Romanian social workers facing the challenges of neo-liberalism

ABSTRACT

With a history of almost 90 years, professional social work in Romania once flourished up until World War II. The Communist Party disbanded the profession in 1968 and it was reinstated after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. Within the context of the socio-economic transition from a centralised to a free-market economy, Romanian social policy and social work have evolved from a Marxist/socialist-type ideology, one that advocates for state intervention, to a libertarian/neo-liberal-type ideology, which promotes both state withdrawal from welfare provision and individuals taking responsibility for their own welfare. These two trends continue to co-exist subject to sometimes divergent forces such as international institutions and internal Romanian social pressures. Using a qualitative approach, we explore how Romanian social workers are adapting to the neo-liberal realities and identify three types of perceived challenges: 1. those related to regulation, 2. linked with collaboration in social work activity and 3. those related to the social worker-client relationship. Under neo-liberal pressures, the social worker's role of agent of social change becomes marginalised in daily practice, leaving little power to influence agency policies that negatively impact clients.     

Interpersonal and Societal Mattering in Work: A Review and Critique

The need exists for a comprehensive literature review of the concept of mattering with regard to work. In response, this review examined a theoretical framework of societal and interpersonal mattering, mattering within the work context, and existing psychometric measures of mattering. The author analyzed the research on the current state of mattering at work, identified core frameworks and psychometric issues that have been investigated to date, and suggests the use of a more comprehensive framework for work mattering that illuminates both the relational and social aspects of the work experience. Several promising directions for future research and potential benefits of incorporating work mattering in career counseling practice emerged and are discussed.     

Using Generational Intelligence to Examine Community Care Work between Younger and Older Adults

Exploring the factors that contribute to sustainable forms of an intergenerational relationship is becoming an important conceptual and practical challenge, not least because of the growing need for an aged care workforce that is both motivated and suitably trained. Generational intelligence is a means of examining interaction between younger and older people which has been applied to community care settings. Dimensions of generational intelligence include recognising and valuing generational differences, finding common ground, plus negotiating social and practical outcomes from the situation. A case study plus a series of qualitative interviews are used to examine the value of this approach both as a means of exploring the processes involved in generational exchange and in providing recommendations for work preparation and training. It is suggested that intergenerational relations have been a missing factor in the understanding of sustainable care and that in future, service delivery should not simply be analysed as comprising professional and lay perspectives but also as containing generationally distinctive perspectives that require negotiation.     

The emotional toll of postfeminist fatherhood

Postfeminism shapes the political economy of the workforce and household, constituting a re-entrenchment of traditional heterosexual gender regimes and the pressure to transgress them. Focusing on the understudied area of postfeminist masculinity, we analyze the emotional toll some fathers experience as a result of the fraught expectations to be the breadwinner, nurturing parent, and enlightened feminist spouse who completes equal domestic duties. Using empirical data of parents’ participation in a family-based health intervention, we argue that the paradoxical expectation to enact traditional gender relations and to adopt gender egalitarianism is exhausting, upsetting, and confusing for fathers. By focusing on the affective dimensions of postfeminism, we demonstrate how working to achieve the impossible expectation of doing “it all,” a bind that women have been caught in for centuries, takes an emotional toll on fathers and couples, leading to discontent at work and home, and in regard to their self-concept, parental role, and spousal relationship. We close by offering counter examples of fathers and couples who have disengaged from postfeminist parenting relations and have reached a state of contentment. Contrary to the alignment of postfeminism with positive affect, the experience of resisting postfeminist resulted in feelings of joy, pride, and satisfaction.     

Precarious belonging: blindness,masculinity, and work in Polish young adult literature of the 1970s and 1980s

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relationship between disability, identity, and productivity in two Polish young adult novels published under state socialism: Jak trudno kocha? (How difficult it is to love) and Spotkania (The meetings). How Difficult it is to Love by Jerzy Szczygie? (1976) tells the story of a young blind man who, after living many years “unproductively” with his mother, decides to study and work. Published in 1986, Klementyna So?onowicz-Olbrychska’s novel The Meetings also focuses on a blind male teenager who leaves his hometown to live with other blind students at a residential school where he plans a future profession. The two works are concerned with the processes of becoming disabled and becoming a part of the blind community. Crucially, it is productivity – the main value in a socialist state – that participates in the formation of disability identity and enables disabled men to form separate communities and workshops for disabled people.     

Child Care Arrangements,Division of Household Labor and Other Employment Based Familial Predictors of Marital Adjustment Among Husbands of Employed Females in Pakistan

The primary purpose of the current study was to investigate the influence of division of household labor, child care arrangements, wife’s financial contribution, work-schedule of wife, perception of wife employment and wife’s work preference were contributing to marital adjustment of husbands of working married women. Additionally, it explored the role of wife’s financial contribution, perception of wife’s employment and wife’s work preference in formation of marital adjustment among husbands of working women. The data were collected through a self-structured questionnaire from 283 husbands of employed married women with one year of marital duration and at least one child. The data were collected from the city of Gujrat, province of Punjab, Pakistan. Factor analysis was run for reliability and validity analysis was executed to examine the validity of the existing scales used in the current study. Multiple linear regression analysis was used for model fit. Division of household labor, child care arrangements, wife’s financial contributions, wife’s work-schedule, the perception of wife’s employment, and wife’s work preferences contributed to the marital adjustment of husbands of working married women. Our results seemed to reflect fluctuating dimensions of gender role ideologies among families. Incorporating new predictors of marital adjustment into literature of marriage and family has been a sociological significance of the current study.     

论“立言”

两千多年前的春秋时代,中国知识分子就非常重视"立言",把它视作传名、追求不朽甚至永恒的重要手段。在建设文化强国的今天,继承"立言"的传统,把有价值的见解或史料、经验、发现等通过著书立说的方式贡献出来,是很有必要的。如何"立言",如何使自己所立之言得到社会的认可,并有较长的生命力,是目前知识界面临的难题。"立言"之人要有追求真理的精神、实事求是的态度;"立言"者须有创新意识,努力使自己的著作具有独创性;"立言"者还必须有精品意识,对自己的著作不断修改、加工,使之趋于完美;"立言"者须先修身,提高自身精神境界,更好地了解社会的需要和自己的责任。如此,方能"立言"成功。     

Gender,Work and Organization: A gender–work–organization analysis

This article, celebrating 25 year of Gender, Work and Organization, reflects on some of the events that led to establishing the journal. It proceeds to consider the three central elements that have inspired the journal ‐ gender, work and organization ‐ and how they have become more problematic, perhaps much more problematic, over the lifetime of the journal. Indeed, paradoxically, these shift have occurred at the same time as GWO and the field of which it is part have become more established. Just as the field of gender and organizations has become more legitimate area of study, the concept of ‘gender’ has become more complex, more contested, less certain. This also applies to the notion of ‘organization’, perhaps less so to ‘work’. The latter part of the article considers what happens when one views the GWO itself in terms of gender‐work‐organization analysis, and how such questions may develop in the future.