Exploring the Potential of Social Network Analysis in Asset-based Community Development Practice and Research

Abstract

Strengths-based practice appears to be a popular approach to social work practice. Increasingly, it has become the approach of choice in community work, with the “asset-based community development” model being utilised both in Australia and internationally. However, asset-based community development has been criticised for its lack of an evidence base, lack of theoretical depth, and its lack of consideration of the macro level causes of disempowerment. While concepts of networks are central to asset-based community development, social network theory and analysis have rarely been utilised in a comprehensive manner in asset-based community development practice or research. This article contends that asset-based community development practice can benefit from the integration of key concepts from social network theory. Similarly, it is proposed that social network analysis holds promise as an appropriate methodology in terms of understanding the efficacy of asset-based community development projects.     

Accredited Mental Health Social Work in Australia: A Reality Check

Abstract

Accredited mental health social workers (AMHSWs) have a great deal to offer the clients they see in their private practices, many of whom have complex needs. However, they are constrained by the inflated expectations Government has about evidence-based psychological interventions. The restrictions placed on the professional private practice of AMHSWs by Federal Government Medicare funding of a narrow set of psychological interventions ultimately limits the services received by clients. In this article, the findings of a survey of AMHSWs are presented, highlighting the tensions between individualised responses promoted by Medicare payments, and those premised on principles of social justice and social inclusion.     

Case Management in Rural Australia: Arguments for Improved Practice Understandings

Abstract

This article is principally concerned with case management and rurality in the Australian context. While there is substantial literature exploring case management across disciplines and across contexts, there remains a substantial gap in knowledge in relation to the role played by rurality in case management practice in Australia. An emerging body of knowledge associated with human service delivery in rural Australia under the stewardship of authors such as Alston, Cheers, and Lonne, offers valuable links between rurality and human services and draws attention to the specificity of rural work. However, there remains a gap in knowledge about how rural specificity impacts on case management practice in the political, cultural, and socioecological context that makes up rural Australia. Thus, the aim of this paper is to reflect upon contemporary knowledge of rural case management in the light of current literature and emerging trends, and to provoke interest in this topic as an area for further discussion and research.     

Learning to Stay? Mobile Modernity and the Sociology of Choice

Abstract

Linking physical and social mobilities to a modernity typified by increased foci on individualization, consumption, workplace flexibilization and the need for further (and further) education, this paper argues the need for mobility scholars to pay greater attention to the role played by educational institutions in family formation and the decisions associated with where to locate oneself in relation to these institutions. The research project under consideration took place in a remote Australian resource boomtown, an epicentre of global capital concentration and a concomitant mobile modernity. It focuses on educational decision-making that absorbs increasing amounts of energy among middle-class families in various parts of the globe, exploring the sociological implications of this and the links with physical and social mobilities.     

Pedaling Power: Bicycles,Subjectivities and Landscapes in a Settler Colonial Society

Abstract

Mobilities across contested terrains are key to the formation of settler societies. This paper explores how safety bicycles were drawn into the Australian settler project at the turn of the twentieth century, just as the six independent colonies were federating into the Commonwealth of Australia. As recently imported objects, bicycles afforded settler men unprecedented mobility across remote landscapes that had not been smoothed by the infrastructures of the ‘old world’. In those years of national formation, bicycles were received as objects that could fill ‘empty’ land with people, things, activities and stories, at the same time as they generated masculine, settler subjectivities. A practice approach to settler mobilities helps to tease out the entanglements between bicycle ‘overlanding’ and two fundamental imperatives of settlerism: transforming indigenous places into settler places and creating ‘nativised’ settler subjectivities.     

《实践论》真正体现马克思主义哲学的本真精神

<实践论>主要从四个方面体现着马克思主义哲学的本真精神:从哲学视阈上看,<实践论>是相对注重"生活公式"的哲学;从哲学功能上看,<实践论>是注重"前导理念"的哲学;从哲学信念与使命上看,<实践论>是"为时立言"的哲学;从哲学发展方向上看,<实践论>关注"中国问题"的哲学.历史是不能割断的,如果不真正了解<实践论>,就不能真正理解毛泽东的哲学思想,也就不能对邓小平理论、"三个代表"重要思想和科学发展观有更深刻的认识.     

专业生产实习方式和人才培养的探索

高等院校工科教育从精英教育阶段发展到大众普及阶段,相应地,教学也从以知识传授为主向以能力培养为主转变。建筑环境与设备工程专业培养的是面向工程应用的专门人才,如何与时俱进,合理安排生产实习,配合理论教学的需要,是一个非常重要的问题。从几个方面论述了生产实习教学环节的必要性以及实习内容、时间安排、能力培养问题,并提出了相应的改进措施。     

元认知学习判断假说:理论与实证

学习判断是个体对当前学习项目的回忆成绩的预见性判断,它是一种常用的监控学习进展准确性的方法。笔者综述了国内外有关学习判断产生的机制、延迟学习判断的效应机制及自信心下降效应机制的相关假说与实证研究,并分析了各种假说的相互关系;同时指出了目前研究在选取实验材料、实验设计、使用的计算指标、变量的控制及研究范式方面存在的问题及未来研究改进的方向。     

论道德实践及其特征——马克思实践哲学的渊源

实践范畴是马克思实践哲学的核心范畴。马克思的实践哲学是对传统实践哲学,即道德实践的继承和超越。把握道德实践的渊源、发展及其特征,既是正确把握马克思实践范畴真正内涵的基础,也是理解马克思哲学革命的重要线索。     

大学生创新创业的探索与实践——以山西农业大学为例

大学生就业难早已成为社会关注的焦点问题。为了缓解这种压力,鼓励和提升大学生的自主创业能力,以创业促进就业不失为扩大大学生就业的一项重要举措。目前,大学生自主创业环境还不成熟,尚需采取各种措施,完善创业环境,促进大学生自主创业。结合山西农业大学在创业教育方面进行的探索与实践,探讨了转变大学生就业观念,激发大学生的自主创业意识,打好学生创业知识基础,培养学生自主创业能力,优化创业社会环境,对于提高大学生自主创业能力的重要性;并结合实际有针对性地提出社会实践、组建高校社团、建立大学生创业信息平台等对大学生就业的积极促进作用,提出了解决高校大学毕业生创新创业问题的新举措。