Web-Based Supervisor Training: Real Relationships in Cyberspace

Little attention has been devoted in the past to the in-depth training of clinical supervisors, although they play a pivotal role in the professional development of social workers. To address this learning gap, the Smith College School for Social Work inaugurated the Advanced Clinical Supervision Certificate Program in 2005, as part of its continuing education series. This article addresses a unique feature of the training program: a 9-month “winter practicum” of online case presentations and group discussions that follows the participants' week together on the Smith campus. The author, the practicum facilitator, describes the adjustment of the group to interactions that are not face-to-face. Themes and dynamics emerge as in any other supervisory group. The author concludes that real relationships can be fostered and maintained in cyberspace, particularly when a connection among group members has already been established through prior in-person contact.     

Women's participation in self‐help groups as a pathway to women's empowerment: A case of Nepal

Non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) and the government of Nepal have made some effort to reduce poverty in Nepal by creating women's affiliation groups, some of which are micro‐credit organizations. Using capabilities as defined by Amartya Sen (Development as freedom, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000), which includes employment opportunities, women's ownership in productive resources such as land and/or homes, educational opportunities, and women's participation in decision‐making in the family, this study evaluated the extent to which women's ethnic group or caste affiliation affected a woman's likelihood of being empowered by participation in these groups. We analyzed a sample of 8,973 women which was taken from the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey. Previous research has demonstrated that participation in gender‐based groups is correlated with higher economic status. This study adds to the literature on women's affiliation groups by investigating the impact of structural factors, such as caste and ethnicity, on women's self‐help group participation (women's groups and credit groups).     

Corporate collective action and the market cycle of the cloth industry in Nieuwkerke,Flanders, 1300–1600

This article addresses the connections between corporate collective action and economic development in the pre-industrial Low Countries. It focuses on a micro-historic case study: the textile industry of the village of Nieuwkerke in the county of Flanders. This rural cloth centre witnessed an exceptional industrial expansion between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Following the recent proposition by Bas van Bavel that market economies follow a fixed pattern of development, the chronology of the evolution of Nieuwkerke’s cloth industry can be discussed in terms of three phases. This article argues that the first phase of development (1358–c.1500) was characterized by limited success because of pressure from the city of Ypres. The second phase (c.1500–c.1550) was marked by an industrial boom, predicated upon successful corporate collective action intertwined with the perception of social equality among the village’s cloth entrepreneurs. The third and final phase (from c.1550) was one of stagnation and decline, caused by the breaking down of the collective and concomitant social polarization. The case study thereby closely conforms to van Bavel’s theory about market cycles. Yet, the correlation between economic decline and social polarization should in this case be understood in terms of changing perceptions of inequality, rather than increasingly unequal opportunities.     

Nondeliberative Crisis Intervention in Disaster Zones: Social Group Work Using Guided Artwork with Child Survivors

ABSTRACT

Sudden disasters cause devastating loss and trauma. Social groupwork can help heal and empower survivors through the use of nondeliberative practice forms. The authors describe a social group work model using guided artwork activities with child survivors of disasters such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and the 2014 Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The authors also examine the features of nondeliberative theory exemplified through work with artful media in this groupwork context. Features include the use of analogs, representational problem solving, and feedback that takes place in a lived, experiential dimension.     

Parents Beyond Borders: A Social Group Work Curriculum for Supporting Immigrant Parents and Building Solidarity

Parents Beyond Borders, a curriculum first implemented in 2008 as part of The Center for Family Life's ParentShip Program, encourages group members to create a shared narrative about their traumatic immigration experiences. The result is twofold. First, immigrant parents gain a more assertive and poignant voice to communicate with family and others in their lives when sharing their family's acculturation experience. Second, because social group work promotes recognition of collective trauma due to the community's experience of marginalization, it improves members' group self-concept and empowers them to take action and advocate for themselves.     

Worker Expectations in Group Work with the Frail Elderly: Modifying the Models for a Better Fit

Addressing the needs of one segment of the older population of America, the frail elderly, this paper defines this group. Specific modifications of more traditional group work practice that are required by the nature of their needs and limitations are presented.     

Towards a Model of Working Groups

No abstract available for this article.     

Guanxilization or categorization: psychological mechanisms contributing to the formation of the Chinese concept of “us”

中国社会心理学在面对急速的社会变迁中,需要以变迁与文化的视角来选择研究 问题,而中国社会文化中群己关系的社会心理机制,即“我们”概念的形成机制及其 转换的可能与条件,正是一个体现着双重视角的基本问题。对这一问题的探讨不仅有 助于解释社会凝聚力、群体行动的逻辑,讨论国家与个人、社会与个人、类别与个人 的关系;也有助于培植社会转型时期的社会心理资源和社会支持系统,从而促进社会 合作。与以往单一机制的分析框架不同,通过对两个个案的讨论,研究提出了一个 新的分析框架,即：中国人“我们”概念是在社会情境的启动和价值取向等因素影响之 下,经由相互交织的“关系化”与“类别化”双重过程形成的。

关键词: “我们”?概念?群己关系?关系?关系化?类别化

Faced with rapid social transformation, the discipline of social psychology in China needs to choose its research topics from the perspective of both change and culture. A basic issue reflecting precisely these two perspectives is that of the formation of the social psychology mechanism of individual‐group relations, namely the formation of the concept of “us” in Chinese society and culture, as well as the possibility and conditions for the transformation of this mechanism. Exploring this issue will not only help us to understand social cohesion and the logic of group behavior and to discuss the relationship between the state and the individual, society and the individual, and the category and the individual; it will also help cultivate social psychology resources and support systems at a time of social transition, and thus promote social cooperation.. Unlike previous analytical studies that focused on a unitary mechanism, this study uses the discussion of two cases to put forward a new framework for analysis: that is, the Chinese concept of “us” comes into being through the mingling of “guanxilization” and “categorization” under the influence of social context priming, value orientation and other factors.     

Differential Assessment and Treatment of the School Age Child

No abstract available for this article.     

THE SOCIAL GROUP WORK METHOD

No abstract available for this article.