20世纪80年代中国少数民族文学的文化寻根

20世纪80年代,在解放思想、改革开放的社会历史背景下,中国少数民族作家被压抑的族群身份认同逐渐复苏,中国少数民族文学表现出对各族群文化的自觉追溯与探寻。这一文化寻根现象最初显现为文学表述空间由政治转向文化,后在寻根文学思潮影响下寻根意识与现代意识得以强化,又由于形式主义理论的影响,少数民族作家自觉探索艺术形式的创新。20世纪80年代少数民族文学文化寻根潮流的出现和发展极大地推进了中国少数民族文学走向成熟。     

Factor analyzing the “ASK” cultural competency self-assessment scale for child protective services

This study explored the development of a short version of “ASK” (Attitude–Skills–Knowledge) Scale — a tool for caseworkers and supervisors self-assessing cultural competency in a training context. The goal was to determine the validity and reliability of the 97-item long form and find factors to consolidate the items to create a shorter tool for training and practice use. In a state project, 171 caseworkers and supervisors rated the level of importance of 97 areas of attitudes, skills, and knowledge competency in terms of self-assessing their readiness to work in a culturally diverse environment. Attitude, skill, and knowledge domains of the instrument were tested with high reliability (.93 for the 30 “attitude” items, .95 for the 40 “skill” items, and .92 for the 27 “knowledge” items). Factor analyses indicate that this scale can be efficiently applied to categorize the 30 attitude items into eight factors, the 40 skill items into nine factors, and the 27 knowledge items into seven factors. With these 24 factors, a short ASK version was constructed for future research to encourage continuous self-assessment.     

Getting to Know the Piece of Fluff in Our Ears: Expanding Practitioners' Cultural Self-Awareness

Israel being a multicultural society with a variety of ethnic groups, the delivery of culturally competent services is a crucial issue in social work practice. This paper describes the outcomes of a training model for cultural competence applied with social work graduate students in Israel. The model, based on work with immigrants' narratives, increased the cultural self-awareness of the trainees. Presented are conceptual and technical aspects of the training model as well as outcomes of an evaluation study. Fifty-one trainees submitted a short account of their personal experiences following the training. The reports indicated expansion in the trainees' cultural self-awareness: awareness of their own and their families' immigration experiences as well as of other transitions in their lives. Training elements that made this outcome possible are discussed.     

Linking Practitioners' Attitudes Towards and Basic Knowledge of Immigrants with Their Social Work Education

Based on a survey of 1,124 social workers in the United States, this article examines how practitioners' attitudes towards immigrants and their general knowledge of immigration varied according to the content of their social work education. Although the majority of practitioners reported receiving coursework on practice with immigrants, this showed no effect on their attitudes or knowledge. In contrast, coursework on immigration policy predicted more favorable attitudes towards immigrants. Considering the mounting anti-immigrant sentiment and retrenchment of immigrants' rights in the United States, the results suggest the need to further explore what course work content is needed to prepare social workers for the current needs of the field. We argue that social work education must expand upon existing cultural competence models of practice with immigrants, to better prepare social workers to address the deepening social exclusion of undocumented immigrants in the United States.     

Forget Cultural Competence; Ask for an Autobiography

Recent management practices seek to standardize and routinize practice through formulaic assessment processes and casework to ensure risk minimization and cost effectiveness. Such pressures have become entrenched in social work practice in Australia and other economically developed societies. Under such regimes cultural competence is rendered as expert knowledge about the other to be acquired and applied in ways to ensure maximum efficiency. But working effectively across racial and cultural differences demands critical reflection on one's own position and the complex interactions between different aspects of identity. While some versions of cultural competence incorporate the need to examine our own values and behaviours, the paper argues that rather than focusing on knowledge of differences, social workers should concentrate on critically listening to our clients' autobiographies to reveal over time what aspects of their social and cultural lives matter to them. The paper reviews findings from teaching Australian social work undergraduate and graduate students engaging with these challenges with particular reference to working effectively with Indigenous people.     

Incorporating Multicultural Learning in Clinically-Based Education in the United States

This study attempted to explore and clarify the ambiguity surrounding cultural concepts, broaden and deepen the current understanding of cultural competency, and operationalize its core components in multicultural education in the United States. The research findings presented in this study were organized into three overarching themes: Level I: knowledge development; Level II: integrative processes; and Level III: practice evaluation. The findings contributed to the formulation of levels in multicultural learning and to the specification of core cultural components in clinical practice.     

Community Aged Care Case Managers Transitioning to Consumer Directed Care: More Than Procedural Change Required

Abstract

Consumer directed care (CDC) is increasing in community aged care. However, limited information is available to successfully transition social workers and other case managers to their new role. This paper reports on a case study of six senior case managers who supervised staff in three Australian community-aged care agencies as they transitioned from agency directed care to consumer directed care. A change management framework was used to analyse the qualitative data collected in 12 semistructured interviews. A key finding is that changes in values, attitudes, and organisational culture are needed before staff can fully implement CDC principles of service user self-determination, empowerment, and choice. Process changes needed to assist staff transition to CDC are: using a change management strategy that maximises certainty; monitoring and responding to feelings of anxiety through ongoing consultations; and providing ongoing education and support in group sessions.     

The Passagenwerk and the place of Walter Benjamin in cultural studies: Benjamin,cultural studies,Marxist theories of art

This essay is a reflection on the circumstances that led me to a particular research project, on Cajun dance and music spaces, and also on the project's mutations through subsequent phases of development. Above all, this essay attempts to take stock of the difficulties – personal, scholarly, and theoretical – as well as the personal choices that have gone into developing an ongoing scholarly project. While I indicate the importance of the experiences of personal pleasure that originally inspired my research, I also show how the personal and the pleasurable often necessarily encounter tensions and even certain kinds of conflict when linked to a ‘disciplinary’ domain. This essay therefore traces a particular example of how ‘cultural studies travels’ both geographically within a life and disciplinarily within something that has come to be known as‘French cultural studies’.     

Speaking trajectories: Meaghan Morris,antipodean theory and Australian cultural studies

Over the last 30 years, the term discourse has spread throughout both the social sciences and the humanities. There is a widespread consensus that the current usage of the term ‘discourse’ originated with Foucault. This paper has three related goals: first, it demonstrates that the current usage of ‘discourse‘ did not originate with Foucault, and in some ways contradicts his own limited technical usage. Second, an intellectual history is presented that explains where the term originated – in French and British theory of the 1960s and 1970s – and how it was propagated and transformed by Anglo-American cultural studies theorists. By extending this intellectual history through the 1990s, the paper documents how Anglo-American scholars increasingly began to attribute the concept to Foucault, and how this has contributed to two important misreadings of Foucault. In conclusion, this history is drawn upon to explore and clarify several competing usages of the term in contemporary cultural studies.