The duty to care and the need to split

This paper arises out of psychoanalytically oriented consultancy to teams of staff in the helping professions where there is a statutory 'duty to care'. It takes as its premise the seemingly paradoxical hypothesis that workers may need to split off part of their emotional experience in order to preserve their own mental health and provide reliable services to their clients. I argue that while a professional 'duty to care' requires us to be emotionally 'in touch', the demands of our clients together with the demands of the institutional response to the 'duty to care' cause us to split off parts of our awareness. I also argue that provided the splitting does not become extreme we are doing no more or less than the rest of society. In other words, there is a degree of 'normal splitting' which numbs our awareness of danger and destructiveness and seeks to protect us from too much anxiety and pain. Yet if professional workers are charged with the responsibility of assessing risk and acting accordingly for the protection of all concerned they need ways of being 'in touch' (re-integrating the splits) for some or enough of the time. Finally, I will describe ways of being 'in touch', illustrating the difficulty and the pain of re-integrating the splits and some of the insights that can arise out of this work with examples from my consultancy work.     

Practice supervisors’ perceptions of social work students and their placements – an exploratory study in the Norwegian context

Practice placement has been a basic component in Social Work Programmes for many decades in Norway as elsewhere, and supervision of students has been a valued role for social workers. Here, we have carried out a pilot study of nine supervisors from various practice settings, dealing with their experience with and views about supervision of students. The aim was to get more knowledge of student supervision today and the meaning of student supervision in different practice settings. We found that the content of supervision depended on the agency context. Supervision embodies core agency values. There was a lack of common ground between supervisors and the school of social work, and between supervisors and the students.     

Testing the validity of social capital measures in the study of information and communication technologies

Social capital has been considered a cause and consequence of various uses of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). However, there is a growing divergence between how social capital is commonly measured in the study of ICTs and how it is measured in other fields. This departure raises questions about the validity of some of the most widely cited studies of social capital and ICTs. We compare the Internet Social Capital Scales (ISCS) developed by Williams [2006. On and off the ’net: scales for social capital in an online era. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), 593–628. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00029.x] – a series of psychometric scales commonly used to measure ‘social capital’ – to established, structural measures of social capital: name, position, and resource generators. Based on a survey of 880 undergraduate students (the population to which the ISCS has been most frequently administered), we find that, unlike structural measures, the ISCS does not distinguish between the distinct constructs of bonding and bridging social capital. The ISCS does not have convergent validity with structural measures of bonding or bridging social capital; it does not measure the same concept as structural measures. The ISCS conflates social capital with the related constructs of social support and attachment. The ISCS does not measure perceived or actual social capital. These findings raise concerns about the interpretations of existing studies of ‘social capital’ and ICTs that are based on the ISCS. Given the absence of measurement validity, we urge those studying social capital to abandon the ISCS in favor of alternative approaches.     

Work,parenting and gender: the care–work negotiations of three couple relationships in the UK

Changes globally mean that there are now record numbers of mothers in paid employment and a reported prevalence of involved fathering. This poses challenges to mothers and fathers as they negotiate care–work practices within their relationships. Focusing on interviews with three heterosexual couples (taken from a wider UK qualitative project on working parents), the paper considers care–work negotiations of three couples, against a backdrop of debates about intensive mothering and involved fathering. It aims to consider different configurations of work and care within three different couple relationships. We found that power within the relationships was negotiated along differential axis of gender and working status (full- or part-time paid work). We present qualitatively rich insights into these negotiations. Framed by a critical discursive psychological approach, we call on other researchers to think critically about dominant discourses and practices of working, caring and parenting, pointedly how couples situated around the world operationalise these discourses in talking about themselves as worker and carers.     

Tracing the roots of mindfulness: Transcendence in Buddhism and Christianity

The field of social work has embraced mindfulness skills in the training of social workers and as an intervention used in practice. However, there is little discussion regarding the theoretical or religious roots of mindfulness. In addition, social workers often employ mindfulness by practicing within a behaviorist frame. Missing from this behaviorist frame are the historic religious definitions, aims, and values of mindfulness, which lead to a fuller understanding of mindfulness in social work practice. This article traces the religious roots of mindfulness to clarify its goals in both Buddhism and Christianity, with an emphasis on the Mahayana branch of Buddhism and the contemplative and mystical traditions within Christianity. In both religions, mindfulness leads one to an experience of transcendence, assisting the follower to realize that the self belongs in relationship with a divine oneness in Buddha nature, that is believed to be intrinsic to all sentient beings (in Buddhism), or a divine God through the person of Jesus Christ (in Christianity) where the self is retained. Social workers uphold the values of mindfulness and the profession itself when being sensitive to root mindfulness practice within its historical and religious contexts, particularly within Buddhist and Christian faith systems.     

教育券:解决城市流动儿童入学问题的良方还是歧途?

通过发行"教育券"来解决流动儿童的入学问题是当前一种较流行的主张。但这一主张只是从表面上使中央政府、地方政府和流动人口家庭之间达成了一定程度的妥协,能够在一定程度上缓解流动儿童的入学难题,却无法触及到问题的根源,无法从根本上解决流动儿童的义务教育问题。其根源在于对弗里德曼教育券理论的一种错误理解和运用。在美国,教育券要解决的是促使不同类型的学校尤其是私立学校通过竞争得到发展的问题,而不是要解决谁应该为学生的义务教育买单的问题。只有将义务教育经费划拨从"以县为主"上升为"以省为主",才有望从根本上解决流动儿童接受义务教育的经费问题。     

基于CDIO的计算机图形图像类通识课程的建设与实践研究

CDIO工程教育是从"培养什么人"和"怎样培养人"这两个根本问题出发来探索工程教育问题,而大学通识选修课程作为高校本科人才培养课程体系的重要组成部分,以其开设的课程内容丰富,时间相对集中灵活而深受学生的欢迎。在基于CDIO的计算机图形图像类通识课程的建设与实践研究中,依据CDIO的原理,以设计实验项目实例为教学主线,来贯彻和实现CDIO的让学生"在做中学和在学中做"的教学理念及培养方法。     

Embodied versus Disembodied Information: How Online Artifacts Influence Offline Interpersonal Interactions

This article examines how the sheer volume of personal information recorded and searchable online (online artifacts) has transformed the situated activity system central to Goffman's dramaturgical theories. In‐depth interviews reveal that individuals believe disembodied information based on online artifacts is a more accurate representation of others than embodied information from spatially and temporally bounded face‐to‐face (FTF) processes because they represent how others have behaved over time and are attested by their online contacts. However, the n‐adic structure of online interaction leads to mismatched expectations about whether disembodied information is taken into account during FTF encounters, and consequently can result in embarrassment.     

高等教育规模扩张何以实现——以“资源稀释模型”为视角

＂资源稀释模型＂认为,在家庭经济资源一定的情况下,家庭里的孩子数量越多,每个孩子分到的经济资源就会相应减少;而且家庭的经济资源对孩子是否有机会接受高等教育的影响非常重要。笔者从＂资源稀释模型（Resource Dilution Model）＂这一视角来分析和探讨,上世纪末我国＂高等教育规模扩张＂政策何以得以顺利实施。