Model Of Social Practice Research Articles

Limits of the Local: Expanding Perspectives on Literacy as a Social Practice

This essay reflects on how the social practice model of literacy, an approach that defines reading and writing as situated, social practices, under-theorizes certain aspects of literacy, making it hard to account fully for its workings in local contexts. We trace this theoretical blind spot to the ways that the social practice model was formulated as a challenge to the “Great Divide” or “autonomous” models of literacy. We suggest that in rejecting a conception of literacy as a deterministic force, the revisionists critique veers too far in a reactive direction. By exaggerating the power of local contexts to define the meaning and forms that literacy takes and by under-theorizing the potentials of the technology of literacy, methodological bias and conceptual impasses are created. To open new directions for literacy research we suggest more attention be paid to the material dimensions of literacy. Drawing on the work of Bruno LaTour (1993, 1996), we seek to theorize the transcontextualized and transcontextualizing potentials of literacy = particularly its ability to travel, integrate, and endure. Finally, we propose a set of analytical constructs that treat literacy not solely as an outcome or accomplishment of local practices, but also as a participant in them. By restoring a “thing status” to literacy, we can attend to the role of literacy in human action. The logic of such a perspective suggests that understanding what literacy is doing with people in a setting is as important as understanding what people are doing with literacy in a setting.

The Behavioral Effects of Environmental Regimes: Collective-Action vs. Social-Practice Models

Most observers agree that institutions play significant roles both in causing and in confronting large scale environmental problems. But how can these arrangements, which are not actors in their own right, influence the interactive behavior of those whose actions give rise to these problems and, in the process, shape the character of collective outcomes? This essay compares and contrasts two families of models – collective-action models and social-practice models – that seek to expose the behavioral pathways through which institutions affect the course of human/environment interactions. After describing the assumptions embedded in the models, the paper examines the predictions that flow from them regarding: compliance, policy instruments, behavioral consistency, and durability. It then proposes a method for evaluating competing predictions by making use of critical tests of the sort familiar to natural scientists seeking to assess the merits of different models.

Social Work Practice in Higher Education

This article examines two cases of social work practice in higher education within the context of identifying a model of social practice for use in postsecondary educational settings. The case studies provide insight into a model of social work practice that reflects both the traditional clinical model, which focuses on individual change, and the school-community-pupil relations model, which focuses on system change. The author also discusses implications for social work educators who see college/university counseling centers as an arena for social work practice.

Abnormal Leisure: Invasive, Mephitic and Wild Forms

Twinning leisure with positive experience is the field orthodoxy. There are good reasons for this. In bidding for scarce resources, leisure professionals need to emphasize the social benefits of leisure investment. The cost is that our understanding of leisure is distorted by accentuating the positive side of experience. This paper argues that leisure studies have allowed the parameters of leisure to be defined by a medical model of social practice. Abnormal leisure has been treated as the sphere of medical practitioners, psychoanalysts and criminologists. There is no substantive reason why this is the case. Indeed the paper suggests that the relaxation of rules and inhibitions associated with many forms of leisure means that there is an elective affinity between leisure and deviant activity. In order to correct the medicalized view of leisure it is necessary to challenge both the view of leisure professionals that leisure, is about positive experience, and the category of abnormal behaviour. The paper offers a preliminary basis for mounting this challenge by identifying three forms of abnormal leisure: invasive, mephitic and wild. The purpose of the paper is not to criticize leisure professionals or for that matter medical practitioners. Rather, the aim is to restore balance and richness to the field. It is argued that this balance was lost in the 17th century when the medicalized model of human behaviour began to gain ascendancy.

Identifying and comparing competencies for social work management: a practice driven approach.

The study explicates a competency-based model of contemporary social work management practice and compares this model with frameworks derived from earlier studies. Using a purposive sample of 184 social work managers throughout the country, an exploratory factor analysis yielded twelve sets of competencies required of today's social work manager. A comparison of the present model to earlier management frameworks reveals that substantive changes in the nature, scope, complexity, and priorities assigned to management competencies and skills have transformed the role of the social work manager over the last decade. Implications for social work manager education are reviewed and future research directions are proposed.

A SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE MODEL FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

This paper presents an operationalization of a social development practice model useful to community development. The model was initially developed in an attempt to rationalize practice with relationship to the value and policy writings in social development. It was anticipated that the model could be useful in planning, implementation and evaluation processes of community development practice. The model suggests the intensification of the processes of participation, empowerment, cooperation and institutionalization. It may extend the boundaries of community practice. A composite case study developed from an evaluative research project was used to provide material illustrative of the process usefulness of the model. The illustration demonstrated the model's usefulness as an evaluative device, while the presentation of the model focuses upon its utility as a community practice framework. It appears that the model could be useful in a variety of community projects.

A Multilevel Social Systems Practice Model for Working with AFDC JOBS Program Clients

A multilevel social systems practice model is presented for work with individuals and families affected by the Family Support (“welfare reform”) Act of 1988. Discussion of issues in the implementation of the JOBS progam focuses on six social systems levels: national, state, local, neighborhood, family, and individual. A specific example of contrasting programs at local and neighborhood levels highlights differential approaches to facilitating individual and/or family system change.

Field instruction based on a social development practice model: the example of Sri Lanka

Field instruction based on a social development practice model: the example of Sri Lanka

Social Learning: A Model for Policy Research

This paper examines the question “Why are the results of policy research not used more widely than they appear to be?” The fault is seen to lie in the incompatibility of social contexts for research—the separate and clashing worlds of government and academia. A social practice model of experimental learning is proposed as an alternative to current research styles. The difficulty remains, however, how to apply successfully the results of learning obtained in one experiment to other situations, and how new learning can be made more generally effective. Conditions for resolving this problem are identified as (1) a commitment on the part of the policymaking institution to the idea of social experimentation, practice, and learning as the principal methods for public intervention; (2) the formation of central services in support of local experiments; and (3) expansion of lateral channels of communication for the diffusion of new experiences and learning among the multiple experiments themselves.