1,720,959 research outputs found
Ubuntu and values underlying the Vatsonga culture : implications for developmental social work with children
Full text linkThe article is based on a doctoral study submitted at the University of Pretoria.The development of the social work profession in Western countries is criticised as being irrelevant to the African context. Although developmental social work was introduced in South Africa to align the profession with African contexts and adopted in some southern African countries, the acknowledgement of African indigenous knowledge systems remains a neglected area. In this article, we present the findings of the study that explored the use of Vatsonga indigenous knowledge in child protection. By using a qualitative study as the basis, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 Vatsonga elders who were keepers of their indigenous knowledge. The research findings indicate that beliefs and practices based on the African principles underlying ubuntu have a strong focus on enhancing the well-being of children, including orphans and vulnerable children, and could relate to the central goal and the concepts underlying developmental social work. We conclude that there is a strong association between the principles of ubuntu and developmental social work interventions that focus on the well-being of children.A Postgraduate Research Support Scholarship of the University of Pretoria.https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/SWPR/indexam2023Social Work and Criminolog
An exploration of the Vatsonga people’s markers of childhood
Full text linkThis article is based on a PhD study submitted to the University of Pretoria, South Africa.DATA AVAILABILITY : The data set for which this study is based was submitted to the funding university for storage as per the university protocols.Children are entitled to a host of rights cutting across the socio-economic and cultural fabric. These are contained in various international and regional conventions such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child among many more. The concept of childhood is socially constructed therefore childhood is neither a natural nor universal feature of human groups but rather a specific cultural component of given societies. The paper is based on a qualitative study in which purposively selected 40 Indigenous Knowledge Systems experts and 11 social workers drawn from Mozambique and Zimbabwe participated in the study. The article explores the Vatsonga people’s markers of childhood drawing lessons for social workers working with indigenous groups. The findings revealed that childhood among the Vatsonga is not determined by chronological numeric age but by various markers such as maturity and rites of passage. Childhood was romanticised by the Vatsonga as a period of innocence and irrationality. Children were viewed as of great value as they represent the posterity of society and a gift from their ancestors. We conclude that a people’s construction of childhood has a bearing on upholding child rights hence it is important for social workers to have an understanding of their clients’ views on childhood to effectively prevent child rights violations.The University of Pretoria, Postgraduate Office scholarship.https://link.springer.com/journal/411342024-03-24hj2024Social Work and CriminologySDG-16:Peace,justice and strong institution
Responding To The Covid-19 Pandemic In Zimbabwe: Lessons From 2018 Cholera Outbreak
No full textZimbabwe has been affected by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic like the rest of the world. In the last decade, Zimbabwe has also faced a number of disasters such typhoid, cholera and flooding. In this paper, we argue that Zimbabwe could tap into its past experiences of managing the 2018 cholera outbreak in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper draws insights from a qualitative study that sought to understand the challenges and strategies associated with cholera disaster response that happened in 2018. We identify five strategies used by various stakeholders to combat the 2018 cholera outbreak. These strategies include; awareness campaigns, family and contact tracing, coordination meetings, food and non-food items distribution, and setting up treatment and isolation centres. The article juxtaposes the strategies used to combat cholera in 2018 with the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended COVID-19 strategies and we come to the conclusion that the cholera management strategies could be useful in guiding Zimbabwe's COVID19 and future pandemics' response strategies.
Keywords: COVID-19, Cholera response, Outbreaks, Lessons, Social Work, Zimbabw
Research on the Vatsonga people of Southern Africa : a reflection on a case study
Full text linkFor decades, African researchers relied on Eurocentric concepts, models, philosophies, ethics, designs, and methods ingrained in
the European research literature. The indiscriminate use of Eurocentric concepts to conceive African research is not sustainable
given the uniqueness of African cultures. This situation gives impetus to the call for the development of a way of conducting
research that is more suited to indigenous African contexts. The paper contains a reflection on the researchers’ past research
experiences within African socio-cultural contexts. We aim to share our experiences on a research study that we conducted in
Zimbabwe with the Vatsonga of Southern Africa; one of the ethnic groups that adopt an Afrocentric worldview. We discuss how
we implemented theoretical perspectives, research methods, and research ethical considerations. We found that we had to adapt
the implementation of our research to be aligned with the norms and practices of the Vatsonga. Research ethical considerations
are highlighted as an important step towards fostering indigenised research on the continent. In addition, we propose the
dissemination of research findings to include indigenous communities where the research has been conducted. This should be done
through community meetings or workshops as the African people follow an oral-based tradition of knowledge transmission. The
paper concludes by highlighting the need for African literature to guide researchers in conducting research studies in indigenous
African communities.University of Pretoria Post Graduate Office bursaryhttps://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajswam2023Social Work and Criminolog
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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