Identifying as an evidence-based social worker: the influence of attitudes,access, confidence,and education

This study explored United States-based social workers’ (N = 152) attitudes toward, access to, and confidence in engaging in evidence-based practice (EBP), the extent to which social work education prepared them to engage in EBP, and the factors that contributed to their identification as an evidence-based practitioner. Findings indicated that although practitioners had a positive attitude toward engaging in EBP, they were only moderately confident in doing so, rarely accessed evidence, and were only moderately prepared through their education. Believing that EBP should be implemented, more educational preparation, and positive attitudes contributed to greater identification as an evidence-based practitioner, areas that social work and continuing education should further support to enhance social workers’ EBP skills.     

Social cohesion in Rwanda: Results from a public good experiment

We describe a public good experiment, a type of economic experiment commonly used to examine feelings of prosociality—that is, behaviour which is positive, helpful and intended to promote social acceptance and friendship—and community cohesion, carried out in Rwanda. Contributions in different parts of the country are affected by the local intensity of the 1994 genocide, with more generous contributions being made in areas where violence was greater. This supports earlier research indicating that conflict experience leads to greater prosociality. However, we also find that people who have not, themselves, been targets of violence give lower contributions than people who have. The considerable group‐related and regional differences in social behaviour may have implications for the country's policies to deal with social cohesion.     

Translating Spirituality: Universalism and Particularism in the Diffusion of Spiritual Care from the United States to Israel

Research on the transnational diffusion of ideas and practices shows how cultural objects go through translation, adaptation, and vernacularization when implemented in new localities. Less attention is given to the translators themselves and their heterogeneous and often conflicting visions. Drawing on the notion of transnational social fields (TSF s), this article investigates how cultural objects get vernacularized differently in different parts of the TSF , demonstrating how processes of translation reflect larger social and political struggles over questions of identity. As a case study, we focus on the attempt of actors from Israel and the United States to institutionalize spiritual care in Israeli health‐care organizations. The analysis reveals how spiritual care functioned as a porous cultural object, open to a wide range of interpretations and debates. While actors in New York saw in spiritual care the opportunity to bridge to Israeli Jews and create a global Jewish identity, Israeli actors split between using spiritual care as a vehicle for creating a local Israeli Jewish identity and seeing in spiritual care the opportunity to establish universal identities, broader than the Jewish one. The disagreement and conflicts between the groups influenced the translation process, turning it into a contentious struggle that involved different positions on the continuum between particularism and universalism.     

‘Growing Old’ in Shelters and ‘On the Street’: Experiences of Older Homeless People

Homelessness among older people in Canada is both a growing concern, and an emerging field of study. This article reports thematic results of qualitative interviews with 40 people aged 46 to 75, carried out as part of a mixed-methods study of older people who are homeless in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Our participants included people with histories of homelessness (n = 14) and persons new to homelessness in later life (n = 26). Interviews focused on experiences at the intersections of aging and homelessness including social relationships, the challenges of living on the streets and in shelters in later life, and the future. This article outlines the 5 main themes that capture the experience of homelessness for our participants: age exacerbates worries; exclusion and isolation; managing significant challenges; shifting needs and realities; and resilience, strength, and hope. Together, these findings underscore the need for specific programs geared to the unique needs of older people who are homeless.     

Young people's views of the outcomes of non-formal education in youth organisations: its effects on human,social and psychological capital,employability and employment

This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the role of youth organisations in enhancing the employability of young people through the development of different forms of capital: human, social and psychological. Instead of asking questions about who access extra-curricular activities that may provide young people with positional advantages in the labour market and the class biases that arise in access, the article explores whether the benefits obtained from participation vary by socio-economic background. We make use of the Youth organisations and employability (YOE) database, which contains data from over 1000 young people in more than 40 European countries on the effects of involvement in youth organisations on different forms of capital: human, social and psychological. We find positive effects of involvement on all three forms of capital. The analysis suggests that the characteristics of the involvement in youth organisations are better predictors of its outcomes than are personal characteristics, and find no significant effects of socio-economic background on the reported benefits of participation in our sample. Policy implications are derived from these findings, calling for greater policy support to increase opportunities for the involvement of young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds in youth organisations and for better informing young people of the benefits of sustained involvement with youth organisations.     

Maternal Conflict Behavior Profiles and Child Social Skills

The current study examined associations between mothers’ behavioral profiles during mother‐child conflict interactions and their children's social skills. This person‐centered approach classified 181 mothers according to their levels of emotional responsiveness, intrusiveness, negativity, and engagement facilitation behaviors during an eight‐minute conflict discussion task with their child. Three distinct classes of mothers were identified using latent profile analysis: sensitive/engaged, moderately sensitive/engaged, and insensitive/disengaged. An analysis of covariance indicated that children of mothers in the sensitive/engaged group had significantly higher social skills than children of mothers in the moderately sensitive/engaged and insensitive/disengaged groups. Results suggest that mother‐child conflict interactions may benefit children's social development when mothers facilitate their children's participation in a highly sensitive manner.     

The Place of Construction in Sociological Realism

In the contemporary epistemological debate on social reality, characterized by the crisis of post‐modern theories and the emergence of new forms of realism, are there any approaches not acknowledging some specific ontological character to the construction of social objects? The question is apparently rhetorical, but the implication of this problem are not obvious. In the sociological literature the opposition between reality and construction is not clearly defined. Sometimes it is considered a dichotomy, in other situations the synthesis of alternative theses in a dialectical horizon. The more systematic attempt considers reality and construction as analytical macro‐dimensions where the relation between social ontology and epistemology operates. From this stance, the acknowledgement of the role of social construction in a wider realist horizon is the true overtaking of postmodern philosophy. If it is true that facts exist beyond representations, it is also true that representations themselves have a specific effect on reality, who continually re‐structures itself around specific relations of emergent power. Stating that reality is socially constructed is an evident limit of postmodern theories. On the other hand, stating that only facts exist constitute an impoverishment of realism and its replacement in neo‐positivism. Social phenomena are real because they are based on specific properties of the inter‐subjective construction of social reality. This thesis represents the revitalization of an advanced, anti‐positivistic realism and the definition of the specificity of social objects. The aim of this essay is to search for a specific place of construction within the development of realist social ontology.     

Society without the social: the Spanish labour movement and the rise of the social, 1840–1880

Focusing on the Spanish case, this article addresses two fundamental questions: why were many unionized workers sceptical about state intervention in labour issues throughout the nineteenth century, and why did this attitude begin to change from the 1860s onwards? Its main thesis is that workers’ attitudes derived ultimately from different historical notions of ‘society’ that shaped their perceptions and experiences of labour relations and their attitude toward the role of the state. Thus, a notion of society as an aggregation of individuals shaped unionized Spanish workers’ hostility toward state intervention since the creation of the first unions in the 1840s. From the 1860s onward, a new conception of collective relations, namely ‘the social’, began to transform some workers’ expectations of the role of the state in labour conflicts. The main factor that explains this change, it is argued, lies in the relationship between the workers’ imaginary, their actions, and their expectations about these actions.     

现代水墨人物画与文化精神

水墨人物画是中国传统绘画中的重要题材之一，曾经辉煌一时，是社会和政治、文化的表征。20世纪由于社会和政治变革需要，中国画发生了重要变化，造型能力大大加强，人物画与社会关系更为紧密。当代水墨人物画因其对现实的关注和人文的关怀，用水墨艺术表现形式造就了新的 “人文画”。     

Perceived emotional intelligence and social competence in neglected adolescents

This research work analyses the emotional intelligence (EI) and the social cognitive attitudes and strategies in adolescents between 12 and 17 years of age in residential care. The aim of the work is to identify those aspects that hinder their socio-emotional competence, requiring a more urgent intervention. We explore the presence of significant differences between the variables under study according to gender and age range (12–14 and 15–17) and we analyse the relationship between the dimensions of their EI and their social competence. The results show a lack of EI in these adolescents, with all three dimensions being affected: emotional attention, clarity of feelings and emotional repair. As for social competence, it can be seen that the adolescents are characterised by a lack of confidence and firmness in their interactions. Worthy of note is the impulsive cognitive style, as are the rigidity of thought and the tendency towards social mistrust and suspicion. There are many difficulties concerning the strategies for resolving social problems. This research highlights the need to design training programmes for the residential care centres that will favour their socio-emotional development.