Demographic challenges and health in Germany

Demographic challenges are affecting the health care system in Germany and globally: a growing aging population; low birth rates; sociopolitical, women’s health, and health care economic issues; and immigration. During a recent Fulbright Scholar program, scholars from several disciplines including demography, sociology, medicine, and nursing examined these demographic challenges facing Germany and other industrialized countries. Enormous challenges exist for industrialized and developing countries related to these demographic changes, the complexity of health care economics, and population issues. In Germany, the shifting population demographics are affecting health care, financing of the German health care system, and the growth of immigrant populations.     

The executive committee of the Greek Professional Association of Social Work in an age of austerity: examining its response

This paper explores the response by the Greek Association of Social Workers (SKLE) to Greece's current economic crisis. Socioeconomic conditions in Greece have deteriorated rapidly since the imposition of a Structural Adjustment Programme as a condition of the loan Troika provided to Greece to address its class-based public debt crisis. Interviews were conducted with SKLE Executive Committee members to examine SKLE's response in the context of newly raised inequalities. Research results show that SKLE recognised the negative consequences to both service users and its members. However, SKLE continues to reformulate its strategy mostly as a social partner. SKLE's previous strategy entailed amongst other things the analysis of policy proposals and participation in welfare related government committees. This strategy is no longer relevant because decision-making powers have been transferred to transnational bodies. This paper elaborates on these findings and discusses the barriers that prohibit SKLE from differentiation of its strategy. Although the research is country specific, it has implications for the broader global debate because professional associations must reformulate their strategies for better serving of both their constituents and the collective good based on the social justice mandate of the profession.     

Challenging Gerontophobia and Ageism Through a Collaborative Intergenerational Art Program

Prejudices against older adults have been shown to reduce effective care delivery and impact long-term health outcomes for older adults. In an effort to combat these prejudices, intergenerational—and often unidirectional—programs focus on challenging ageism. The PALETTE program takes this further to employ collaborative activities as a way to challenge the gerontophobia that often accompanies ageism. Promoting Art for Life Enrichment Through Transgenerational Engagement (PALETTE) is an innovative program for interprofessional undergraduate and graduate students that combines intergenerational arts activities with formal education on aging, ageism, and gerontophobia. Having demonstrated success in changing the attitudes of students, PALETTE serves as a model for an internationally replicable program that has the potential to improve person-centered care while educating future generations of older adults about positive, optimal aging.     

Juvenile offender rehabilitation in Estonia: interprofessional collaboration in written assessments and specialists’ perceptions

Qualitative and quantitative research methods were used to study an interprofessional assessment model in rehabilitation services and its implementation in Estonia based on (1) a sample of rehabilitation plans for 160 juvenile offenders aged 7–18 and (2) expert interviews with 10 members of an interprofessional assessment team. Each specialist’s role was compared with the assessments. While each team member is assigned a discrete role based on discipline, in practice, the disciplines’ work overlapped considerably during the assessment process. The overlap seems to occur because team members conduct their assessments individually, rather than following the collaborative best practice model for interprofessional teams described in the literature. The expert interviews indicate that rehabilitation specialists perceive the individual-level elements of interprofessional teamwork to be consistent with the ideals articulated in the Perception of Interprofessional Collaboration Model, while the substantial overlap in assessments that occurred in practice could be related to lack of interprofessional collaboration at group and organizational levels. Recommendations to improve the functioning of teams serving juvenile offenders include establishing an interprofessional education system, increasing the flexibility of the legal framework for service provision, and improving the interprofessional assessment instrument.     

Implications of Male and Female Same-Gender Dyads

ABSTRACT

A sample of 222 Swedish social services officers were surveyed in regard to their opinions on a fictitious case addressing the needs of a same-gender client. The 49-question survey was statistically analyzed through a comparison of female and male same-gender dyads. The findings suggest that gender is an important factor in assessment, and this seems to be influenced by the gender of the client, the gender of the assessor, and how the problem area or situation of the client is “gendered.” Also, same-gender dyads tend to strengthen stereotypical expectations of men and women as clients and influence what forms of assistance are offered to the client. The male same-gender dyad tends to reduce the likelihood of assistance being offered, while the female same-gender dyad increased it. These results suggest that assessments are based upon stereotypical beliefs about men and women rather than being focused directly on individual differences and needs. Further research is recommended that incorporates a number of more refined “gendered” problem areas and situations and how these assessments can affect social work practice.     

东盟经济文化发展与广西职教新增专业设计研究

广西得天独厚的区位优势,与周边国家相比较的人力资源优势,都需要广西职教在认真调查周边国家人才需求基础上,针对中国—东盟自由贸易区经济结构调整和发展规划开发新增专业,优化现有专业结构,培养周边国家急需人才,形成面向国际人才需求设置专业的特色。     

Catholic Social Thought and the Caring Professions

Abstract

Catholic social teaching provides a developed and consistent body of principles, based on solidarity with the full potential of every person. Love, the personal aspect of solidarity, is an indispensable relational quality. These principles, an external framework for action, are close to core social work values as well as to the values of many clients. They acknowledge both the context of the helping relationship and the consciences of the helper and the person helped. This could contribute to a thickening and deepening of our understanding of social work practice and the consequent “formation of the heart.” doi:10.1300/J377v26n03_05     

Neoliberalism and social work identity

This article considers the relationship between the identity of social work and the neoliberal political project. Reference is made to a small but carefully structured quantitative research study in Auckland, New Zealand which examined the knowledge applied and produced in the practice of social work. This study found evidence consistent with Philp’s [(1979). Notes on the form of knowledge in social work. Sociological Review, 27(1), 83–111] theorisation of a specific ‘form of knowledge’ for social work which is produced and reproduced as a function of relational engagement between social workers and those who are constructed as ‘clients’ in an unequal society. This discourse casts the ‘failing subject’ as socially located and inherently redeemable in direct contrast to populist neoliberal constructions of personal responsibility and moral deficit. With reference to dialectical theory it is suggested that this resilient discourse, embedded in ‘every-day’ practice, is inevitably a source of resistance to the imposition of neoliberal practice and policy design. This resistance provides hope for the progressive voice of social work in the current contest of ideas in relation to the future development of social work.     

Changing economic conditions and their effects on professional autonomy: An analysis of family practitioners and oncologists

This study examines the effects of dimensions of the social structure on professional autonomy. Little support exists for arguments suggesting professional dominance or professional-bureaucratic confrontation. The study supports a theory of social change that places physicians in their historical, political, and economic context. There are four important findings. First, the degree of autonomy varies across physician specializations, and the social structure affects the autonomy of family practitioners and oncologists in different ways. Second, the Federal Drug Administration constrains the responsibility autonomy of both oncologists and family practitioners, and the innovative autonomy of family practitioners. Third, bureaucracy either has no effect or enhances physicians' autonomy. The fourth, and most consistent, finding demonstrates that profit-seeking corporations external to the work setting constrain physicians' autonomy. Findings suggest that researchers should give more attention to shifts in the loci of power and the effects of organizations external to the work setting, especially corporations, on professions.An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the American Sociological Association annual meeting, Miami, Florida, August 1993.     

边疆少数民族妇女流动的特征及变化

边疆少数民族妇女作为研究主体,不是一个变量;引入社会性别的视角,分析边疆少数民族妇女流动的结构,不仅有年龄、受教育程度、职业分类、婚姻状况的不同,所表现的特征也不一样;少数民族妇女流动不仅有水平流动,也有垂直流动,即向上和向下的流动,关键是教育.只有提高少数民族妇女的受教育水平,才能从根本上改变少数民族妇女的地位.