UiS Open Journals (Univ. of Stavanger)
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Adult Workers in Theory or Practice? Lone Mothers’ Participation in Active Labour Market Programmes in Germany
Get PDFThis paper examines lone mothers’ participation in active labour market programmes in Germany. Since the 2005 Hartz IV employment and welfare policy reforms, expectations that non-em- ployed parents receiving means-tested benefits should be ready for employment or labour market programme participation have grown stronger. However, discretion for programme assignments is left to individual caseworkers. As a consequence, it is not clear to what extent the formal policy orientation towards an adult worker model of the family is reflected in practical policy implemen- tations. Thus, lone mothers’ participation in active labour market programmes is studied empiri- cally here on the basis of large-scale administrative data, using event-history analysis. Findings are that lone mothers are treated as adult workers with respect to workfare and training pro- grammes even when their children are still quite young. As soon as their youngest child is 3 - 5 years old, lone mothers’ transition rates into these programmes are as high as for childless single women. In the case of programmes that provide more direct pathways into regular employment, like job subsidies and in-firm training programmes, however, participation rates for lone mothers of young children are substantially lower than for childless single women
Building Healthy Northern Communities Through Strengthening Capacity
Get PDFThis study examines and evaluates the effects of one-time funding on capacity building of health and social welfare organizations in a remote and northern section of British Columbia Canada. The Province of British Columbia awarded a two million dollar grant (Canadian) to the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC). Organizations applied for funds through a competitive process that was managed by the School of Social Work at UNBC. Twenty-five different community organizations and agencies received funding for a period of eighteen months. The organizations and agencies delivered a range of services and activities located in remote First Nations communities as well as the natural resource-based single industry towns of northern BC
Comparing dispositifs in Bismarckian Welfare States
Get PDFComparative research on welfare states is facing various pitfalls in our days. This article is concerned with a particularly tricky issue by considering scholastic effects of thinking welfare provision in terms of typologies, such as the one developed by Esping-Andersens in his study on The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism
Integration through activation? Unfolding paradox for mobilizing will to self-help
No full textThis paper addresses the question of how the activating welfare state carries out the paradoxical agenda of “help for self-help” in practice. Applying Niklas Luhmann’s concept of “inclusion” to local strategies of activating, i.e. “integrating” migrants in Munich, Germany, I articulate the following: the activation of individuals is fundamentally an excessive task for social intervention. Inevitably, it encounters a considerable amount of uncertainty, which is not controllable by social or external measures. Attempts to eliminate all uncontrollable elements are empirically unattainable, whether imposing coercive punishment or making use of an entire engagement of volunteers. To the contrary, social systems depend on whether they can develop mechanisms to maintain room for uncontrollability in their communication. Social workers play a mediating role in this constellation by enhancing the sensitivity of organizations, thus opening them up for multiple inclusions instead of a unified, normative integration
Implementing social policy: social workers’ experience from Estonia and Norway
Get PDFIn this explorative article the relationship between social policy and social work will be in focus. The article discusses similarities and differences between Estonia and Norway.The empirical material consists of eight focus group interviews with social workers in the two countries. The aim of the study was to investigate to what extent the social work profession represents change agents in the social policy framework. The article looks at the differences and communalities in different years in the two countries. The authors conclude that social workers are important actors in implementing changes at the local level. They seem, however, to be more concerned about the daily encounters with the individual users than about the general policy framework.The main findings suggested that social workers in both countries see themselves as spokespersons for respect for and cooperation with the users while simultaneously arguing that social workers only to a very limited extent see the implementation of social policies as a part of their roles
The construction of the category of unemployed young people with no qualifications in Switzerland: A looping effect?
Get PDFThis paper explores the process of the rationalization of activation policies towards unemployed young people in Switzerland. It aims at analysing the mechanism of normalization for the criterion of “unqualified” among unemployed young people with no qualifications. Empirical observations show the growing difficulties for personal counsellors to categorize an increasingly heterogeneous population of young unemployed people. These difficulties crystallize themselves with the definition of the criterion “unqualified”, thereby ushering in a new activation measure that appraises the school- and psychological aptitudes of young people. This measure partially determines the eligibility of the unemployed young people and participates in producing a norm of the “right measure” in relation to the level of “unqualification”. The concept of “looping effect “ developed by Ian Hacking was used to analyse the mechanism of transformation of the category and its effects on the identities of both young people and the front line agents. The paper discusses how to apply a philosophical concept to the sociology of categorization in order to deepen our understanding of activation policies within the changing scene of European social policy.
 
Social Work Education Canada’s North: Capacity Building through Social Work
Get PDFThe Faculty of Social Work program at the University of Regina is a broker for two social work programs north of the 60th parallel reaching the northern residents of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry. In addition, for over 30 years, the University of Regina partners with the First Nations University of Canada where a specialized Bachelor of Indian Social Work is offered and now a Master of Aboriginal Social Work. This paper presents the background to the Northern Human Service/BSW program at Yukon College in Whitehorse, Yukon and the Certificate of Social Work at the Aurora College in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories