Social Work Commons^™

The Practice Of The Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper

This paper lays out some of the basics of a language-based, person-centered, or agentic model of practice for nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and philanthropy within the emerging domain of commons theory. Six principles are identified for the practice of commons. Two threats to the production of common goods - bureaucratization and colonization of the life world - are discussed and evaluated as limitations of the practice of commons.

Social Work And Human Rights: A Foundation For Policy And Practice. Elizabeth Reichert. Reviewed By Mel Gray., Mel Gray

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Elisabeth Reichert, Social Work and Human Rights: A Foundation for Policy and Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. $49.50 hardcover, $24.50 papercover.

Community Determinants Of Volunteer Participation: The Case Of Japan, Mary Alice Haddad

Mary Alice Haddad

Why are some communities more civically engaged than others? Why do some communities provide services with volunteer labor whereas others rely primarily on government provision? When communities provide both volunteer and paid labor for the same service, how do they motivate and organize those volunteers? This article addresses these questions through quantitative tests of prevailing explanations for levels of civic engagement (e.g., education, TV viewing, urbanization) and qualitative analyses of case studies of three medium-sized cities in Japan, focusing particularly on the service areas of firefighting and elder care. The statistical analyses demonstrate that current explanations that rely on individual …

Legislative Casework: Where Policy And Practice Intersect, Larry Ortiz, Cindy Wirz, Kelli Semion, Ciro Rodriguez

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Legislative casework is an ongoing activity in many state and federal legislative offices. Although the activity carries the implication of being a social work activity, there is little evidence from the literature, or in the field, that social workers are more than marginally employed in these positions. Reasons for the lack of professionally educated social workers in this important area of practice and politics are not clear. This paper explores the field of practice known as legislative casework, its history and purpose, and presents generalist social work examples from a Congressional district office wherein which professional social workers are employed. …

Restorative Justice, Responsive Regulation, And Democratic Governance, Paul Adams

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Restorative justice has been a central tradition of justice in most, perhaps all societies prior to the emergence of the modern, central state power with its bureaucratic-professional systems and its emphasis on retribution, deterrence, and, sometimes, re- habilitation. Its revival as a new social movement in modern states offers a new paradigm for addressing the key questions in social work and social welfare of the relation of formal to informal systems of care and control, and of empowerment to coercion. Restorative justice may be defined in terms of process- one whereby all stakeholders come together to resolve how to deal …