'Research Training and Professional Social Work Education: Developing Research-Minded Practice' Social Work Education, .

The movement towards developing practice more firmly grounded on empirical research has, arguably, been one of the most significant international trends in social work during the past decade. However, in the UK the implications of this trend for pedagogical practices and the design of educational programmes have still to be fully explored. This paper reports on the findings of a repeated cross-sectional survey of MSW students in Queen's University Belfast which focused on their perceptions of the value of research training to professional practice. The study, conducted over a four year period, explored students' awareness of the relationship between research and practice and their readiness to engage with research training. The findings suggested that the majority of students perceived research training as a valuable component of professional development. However, the study also found a level of scepticism among students about its practical utility along with some resistance towards actively embracing a research agenda. The paper evaluates the significance of these findings for developing research and evidence-based practice as integral components of the new degrees in social work in the UK and for social work education programmes in other countries aiming to develop research-minded practice.

Innovative Approaches to Involving Service Users in Palliative Care Social Work Education

Service user involvement in social work education is now a firmly established concept in UnitedKingdom.As a result, it is common practice for service users to occupy central roles the education and training of social work students and staff in both qualifying and postqualifying programmes. This paper describes an initiative, undertaken inNorthern Ireland, which compares two methods of user involvement employed with undergraduate and postqualifying social work students. In both situations the students firstly observed discussedDVDexcerpts of narratives from people affected by cancer and secondly observed live facilitated interview with a 25-year-old male service user who shared his experiences being diagnosedwith cancer at a young age.Understanding the social work role in palliative care is crucial as all social workers, regardless of practice context, will have some degree involvement in helping individuals and families to address end-of-life care issues. paper compares the findings of evaluations from two student groups which may help inform social work educators about the effectiveness of different teaching methods used achieve meaningful and effective user involvement with seldom heard groups.

Building bridging social capital in a divided society: The role of participatory citizenship education

Participatory citizenship education has been highlighted as a strategy to promote social cohesion in divided societies whereby collaborations with Non-Governmental Organisations and inter-school links have been proposed as tools to improve social networks between schools and communities. This article explores the role and meaning of citizenship education and cross-community participation in promoting social capital and social cohesion. School survey findings, focus groups and interviews with young people and educators indicated that differences between school sectors and established allegiances with particular communities and NGOs may limit the potential for citizenship education to produce bridging social capital and serve to reproduce bonding social capital. It is argued that the introduction of citizenship curricula into segregated schools systems in divided societies may be useful to promote citizenship values and positive attitudes to the other but insufficient to promote the development of bridging social capital and, ultimately, social cohesion in the long term.

Interpersonal Aspects of Thinking Skills in an Intercultural Language Learning Context

Asking and answering certain types of questions are thought to develop thinking skills in all types of classrooms. Previous research has demonstrated that asking higher order questions and answering with elaborated responses are associated with high achievement in first, second, and foreign language contexts. Typically more attention is paid to question frequency or achievements inferred from individual performances than to the dialogues in which asking and answering occurs. This paper argues for a focus on the construction of responses in interaction as an alternative to the investigation of questions, effects of training or individual measurements of performance. Drawing on interactional data from an adult English as a Second Language classroom, it is argued that constructing an answer to a critical question appears to be a highly collaborative and evaluative affair. The thinking skills literature suggests that responding to higher order questions is an individual higher cognitive function, however it is argued in this paper that in attempting to construct evaluative answers language learners are involved not only in a cognitive task, which may or may not be helpful to language learning, but also in a complex social task in which perspectives need to be negotiated, stances taken and identities navigated. It is suggested that higher order thinking cannot be separated from the social and cultural knowledge through which it is brought into being. It is argued that any implementation of thinking skills in an English language teaching context ought to consider interpersonal and social aspects, particularly in intercultural settings.

Social Work Students Learn about Social Work Values from Service Users and Carers

Teaching on social work values is centrally important in social work education as a core aspect of underpinning knowledge in preparing students for practice. This paper describes an innovative project occurring within the first year of the degree in social work, where service users and carers have assisted students with their understanding of social work values. The positive contribution of service users and carers in facilitating students to make links between theory and practice is now well documented. Applying this user perspective to the educational domain of values, however, is relatively uncharted territory given the challenges that have traditionally accompanied the teaching of values. Importantly, this paper describes the ‘value talk’ which occurred when first-year students sought further meaning from service-user and carer groups in their community settings following classroom teaching on values. The paper not only discusses the detailed preparations involved in the project but also the learning which resulted, drawing on the evaluation findings from the students and participating groups. Whilst the findings show that the students' understanding of social work values has been most significantly influenced by the contributions from service users and carers, it is recognized that further research is needed to monitor the longer term impact on social work students' practice after they qualify.

Cooperative Learning in Science: Follow-up from primary to high school

This paper reports a two-year longitudinal study of the effects of cooperative learning on science attainment, attitudes towards science, and social connectedness during transition from primary to high school. A previous project on cooperative learning in primary schools observed gains in science understanding and in social aspects of school life. This project followed 204 children involved in the previous project and 440 comparison children who were not as they undertook transition from 24 primary schools to 16 high schools. Cognitive, affective, and social gains observed in the original project survived transition. The implications improving the effectiveness of school transition by using cooperative learning initiatives are explored. Possibilities for future research and the implications for practice and policy are discussed.

Beyond Individualism: Social Work and Social Identity

Individualism continues to have a notable impact on social work. The personalisation of services and the individualisation of care are just two examples of this societal trend. While helping service users to articulate their aspirations for a better future, individualism, if taken too far, undermines the social aspects of life. In response to this concern, this paper argues that social work must appreciate the interplay between the individual and the collective spheres, and its impact on identity formation, in order to enhance human well-being. To give substance to this argument, Jenkins's model of social identity is appropriated and augmented to take account of four interlinked, yet distinct, orders of experience, namely the individual, interactional, institutional and societal orders. This reworked conceptualisation is then considered in terms of its implications for social work practice.

The Sustainability Balanced Scorecard. Linking Sustainability Management to Business Strategy.

The Balanced Scorecard of Kaplan and Norton is a management tool that supports the successful implementation of corporate strategies. It has been discussed and considered widely in both practice and research. By linking operational and non-financial corporate activities with causal chains to the firm's long-term strategy, the Balanced Scorecard supports the alignment and management of all corporate activities according to their strategic relevance. The Balanced Scorecard makes it possible to take into account non-monetary strategic success factors that significantly impact the economic success of a business. The Balanced Scorecard is thus a promising starting-point to also incorporate environmental and social aspects into the main management system of a firm. Sustainability management with the Balanced Scorecard helps to overcome the shortcomings of conventional approaches to environmental and social management systems by integrating the three pillars of sustainability into a single and overarching strategic management tool. After a brief discussion of the different possible forms of a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard the article takes a closer look at the process and steps of formulating a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard for a business unit. Before doing so, the basic conventional approach of the Balanced Scorecard and its suitability for sustainability management will be outlined in brief.

What Happened to the ‘Development’ in Sustainable Development? Business Guidelines Two Decades After Brundtland

Over twenty years ago ‘Our Common Future’ presented a conceptualization and explanation of the concept of sustainable development. Since then numerous alternative definitions of the concept have been offered, of which at least some are exclusive to each other. At the same time, the role of business in the transition to sustainable development has increasingly received attention. Bringing these two trends in sustainable development together, this paper returns to the Brundtland version of the concept to examine to what extent the original principles of sustainable development are still embedded within key business guidelines, namely the UN Global Compact, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the ICC Business Charter for Sustainable Development, the CAUX Principles, the Global Sullivan Principles and the CERES Principles. The findings suggest that these business guidelines tend to emphasize environmental rather than social aspects of sustainable development, in particular to the detriment of the original Brundtland prioritization of the needs of the poorest. Furthermore, the attention to environmental aspects stresses win-win situations and has a clear managerialist focus; whereas more conceptual environmental issues concerning systems interdependencies, critical thresholds or systemic limits to growth find little attention. The normative codes and principles targeted at the private sector thus not only add another voice to the multiple discourses on sustainable development but also contribute to a reinterpretation of the original agenda set by Brundtland towards conceptualizations of sustainable development around the needs of industrialised rather than developing countries. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Reviewing the European North/South Divide under the Prism of Beck’s ‘Risk society’ Thesis

Reviewing the European North/South Divide under the Prism of Beck’s ‘Risk society’ Thesis
Southern European political cultures have been viewed as extremely disadvantageous terrains for the development of a civic culture compatible to the requirements of a modern polity. Trust confined to the local and the familial, weak civil societies, violation of the law in the absence of supervision are some of the elements combined to draw an extremely negative picture of southern European political cultures in the relevant literature. These are very well entrenched perceptions that dominate all studies dealing with social aspects the southern European nations. Recent works produced by students of environmental mobilisations have argued that the environmental problematique has operated as a catalyst that, at least, forces us to re-examine the aforementioned perspectives if not to outright dismiss them.

This paper argues that although these challenging perspectives are not immune from criticisms, they have put forward a strong case that deserves further attention. A careful reading of Beck’s ‘risk society’ thesis suggests that mistrust to expert authorities and defensive reactions by social actors against them are not confined to specific national contexts but are now characteristics of countries previously held to be exemplary cases of civicness. Following that observation the paper proceeds by posing a number of related questions:

1) Can we argue that we are witnessing a general ‘Mediterranisation’ of European political culture or by arguing that we essentially accept what was idealistic evaluations of post-war European cultures determined by specific political conceptions?

2) Is there still any role for the use of a north/south divide in the cross-national study of social processes and to what extent?

(Re) making trajectories: Eviction, control and power

The City of Cairo's experienced a major shift in its urban planning attitude and practice since the mid 1970s which mostly validated elements of economic planning while neutralizing its social aspects. This ad hoc approach escalated conflict in planning politics over the control of space between tiers of the planning institution and the locals leading to rigorous planning actions among major stakeholders such as eviction and control of spaces. The article examines how institutional claims over space reassembled alternative definitions of quality of life in one of Cairo's oldest quarters, and how ambitious planning schemes were mostly driven by entrepreneurial rather than societal. Based on first-hand interviews and visuals, the article aims to reveal the local's struggle to survive such interventions with attention to their daily negotiations in place.