Troubling the discourse: applying Valsiner’s Zones to adolescent girls’ use of digital technologies

ABSTRACT

Young people’s use of technology has been extensively explored in the literature. However, there has been less work theorising their technology-enabled behaviours, integrating understandings of adolescence into explanations of technology use. The study reported here begins to address this gap. It explores the digital lives of 15 young women in the United Kingdom over one year, using the tools and conceptual categories of social cognition in novel ways. An adaptation of Valsiner’s Zones makes it possible to offer an account of technology use which avoids romanticism and pessimism, and enables us to: (i) recognise choice and agency; (ii) articulate technology-mediated development across disciplines and paradigms; and (iii) locate physiological development within the broader social, psychological and socio-technical realms. The paper concludes by applying the adapted framework to a single case, Megan, illuminating unresolved issues for future studies and theorising technology as shaping, rather than defining, adolescent perspectives, behaviours and relationships     

The Structural Causes of Teacher Burnout in Hong Kong

Abstract

 Since the mid 1990s, teacher burnout has become a crucial phenomenon in the Hong Kong education system, as increasing numbers of Hong Kong teachers have been reported as stressed, exhausted, and depersonalized in their teaching. In the Hong Kong community, including the academic circle, many people have applied the psychological theory of burnout to study the psychological causes of teacher burnout. However, this article argues that teacher burnout has become a social issue and is not a purely psychological phenomenon. Thus, it is important for us to identify the structural causes rather than the psychological causes of teacher burnout, to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of teacher burnout, and to develop better solutions. This article therefore theoretically analyzes how teacher burnout can be caused by certain structural forces, including structural education reforms, the administrative structure of schools, and the occupational and career structure of teaching, from the perspective of the sociological theory of work alienation. The article also gives recommendations for further studies based on the theoretical analysis.     

Labour Market Problems,and Psychological Well‐Being: A Panel Study of Canadian Youth in Transition From School to Work∗

Abstract

Four‐year panel survey data are used to examine the effects on psychological well‐being of unemployment, underemployment, educational satisfaction, and position in the transition from school to work among Canadian youth. Controlling on social support and baseline psychological status, labour market problems are found to have small, significant negative effects on feelings of self‐esteem, powerlessness, and depression among high school graduates, but not among university graduates. The effects of educational satisfaction and transition status are less clear.

     

Peer mentorship: a powerful buffer against those with legitimate right and power to bully subordinates

ABSTRACT

We used collective analytical autoethnography (CAAE) to investigate experiences of academic bullying and mobbing in our study. Specifically, four autoethnographers shared and analyzed personal experiences of being mobbed and bullied, described their perceptions of workplace bullying, its manifestations, and explored the emotional, social, psychological and career consequences associated with being bullied and mobbed at work. In addition, the autoethnographers reflected on different resources used to cope with mobbing and bullying experiences and revealed – peer mentorship and social support – as instrumental in helping them cope with both the physical and emotional distresses associated with the bullying and mobbing experiences. Implications from the findings and suggestions for future research are also presented.     

Teaching Social Work's Bio-Psycho-Social Assessment

Abstract

Teaching a process of case theory construction provides students with a systematic approach to make sense of clients and formulate accurate assessments. Through a theory of the case students can account for problematic factors, explain the client, draw from the relevant literature and successfully intervene. Case material illustrates the importance of students' incorporation of the biological, psychological and social in their case theory construction. These three domains not only provide the requisite social work breadth in assessment, but also build the foundation for a broad-based social work intervention that is germane to client problems.     

Social Work in Higher Education: Internships in Opportunity Programs

ABSTRACT

Field education is essential to the development of professional social workers. Despite the significant overlap in social work’s and higher education’s missions and values, there is a scarcity of social work internships specifically in higher education settings. The placement of social work interns in institutions of higher education provides a setting where they can develop new knowledge and skills and increase their capacity to support college students toward academic success. This conceptual article discusses the role of social work in higher education and provides a model social work internship in an opportunity program, including its creation, development, challenges, outcomes, and future direction.     

The Cognitive‐Developmental Approach to Morality: a Reply to Kurtines and Greif

Abstract

This papers confronts the social‐psychological problem of the relation between values and persons in everyday life. For this purpose simple operational definitions, as used in psychometric work, are not adequate. There must be a clear conception of the person, as an individual, in a social setting. A model which meets these requirements, with seven components, is described. This is used to illustrate what ‘having values’ might mean. Three applications are briefly outlined.     

Student leadership in small group science inquiry

Background: Science educators have sought to structure collaborative inquiry learning through the assignment of static group roles. This structural approach to student grouping oversimplifies the complexities of peer collaboration and overlooks the highly dynamic nature of group activity.

Purpose: This study addresses this issue of oversimplification of group dynamics by examining the social leadership structures that emerge in small student groups during science inquiry.

Sample: Two small student groups investigating the burning of a candle under a jar participated in this study.

Design and method: We used a mixed-method research approach that combined computational discourse analysis (computational quantification of social aspects of small group discussions) with microethnography (qualitative, in-depth examination of group discussions).

Results: While in one group social leadership was decentralized (i.e., students shared control over topics and tasks), the second group was dominated by a male student (centralized social leadership). Further, decentralized social leadership was found to be paralleled by higher levels of student cognitive engagement.

Conclusions: It is argued that computational discourse analysis can provide science educators with a powerful means of developing pedagogical models of collaborative science learning that take into account the emergent nature of group structures and highly fluid nature of student collaboration.     

Challenges Faced by Canadian Social Work Field Instructors in Baccalaureate Field Supervision

ABSTRACT

This article examines the challenges faced by social work field instructors in two Canadian provinces. The results are based on the responses from 239 field instructors to a questionnaire survey. Findings highlight student difficulties, administrative issues with the social work schools, and practicum setting challenges. These demands hinder the optimal implementation of social work field education, reveal the concerning gatekeeping role of schools of social work, and discourage some social workers from taking on (or continuing) as field instructors. Implications for social work student placements, supervision of students, academic programs, and directions for future research are presented.     

Can we avoid digital structural violence in future learning systems?

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the concept of digital structural violence and examines the negative role it could have in future learning systems. To address it, we propose a new interdisciplinary research agenda at the intersection of three current but disparate lines of work that:

1. Use the concept of epistemic privilege to theorise the inclusion of marginalised learners in the design of learning systems, and utilise participatory action research and emancipatory methodologies to pragmatically ensure this happens;

2. Support young learners and teachers to understand and build their own artificial intelligence algorithms;

3. Develop sustainable interdisciplinary links with computer science to address digital structural violence at the algorithmic level and to make its societal implications and underlying processes more widely understood, especially by teachers.

Taken together, these provide for a material form of resistance to digital structural violence and a theoretically and methodologically coherent future research agenda for building just learning systems.     

The Current Status of Social Work Online and Distance Education

ABSTRACT

Over the past three decades, social work education gradually has begun to embrace distance education as a viable alternative (and supplement) to traditional face-to-face education. While some feel that social work’s response has been slow, compared to sister professions, it has been explicit, extensive and sure. This paper looks at the current status of social work’s response to emerging online and digital options, and concludes with a look to the future.     

Empowering Social Work Faculty

ABSTRACT

Based upon the emergence of alternative paradigms both inside and outside of social work education, four paradigms representing the most traditional to the most radical are presented. Each paradigm is discussed in terms of its ontological and epistemological assumptions as well as other pedagogical issues including role of the teacher, methods of evaluation and course structure. Educators are urged to use these paradigms to better understand legitimate differences between faculty, to become more conscious and deliberate in their choice of methods, to identify areas of incongruence, and to push themselves and the profession towards philosophies and methods most congruent with social work values an ethics.     

Social Learning Theory and Web-Based Learning Environments: A Review of Research and Discussion of Implications

Abstract

Since the 1970s, cognitive psychological perspectives have dominated pedagogical frameworks and models for designing technology-mediated teaching and learning environments. More recently, social learning perspectives have received attention as viable or even desirable frames for research and practice related to teaching and learning, particularly in Web-based learning environments (WBLEs). In this article, the authors analyze these social learning perspectives and how they can be used in the design and implementation of online learning. This review and analysis of the research related to social learning perspectives on WBLEs provides several implications for future research and practice: (1) examining learners' individual characteristics in WBLEs, (2) identifying strategies for promoting social interaction in WBLEs, and (3) developing effective design principles for WBLEs.     

Evaluation of Affective and Cognitive‐Affective Domains in Socially‐Oriented Innovative Science and Technology Curricula

Summaries

English

The present work is an attempt to contribute to the field of evaluation of the affective domain in socially‐oriented innovative science and technology curricula. The main concern of such curricula is the long‐term development of the student's personality in terms of decision‐making capability, attitudes, intellectual power, and social involvement.

Since it appears that the realistic choice in the evaluation of such curricula is between ‘no measures’ (subjective judgements) and ‘imperfect proxies’, it is proposed to concentrate on finding adequate (and agreeable) measures to evaluate the long‐range intended (but also the unintended) effects of the programmes in hand, and only then to switch to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum in achieving these effects (i.e. the educational objectives) in the affective domain. Selected ideas with respect to the above are ‘translated’ here into manageable and applicable procedures within the science class, taking into consideration the ‘local realism of constraints’ within which every science teacher performs.

The development of feasible methods for measurement of curricular outcomes in the affective and affective‐cognitive domains is a precondition for future summative evaluation of socio‐technologically oriented science and technology curricula. Contending with the moral and value‐judgement components of any future science curriculum is therefore the inescapable task ahead.     

Social Work Values Systems of Chinese Students

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the findings of a study conducted on the social work values systems of social work students in the City University of Hong Kong. A social work values scale composed of six dimensions, namely human worth, potential for change, mutual care, societal responsibility, social participation and freedom to make choice, was constructed. The findings in this study indicated that all batches of students had a common pattern in the ranking of the order of the value dimensions. Not all the value dimensions had an increase in scores with the increase in training and practice experiences. The fieldwork placement was considered by the students as the most important formal channel during trainingin the acquisition of social work values. It is suggested that social work educators need to have a thorough review of the relationship between curriculum design and the inculcation of professional values.     

Social foundations of lifelong learning: a Habermasian perspective

ABSTRACT

The idea of learning rooted in behavioural psychology has become dominant in the field of teaching and learning for several decades. Even though it has been widely used in formal education it is inadequate for informing lifelong learning policies and plans. In this paper, first I critique the psychological foundation of learning and in the second part, drawing on Habermasian conceptualisation of three structural components of the lifeworld (culture, society, and personality), I conceptualise the three components as the social foundations of learning: learning as cultural reproduction, learning as social integration and learning as socialisation. In the context of the UN’s declaration of ‘lifelong learning’ as one of the Sustainable Development Goals, this paper will be useful for developing policies to address challenges faced by individual countries at cultural, societal and individual levels.     

Motivating Students to Work with Elders

Abstract

At a time when increasing numbers of elders need and continue to rely on social work services, it is important to build enthusiasm among students to prepare them for future work with this special population. A three-pronged approach to teaching about aging, which is built on the strengths perspective, critical social construction, and a human rights and social justice focus, is recommended. For each part of the method, a theoretical rationale is outlined, and specific readings, films, music, class exercises, and written assignments to enhance the learning process are presented and discussed.     

Management in Education

Abstract

This paper uses Durkheim's critique of Kant to criticize Kohlberg's theory of morality. After examining the applicability of Durkheim's criticism of Kant's definition of morality to Kohlberg's equation of morality with justice structures, it explores Durkheim's psychological views on emotional and dispositional aspects of morality, which are typically neglected by Kantians. Some standard criticisms of Durkheim's moral theory are re‐examined and the argument is advanced that Durkheim's social ethic is substantively at Stage Six on Kohlberg's developmental schema. Several modifications of Kohlberg's theory are proposed, using Durkheimian insights.     

The Changing Influence of Educational Policy and Race on Metropolitan Inequality, 1970–2010

Abstract

Schools do not receive much recognition within urban sociological research for the role they perform in shaping the demographic, structural, and social features of neighborhoods, cities, and metropolitan areas. In contrast, this article links schools, and the racial avoidance that operates through educational policy, to the extreme economic polarization of metropolitan areas. The author considers why the expansion of school choice has not yet produced the decline in economic polarization that research suggested it might.     

Infantilism

The aim of this article is to define and operationalize the construct of infantilism.

The methods of theoretical research involve analysis and synthesis. Age and content criteria are analyzed for childhood and adulthood. Infantile traits in an adult are described.

Results. The characteristics of adult infantilism in the modern world are defined, taking into account increasing information flows and socio-economic changes. The concept of “infantilism” and its main features are defined as an organization of the personality that includes traits and behavioral models that are typical of one's earlier age periods and not appropriate to the person's actual age, which is most articulately manifested in emotional and volitional immaturity of an individual.

Scientific novelty. The main psychological characteristics of adulthood are described, including reflection, the desire to work and have a vocation, vocational self-determination, work skills, the desire for self-realization, and emotional and volitional maturity. Objective characteristics of adulthood are: transition to economic and territorial independence of the parental family, and development of new social roles, such as that of worker, spouse, and parent. Two possible operationalizations of the concept are identified: objective (existence/absence in a person’s life of objective criteria of adulthood) and subjective (self-report on the subjective feeling of existence/absence of the psychological characteristics of adulthood).

The practical significance of the work consists in formulation of an operationalization of “infantilism,” which at the moment has so many interpretations. Such operationalization is necessary for further analysis and research.