Book Review of “The Origins of Social Work: Continuity and Change”. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, by Malcolm Payne

Malcolm Payne’s latest work proposes to survey the continuity and change in social work from its inception and origins, up until the present day. In order to do justice to the theme, its author could have concentrated on developing a narrative of a national enterprise, or restricted himself to a regional analysis (Western European Social Work) or opt instead for a more narrowly focused cultural exploration, White Anglo-Saxon Social Work (WASSW). One can only infer that limiting himself in this fashion would have struck the author as parochial, or rather, that only a truly global enterprise could satisfy his capacious mind. One is left to marvel at the invocation of Darwin’s great work and wonder what was the process of the author’s “natural” selection of this material.

Everyday Sexuality and Social Work: Locating Sexuality in Professional Practice and Education

Social work has seen increased intellectual interest in sexuality. However, little attention has been paid to the relevance of everyday sexuality for professional practice or how this might be integrated within existing social work curricula. This paper proposes that knowledge about everyday sexuality is vital to social workers as they deal with a variety of clients faced with the increasing complexities brought about by late-modernity. Additionally, it is argued that this knowledge base is congruent with the ethical and political dimensions of the profession. The PLISSIT model is presented as a possible pedagogical framework for social work education in this area.

Equality and Diversity in the Dutch Welfare State

Under the Constitution, the equality principle is very important in the Netherlands. This article argues that there is little evidence for equal citizenship in the Netherlands. There is anti-discrimination legislation in the Netherlands, but it is not very robust. The core argument in this article is that the equality principle must be supplemented by the diversity principle. Diversity is multi-dimensional and can refer to religion, philosophy of life, political persuasion, race (ethnicity), gender, nationality, sexual orientation, age, disability and chronic illness. In this paper multi-culturalism and disability are taken into account and we make a comparison of the social position of disabled people and people from ethnic minorities. Policies on diversity are needed to arrive at diverse citizenship in a varied society. This implies that a distinction has to be made between political citizenship and cultural citizenship. The former has to do with equality, and the latter with diversity.

Victim Support in a Changing Welfare State

This article discusses how new kinds of individual needs develop parallel to the changes in the welfare state. From a study of Victim Service in Sweden it is shown how this organisation has grown parallel to the changes in the welfare state. In the empirical material it is also shown that the need of support often comes from secondary victimisation. Those who are helped by Victim Support are often people with loose bonds to society and people of low class. As victims they can get help from Victim Support, but the need derives from lacking service in the welfare state. NGOs has replaced organisations in the public sector at the same time as the neo-liberal conception of crime, threats and risk has replaced the social democratic ideas of social security.

Contingencies for Intercultural Dialogue in Virtual Space: An Empirical Research on the Role of Internet in Fostering Intercultural Competences from the Perspective of Migrant Youth

Against the background of the emerging multicultural migration society, acquisition of intercultural competences is getting vitally important for youngsters to actively and effectively engage with intercultural dialogue in a co-existent life context. Contingencies for such intercultural dialogue and to foster intercultural competences of youngsters are opened in virtual space when youth with different ethnic, social and cultural background go online. However, differences in Internet use and competences acquisition as “digital inequality” also exist among youth with different socio-cultural background. This article reports on a quantitative survey of 300 Turkish migrant youth in Germany as empirical sample about how Internet use generally fosters their intercultural competences, what differences exist among them and which indicators can explain the differences. Preliminary findings show that the contingencies of Internet in fostering intercultural competences are still not much employed and realised by Turkish migrant youth. Four online groups connected with bonding, bridging, both (bonding and bridging) and none socio-cultural networks are found out based on the cluster analysis with SPSS. These different networks, from the perspective of social cultural capital, can explain the differences concerning development of intercultural competences among them. It is indicated in this research that many Turkish migrant youth still lack recognition and capabilities to construct their intercultural social networks or relations through using Internet and further to employ the relations as intercultural social capital or social support in their life context. This therefore poses a critical implication for youth work to help migrant youth construct and reconstruct their socio-cultural networks through using Internet so as to extend social support for competences acquisition.

Berufsschulen auf dem Weg zum E-Learning

Das Primärziel des BLK-Modellversuchs „E-Learning zur Unterstützung des Lernfeldkonzepts (ELLFE)“ ist die Entwicklung und Ausgestaltung des Lernfeldkonzepts durch E-Learning-gestützte Lernsituationen. Der mediale Schwerpunkt soll erprobt werden, da angenommen wird, dass der Lernfeldunterricht durch die Potentiale des E-Learning flankiert werden kann. Der Artikel stellt neben den theoretischen Vorüberlegungen zu dem Projekt einige konkrete Umsetzungsbeispiele sowie gegenwärtige Evaluationsbefunde vor.

Optimizing the learning potential for the distance learning students

The distance learning programme has made its entrance into nursing education, and many see it as a break with the education’s traditions of teaching in the classroom, in practise rooms and at the patient’s bedside (Chaffin & Maddux 2004). Traditionally, many of the technical skills and personal qualities that nurses must acquire are learned through interaction with others. The distance learning programme has therefore given rise to some new problems and challenges, and this article discusses some of these. Empirically, the article builds on a comparative study of three student nurse classes from two Danish nursing schools, including one based on the distance learning programme. By following both distance learning and traditional nursing students in their clinical training, light is cast upon the differences and similarities that may exist in the clinical skills and competences that the students gain under the two programmes. Theoretically the article builds on Etienne Wengers theory on learning in communities of practice, focusing on the relationship between experience and competence in learning related communities of practice (Wenger 1998;Wenger 2004) . The article contributes with findings that are related to the differences between the programmes and the different types of students that each programme attracts. The article argues that an increased didactic and pedagogical focus upon the field of tension between experience and competence will enable an optimisation of the learning conditions of the distance learning students in their clinical teaching. The article, in conclusion, thus places focus on the questions surrounding teaching design in relation to the distance learning programme.

Lernmanagement-Plattformen revisited: Strategien für die organisatorische Verankerung von Evaluations- und Re-Evaluationsprozessen an der Universität Trier

Zentrale Lernmanagement-Plattformen sind mittlerweile an vielen Hochschulen Standard. Damit diese Plattformen nachhaltig genutzt werden, müssen bei der Bewertung die vielfältigen Interessen von Lehrenden, Studierenden, zentralen Einrichtungen bis hin zur Hochschulleitung berücksichtigt werden. Dies gilt sowohl für die Evaluationsprozesse zur Einführung von Lernplattformen, wie auch für Re-Evaluationsprozesse, die notwendig sind, um die Infrastruktur einer Hochschule den sich verändernden Bedürfnissen und Rahmenbedingungen anpassen zu können. An der Universität Trier wurde bzw. werden (Re-)Evaluationsverfahren durchgeführt, bei denen systematisch alle Stakeholder der Hochschule einbezogen werden. Grundlage dafür ist ein Netzwerk aller E-Learning-Support- und Entwicklungseinrichtungen der Universität, das im Rahmen eines Projektes zur E-Learning-Integration etabliert wurde. Der Artikel stellt als Fallstudie die Konzepte für die Evaluations- und Re-Evaluationsprozesse an der Universität Trier vor. Dabei wird weniger auf das Verfahren selbst hinsichtlich der Kriterienwahl und Bewertung sowie den Ergebnissen fokussiert, sondern vielmehr auf Rollen und Aufgaben der Akteure in diesen Entscheidungsprozessen.

ModelDB in Computational Neuroscience Education - A research tool as interactive educational media

ModelDB's mission is to link computational models and publications, supporting the field of computational neuroscience (CNS) by making model source code readily available. It is continually expanding, and currently contains source code for more than 300 models that cover more than 41 topics. Investigators, educators, and students can use it to obtain working models that reproduce published results and can be modified to test for new domains of applicability. Users can browse ModelDB to survey the field of computational neuroscience, or pursue more focused explorations of specific topics. Here we describe tutorials and initial experiences with ModelDB as an interactive educational tool.

Simbrain: A visual framework for neural network analysis and education

Simbrain is a visually-oriented framework for building and analyzing neural networks. It emphasizes the analysis of networks which control agents embedded in virtual environments, and visualization of the structures which occur in the high dimensional state spaces of these networks. The program was originally intended to facilitate analysis of representational processes in embodied agents, however it is also well suited to teaching neural networks concepts to a broader audience than is traditional for neural networks courses. Simbrain was used to teach a course at a new university, UC Merced, in its inaugural year. Experiences from the course and sample lessons are provided.

Interactive Curriculum Based on Models of Mind & Brain

What does it mean for curriculum to be interactive? It encourages student engagement and active participation in both individual and group work. It offers teachers a coherent set of materials to choose from that can enhance their classes. It is the product of on-going development and continuous improvement based on research and feedback from the field. This paper will introduce work in progress from the Center for Excellence in Education, Science, and Technology (CELEST), an NSF Science of Learning Center. Among its many goals, CELEST is developing a unique educational curriculum, an interactive curriculum based upon models of mind and brain. Teachers, administrators, and governments are naturally concerned with how students learn. Students are greatly concerned about how minds work, including how to learn. CELEST aims to introduce curricula that not only meet current U.S. standards in mathematics, science, and psychology but also influence plans to improve those standards. Software and support materials are in development and available at http://cns.bu.edu/celest/private/. Interested parties are invited to contact the author for access.

Berufsschulen auf dem Weg zum E-Learning

Das Primärziel des BLK-Modellversuchs „E-Learning zur Unterstützung des Lernfeldkonzepts (ELLFE)“ ist die Entwicklung und Ausgestaltung des Lernfeldkonzepts durch E-Learning-gestützte Lernsituationen. Der mediale Schwerpunkt soll erprobt werden, da angenommen wird, dass der Lernfeldunterricht durch die Potentiale des E-Learning flankiert werden kann. Der Artikel stellt neben den theoretischen Vorüberlegungen zu dem Projekt einige konkrete Umsetzungsbeispiele sowie gegenwärtige Evaluationsbefunde vor.

Special Issue: Interactive Educational Media for the Neural and Cognitive Sciences

Understanding the functioning of brains is an extremely challenging endeavour - both for researches as well as for students. Interactive media and tools, like simulations, databases and visualizations or virtual laboratories proved to be not only indispensable in research but also in education to help understanding brain function. Accordingly, a wide range of such media and tools are now available and it is getting increasingly difficult to see an overall picture. Written by researchers, tool developers and experienced academic teachers, this special issue of Brains, Minds & Media covers a broad range of interactive research media and tools with a strong emphasis on their use in neural and cognitive sciences education. The focus lies not only on the tools themselves, but also on the question of how research tools can significantly enhance learning and teaching and how a curricular integration can be achieved. This collection gives a comprehensive overview of existing tools and their usage as well as the underlying educational ideas and thus provides an orientation guide not only for teaching researchers but also for interested teachers and students.

BrainMaps.org - Interactive High-Resolution Digital Brain Atlases and Virtual Microscopy

BrainMaps.org is an interactive high-resolution digital brain atlas and virtual microscope that is based on over 20 million megapixels of scanned images of serial sections of both primate and non-primate brains and that is integrated with a high-speed database for querying and retrieving data about brain structure and function over the internet. Complete brain datasets for various species, including Homo sapiens, Macaca mulatta, Chlorocebus aethiops, Felis catus, Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, and Tyto alba, are accessible online. The methods and tools we describe are useful for both research and teaching, and can be replicated by labs seeking to increase accessibility and sharing of neuroanatomical data. These tools offer the possibility of visualizing and exploring completely digitized sections of brains at a sub-neuronal level, and can facilitate large-scale connectional tracing, histochemical and stereological analyses.