Die politisierte Sozialstruktur als mittelfristig stabile Basis einer deutschen Normalwahl

A normal vote is a hypothetical election result following exclusively from predispositions of voters towards political parties which result from long-term or middle-term influences. The influence of short-term factors like attractive candidates or issues from the recent campaign have to be eliminated within the abstract model. As an operationalization for German Bundestag elections for this purpose the average vote intentions of population groups are used which are part of the politicized German social structures such as catholics, especially when they attend church frequently, or employees (Arbeitnehmer) and union members who have formed enduring coalitions with a political party. This operationalization is compared with a model originally developed for the United States. According to this model, the long-term factor is measured by party identification. All Bundestag elections of the Kohl era are analyzed, for which the Politbarometer surveys of the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, Mannheim, immediately before the Bundestag elections are used as a data basis. The vote intentions which can be derived from the politicized social structure are shown to be a stabile basis for a German normal vote so that it makes sense to compute normal vote results from 1983 to 1998.     

University Education as a Compensation Strategy Among Second‐Generation Immigrants

The aim of this study is to determine whether immigrants and their children use a compensation strategy that involves achieving higher than expected education, given their parents’ level of education and income. The study uses data for all individuals in Sweden who finished elementary school from 1990 to 1992. Parents’ level of education and income is in general positively associated with higher odds of having university education. However, some immigrant groups show the reverse pattern of the impact of parents’ income. The results support a compensation strategy developed in groups and families with low level of integration in the labor market.     

关于施工企业财务存在的问题及对策

施工企业在拉动国民经济增长、启动内需等方面起到了举足轻重的作用。但由于种种原因,财务亏损面日益扩大,整个行业经济状况严重滑坡,许多企业举步维艰。要想扭转不利局面,政府主管部门应帮助其完善现代企业制度,强化社会商业信用监管,维护“合同法”的严肃性,严格执行按工程拨款和决算制度。同时企业本身也要加大清欠力度,用法律手段维护自己的合法权利。     

Participatory Spaces of Mental Health Service User Organizations in the Post-deinstitutional Era: Mapping Roles and Challenges

By applying the concept of participatory spaces, this article maps and analyzes current research on mental health service user organizations (MHSUOs). We have analyzed research literature from 2006 to 2016 to examine how the role of and challenges facing MHSUOs are formulated in the post-deinstitutional era. The current situation is marked by MHSUOs parallel presence in invited, claimed and popular spaces for participation. The post-deinstitutional era is characterized by a shift in focus from gaining access to such participatory spaces, to critically examining the political opportunities available in these. We further argue that the dominance of psychiatry-specific spaces could prevent MHSUOs from fully exploring their potential for participation in broader social issues.     

Yet another minority issue or good news for all? Approaching LGBT issues in European social work education

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the questions of why to include and how to approach LGBT issues in the context of European social work education. Referring to social work’s commitment to LGBT people, the article points out its ongoing relevance as questions of marginalisation and discrimination point far beyond formal equality in legislation and normalisation of homosexuality within existing societal institutions. Furthermore, new questions and dynamics in rapidly changing and highly diverse societal contexts bring about new challenges in addressing LGBT issues. Against this background, the article discusses problems of representation and knowledge and underlines the potential of a queer approach. A queer perspective questions taken-for-granted assumptions about sexual orientation, gender identity and intimate relationships. It challenges normalising categories of sex, gender and desire and brings out possibilities existing beyond the heteronormative order. This way, it offers social work education a powerful theoretical lens to address issues on sexual orientation and gender identity not only as yet another minority issue, but as transversal matter and as good news for all. In this article, we use the acronym LGBT to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people. LGBT is meant to include and at the same time emphasise the differences between people who do not (exclusively) define themselves as heterosexual and who cannot or do not want to match or identify with binarities of sex, gender and desire. We do not use the acronym LGBTI because we find it problematic to include intersex people without taking explicitly into account their specific situations and needs. Making a plea for a queer approach, we share – of course – a critical view on categorisations and identity labels.     

The street-level delivery of activation policies: constraints and possibilities for a practice of citizenship

The debate on activation policies and challenges to social citizenship has to go beyond the level of formal policy and take into account also its operational and street-level dimension, which shapes what eventually arrives as policy on the ground. In this context, frontline practice plays a crucial role since it constitutes the very moment when activation policies encounter their target groups and real-world solutions have to be found. This article outlines a conceptual framework to approach frontline work within the context of activation and presents the main findings of a research project aimed at exploring the challenges, interpretations and reactions of frontline practitioners in Public Employment Services in the cities of Vienna (Austria) and Milan (Italy). The findings contribute to the debate on the constraints and possibilities for a practice of citizenship in a practice field whose challenges are often neglected both by social policy and social work research although it has become a central arena for welfare state intervention in which social citizenship, eventually, becomes manifest. Particular attention is paid to different framings of practice and to the questions whether and to what extent professionalising ‘activation work’ could counteract the precarious and highly individualised role of frontline practitioners in this ambiguous public domain.     

Experiences,Burdens, and Support Needs in Siblings of Girls and Women with Anorexia Nervosa: Results from a Qualitative Interview Study

For many years, siblings of women and girls suffering from anorexia have been regarded as “the forgotten kin,” as they have been overlooked by both researchers and clinicians. Therefore, the goal of this explorative study was to investigate siblings’ experiences, burdens, and support needs in a differentiated manner. Siblings (n = 16) of patients with an ICD-10 diagnosis “anorexia nervosa” (F 50.0) took part in a qualitative, in-depth interview study; the data were assessed using content analysis. The results of this study should be especially interesting for clinical social work. Using the findings, a variety of concrete recommendations for psycho-social practice can be made, for example regarding the inclusion of siblings in treatment settings, as well as specific support concepts for siblings of anorexic women and girls in different age groups.     

Promoting public/academic linkage.

1. Collaborative linkages between public mental health/mental retardation service systems and academic institutions have evolved in response to several problems: increasing numbers of individuals requiring long-term mental health care; the nursing shortage; and a decline in enrollment and students graduating from psychiatric mental health nursing programs. 2. Evidence suggests that a public/academic linkage in the form of a multidisciplinary training course in the care of seriously mentally ill patients promotes a recruitment of mental health professionals to work with these patients. 3. The establishment of academic/health care system linkages can enhance client care, expand and improve clinical experiences and education for students, and provide opportunities for collaborative research among clinical staff, faculty members, and graduate students.