Social work education in Spain: evaluation and challenges for a new generation of social workers

ABSTRACT

The European social integration model was built on two main pillars: employment and access to the welfare state. European social work education was mainly oriented to training professionals in order to promote this inclusion through case management and the provision of benefits. This influence was very intense in the curricular content of Spanish social work programs. The new social risks and the European convergence in higher education have promoted curricular changes, but is it enough?. This paper aims to identify the content and limits of current social work education in Spain. To this end, a comparative analysis of social work education in public universities of Spain was performed. This information has been contrasted with professionals, teachers and social work students. The results evidence the gap of these contents with the real professional needs. This paper proposes several alternatives and approaches in new intergenerational methodologies and technological tools to train a new generation of social workers     

Poverty and Material Hardship in Grandparent‐Headed Households

Using the 2001 Survey of Income and Program Participation, the current study examines poverty and material hardship among children living in 3‐generation (n = 486), skipped‐generation (n = 238), single‐parent (n = 2,076), and 2‐parent (n = 6,061) households. Multinomial and logistic regression models indicated that children living in grandparent‐headed households experience elevated risk of health insecurity (as measured by receipt of public insurance and uninsurance)—a disproportionate risk given rates of poverty within those households. Children living with single parents did not share this substantial risk. Risk of food and housing insecurity did not differ significantly from 2‐parent households once characteristics of the household and caregivers were taken into account.     

儒家孝道、经济增长与文明分岔(英文)

应用经济学方法研究儒家孝道思想对古代社会经济增长的影响机制,可以发现,在信贷市场极不完备的古代,孝道作为一个独特的代际契约履约机制,能在一定程度上克服代际契约中的证实和承诺问题,从而以一种增加储蓄的方式有效促进古代社会的经济增长。然而,实施和维持孝道却不完全是自发的,需要来自统治者的干预。而对于统治者来说,他需要将资源在配置给生产和配置给战争之间权衡。这一权衡决定了一个社会均衡的孝道水平。通过比较中原文明、匈奴游牧文明和罗马文明的历史,证明了上述观点,从而在一定程度上解释了东西方文明的差异。     

Explaining Family Change and Variation: Challenges for Family Demographers

Twenty years ago, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) issued a request for proposals that resulted in the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), a unique survey valuable to a wide range of family scholars. This paper describes the efforts of an interdisciplinary group of family demographers to build on the progress enabled by the NSFH and many other theoretical and methodological innovations. Our work, also supported by NICHD, will develop plans for research and data collection to address the central question of what causes family change and variation. We outline the group's initial assessments of orienting frameworks, key aspects of family life to study, and theoretical and methodological challenges for research on family change. Finally, we invite family scholars to follow our progress and to help develop this shared public good.     

Children against parents? The politics of intergenerational recalibration in Southern Europe

Traditionally, Southern European countries displayed remarkably elderly biased social policy arrangements. This article introduces the notion of intergenerational recalibration to capture reforms aimed at rebalancing the generational profile of Southern European welfare states via the expansion of family policy and social assistance schemes—both monetary benefits and care services—and retrenchment in the field of pensions. Then, it elaborates theoretically on the political dimension of this policy strategy, focusing on the implications of the peculiar combination of expansionary and retrenchment reforms, to advance the hypotheses that domestic politics would prevent the realization of such an agenda, whereas the latter would be favored by a major role of supranational actors, especially the European Union. To test these hypotheses, we systematically analyze policy trajectories in the field of pensions and social assistance in Italy and Spain between the mid‐1990s and 2016. This allows, first, to argue that investment in “pro‐children” measures has not adequately balanced the reduction of pro‐parents expenditure and, second, to question the idea that domestic political incentives to expand “pro‐children” policies are necessarily too weak as well as the “enabling” role of external pressures in pursuing intergenerational recalibration.     

Intergenerational Storyline Bringing the Generations Together in North Tyneside

Abstract

This article has been written to provide the reader with insight into a council run Intergenerational service based in North Tyneside, UK. It involves partnerships between schools and Social Services, who create curriculum led projects. These are primarily school based, that bring generations together from the local community. The focus of the article is a teaching method called Storyline, which through EU funded programmes, became a European model of best practice for Intergenerational learning. It has been developed successfully in North Tyneside to bring younger and older people together, giving them a narrative theme to study which sets intellectual challenges for the participants to respond to.