scholarly journals A Paradigm Framework for Social Work Theory for Early 21st Century Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (8) ◽  
pp. 2112-2129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Social Work Theory ◽  
Critical Reflexivity ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
Local Research

Abstract This article explores whether paradigms for social work that helped structure and focus social work theory in the late 20th century can continue to inform social work theorising in the present day. The question is considered by reviewing the work of Burrell and Morgan (1979), Howe (1987), Whittington and Holland (1985), Johnson et al., 1984 (cited in Rojek, 1986) and Mulally (1993) who offer specific considerations of paradigm frameworks. The main argument developed in the discussion is that while the nature and orientation of theories in paradigms from later 20th to early 21st century are more diverse and complex, the value of a paradigm as framework for theory for practice persists. But for a paradigm framework to hold sway, there are some essential requirements. These include a need to: emphasise more the importance of local context in global conditions; broaden scope of theory away from predisposition to ‘Western’ dominated ideas; include space for certain constants in social work and recognise the role of critical reflexivity in activating theory. The need for further global and local research studies that systematically test and interrogate the range of social work theories and practices to progress this project is emphasised.

Wonder, Horror, Mystery: Letters on Cinema and Religion in Malick, Von Trier, and Kieślowski

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgan Meis ◽  
J.M. Tyree
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Life Meaning ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Lars Von Trier ◽  
Creative Writer ◽  
Film Critic

Wonder, Horror, Mystery is a dialogue between two friends, both notable arts critics, that takes the form of a series of letters about movies and religion. One of the friends, J.M. Tyree, is a film critic, creative writer, and agnostic, while the other, Morgan Meis, is a philosophy PhD, art critic, and practicing Catholic. The question of cinema is raised here in a spirit of friendly friction that binds the personal with the critical and the spiritual. What is film? What’s it for? What does it do? Why do we so intensely love or hate films that dare to broach the subjects of the divine and the diabolical? These questions stimulate further thoughts about life, meaning, philosophy, absurdity, friendship, tragedy, humor, death, and God. The letters focus on three filmmakers who challenged secular assumptions in the late 20th century and early 21st century through various modes of cinematic re-enchantment: Terrence Malick, Lars von Trier, and Krzysztof Kieślowski. The book works backwards in time, giving intensive analysis to Malick’s To The Wonder (2012), Von Trier’s Antichrist (2009), and Kieślowski’s Dekalog (1988), respectively, in each of the book’s three sections. Meis and Tyree discuss the filmmakers and films as well as related ideas about philosophy, theology, and film theory in an accessible but illuminating way. The discussion ranges from the shamelessly intellectual to the embarrassingly personal. Spoiler alert: No conclusions are reached either about God or the movies. Nonetheless, it is a fun ride.

scholarly journals Supernatural Characters in the Quasi-Historical Discourse of Modern Ukrainian Literature: Specificity and Functions

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-63
Author(s):  
Oleksandra Nikolova ◽  
Kateryna Vasylyna
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Global Problem ◽  
The Past ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Historical Past ◽  
The Early 21St Century

: The article is aimed at the study of Ukrainian quasi-historical novels of the early 21st century, characterized by the renunciation of “objectivity” of the narrative and emphasized the role of imagination. These are the pieces by Bakalets and Yarish (“From the Seventh Bottom”), Vynnychuk (“The Pharmacist”, “Lutetia”), and by Yatsenko (“Nechui. Nemov. Nebach”). The study reveals the features and functions of fantastic characters in the abovementioned novels. These fictional images of modern Ukrainian quasihistorical literary discourse are characterized by infernality, grotesque anthropomorphism, destruction of traditional antinomy “otherworldly– earthly/human”, philosophical and ironic coloring. Interpreting the fantasy in quasi-historical novels is expedient in the context of the global problem of perception of historical past by people of the 21st Century, with an emphasis on significant changes in public consciousness motivating writers to “Re-write/Reimagine the past”. The spread of this phenomenon reveals public distrust of the authorities, offering “correct” answers to the questions about past events, protest against permanent manipulation of historical facts (the tendency of growing consciousness and intellectualization of society).

Towards the future of health promotion.

2021 ◽  
pp. 186-231
Author(s):  
Ruth Cross ◽  
Louise Warwick-Booth ◽  
Sally Foster
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Academic Community

Abstract This book chapter aims to: (i) explore the role of the epistemic and academic community of health promoters; (ii) suggest that there are new and emerging public health problems to take into account; (iii) reinforce the need to defend the radical intent of the Ottawa Charter and to develop further anti-oppressive practice; (iv) describe how the health promotion discourse is changing, and moving into new realms of wellbeing; (v) reinforce the importance of hearing lay voices and understanding 'healthworlds'; and (vi) present some ideas for moving forward the value base of health promotion. Fields of endeavour apart from health promotion also struggle with the goals of empowerment, equality, justice, and are also contemplating how to deal with challenges of the 21st century, such as complexity, globalization and social capital. These fields might include education, criminal justice, social work, sport, development, and so provide rich and relevant avenues for further reading.

scholarly journals The threat of surveillance capitalism

Teknokultura ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-276
Author(s):  
Chris H. Gray
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Important Addition ◽  
The Early 21St Century

Using Shoshana Zuboff’s 2019 book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, the essay explores this latest form of capitalism and Zuboff’s claims about its organization. Her arguments are compared and contrasted with David Eggers novel, and the movie that came out of it, called The Circle, as well as other perspectives on capitalism (Marx, Barry Unsworth’s Sacred Hunger) and the current dominance of social media companies (especially Alphabet/Google, Facebook, and Amazon) from Evgeny Morozov, Natasa Dow Schüll, Zeynep Tufekci, Steve Mann and Tim Wu. Zuboff’s description and critique of Surveillance Capitalism is a convincing and important addition to our understanding of the political economy of the early 21st Century and the role of giant monopolistic social media companies in shaping it.

What is “Toxic Masculinity” and Why Does it Matter?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1097184X2094325
Author(s):  
Dr. Carol Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
The Early 21St Century ◽  
Men's Movements

Coined in late 20th-century men’s movements, “toxic masculinity” spread to therapeutic and social policy settings in the early 21st century. Since 2013, feminists began attributing misogyny, homophobia, and men’s violence to toxic masculinity. Around the same time, feminism enjoyed renewed popularization. While some feminist scholars use the concept, it is often left under-defined. I argue that talk of toxic masculinity provides an intriguing window into gender politics in any given context. However, feminists should not adopt toxic masculinity as an analytical concept. I consider the term’s origins, history, and usage, arguing that it appears in individualizing discourses that have historically targeted marginalized men. Thus, accusations of toxic masculinity often work to maintain gender hierarchies and individualize responsibility for gender inequalities to certain bad men.

Paul Muldoon

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Karhio
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
21St Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Paul Muldoon ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Irish Poetry

Paul Muldoon was born in Portadown, Northern Ireland, in 1951 and spent his childhood in the village of Moy at the border of County Armagh and County Tyrone—a setting for several of his poems. He studied at Queen’s University Belfast and published his first collections of poetry in the early 1970s. At the time of the publication of his first volumes, Muldoon famously enjoyed the mentorship of Seamus Heaney, and this biographical and literary connection has been a constant reference point in criticism, to an extent that other significant literary exchanges and influences initially remained underexplored. After working for the BBC in Belfast until the mid-1980s, Muldoon moved to the United States in 1987. Now a US citizen, he currently lives in New York and works at Princeton University, where he holds the Howard G. B. Clark ’21 chair in the humanities. Muldoon has published twenty-two major collections of poetry, nineteen chapbooks and interim collections, two volumes of critical essays, three opera libretti, song lyrics, translations, and children’s literature. He has been repeatedly characterized as a shapeshifting figure, whose work simultaneously reaffirms and undermines preheld conceptions of what we mean by “Irish poetry.” Thus, to propose that his idiosyncratic style and the remarkable complexity of his verse resists critical categorization is a case of stating the obvious. A reverse claim, however, might be more appropriate: that his writing embraces such a variety of categories that attempts at classification lose their purpose. Muldoon’s densely referential writing and his technical mastery of poetic language are matched by few poets of his generation, and the issue of how successfully his undeniable dexterity translates into poetic efficacy has been a persistent tendency in his critical reception. Muldoon has been, in turns, praised for his unrivaled skill and technical virtuosity or accused of his poetry’s evasiveness, perceived as a lack of social or political commitment. Yet, few would question that his verse has a place in any overview of modern Irish writing, modern English-language poetry, or experimental 20th- and 21st-century poetics. In the early 21st century, Muldoon’s perceived obliquity, or his distaste for direct political engagement with the crises of late-20th-century Northern Ireland, has made way to a more outspoken approach, in poetry as well as in public life. His work has been highly critical of the US invasion of Iraq, for example, and also tackled problematic aspects of Irish culture and history in an increasingly direct manner.

Drama and Learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Franks
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Societal Level

As ways of making meaning in drama strongly resemble the ways that meanings are made in everyday social life, forms of drama learn from everyday life and, at a societal level, people in everyday life learn from drama. Through history, from the emergence of drama in Western culture, the learning that results at a societal level from the interactions of everyday social life and drama have been noted by scholars. In contemporary culture, electronic and digitized forms of mediation and communication have diversified its content and massively expanded its audiences. Although there are reciprocal relations between everyday life and drama, aspects of everyday life are selected and shaped into the various cultural forms of drama. Processes of selection and shaping crystallize significant aspects of everyday social relations, allowing audiences of and participants in drama to learn and to reflect critically on particular facets of social life. In the 20th century, psychological theories of learning have been developed, taking note of the sociocultural relationships between drama, play, and learning. Learning in and through drama is seen as being socially organized, whole person learning that mobilizes and integrates the bodies and minds of learners. Making signs and meanings through various forms of drama, it is interactive, experiential learning that is semiotically mediated via physical activity. Alongside the various forms of drama that circulate in wider culture, sociocultural theories of learning have also influenced drama pedagogies in schools. In the later part of the 20th century and into the 21st century, drama practices have diversified and been applied as a means of learning in a range of community- and theater-based contexts outside of schooling. Practices in drama education and applied drama and theater, particularly since the late 20th century and into the early 21st century, have been increasingly supported by research employing a range of methods, qualitative, quantitative, and experimental.

China: Party–Army Relations Past and Present

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia K. Ledberg
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Political ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
The Military

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is a key political actor in the Chinese state. Together with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese state institutions, it makes up the political foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the early years after the founding of the PRC in 1949, the military played an important role in state consolidation and the management of domestic state affairs, as is expected in a state founded on Leninist principles of organization. Since the reform process, which was initiated in the late 1970s, the political role of the PLA has changed considerably. It has become less involved in domestic politics and increased attention has been directed toward military modernization. Consequently, in the early 21st century, the Chinese military shares many characteristics with the armed forces in noncommunist states. At the same time, the organizational structures, such as the party committee system, the system of political leaders, and political organs, have remained in place. In other words, the politicized structures that were put in place to facilitate the role of the military as a domestic political tool of the CCP, across many sectors of society, are expected to also accommodate modernization, professionalization, and cooperation with foreign militaries on the international arena in postreform China. This points to an interesting discrepancy between form and purpose of the PLA. The role of the military in Chinese politics has thus shifted over the years, and its relationship with the CCP has generally been interpreted as having developed from one marked by symbiosis to one of greater institutional autonomy and independence. Yet these developments should not necessarily be seen as linear or irreversible. Indeed, China of the Xi Jinping era has shown an increased focus on ideology, centralization, and personalized leadership, which already has had consequences for the political control of the Chinese armed forces. Chances are that these trends will affect the role of the PLA in politics even further in the early decades of the 21st century.

Meditation, Mindfulness, and Social Work

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadye L. M. Logan
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Spiritual Disciplines ◽  
Helping Professionals ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Contemplative Practices ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Effective Change

Research has shown that social workers and other helping professionals can make use of the contemplative practices from religion and spiritual disciplines. These practices can be utilized as tools that help social workers become more intentional and effective change agents as helpers in their work with individuals, families, children, and communities. This entry discusses the evolution and emergence of the practices of meditation and mindfulness within the helping context, starting with the historic roots in different religions to its usage in the early 21st century with children and families. Additionally, it addresses the limitations and benefits of meditation and mindfulness as practice tools.

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