Universities are increasingly prioritizing engagement and collaboration with their local communities. While such partnerships can be mutually beneficial, they can often perpetuate and exacerbate power differentials, particularly when the community partners belong to racially minoritized groups. This qualitative paper examines the founding of a community–university partnership between a Black, low-income community and a predominantly White university. Through the theoretical framework of aspirational capital, we find that valuing the experiences and aspirations of the community helped establish a more equitable partnership forged to support a community-led, culturally relevant after-school program. Centering the aspirations of Black community members and the epistemologies of the Black women on the program staff also served to acknowledge and address power imbalances at the founding stages of the partnership. Recognizing and valuing the aspirational capital of community members also positively impacted the university-based staff’s ability to function as boundary spanners between the university and community who could adequately articulate the desires and needs of program staff. We argue that by recognizing and valuing the aspirational capital already present in low-income Black communities, universities can create more equitable partnerships for positive social change.
Valuing the Aspirations of the Community: The Origins of a Community–University Partnership
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A Student Reflects on Their Time Volunteering for Hospice
Hospice is a special healthcare option for patients with terminal illnesses. With an interdisciplinary care team working together to meet patients' medical, emotional, and spiritual needs, hospice care can be provided in a number of different settings. As a hospice volunteer, I interact with members of the community and offer care and support at a time when it is most needed. This paper examines the impact of my involvement and participation as a hospice volunteer on the welfare of others and my personal development.
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Academic Predictors of Mental Health Problems Among Adolescents in Grades 7 through 12
Mental health issues are increasingly prevalent among adolescents, and many studies have investigated the correlation between mental health issues and academic performance. However, no studies have explored the ability of academic problems to predict mental health issues in students. This research study aims to investigate the effectiveness of students’ academic outcomes in predicting the presence of mental health issues. A sample of 6,503 adolescents in grades 7 through 12, participated in the study. Using multiple regression analysis, two models were built to measure the effectiveness of independent variables related to academic outcomes to predict mental health issues. Results show that academic performance can be used as an indicator of mental health issues, specifically anxiety and depression.
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Arthur Sherwell (1863-1942): Temperance Reformer and Liberal MP
As a social reformer, Arthur Sherwell had many interests. After several years as a Wesleyan Methodist preacher, he became an expert on urban poverty and the ally of feminist reformers. He saw the solution to poverty in Britain as tied to the future of the Empire, specifically self-governing colonies such as Australia. He spent much of his life seeking to answer the question of working-class drinking in big cities. Most activists in the temperance movement thought the answer was prohibition in the form of local plebiscites. Rejecting prohibition, Sherwell and his ally Joseph Rowntree urged instead what they called disinterested management, that is, public houses run without the profit motive and open to reforms that would limit alcohol consumption. To lobby for disinterested management, the Temperance Legislation League was founded in 1905. Sherwell was its honorary secretary. He was a prolific writer. He also was a Liberal politician who served in Parliament from 1906 to 1918. Sherwell destroyed his political career by his fierce opposition to wartime military conscription.
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Patterns of Social Relationships and Their Outcomes: The Case of Ireland
This study investigates patterns of relationships in Ireland, focusing on the impact of such relationships within Irish society. This paper contends that the social climate in modern and present-day Ireland may be traced to the historical context. Thus, patterns of relationships appear in various periods, and the current relational patterns result from historical events and the social structure of pre-modern Ireland. More specifically, hegemonic relations have been present throughout history. As a result, the Irish have endured unequal treatment, as they have been viewed as inferior, and forced to suffer due to poor economic and social conditions. Further, issues of inequality, dominance, and conflict have been evident in Ireland for centuries.
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Aging in Place for Older Adults with Serious Mental Illness: An Evaluation of The Bridge’s Aging Services Program in the United States
This paper aims to address the needs of older adults through evaluation of The Bridge’s Aging Services Program, an innovative, multidisciplinary mobile treatment team that serves individuals age 55 or older with complex health needs who live in Bridge supportive housing in New York City. In August 2019, a randomly selected sample of 12 participants were interviewed in-person using a semi-structured interview guide and qualitative research methods. These participants were selected from a study population of 137 clients enrolled in the Aging Services Program. This study evaluated five major themes to assess the effectiveness of the Aging Services Program: communication, healthcare access and utilization, quality of life, general impressions of the Aging Services Program, and recommendations for improvement. These themes were used to guide the coding and analysis process. This study highlighted that consistent and quality communication with staff impacted clients’ ability to manage health concerns. Participants self-reported improved preventative healthcare-seeking behaviors and decreased Emergency Room utilization after being enrolled in the program. Participants’ ability to maintain quality of life were dependent on quality of communication with staff, their ability to access healthcare services, and the availability of social support. Overall, participants shared positive general impressions of the program’s ability to meet their essential needs (health, mental health, case management, referrals, etc.). This study concluded that fostering strong communication between clients and staff, building a sense of community between clients and within the local community, and disseminating a formal contact list to clients are effective recommendations to strengthen this program’s delivery of services.
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Book Review: The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment by Julian E. Zelizer
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Book Review: Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern by Mary Beard
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Book Review: A Mass Conspiracy to Feed People: Food Not Bombs and the World-Class Waste of Global Cities by David Boarder Giles
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Book Review: Dante by John Took
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Book Review: The Visceral Logics of Decolonization by Neetu Khanna
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Book Review: Island on Fire: The Revolt That Ended Slavery in the British Empire by Tom Zoellner
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Book Review: Our Oldest Companions by Pat Shipman
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Book Review: The Cigarette: A Political History by Sara Milov
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Book Review: Waterloo Sunrise: London from the Sixties to Thatcher by John Davis
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Book Review: Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman
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Extended Commentary: Critical Race Theory, Identity Politics, and the Problem of Social Solidarity
This article examines the emergent controversy over Critical Race Theory—what it is, how it is applied and practiced, and why it has become the source of conservative political opposition in the United States. The claims and counterclaims about the theory can be understood in the context of the broader politics of identity among both the political left and political right, as well as the more general problem of social solidarity and the challenge of incorporating diversity and multiculturalism in today’s racially polarized political environment.
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Spotlight on a Discipline: Social Work as the Academic Stranger
This "Spotlight on a Discipline" offers insight into social work as an element of academia, utilizing a comparison to Georg Simmel's "Stranger."
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Pi Gamma Mu News
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International Social Science Review Submission & Publication Guide
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Stealth in the Era of Electronic Attack Aircraft, Drones, and Hypersonic Technology — A Review
Modern warfare success depends in large part on dominating enemy air space. Air superiority is needed for mobilizing troops, maintaining logistics supply chains, and neutralizing the enemy’s movement. After the invention of radar by the British in the 1930s, bomber and fighter aircraft became increasingly vulnerable to enemy air defense. To overcome this, the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the United States Air Force developed low radar signature stealth aircraft with the capability to enter the enemy’s airspace. Since then, several countries claim that they have anti-stealth technologies to counter and detect stealth aircraft. Some analysts argue against stealth aircraft based on cost effect-benefit analyses in comparison with electronic attack aircraft, drones, and hypersonic missiles. Until anti-stealth technology proves its supremacy over either manned or unmanned stealth aircraft, stealth technology is going to persist. Using stealth aircraft against small nation-states or non-state actors may be costly, but to maintain a country’s edge over military peer-competitors it is unquestionably needed.
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The Benefits of Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Community-Engaged Research: Insights From a Study of Digital Storytelling With Marginalized Youth
This article draws on qualitative data from a long-term partnership to exemplify the unique advantages of interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches in community-engaged research. We demonstrate how the differing foci and intersecting concerns of our scholarly fields, social work and media studies, benefited our work with marginalized communities to promote youth voice through digital storytelling. This effort was grounded in the shared view that digital storytelling offers an excellent opportunity to engage creatively with young people’s memories and experiences and that such storytelling can support young people in their healing, identity formation, agency development, and engagement with the public. By working together across disciplines, we were able to surface and address concerns related to vulnerability, privacy, and advocacy among young people experiencing marginalization in ways that would not have been possible in a project involving only social work or media studies. We illustrate this process by describing three critical incidents that exposed our disciplinary overlaps and differences in ways that helped us navigate complex issues related to young people shared their stories with the public. Our findings therefore have implications for others working with vulnerable communities to amplify counternarratives with the goal of bringing about positive systemic change.
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