Social Work Commons^™

Women's Reaearch And Action Group, Report Of Activites, Professor Vibhuti Patel

Professor Vibhuti Patel

WRAG commenced in 1993 in the context of very active public discourse about Muslim women’s rights under family law (in the wake of Supreme Court judgment in Shah Bano’s case where a 70-odd year old woman was granted maintenance from her husband who had divorced her). WRAG was also established soon after the destruction of Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992, subsequent to which there were attacks against the Muslim community in many parts of India including Mumbai. In this context, WRAG felt the need to understand Muslim women’s perspectives on family laws that govern them. It commenced, in 1994, …

Flawed Analysis Of Prostitution In Rhode Island, Donna M. Hughes Dr., Margaret Brooks

Donna M. Hughes

Medicalization Of Mental Disorders: 1970- To The Present, W. Joseph Wyatt

W. Joseph Wyatt

A thirty-five year escalation of emphasis on biological causation has rendered, for many, medications as the treatment of choice for mental disorders. Non-drug treatment may be cast aside, as a result.

Toward A Client-Centered Benchmark For Self-Sufficiency: Evaluating The ‘Process’ Of Becoming Job Ready., Philip Young P. Hong

Philip Hong

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how service providers, clients, and graduates of a job training program define the term self-sufficiency (SS). This community-engaged, mixed method study qualitatively analyzes focus group data from each group and quantitatively examines survey data obtained from participants of the program. Findings reveal that psychological transformation as a ‘process’ represents the emic definition of SS—psychological SS—but each dimension of the concept is reflected in varying degrees by group. Provider and participant views are vastly different from the outcome-driven policy and funder definitions. Implications for benchmarking psychological SS as an empowerment-based ‘process’ measure of …

Validation Of The Employment Hope Scale: Measuring Psychological Self-Sufficiency Among Low-Income Jobseekers, Philip Young P. Hong, Joshua R. Polanin, Terri D. Pigott

Philip Hong

The Employment Hope scale (EHS) was designed to measure the empowerment-based self-sufficiency (SS) outcome among low-income job-seeking clients. This measure captures the psychological SS dimension as opposed to the more commonly used economic SS in workforce development and employment support practice. The study validates the EHS and reports its psychometric properties. Method: An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted using an agency data from the Cara Program in Chicago, United States. The principal axis factor extraction process was employed to identify the factor structure. Results: EFA resulted in a 13-item two-factor structure with Factor 1 representing “Psychological Empowerment” and Factor …

The Consequences Of Malnutrition Following Discharge From Rehabilitation To The Community: A Systematic Review Of Current Evidence In Older Adults, Skye Marshall, Judith Bauer, Elisabeth Isenring

Skye Marshall

Sequins, Sass And Sisterhood: An Exploration Of Older Women's Belly Dancing, Angela M. Moe

Angela M. Moe

Disempowering stereotypes plague public perceptions of older women’s bodies, particularly within Western contemporary societies. Consequently, as women age their bodies often become sources of shame, discomfort and ridicule. Belly dance, as a form of recreative leisure, provides a unique and somewhat unexpected space for women to subvert such perceptions. Based on qualitative interviews with older American women who belly dance, this paper examines the ways in which this form of recreation provides participants a means of (re)gaining mobility, (re)claiming social space, (re)building social support, and (re)defining what it means to be sensual later in life.

“IʼM A Leader Of All Of Them To Tell The Truth”: Participatory Action Principles For Uplifting Social Work Research Partnersʼ Identities, Katherine Tyson Mccrea Professor

Katherine Tyson McCrea

Identity, understood from many vantage points, is continually evolving based on relationship experiences, including those relationships established in social and behavioral research. Whether rendered anonymous in large quantitatively-studied samples, or intimately known in qualitative studies, those contributing to science in a role termed “subject” receive, through the research, definitions of their identities. Because those identities are part of published social research, identities created in the research process become part of the public discourse about persons in the “subjects’” situations, and also influence policies that in turn influence persons’ lives. For their part, the identities of social and behavioral researchers also …