas about fairness, and complex gender attitudes are key interdependent factors that can weave together to form different configurations leading to a non-mainstream division of housework. All configurations were based on principles of gender equality: some couples found it fair to have a 50/50 division of domestic work, others a 50/50 division of all work (paid and unpaid); and a third group showed conflicts in practice. These couples’ ways of undoing gender illustrate the external, individual, and couple circumstances under which spouses are able to achieve a non-traditional construction of unpaid work.     

Cosmopolitan stance negotiation in multicultural academic settings

Our analysis of an informal event involving Chinese and Spanish students and lecturers displays the cumulative nature of stance negotiation in multicultural settings. It also highlights the role of sociocultural and ideological elements in stancetaking, not only in relation to the positions adopted by the participants, but also in the successive redefinition and reframing of the stance objects. Sociocultural and ideological elements are also crucial for the collective construction of intersubjectivities, particularly among mobile citizens. The way in which our international students managed to overcome misalignments, the values and ideologies evoked within the interaction, reveal nuances of cosmopolitanism that point to a globalization of tastes triggered by multiculturalism and the worldwide expansion of capitalism. Sharing a cosmopolitan orientation, however, did not prevent ideological contradictions among the participants. An analysis of how these were voiced and negotiated allows grasping the remarkably wide spectrum of cosmopolitanism(s) today.     

Yet another minority issue or good news for all? Approaching LGBT issues in European social work education

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the questions of why to include and how to approach LGBT issues in the context of European social work education. Referring to social work’s commitment to LGBT people, the article points out its ongoing relevance as questions of marginalisation and discrimination point far beyond formal equality in legislation and normalisation of homosexuality within existing societal institutions. Furthermore, new questions and dynamics in rapidly changing and highly diverse societal contexts bring about new challenges in addressing LGBT issues. Against this background, the article discusses problems of representation and knowledge and underlines the potential of a queer approach. A queer perspective questions taken-for-granted assumptions about sexual orientation, gender identity and intimate relationships. It challenges normalising categories of sex, gender and desire and brings out possibilities existing beyond the heteronormative order. This way, it offers social work education a powerful theoretical lens to address issues on sexual orientation and gender identity not only as yet another minority issue, but as transversal matter and as good news for all. In this article, we use the acronym LGBT to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people. LGBT is meant to include and at the same time emphasise the differences between people who do not (exclusively) define themselves as heterosexual and who cannot or do not want to match or identify with binarities of sex, gender and desire. We do not use the acronym LGBTI because we find it problematic to include intersex people without taking explicitly into account their specific situations and needs. Making a plea for a queer approach, we share – of course – a critical view on categorisations and identity labels.     

Developing social work students’ professional identity: the role of England’s Professional Capabilities Framework

ABSTRACT

Developing professional identity is a key aim of social work education. This paper argues that the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) – a holistic, capability approach to student assessment used in England’s social work education programmes – is ideally placed to promote the development of students’ professional identities. The paper discusses two research studies, each of which was stimulated by significant policy changes in England’s social work profession. The author draws out the implications of both studies for supporting social work students to develop their professional identities. It is concluded that the PCF is valued by practice educators as an assessment and teaching tool, while acknowledging that its future is uncertain due to the lack of continuity impacting on England’s social work profession. This paper is equally of relevance for social work educators outside the UK who may be developing and evaluating their assessment approaches and also for those experiencing the impact of rapid policy changes in their own countries.     

Dementia: challenges for social work education in Europe

ABSTRACT

Dementia has been identified as a global challenge across the spectrum of health and social care (World Health Organisation. (2012) Dementia: A public health priority. Geneva: WHO). This paper will explore the implications of this for social work education and the challenges it poses. There is a lack of this focus on social work with older people and people with dementia (pwd) in social work education. Based on calls for an infusion of content on ageing and dementia in social work curricula, paper proposes that we should adopt a person-centred philosophy alongside gerontological social work competencies to achieve this. The specific aim of this paper, therefore, is to explore how we can use these ideas as teaching tools to engage social work students in the discourse on dementia and to develop appropriate skills to work with pwd, their families and carers.     

Differences between paid and unpaid social services for beneficiaries

In many Western welfare states, social work services that have traditionally been provided by paid employees are being replaced by family support, community support, informal networks, and volunteering. For the field of social work, it is relevant to know what it matters to beneficiaries whether services are provided by volunteers or by paid employees. The central question of this article is therefore as follows: What are the differences between unpaid and paid social services for beneficiaries? The article is based on literature review and focus groups. Our results suggest that beneficiaries do experience some differences regarding the advantages of volunteer services for beneficiaries that can be summarized in three propositions: (1) services provided by volunteers are more relational than are services provided by paid employees, and they are therefore perceived as more equal, flexible and sincere. (2) The effects of volunteer services for beneficiaries are not exclusively positive. (3) Although particular tasks may appear to be interchangeable to some extent, the relative advantages of a given task depend upon whether it is performed by a paid worker or by a volunteer. Additional research is needed in order to provide further validation.