Guns and the precarity of manhood
Manhood is precarious. Unlike womanhood, manhood is hard won and easily lost and therefore men go to great effort to perform it—for the most part for other boys and men—sometimes to their own and others’ detriment.
The possibility of a world without intimate violence
Today, stopping violence against women falls to few. The criminal legal system is charged with enforcing laws. A school delivers prevention programming to the children in attendance that day. A doctor privately addresses a survivor’s pain.
Social work in the anti-science era: how to build trust in science-based practice
Over the past five to seven years, there has been an increase in anti-science rhetoric and ideas which look to replace the reliance on science with misleading theories and discredit scientific experts. Unfortunately, non-scientific beliefs gained traction during the pandemic and show no signs of slowing. This post-truth and anti-science movement places the field of social work at an important crossroads.
How research abstracts succeed and fail
The abstract of a research article has a simple remit: to faithfully summarize the reported research. After the title, it’s the most read section of the article. Crucially, it makes the case to the reader for reading the article in full. Alas, not all abstracts succeed.
Why depth interviewing is essential to understanding individuals and institutions
Once assumed to be a core research tool, many of today’s researchers have cast a skeptical eye on depth interviewing. These critiques reflect a fundamental misunderstanding about what depth interviews can accomplish.
What can early US welfare policies teach us about caring for our communities?
Every year, I spend the semester with 50 college sophomores pondering two questions. The first one is: how have people in the past cared for the neediest people in their community? The second is: how should we?
New pathways through later life: redesigning later life work and retirement
In March of 2020, for many Americans and older workers especially, what it meant to go to work changed in an instant. As some workers moved their offices into their homes, others had to go to work and face significant risks to their health each day.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected children’s mental health?
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a year and a half fraught with unpredictability and change. Change and unpredictability can be stressful for anyone, but for children, change and disruption of routine is especially stressful.
Elderspeak: the language of ageism in healthcare
Elderspeak or baby talk to older adults is frequent in the healthcare context. Although elderspeak is typically well-intentioned it arises from a place of implicit ageism and can have negative consequences for older adults, particularly those with dementia.
SHAPE and societal recovery from crises
The SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts for People and the Economy) initiative advocates for the value of the social sciences, humanities, and arts subject areas in helping us to understand the world in which we live and find solutions to global issues. As societies around the world respond to the immediate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, research from SHAPE disciplines has the potential to illuminate how societies process and recover from various social crises.
Can children’s rights be the scaffold for love in the care system?
A human rights approach places children’s dignity (and their voice) at the heart of the care system. Ensuring that carers and professionals engage with children in a meaningful way is the cornerstone for a system based on ethics of care and children’s rights.
When female peacekeepers’ “added value” becomes an “added burden”
Calls for the increased participation of uniformed United Nations female peacekeepers have multiplied in recent years, fueled in part by new scandals of peacekeepers’ sexual abuse and exploitation (SEA), tarnishing the UN’s reputation, and in part by the will to show explicit progress at the 20th anniversary of the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.
The role of masculinity in reforming police departments
For decades there have been murders of unarmed black people by the police, which in recent years has been exposed and protested by the #BlackLivesMatter movement. This summer, unprecedented numbers of protesters have voiced their outrage in response to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the very recent and utterly senseless shooting of […]
Campus activists show us how to end gender-based violence
Protest and resistance thrive proudly on many university campuses. In recent history, students and faculty have organized to protest the Vietnam war in the United States, recognize the occupation of Tiananmen Square in China, resist capitalism in France, and react to many other injustices. More recently, activism to decolonise SOAS in the United Kingdom, to […]
Addressing racism within academia: a Q&A with UNC-Chapel Hill PhD of Social Work Students
Anderson Al Wazni is a white Muslim woman, Stefani Baca-Atlas is a US-born Latina, and Melissa Jenkins is a biracial Black woman; all three women are doctoral students. They experience the world in different ways and have worked together to share their perspectives on challenges and opportunities for non-Black students with marginalized statuses to work […]
How summer camps adapted to COVID-19 (and everything else)
The ballfields are quiet. The lake is placid. The bunks/cabins are empty without towels and bathing suits hung out to dry. For summer camps, this summer season has been rife with challenges, including the difficult decision not to open. But challenge and change are not new to camps. Over the past century, camps have adapted […]