The transfer of reflective engagement from social work education into the workplace: a study of the value of scaffolded reflection

The focal concern of this article is the investigation of the transfer and sustainability of the reflective process into the work environment. Specifically, the identification of the variables which support or challenge practitioners to continue the ongoing process of reflection in practice contexts is addressed. The article describes a study carried out over a seven-year period with students/graduates from a master's in social work (MSW) professional qualification programme in Ireland. The research involved gathering data on participants’ experiences of reflective teaching and learning while on the course and in the initial years of their work as practitioners. In the early phases of the data collection, participants referred to developing epistemological awareness through the reflective process while on the course. This was in the context of a scaffold for reflection through journal writing and mentored portfolio inquiry. The outcomes of the study offer considerable insight into the challenges and value of developing a reflective teaching and learning environment in professional education. In particular, the work highlights how it impacts positively on professional practice.     

行动反思教学模式在社会工作实务类课程教学中的探索与实践

行动反思教学模式是在直接行动经验中建立知识、技巧和价值观的,在这种模式下,教学的过程是一种双向的互动的过程。社会工作实务类课程是社会工作专业教育特色的集中体现,此类课程的实施质量直接影响学生专业水平的提升以及专业价值理念的形成。本文尝试探索适应有关课程的行动反思教学模式,并相应提出运用行动反思教学模式的具体教学理念与方法。     

Collaborative knowledge and intellectual property: an action learning conundrum

If everyone is contributing, if action learning involves collective learning, then new knowledge is created through a collaborative process. This is not expert knowledge and no ‘one truth’ is produced, this is a collective knowledge arising from a common purpose and a shared quest. Such knowledge continues to evolve without the intention to fix or commodify. Collaborative knowledge can be a source of innovation and sustainability, and as such a key process in the knowledge economy and the learning society. However, whilst knowledge economies require constant innovation to promote economic development and trade, this often takes the form of intellectual property production (IP), with the consequent establishment and policing of IP rights, notions that are antithetical to collaborative knowledge creation.     

Building capacity in social care: an evaluation of a national programme of action learning facilitator development

This account of practice shares the findings of an evaluation into the impact of a facilitator development programme on participants' knowledge, skills and subsequent practice. The Centre for Action Learning Facilitation was established to develop action learning set advisors and has been working with Skills for Care over the last two years to develop an internal capacity in social work departments to use action learning primarily to support newly qualified staff.     

社会工作方法在大学生就业指导中的应用初探——以团体工作的方法应用为例

在当前严峻的就业形势下,我们除了积极开拓就业市场,也应积极引入新的理念对毕业生加强就业指导。社会工作方法的引入以及团体工作在实务层面上的运用,将有可能以一种新的理念和方式推动和促进当前就业指导工作的创新变革。     

Enhancing student engagement through practice experience in social work education: the Social Work Studio

It can sometimes be difficult to engage students in ‘real life experiences’ within the classroom. In one Bachelor of Social Work program, the development of a Social Work Studio (the Studio) has provided students with opportunities to engage in simulated social work practice in a safe and supportive environment. This article reports on a small exploratory study of students' responses to a survey that sought their views and reactions to the development of this Studio initiative. Findings were analysed from a sociocultural perspective. They indicate that students' responses to the development of the Studio reflect their emerging constructions of the cultural world of social work.     

Knowledge and transformative social action: the encounter of selected traditions of participatory (action) research

The argument in this paper is that action and participatory research developed within the context of social and political movements aimed at promoting democratic relationships and institutions represents a methodological strategy for deconstructing and reconstructing the hegemonic perspective of knowledge and knowledge production. After a brief reflection about the place of social transformation in today's social practice, especially in education, the paper looks at selected traditions of action and participatory research from Europe [England (Tavistock), Scandinavia and Germany] and Latin America (Colombia and Brazil). These experiences, whilst attending to particular social conditions, can be seen as attempts to develop knowledge that promotes and strengthens a shared world view that aims at social justice and recognition of differences.     

浅析小组工作在学校社会工作中的介入模式

随着我国教育的改革、社会的发展与变迁,我国当代学生出现了很多心理、行为和人际交往的社会问题,传统的学生工作已经无法满足大部分学生健康成长的需要。在这种情况下,学校社会工作以其全新的工作理念和方法,成为解决学生问题的有效途径之一。在学校中进行社会工作并结合小组工作等社会工作方法为学生的健康成长提供帮助,从而对未来和谐社会的建设具有重要的意义。     

Buddhism and action research: towards an appropriate model of inquiry for the caring professions

This article traces parallels between the basic principles of action research and some key Buddhist doctrines. The argument is that action research's methodological focus on values, collaboration, dialectics, change and creativity is reinforced and clarified by the Buddhist emphasis on practices such as meditation and on the doctrines of ‘metta’, ‘harmonious speech’, ‘kamma’ and the impermanence of all phenomena, including the self. Finally, the issue of validity in social inquiry is addressed: Buddhist ‘enlightenment’ is grounded in a rationally argued model of human capacity for self-transcendence, whereas action research's model of ‘emancipation’ is necessarily a ‘contested’ concept and thus dependent on political optimism.     

Falls the shadow and the light: liminality and natality in social work field education

This article is situated within an experience of conflict for Tina, a social work student, who is caught between her beliefs about the virtues of social work practice, and her disillusioning encounter with the school's administration. In this paper, we interpret Tina's experience of conflict by drawing on the central concepts of liminality and natality, and how she moves through disillusionment to illumination, thereby generating new self-understandings and meanings of social work practice. We conclude with the pedagogical implications for students, and educators, and that as messy and complex as the liminal is, it is also vital to the creation of new understandings and regeneration of meaning in professional education.     

社会工作专业化的社会历史条件论析

100多年来，社会工作既形成为一个以助人为本质特征的特定专业，又在专业的基础上不断发展。社会工作所经历的这一发展历程即是其专业化的过程。在这一过程中，传统的助人活动演进为科学的助人活动。而促使助人活动发生结构性变化的则是随社会发展所出现的一系列新的社会因素，即社会对助人活动的社会性需求、社会承担起助人的责任、助人资源的多样化以及科学进入整体化发展阶段。如果说社会工作专业化是历史发展的必然结果的话，那么，随社会发展所出现的一系列新的社会因素，则是引发以及满足社会工作专业化的社会历史条件。     

Collaborative action research and project work: Promising practices for developing collaborative inquiry among early childhood preservice teachers

Excerpts from case studies of two preservice teaching teams exemplify a new approach for merging research and practice within an introductory early childhood methods course. Through participation in cycles of collaborative action research focused on the joint task of implementing long-term projects, preservice teachers evidenced change in the ways they participated in and developed an inquiry-oriented teaching stance. In particular, changes included (1) an increased awareness of the value and need to share responsibility with teammates for making curriculum decisions, (2) early attempts to self-regulate teaching behaviors through reflection-in-action, and (3) an appreciation for and use of documentation in making visible and public the relationship between teacher thinking, practice, and children's learning. While changes in level of reflectivity and practice are noted and valued, the ways in which preservice teachers’ participation begins to change may be as valuable an indicator of preservice teacher development as the possession of new knowledge and skills.     

结构—行动:流动农民的社会网络分析

近年来,“流动农民”已成为学术界研究的热点,面对主流的个体主义方法所持的地位结构视角的缺陷,本文试图从社会结构与行动的视角出发,借靠社会网络理论来分析流动农民外出就业的途径选择及流动农民作为“城里的乡下人”的社会支持网络结构。     

From question to inquiry: operationalising the case study for research in teaching

Case studies are widely used, particularly by researchers in education. While they are widely used, and have provided some of the most penetrating and challenging research in education and its practice, they may lack coherence and direction. A structure, is therefore, suggested for the operationalisation of case study research in teaching and in education more generally which involves consideration of the selection of case subjects, the choice of analytical focus and the varieties of form which the study itself may actually take. Using this structure, it is possible to give direction and coherence to the study while allowing its design to pursue any of a broad range of trajectories.     

Growing Talent for Inclusion: using an appreciative inquiry approach into investigating classroom dynamics

This paper reports on an Appreciative Inquiry project called ‘Growing Talent for Inclusion’ which has been running since 2002. The project grew out the authors’ work in a Local Authority Support Service assisting schools to meet the needs of pupils with a range of additional educational needs. Faced with a large number of individual referrals, many relating to the emotional, social and behavioural needs of pupils, it was considered that an eco – systemic approach was required and that a priority was to support pupils and teachers in developing more effective and satisfying interpersonal relationships in the classroom. ‘Growing Talent for Inclusion’ uses Appreciative Inquiry to investigate a management change process which has been used within large organisations and communities but less commonly at classroom level. It is a type of action research which is solution not problem focused and therefore lends itself well to a research focus of improving classroom dynamics. The paper introduces a 4‐D Cycle of Appreciative Inquiry: discovery, dream, design and deliver, as advocated by Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987, which guides the identification, acknowledgment and amplification of skills pertinent to improving social dynamics within the classroom and discusses the methodological issues which arise from this collaborative, participative form of inquiry. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods has been used to identify and track the development of attributes for improving working relationships in four different primary and secondary classrooms in three schools. 76 pupils and four teachers have been involved in the project since its inception in 2002 with classes in a further three primary schools using the approach during the academic year 2005–2006. Findings from the project show an increase in the number of pupils with whom other pupils are happy to work, a reduction in the number of pupils identified as socially excluded at the beginning of the project and enhanced capacity of the group in terms of the talents identified for growth. Feedback from staff and students also suggests that the process of noticing and acknowledging strengths has contributed to improvements in working relationships.     

The power of social dreaming: Reappraising the lesson of East European dissidents

Abstract

In the article, Thomas More’s vision of citizen education is a starting point for the analysis of the role of East European dissident thought and practice in addressing the present crisis of social agency posed by the legacy of postmodern philosophy and the surge of post-truth politics. The article argues that engaging with the experience of Eastern Europe in the last decades of the twentieth century offers a useful way of approaching the question of political action in relation to social dreaming and an important context to address the postmodern deconstruction of the subject. The way the thought and practice of East European dissidence both resonates with and questions the main principles of postmodern theory makes it particularly relevant for the current historical and political momentum and can be seen as an important contribution to the debates belonging to the ethico-political turn.     

“社会教育”传入中国考略

“社会教育”是20世纪初由日本传入我国的一个全新的教育名词,中国近代社会教育观念的产生与发展是受日本与德国社会教育双重影响的结果,在晚清后10年中,社会教育已经形成了一种教育思潮,并直接影响了民国教育部社会教育育司的成立和后来的各种社会教育实践活动。     

Using a Group Work Approach to Develop the Potential of Students in a Non-Traditional MSW Work-Study Program

Abstract

This article describes the role of a special faculty advisor, the Professional Development Counselor, in utilizing group work techniques and stages of group development to facilitate minority students' professional development as they successfully engage in and complete an MSW work-study program. It also outlines the history of the program, and discusses the use and results of an evaluation survey to measure the program's graduates' perceptions of their experiences and views of professional self.     

In memory of all the broken ones: catalytic validity through critical arts research for social change

The authors of this article use data produced in a collaborative community arts group in BC Canada as a way to think about validation in arts-based educational research (ABER). As Lather attempted to find middle ground between ‘rampant subjectivity’ and ‘pointless precision’ in research, she (1986) suggested that studies with an ideological or critical agenda might be validated by their catalytic potential – the ability to generate change. She has further argued that such work must be both conceptually and methodologically rigorous. With this charge in mind, the authors describe and discuss a memory box made by one participant in a two-year federally funded postdoctoral research project. They consider the catalytic validity of this artefact and reflect upon research methodology in ABER, in terms of triangulation, face and construct validities and member checks. They conclude with a challenge: What new and imaginative research methodologies might be invented for critical research in arts-based education?     

Innovations Applied to the Classroom for Involuntary Groups: Implications for Social Work Education

There is an increasing demand for social work students to be prepared to work with a wide range of involuntary groups including the more traditional court-ordered programs in domestic abuse and chemical dependency, as well as groups in mental health and schools that provide outreach to high-risk client populations. This paper introduces three innovative frameworks including Reactance theory, Stages of Change model and Motivational Interviewing. Classroom guidelines and exercises are presented that help students integrate these interventions as they develop their group work skills. Strategies for involving students in moving these innovations towards best practices with involuntary groups are discussed.