Braving Human Suffering: Death Education and its Relationship to Empathy and Mindfulness

Social workers are likely to encounter clients dealing with traumatic grief and death in their practice. Though death education has gained in popularity and acceptance, few social work students receive coursework in this area and many are unprepared to deal with their clients' and their own emotions regarding death and grief. Though death-related content may evoke provider avoidance, mindfulness and empathy may help regulate provider emotions and responses. This United States-based study evaluates the effectiveness of experiential death education on mindfulness and empathy. Measures in three separate cohorts were given at the beginning and end of the course. Results show statistically significant increases on the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy, indicating that such a course may be effective in increasing both mindfulness and empathy in social work students and those in related fields.     

Teaching Note—Oppression of People With Mental Illnesses: Incorporating Content Into Multiple-Issue Diversity Courses

Many social workers practice in settings serving people with mental illnesses, but social work education in the United States has given minimal attention to helping students understand the systemic nature of prejudice and discrimination experienced by this population. Some courses address prejudice (stigma) toward people with mental illnesses, but a critical consideration of systemic oppression appears to be lacking. We explain how an oppression framework used to understand the systemic nature of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression is useful in illuminating experiences related to (perceived) mental health status. We offer suggestions for incorporating content into courses that focus on diversity and oppression with the goal of preparing students to engage in antioppressive practice with people who have mental illnesses.     

The Eroticism of the Maternal: So What If Everything Is About the Mother?

The “erotic” bond between the mother and the infant is often idealized as the epitome of the preoedipal, prerepressive utopia in the blissful image of the naked and sacred mother-infant dyad. This article problematizes such a utopian image by identifying the core fantasy underlying that which is maternal. My discussion looks at the mother both as the object of erotic fantasy and the subject who is doing the fantasizing. This study brings together two seemingly disparate theoretical notions, Lacanian feminist psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray's argument about our culture's relationship with the mother and Japanese psychoanalyst Takeo Doi's study of amae. I argue that what Irigaray calls “desire of/for the mother” and what Doi attempted to explain using the everyday Japanese word, amae, a wish to “depend and presume upon another's love or bask in another's indulgence,” are both what is understood in the clinical psychoanalytic language as maternal erotic transference.     

Genetically modified food in France: symbolic transformation and the policy paradigm shift

The priorities of French policy regarding genetically modified (GM) food shifted in the late 1990s from aggressive promotion to strict regulation based on precaution and separation of GM food. This paradigmatic policy change coincided with a rapid shift in the dominant meanings of GM food in larger French public discourses. Using data from media coverage, organizational documents, and in-depth interviews, the study examines the relationship between policy developments and GM food’s symbolic transformation. I argue that the interpretive dimension interacted with and co-evolved incrementally with formal policy developments, and that it cannot be understood as epiphenomenal to political processes, or as preceding and propelling a policy change. I identify three mechanisms of symbolic transformation: (1) multiplication of meanings; (2) association with other salient issues; and (3) coupling with national identity (boundary work). Conversely, this symbolic transformation influenced the terms of political debates and viable strategies, influencing policy developments. The study also demonstrates how certain longstanding elements of French political culture shaped, and were changed or reproduced through, these processes.     

Work-self balance: A longitudinal study on the effects of job demands and resources on personal functioning in Japanese working parents

Abstract

In work-family research the effects on the individual, or the “self”, in terms of personal interests independent of the work and family domains, have been largely neglected. This longitudinal study on 471 Japanese employees with young children investigated how job demands and job resources may have an impact on well-being by facilitating or hindering personal functioning. It was hypothesized that workload would have an unfavourable impact on work-to-self conflict, while supervisor support would have a favourable impact on work-to-self facilitation. In addition, we hypothesized that work–self conflict would diminish well-being (psychological distress and happiness), while work–self facilitation would enhance well-being over time. Structural equation modelling analyses using a full panel design showed that work overload was positively related to work–self conflict over time, whereas supervisor support was positively related to work–self facilitation. Furthermore, work–self conflict predicted psychological distress and happiness at T2, one year later, after controlling for T1 levels. These findings suggest that the demands and resources encountered at work can spill over to the home domain and have an impact on personal functioning and context-free well-being. Further research is needed to determine the importance of work-self constructs in relation to work-family constructs.     

Reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Survey Work–Home Interaction – NijmeGen,the SWING (SWING-J)

ABSTRACT

This study sought to validate the Japanese version of the Survey Work–Home Interaction – NijmeGen, the SWING, which assesses multi-dimensional work–family interaction by differentiating between the direction and quality of influence. We translated the SWING into the Japanese language, the SWING-J. A back-translation procedure confirmed that the translation was appropriate. A total of 2701 dual-earner parents with preschool children (1193 men and 1508 women) were surveyed. The complete questionnaire included the SWING-J, job and family domain variables, and well-being indicators. The reliability and factorial and convergent validity of the used measures were examined. As the results, four dimensions (i.e. work-to-family negative spillover, family-to-work negative spillover, work-to-family positive spillover and family-to-work positive spillover) were determined by an exploratory factor analysis. A series of confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the hypothesized four-factor model provided a reasonably good fit to the data. Convergent validity was generally supported by the expected correlations of work–family spillovers with the possible predictors and consequences. Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the four subscales of the SWING-J were satisfactory (0.75–0.86). The present study confirmed that the Japanese version of the SWING is an adequate tool to measure positive and negative spillover between working life and family life among Japanese workers.     

Anti-racist pedagogy: from faculty’s self-reflection to organizing within and beyond the classroom

This article is a synthesis of my own work as well as a critical reading of the key literature in anti-racist pedagogy. Its purpose is to define anti-racist pedagogy and what applying this to courses and the fullness of our professional lives entails. I argue that faculty need to be aware of their social position, but more importantly, to begin and continue critical self-reflection in order to effectively implement anti-racist pedagogy, which has three components: (1) incorporating the topics of race and inequality into course content, (2) teaching from an anti-racist pedagogical approach, and (3) anti-racist organizing within the campus and linking our efforts to the surrounding community. In other words, anti-racist pedagogy is an organizing effort for institutional and social change that is much broader than teaching in the classroom.