bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Digital Games
Authors: Valkenburg Patti M. , Piotrowski Jessica Taylor
Published: September 2017

Digital games were once considered the domain of a small, clearly defined demographic of young men. Today, however, they are a mainstream pastime for young and old, male and female. Why do we play digital games? What makes them deeply attractive and, for some, seriously addictive? How have games managed to occupy such a significant share of our leisure time? Do games affect us, and if so, how? Do they, as some suggest, positively influence spatial skills and, perhaps, intelligence? Or do they, as others fear, hinder our physical and emotional development? And if these effects occur, for whom do they occur? These key questions of game studies, a new research field concerned with the use, appeal, and effects of digital games, are addressed in this chapter.
Social Media
Authors: Valkenburg Patti M. , Piotrowski Jessica Taylor
Published: September 2017

This chapter presents the latest scientific research on the role of social media in teens' lives. Never before have the youth had so many opportunities to bring their self-presentation to perfection. They can, for example, endlessly edit their digital profiles and selfies before they post them on the Web or send them to friends. Does this ability make them more self-aware? Or does it turn them into narcissists? Does the use of social media lead to superficial relationships and loneliness—or does it boost self-esteem and social skills? What effects does extensive media multitasking have on youth? Does it make them lose their ability to concentrate and contemplate?
Media and Parenting
Authors: Valkenburg Patti M. , Piotrowski Jessica Taylor
Published: September 2017

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of studies ask whether and how media affect children and teens. These studies show that media use can have a positive or negative influence on how children and teens think and behave. But media use does not occur in a vacuum. Many forces can influence media effects on children and teens, including their developmental level, dispositions, and environment. This chapter homes in on the environment by focusing on the power of the parent. It discusses how parenting styles differ and what many consider as the most effective form of parenting. With this in mind, it discusses media-specific parenting for different age groups, highlighting specific media-related issues that parents are faced with as children get older. For example, should parents allow their youngest children to use media? How can parents prevent or mitigate the negative influences of violence in the media during childhood? Why is it so difficult to get teens to put down their cell phones? And what can be done about it?
The End
Authors: Valkenburg Patti M. , Piotrowski Jessica Taylor
Published: September 2017

This chapter begins with a discussion of the dynamics of our network society. The twenty-first century is, so far, the age of the network society, one that is supported by social media networks which have removed the spatial barriers that traditionally limited our communication, and have changed the world into a global village. The chapter then turns to the promises and perils of youth and media research today. It claims that the transition to a network society has turned research on youth and media on its head—leading to new opportunities and new challenges. It concludes by considering what this always-connected lifestyle means for our health and happiness.
In the Eyes of the World: The Signaling Value of Space Exploration
Authors: MacDonald Alexander
Published: September 2017

The chapter explores the political and economic origins of the Cold War Space Race. Unlike the earlier private-sector led phases of space exploration, it was the large-scale political demand for spaceflight that provided a new driving economic force starting in the late 1950s. It is the political history of this period that has dominated the history of spaceflight and has given it an overwhelming governmental and public-sector focus, relegating the earlier history of private-sector support to the footnotes and sidelines. The driving motivation during this period for the provision of public funds was a desire to signal status and capability through monumental achievement—this time at a national scale rather than at the city or individual level at which earlier space exploration projects, such as astronomical observatories, had been focused. Understanding space exploration as a signaling function for the nation and the nation’s leaders provides a perspective that allows pursuits such as the Space Shuttle, Space Station Freedom, and the International Space Station to be understood as resulting from the same exchange mechanism that produced America’s desire to go to the Moon.
The Next Space Patrons
Authors: MacDonald Alexander
Published: September 2017

Mankind will not remain forever confined to the Earth. In pursuit of light and space it will, timidly at first, probe the limits of the atmosphere and later extend its control to the entire solar system.

—Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Letter to B. N. Vorobyev, 1911

What do we learn from this long-run perspective on American space exploration? How does it change our understanding of the history of spaceflight? How does it change our understanding of the present? This book has provided an economic perspective on two centuries of history, with examinations of early American observatories, the rocket development program of Robert Goddard, and the political history of the space race. Although the subjects covered have been wide-ranging, together they present a new view of American space history, one that challenges the dominant narrative of space exploration as an inherently governmental activity. From them a new narrative emerges, that of the Long Space Age, a narrative that in the ...
Who Owns Groundwater?
Authors: Alley William M. , Alley Rosemarie
Published: September 2017

This chapter discusses the questions of who owns or has a right to use groundwater, how much can they use, where can they use it, and can their water rights be sold? The rules and laws addressing these critical questions have not come easy, and remain highly controversial. This chapter discusses these questions as they have played out in three western states (Texas, New Mexico, and California), as well as Spain and Australia. California’s 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is used to illustrate many of the challenges.
Water for Nature
Authors: Alley William M. , Alley Rosemarie
Published: September 2017

Many ecosystems depend on the flow, quality, and temperature of groundwater contributions to streams, wetlands, and other surface-water bodies. This chapter examines these complex issues of ecosystem health and sustainability by looking at the challenges the U.S. Forest Service faced in its attempt to protect groundwater-dependent ecosystems through a national groundwater directive. The discussion then moves to South Africa and the challenges of implementing its national mandate for an Ecosystem Reserve. Finally, the chapter discusses the Upper San Pedro River in Arizona and unique efforts to save this endangered river from groundwater over pumping.
That Sinking Feeling
Authors: Alley William M. , Alley Rosemarie
Published: September 2017

Land subsidence from over pumping groundwater is a serious problem affecting many parts of the world. This chapter begins with Joseph Poland, the pioneer of land subsidence investigations. The chapter then discusses how drought combined with a lack of groundwater management led to renewed land subsidence in California’s Central Valley. Mexico City, which has one of the most serious urban land subsidence problems in the world, is also discussed. The chapter then moves to success stories in bringing subsidence under control, such as California’s Santa Clara Valley; Houston, Texas; and Bangkok, Thailand.
Nitrate and Aquifer Protection
Authors: Alley William M. , Alley Rosemarie
Published: September 2017

Nitrate is the most common chemical contaminant in groundwater, affecting both human health and ecosystems. This chapter discusses how nitrate in groundwater has affected the health of the Chesapeake Bay and how it takes decades for changes in farming practices to reverse these trends. The chapter also examines the human health impacts of nitrate in groundwater within poor communities in California’s Central Valley. The chapter concludes with a discussion of source water protection by illustrating the comprehensive program for mapping groundwater protection zones in Denmark.
Defaming the Dead
Authors: Herzog Don
Published: September 2017

If you defame the dead, even someone who recently died, tort law does not think that’s an injury: not to the grieving survivors and not to the dead person. This book argues that defamation is an injury to the recently dead. It explores history, including the shaping of the common law, and offers an account of posthumous harm and wrong. Along the way, it offers a sustained exploration of how we and the law think about corpse desecration.
Embezzled, Diddled, and Popped
Authors: Herzog Don
Published: September 2017

The chapter opens by inviting the reader to imagine that at her funeral, someone falsely claims she embezzled money, diddled children in the park, and popped kittens in the microwave for fun. It then stages a collision between skeptical views dismissing the thought that that would qualify an injury and arguments that it would. It underwrites the skeptical case by exploring the case that contrary intuitions are an illegitimate hangover of religious beliefs about the afterlife.
Speak No Evil
Authors: Herzog Don
Published: September 2017

The chapter opens with a recent obituary that went viral, in which a daughter bitterly indicted her deceased mother for cruelty and child abuse. It goes on to explore the history of the view that we should speak no ill of the dead, and zeroes in on Julian Hawthorne’s decision to publish pages from his deceased father Nathaniel’s journal cruelly mocking deceased Margaret Fuller. And it notes that that view seems not to depend on whether the claims against the dead are true or false, a distinction central in the law of defamation.
Biblical Truths
Authors: Martin Dale B.
Published: September 2017

Biblical Truths addresses the question, How can a thinking person of the 21st century, who accepts the conclusions of modern science, historiography, and “facts,” continue to confess the traditional orthodox creeds of Christianity? How can such Christians continue to read the New Testament as a reliable source for “truth,” faith, and knowledge? Biblical Truths uses postmodern, antifoundational theories and philosophy to offer a ways of reading the Bible that are theologically faithful but intellectually respectable.
Knowledge
Authors: Martin Dale B.
Published: September 2017

Before getting to the construction of actual Christian theology, issues of epistemology must be addressed. How do we know what we know? Can Christian doctrine and scripture provide guidance for a faithful construction of human knowledge? Chapter 1 addresses several issues in the philosophy of knowledge and demonstrates that the New Testament can indeed furnish raw materials for postmodern epistemology. But it also insists that no knowledge can be had for any of us apart from the precarious activities of human interpretation.
Human
Authors: Martin Dale B.
Published: September 2017

The Bible, taken in its ancient historical context, says little explicitly about the nature of the human being, certainly not in any kind of scientific or philosophical way. It provides no explicit “theological anthropology.” Yet the New Testament, if read with care and creativity, may be seen to teach that the human person is a product of social and cultural construction; that the body, though a unity in some sense, is also made of various parts; that the self is social. The New Testament may help Christians accept the necessary finitude of human beings as a good, not as a flaw of human existence. It may come as a surprise to many people to see what may be learned from an innovative reading of the Bible about human sexuality and desire. Moreover, the value of some very traditional doctrines not popular with most modern people, such as the doctrines of original sin and predestination, may also be rediscovered for our time. And certainly the New Testament is rich for imagining the meaning of salvation and the resurrection of the body—even the “deification” of human beings—for Christians in the 21st century.
Church
Authors: Martin Dale B.
Published: September 2017

Chapter 7 begins by exploring what it means when Christians confess to “believe in the church. It proceeds by differentiating the church from the “kingdom of God” and comparing it to similar terms, such as the “household of God,” and the “body of Christ.” The gender of the church is explored, with arguments that Christians think of the church as male, female, neuter, androgynous, or intersexed. The English word “church” is a translation of the ancient Greek ekklêsia, a political term referring to the citizen assembly that made final decisions by democratic procedures in the ancient city. Thus the ancient political meanings of ekklesia, which included freedom, equality, and democracy, should inform postmodern theology and practice in Christian churches and denominations. Portraits of the church in the New Testament, however, should encourage Christians to reject modernist ideologies of family, nationalism, and capitalism. While avoiding Christian supersessionism over Judaism, Christians today must also avoid the oppressive politics of some forms of Zionism. Christians may also experience the church as a refuge in a sometimes hostile world. Finally, the book concludes with the church as a sacrament of eschatological hope for the future, an expectation of the coming kingdom of God.
The New Social Mobility
Authors: Payne Geoff
Published: September 2017

Despite Britain in fact being a highly, if unevenly, mobile society, politicians, think-tanks and the media continue to call for ‘more social mobility’, moving it up the political agenda. Their speeches and official documents show they have misrepresented and misunderstood mobility, particularly how gender and the labour market shape outcomes, failings shared with much academic research. Placing social mobility in a context of political and sociological ideas, this book develops a fresh approach to mobility recognising the importance of downward mobility (ignored by politicians), acknowledging that absolute mobility rates are high, if uneven, but accepting that prospects for substantial improvement are poor. The expansion of middle class employment in modern society, which sustained mobility, is insufficient to power much further increase in upward mobility. Equalising educational opportunity (however inherently desirable) cannot change this: indeed it tends to strengthen the mistaken individualist and pseudo-meritocratic beliefs which legitimate the status quo, and disparage and victimise the ‘inevitable’ losers in the mobility race. Quantitative methods of analysis, which can sometimes be blunt tools, need to be elaborated by research on micro-causes, cultural capital and the personal experiences of being mobile. ‘More mobility’ will not solve social inequality, but reducing inequalities may promote mobility: the real issue is greater equality of outcome, rather than bogus claims for equality of opportunity. Today’s new type of society needs a new kind of social mobility.
Log cabins and field marshals’ batons
Authors: Payne Geoff
Published: September 2017

A good starting point for re-interpreting contemporary mobility is older views of social mobility, because these ideas shape our interpretations of mobility. Older ‘traditional’ societies with low rates of mobility were contrasted ‘modern’ society, in a dichotomy. But the economic development creating ‘modern’ societies is associated with increased mobility. Political and social theory has interpreted this in various ways, from desirably releasing under-used talent, through offering a safety valve to release working class discontent, to a process which bleeds off potential lower class leaders into the ruling class. As one factor sustaining the status quo, and legitimating elite rule, in contemporary societies, belief that there is meritocratic upward mobility is as important as the actual level of mobility. Mobility is a political issue.
Politicians rediscover social mobility
Authors: Payne Geoff
Published: September 2017

Although politicians previously nodded in the direction of social mobility, it was under New Labour that it became an increasingly frequent element in manifestos, ministerial speeches and policy proposals. This chapter traces mobility’s rise up the political agenda to today, showing how and when politicians invoked mobility as a solution to problems of social inequalities. Mobility ceased to be a topic of academic research as it was taken up by the politicians. Despite different stances among the parties, there was a consensus that mobility rates were low, had been declining and were lower than other countries. Calling for ‘more mobility’ neglects downward mobility. On the back of this mistaken interpretation, a veritable ‘social mobility industry’ has grown up since 2000, supported by extensive media coverage.
Why low, why now?
Authors: Payne Geoff
Published: September 2017

The idea that (upward) mobility rates are too low attracts politicians who can then use it to criticise their opponents. In recent internal party struggles, both New Labour and the ‘Orange Book’ LibDems needed new symbols of legitimation, while the younger generation of Tories could use it against the ‘Old Guard’. But mobility is also part of growing discontent among the ‘squeezed middle’ and the alienated working class. Some politicians’ ‘underclass anxiety’ about the restlessness of those excluded from the good things in life, helped motivate pro-mobility policies. Urban riots, the Scottish Referendum, and UKIP support, while of course not solely about lack of perceived mobility opportunities, all depended on a sense of disenfranchisement, distance from a closed and self-recruited elite, and no prospects for improvement.
The pessimism of earlier academic mobility analysis
Authors: Payne Geoff
Published: September 2017

A review of three key mobility studies demonstrates that all the blame for under-estimating mobility does not lie with the ‘Westminster Bubble’. The highly influential LSE study in 1954 produced figures now recognised to be implausible, due to reasons revealed here for the first time. The Nuffield Mobility Study in the 1970s had a ‘Marxisant character’ strongly favouring greater openness, and used analytical techniques which inadvertently gave an impression of less mobility and change, than there was. Despite its huge impact since 2005, the work by LSE economists on income mobility has severe technical flaws. In none of these most important studies, representing the old approach to mobility, was there adequate discussion of gender, ethnicity, geography, or the significance of labour market dynamics.
Misconceptions of schooling and meritocracy
Authors: Payne Geoff
Published: September 2017

Education has conventionally been given a central role in understanding mobility, but qualifications are only a necessary but not sufficient requirement, and connecting the two is not straightforward. The schooling system is very complex and has changed; many desirable jobs require non-academic characteristics. Two alternative models are contrasted: the more common sociological one which Saunders has called the SAD thesis based on social advantage and disadvantage, and the DIM thesis which sees mobility outcomes as being due to individual merit. Evidence, of later school under-achievement among initially high achieving children from disadvantaged homes, supports SAD. Problems of defining intelligence, ability and merit weaken the DIM thesis. We do not live in a meritocracy where, as demonstrated, selective secondary education, private schools and extensive home tutoring favour those from advantaged backgrounds. A false meritocracy which excessively demonises the less academically successful is undesirable.
The policy-analytical profession in Belgium
Authors: Aubin David , Brans Marleen , Fobé Ellen
Published: September 2017

In Belgium, policy analysts do not constitute a long established, identifiable corps of professionals. Neither have they attracted much interest as a research subject. Only recently has empirical research started to map who they are and what they do. This chapter presents the demography of policy analysts as professionals. It maps who policy analysts are, how they are trained, what they are called, what job positions they hold, what they are supposed to do, and which networks they entertain. The chapter treats policy analysis as an emerging profession. It will trace the professionalisation of policy analysis in a traditional Weberian sense and examine how analysts acquire authority and credentials, through formal training, degrees, and certification. The empirical material is derived from two sources. The first source is a cross-regional questionnaire on policy analysis in the federal and regional governments. The second source is an analysis of developments of job descriptions of policy advisors recruited by Belgian central recruitment agencies.
Analytical techniques in Belgian policy analysis
Authors: Fobé Ellen , DePeuter Bart , PetitJean Maxime , Pattyn Valérie
Published: September 2017

This chapter analyses policy analytical methods in Belgian policy work. Government wide synoptic policy analytical tools have now and again attracted champions in Belgium’s governments. This was the case with PPBS in the late 1960s in the federal government, and with efficiency analysis and strategic planning in the 1990s in the Flemish government. Yet, they never survived the bureau-political games they engendered. At a lower level of ambition and within the dynamics of separate policy sectors, a plethora of formal analytical methods have been deployed, in both the ex ante and ex post stages of the policy cycle. These include quantitative methods such as cost-benefit-analysis and forecasting as well as qualitative methods such as Delphi, foresight, and impact analyses of different kinds. This chapter discusses the variation in formal analytical methods against the background of three trends: sectoral policy professionalisation, evidence-based policy, and the Europeanisation of policy analytical work.
Local planning in Belgium: A myriad of policy styles?
Authors: Wayenberg Ellen , Reuchamps Min , Kravagna Marine , Fallon Catherine
Published: September 2017

This chapter seeks to analyse an often-unexplored policy level: the Belgian Municipalities. What is the state of policy analysis in Belgian municipalities? Which instruments and styles do local policy-makers adopt to deal with the complex choices they have to make? What are the interactions with the other policy levels? To tackle these three questions, this chapter provides an analysis of Belgium’s two main Regions, Flanders and Wallonia, that offers a theoretical overview of the policy styles and instruments available in both Regions. On this basis, two case studies are undertaken to empirically uncover the policy analysis practices at the local level. This study gives insights about how Belgian municipalities deal with their increasingly more complex missions of policy-making.
Policy analysis in the Belgian legislatures: the marginal role of a structurally weak parliament in a partitocracy with no scientific and political tradition of policy analysis
Authors: De Winter Lieven , Wolfs Wouter
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the formal existence and actual use of resources relevant for policy analysis that individual parliamentarians, parliamentary groups and the parliament, as a whole, have at their disposal in the federal House of Representatives, the Flemish and the Walloon parliament since the mid-1990s. The use and effectiveness of these comparatively meagre resources are strongly constrained by the structural need of majority MPs and groups to offer continuous and unconditional support to inherently unstable coalition governments composed of four to six parties.
Policy advisory bodies in Belgium
Authors: Fobé Ellen , Biard Benjamin , Schiffino Nathalie , Brans Marleen
Published: September 2017

In Belgium, there are about 250 advisory bodies at the federal level and 46 at the regional level. These advisory bodies tend to be highly integrated into the policy-making cycle. They also seem to rely more on experience-based expertise than on academic expert opinion, which is not surprising in a consensus-based political system with neo-corporatist traits where traditional stakeholder groups possess policy-making powers. This chapter analyses the cross-regional and cross-government variation of the nature and role of advisory bodies. It also discusses how the policy advisory system has become subject of reforms that seek to meet four challenges: restoring political primacy in policy-making, dealing with growing advice competition, addressing the coincidence of expert advice and representative opinion, and securing societal support for policy interventions from groups other than traditional representative organizations.
Interest groups and policy analysis in Belgium: examining the policy-analytical capacities and practices of prominent citizen and economic groups
Authors: Fraussen Bert , Bossens Nele , Wilson Alex , Keating Michael
Published: September 2017

This chapter analyses the way in which interest groups acquire critical information and how they use this knowledge in their interaction with policymakers. The authors briefly introduce the Belgian system of interest representation, and clarify the (varying) role organized interests play in policymaking. Next, the “policy capacities” of a diverse set of prominent Belgian interest groups are analyzed. Here, the authors address how these groups organize to produce policy advice, and which actors supply them with critical information. The authors furthermore clarify their political activities, as well as discuss how these groups evaluate their policy work.
The role of news media in the policy process in Belgium
Authors: Gorp Baldwin Van , Sinardet Dave
Published: September 2017

In this chapter, the authors analyse the role of Belgian news media in policy-making. The chapter starts with a characterization of the Belgian media landscape, with its absence of ‘national’ media, a strong public service broadcast and an increasing degree of media concentration. Next, by analysing the ways in which the media report on and define issues, the chapter explores how the media are generators of knowledge, what their resources are, and what influence they have on decision-makers. What is the current role of the Belgian news media as policy players; how are policy problems framed; and what is their role as advocates, investigators and evaluators? To answer these questions, the authors rely on empirical research on Belgian media, agenda-setting, and framing.
Why study size?
Authors: Needham Catherine , Allen Kerry , Hall Kelly
Published: September 2017

Chapter 2 examines the issue of why size is a relevant frame to use in relation to performance and innovation in public services, outlining key findings from the existing literature. In recognition of the inconclusive nature of efforts to find relationships between size and performance or size and innovation, three further aspects of size are discussed. First, size is recognised to be a dynamic variable which is constantly shifting, and measurable in a range of different ways which impede comparative analysis. Second, size is recognised to have a symbolic and performative aspect, which needs to be part of an understanding of the way that it behaves as a research variable. The third is the distinctive context of care. The chapter sets out recent reforms to social care services in the era since the care management reforms of the early 1990s. This covers the move to large-scale outsourcing of care services as well as the more recent shift to personalisation and austerity as the driving rationales for service delivery.
Methods for co-productive research
Authors: Needham Catherine , Allen Kerry , Hall Kelly
Published: September 2017

Chapter four focuses on how to involve people using and working in care services as co-researchers, framing each stage of the research process as one which required departure from our planned approach and thinking about doing research differently. This is located in the context of existing research on the increasingly significant issue of co-production of research with people who may be considered ‘beneficiaries’ of the research, i.e. people with an experience of using services and family carers. Co-produced research is often presented as an unalloyed good, given its commitment to sharing power with potentially marginalised groups whose expertise can improve the research and give it more legitimacy within affected communities. However more critical accounts of coproduced research are also emerging – for example Flinders et al (2015) description of its potential to be a ‘pollution’ of academic research – which at the very least require a more considered defence of its importance.
What it means to be micro
Authors: Needham Catherine , Allen Kerry , Hall Kelly
Published: September 2017

This chapter is a discussion of what it means to be a micro-enterprise, outlining the approach taken to sampling the 27 organisations in the study, and the meanings that interviewees attached to different types and sizes of organisation. It highlights the practical dilemmas attendant in identifying and working with organisations whose size was not fixed and stable over the life of the research. The chapter also considers how different governance structures can be captured as a set of organisational identities as well as legal forms. These included sole traders and partnerships, as well as charities, limited companies and statutory providers. It draws on interview data to look at the motivations people had for setting up particular types of organisation, helping to illuminate the implications of having different organisational types within local care markets. It also uses the data to highlight how size and organisational type was part of the identity of these providers, with the identity of micro for example being embraced as a form of distinction from both larger providers in their locality and from social care’s institutionalised past.
Micro-enterprises: better outcomes at a lower cost
Authors: Needham Catherine , Allen Kerry , Hall Kelly
Published: September 2017

Chapter six examines issues relating to the outcomes of care, bringing in the formal outcomes data from the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT). The chapter sets out the increased privileging of outcomes data, over process and output measures. It also discusses the extent to which outcomes are more elusive than other measures: they are compromised by attribution problems and the absence of counter-factuals. Drawing on pricing data from the organisations in our study and outcomes data from people using those organisations the chapter draws conclusions about value for money. Comparing the hourly rates of care providers in the sample of 27 organisations of different sizes, micro-enterprises were found to be the cheapest. These findings are contextualised within broader debates about how care is financed, and the fit between micro-enterprises and individualised purchasing by personal budget-holders and people who fund their own care (called self-funders).
Conclusion: scaling down?
Authors: Needham Catherine , Allen Kerry , Hall Kelly
Published: September 2017

The concluding chapter considers the implications of the findings for the future of English social care services and for the broader health and welfare system. It suggests that local care economies are complex adaptive systems in which niche organisations like micro-enterprises can thrive but in which local authorities have weak coordinating tools to support micro-enterprise development. The employment of designated micro-enterprise coordinators within local authorities can enhance support for micro-enterprises, but even in localities with coordinators the micro-enterprises remain fragile. The chapter also considers whether the benefits of ‘smallness’ can be achieved through other means than micro-enterprises, discussing what can be learned from examples of large organisations which have found ways to nest smaller units within them. These discussions suggest opportunities for further research, particularly longitudinal and comparative research which stretch the impact of our findings beyond the timescale and geographical reach of our current study.
Social work academia and policy in Australia1
Authors: Mendes Philip , Baidawi Susan
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the engagement of social work academics in the policy process in Australia. It begins by presenting an overview of social policy in Australia and by discussing the emergence of social work and the place of policy practice in that country. The features of social work education in Australia are then depicted. Following this, the methodology and the findings of a study of the policy engagement of social work academics in Australia are presented. The findings relate to the levels of engagement in policy and the forms that this takes. They also offer insights into various factors that are associated with these, such as perceptions, capabilities, institutional support and the accessibility of the policy process. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the findings and their implications.
Social work academia and policy in China
Authors: Jin Minchao , Li Xiao , Wu Lei , Lei Jie
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the engagement of social work academics in the policy process in China. It begins by presenting an overview of social policy and the policy process in China and by discussing the emergence of the social work profession and the place of policy practice in that country. The features of social work education in China are then depicted. Following these, the methodology and the findings of a study of the policy engagement of Chinese social work academics are presented. The findings relate to the levels of engagement in policy and the forms that this takes. They also offer insights into various factors that are associated with these, such as perceptions, capabilities, institutional support and the accessibility of the policy process. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the findings and their implications.
Social work academia and policy in Portugal
Authors: Branco Francisco
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the engagement of social work academics in the policy process in Portugal. It begins by presenting an overview of social policy and the historical development of the Portuguese welfare state and by discussing the emergence of the social work profession in that country. The development of social work education in Portugal and its contemporary features are depicted. Following these, the methodology and the findings of a study of the policy engagement of Portuguese social work academics are then presented. The findings relate to the levels of engagement in policy and the forms that this takes. The study also offers insights into various factors that are associated with these, such as perceptions, capabilities, institutional support and the accessibility of the policy process. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the findings and their implications.
Social work academia and policy in Puerto Rico
Authors: Negrón-Velázquez Gisela
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the engagement of social work academics in the policy process in Puerto Rico. It begins by presenting an overview of social policy in Puerto Rico and its ties with the United States, and by discussing the emergence of the social work profession in the Island. The development of social work education in Puerto Rico and its contemporary features are then depicted. Following these, the methodology and the findings of a study of the policy engagement of social work academics in Puerto Rico are presented. The findings relate to the levels of engagement in policy and the forms that this takes. The study also offers insights into various factors that are associated with these, such as perceptions, capabilities, institutional support and the accessibility of the policy process. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the findings and their implications.
Social work academia and policy in Sweden
Authors: Thorén Katarina H. , Tham Pia
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the engagement of social work academics in the policy process in Sweden. It begins by presenting an overview of social policy and the welfare state in Sweden and by discussing the emergence of the social work profession in that country. The development of social work education in Sweden and its contemporary features are then depicted. Following these, the methodology and the findings of a study of the policy engagement of Swedish social work academics are presented. The findings relate to the levels of engagement in policy and the forms that this takes. The study also offers insights into various factors that are associated with these, such as perceptions, capabilities, institutional support and the accessibility of the policy process. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the findings and their implications.
Social work academia and policy in the United States
Authors: Maleku Arati , Hoefer Richard
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the engagement of social work academics in the policy process in the United States. It begins by presenting an overview of social policy and the welfare state in the United States and by discussing the emergence of the social work profession in that country. The development of social work education in the United States and its contemporary features are then depicted. Following these, the methodology and the findings of a study of the policy engagement of American social work academics are presented. The findings relate to the levels of engagement in policy and the forms that this takes. The study also offers insights into various factors that are associated with these, such as perceptions, capabilities, institutional support and the accessibility of the policy process. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the findings and their implications.
Introduction
Authors: Scott Sam
Published: September 2017

This chapter argues that to study problems at work in a progressive and critical manner one needs to be attentive to language and terminology. In other words, one needs to think carefully about how a problem is socially constructed, and in some cases constricted. In particular, studies of workplace abuse have tended to focus on extreme manifestations of the phenomenon (i.e. slavery, forced labour, human trafficking). This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for protecting workers. To widen the debate, the chapter (and book) employs the language of ‘control’, ‘exploitation’ and ‘harm’ as representing the problem to be investigated. This language is inspired by insights from the ‘social harm’ literature. This literature, most notably, identifies underlying structures (especially those associated with neoliberal capitalism) as worthy of critique. Thus, the problem of labour exploitation is not only larger than many would have us believe, it also has causes that are beyond the scope of the conventional criminal justice approach. The chapter concludes by outlining the data sources used throughout, and by mapping out the book’s eight remaining chapters.
Equals
Authors: Scott Sam
Published: September 2017

The greatest weariness

does not come from manual labour,

the bottle trays lifted up narrow aisles,

muscles screaming of the burden

during impossible balancing acts

with the dishes through the café

it is not the steam from the ovens

the dull knives

or the slippery floors that hurts the most...
The labour exploitation continuum
Authors: Scott Sam
Published: September 2017

This chapter outlines the various forms of labour exploitation that exist. At the extreme end of the ‘continuum’ there is worker fatality both at work and through work. There are then extreme forms of non-fatal harm, including: chattel slavery; modern slavery; forced labour; human trafficking; and child labour. All of these extremes have criminal–legal frameworks associated with them that are designed to minimise their prevalence. Often, however, these criminal–legal frameworks are either inadequate or are not enforced, and so extreme forms of exploitation and harm go unpunished. Moreover, a great deal of exploitation and harm, as argued in the introduction, goes on above these criminal–legal baseline definitions. This book, is particularly interested in the labour exploitation continuum that includes, but is certainly not limited to, illegal employer practice.
The manager
Authors: Scott Sam
Published: September 2017

We could hear the clatter from her keys all the way from the parking lot. She often stood in the kitchen stairs, looking down at us, examining our movements past each other behind the stands. The dance between the coffee machine, the shrimp sandwiches, the muffins and the teas....
Lessons of history
Authors: Scott Sam
Published: September 2017

This chapter argues that it is important to examine lessons of history with respect to the control and emancipation of labour. The chapter focuses on eight particular lessons. These are purposefully selective. It is not possible within a single chapter to provide a definitive history of work-based control, exploitation and harm. Collectively, the lessons of history show how progress towards reducing work-based exploitation and harm is possible and, indeed, that the world has moved on a long way towards this end. Nevertheless, they also show how difficult it often is to challenge established structures, systems and norms. Related to this, in many instances change has been gradual and incremental; though there are occasional cases (such as the abolition of slavery and development of the trade union movement) where paradigm shifts do occur.
War alarm
Authors: Scott Sam
Published: September 2017

Have you heard coffee cups bang against coffee cups

the murmur of an attacking army

standing with your stomach leaned against the bench

with hands building shrimp sandwiches and feet

aching from the weight

pulled between

the roar of freezers

and the screams of the cash-line...
The coffee maker
Authors: Scott Sam
Published: September 2017

She stood there with tears in the kitchen, coffee under her nails and the fatigue, tiredness in a body that could not manage any more right now.

She said that now she did not want to be a part any more, now they would have to find someone else who could work a whole day without going to the bathroom....
Navigating the edges of acceptability
Authors: Scott Sam
Published: September 2017

This chapter focuses on the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable (that is, exploitative) work-based control. It argues that there is a need for much greater discussion and debate from those interested in defining labour exploitation. For example, there is undoubtedly a nebulous boundary between consent and coercion that requires more critical attention. There is also the opportunity to help define labour exploitation by establishing its polar opposite (i.e. decent work). In addition, outcomes (especially physical and psychological harm) are usually a good indicator of exploitation, but more work is needed on both identifying the nature of harm and in linking it to control and exploitation. Finally, some forms of exploitation are easier to explain, rationalise and justify than others, and so the boundary between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable is, in some cases, context specific. Overall, then, and having mapped out the controls workers face in the preceding chapters, it is important to discuss and debate when and where these controls may be tied to exploitation and harm.
Terrified animals
Authors: Scott Sam
Published: September 2017

It is not that we are alone,

us together, we can not be

alone

the simplest logic is the most difficult

how one and one can be three

how much stronger one gets if one stands up

how we see that together we can help ourselves...
We
Authors: Scott Sam
Published: September 2017

Your hands are factory-dried and you have

feet that have not rested for eighteen years

when the conveyor rolls, you are one hundred years of fear

of what would happen if it did not

when you lay down your work and feel how we elevate each other...
Blinded by Science
Authors: Wastell David , White Susan
Published: September 2017

In recent years, new areas of biology, especially epigenetics and neuroscience, have enthralled the public imagination. They have been used as powerful arguments for developing social policy in a particular direction, from early intervention in the lives of disadvantaged children to seeking 'biomarkers' as identifiers of criminality. This book critically examines the capabilities and limitations of these biotechnologies, exploring their implications for policy and practice. The book will enable social scientists, policy makers, practitioners and interested general readers to understand how the new biologies of epigenetics and neuroscience have increasingly influenced the fields of family policy, mental health, child development and criminal justice. The book will facilitate much needed debate about what makes a good society and how best to build one. It also draws attention to the ways that the uncertainties of the original science are lost in their translation into the everyday world of practice and policy, and how the primary work is co-opted and manipulated to support particular moral agendas.
How knowledge gets made in neuroscience and molecular biology
Authors: Wastell David , White Sue
Published: September 2017

This Chapter provides an introduction to some key concepts from the philosophy and sociology of science and technology to examine how the sciences ‘think’. We make particular use of the concept of the “thought style”, drawn from the work of Ludwig Fleck. Two such styles are identified underpinning the biotechnological project: the neuroscientific and genetic thought-styles. Key features of these worldviews are identified and critiqued, highlighting their internal contradictions and constraints (e.g. the mythology that epigenetic inscriptions represent permanent changes in the phenotype). We designate the fusion of these two cognate belief systems as the neuromolecular thought-style.
The cat is out of the bag: from early intervention to child protection
Authors: Wastell David , White Sue
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines how ideas about early intervention and damage to the infant brain are making their way into child protection practice. It uses evidence from policy reports and government initiatives to illustrate how the notions of harm and ‘good enough’ parenting are changing.
Are we broken? Fixing people (or society) in the 21st century
Authors: Wastell David , White Sue
Published: September 2017

This chapter questions whether the neurological and molecular levels are the most appropriate domains to guide the actions of the State. The reductionism of such thinking creates a form of scientific “tunnel vision” dangerously constraining the direction of future inquiry. The Chapter explores the consequences of the prevailing moral and scientific settlements, demonstrating how these have shifted preferred policy responses towards those that are individualised and increasingly medicalized. A preoccupation with prevention, early intervention and the privileging of certain forms of evidence (that furnished by clinical trials, biological evidence) are squeezing out conversations about different, and potentially more desirable and sustainable, actions to make people’s lives better.