Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creativ
2 What's so great about innovation? So far we have suggested that innovation is a positive concept and, it appears, the rate of innovation continues to accelerate, led mostly by technology. The process is an example of positive feedback, in which the change is self-reinforcing: the development of technology itself increases the capacity for technological innovation, and raises the expectation of consumers for further innovation. While there seems little reason why this process of accelerating technological change should
1 Invention and innovation The terms ‘invention’ and ‘innovation’ are sometimes used interchangeably, although the concepts are readily distinguished. As you will see here, it is helpful to make a distinction in the context of organisational analysis. First consider what you understand by the term invention. Introduction Interpersonal communication in health and social care services is by its nature diverse. As a consequence, achieving good or effective communication – whether between service providers and service users, or among those working in a service – means taking account of diversity, rather than assuming that every interaction will be the same. This course explores the ways in which difference and diversity impact on the nature of communication in health and social care services. This OpenL Social care, social work and the law - England and Wales Becoming a critical social work practitioner Learning outcomes By the end of this free course, you should be able to: identify your objectives; assess what you have to offer; balance these against a practical framework of your personal circumstances; explore a range of reference sources to select what is most relevant; prepare an action plan, including evaluation of achievements; produce ongoing strategies to develop your voluntary work; understand emp Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under licence. Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this course: Course image: MPD01605 in Flickr made available under 1.7.2 Summary The EU is an economic, juridical and, to a certain extent, a political reality but a single European public space has not emerged yet. The establishment of European citizenship could play a crucial part in fostering a common European public space. European citizenship could encourage Europeans to play a more active role in EU affairs and participate in governance processes. 1.11.1 Subject positions In her analysis, Blackman is identifying a pattern in Diana's talk and relating it to other similar methods of self-representation found in our culture. It is worth thinking through this in more detail. One key claim of discourse researchers is that language positions people – discourse creates subject positions. What does this mean? To speak at all is to speak from a position (remember the discussion of footing in the previous section). Further than this, the positions or slots in c 1.9.1 ‘I dunno’ In his analysis of Extract 5, Potter focuses on the phrase ‘I dunno’, which appears at the beginning and at the end of Diana's last turn above. This phrase seems throwaway, just one fragment, yet perhaps it illustrates something about people's methods or discursive practices more widely. Why is that phrase there? What work does it do? Given the point made in the previous section that events can always be described differently, why this description of this kind of mental state at this poin 1.4.1 Discourse involves work If discourse is doing something rather than doing nothing, what kinds of things are being done? We can see that Diana's account in Extract 1, like all accounts, constructs a version of social reality. When we talk we have open to us multiple possibilities for characterizing ourselves and events. Indeed, there are many ways Diana could have answered Bashir's first question in the extract above. Any one description competes with a range of alternatives and indeed some of these alternativ 2.2 The challenge of methods The methodological challenges facing the social sciences are best outlined in the form of a series of questions about how we should engage in research and what kind of research attitude is appropriate. Should social scientists look to the assumptions and methods developed in the natural sciences or develop their own assumptions and methods? Do the objects which we study in the social sciences, such as the self, society, the economy, i 10 Further resources A very useful overview of ‘migration’ can be found in Lewis (2003). A special issue of Critical Social Policy (2002, vol.22, no.3) on ‘Asylum and welfare’ focuses on refugees, asylum seekers and migration. Kushner's The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination (1994) and London's Whitehall and the Jew (2000) provide comprehensive analyses of UK approaches to refugees in the 1930s. In such a rapidly changing area of social policy, up-to-date information and anal 6.2 ‘No-choice’ dispersal Dispersal as a strategy aimed at resolving tensions, avoiding ‘concentrations of aliens’ and preserving ‘ethnic balance’ and ‘cultural homogeneity’ is not a new idea, but one proposed for the settlement of successive groups of refugees, and indeed immigrants, since the 1930s, and also used in the 1960s and 1970s in relation to housing and education (Lewis, 1998). The government's asylum dispersal policy of 1999, intended to ‘ease the burden’ of the south-east of England, was b 6.1 ‘Maybe you can look, but you cannot touch’: asylum and restricting access to welfa So far we have considered meanings of citizenship in terms of legal status, national identity and belonging. In this section we want to explore it in terms of ‘access to welfare’, recognising that people who flee from their country of origin are likely to require assistance and support when they arrive. There is a long history of the state linking controls on access to welfare and control of migration since the 1905 Aliens Act (Lewis, 2003). 5.3. 1 What would you include in such a test? An advisory group which drew up proposals for the new ‘Life in the United Kingdom’ naturalisation test, believed that the ‘two senses of “citizenship”, as legal naturalisation and as participation in public life, should support each other. In what has long been a multicultural society, new citizens should be equipped to be active citizens’ (Home Office Immigration and Nationality Directorate, 2003, Section 2). Although they claimed that becoming British ‘does not mean assi 4.2 Feminist perspectives: who counts as a refugee? The UN Convention has a very narrow definition of a ‘refugee’, which does not ‘accommodate those people who are forced to leave their country of origin because of economic and/or social disruption caused by environmental, political or economic turmoil or war. These are precisely the reasons that propel most refugees from the underdeveloped South’ (Lewis, 2003, p. 327). If we examine this definition further through a feminist theoretical perspective, we can see how social policy operat 3 Social policy and citizenship Immigration law and policy do not traditionally appear under the heading of ‘social policy’. We argue here for a broader definition that includes these, since the laws, policies and procedures concerned with the rights of people to enter the UK and to claim refuge can have a profound effect on personal lives, as our personal stories have already shown. Immigration and asylum is a rapidly changing area of social policy. Four major pieces of legislation were enacted between 1993 and 2 Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: understand changing constructions of ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’ over the last century Identify ways in which the study of refugees and asylum seekers raises profound questions about the basis and legitimacy of claims for ‘citizenship’ understand how the personal lives of refugees and asylum seekers have been shaped by social policy that constructs them as ‘other’
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This free course is made up of four extracts related to social care, social work and the law in England and Wales. The extracts are stand-alone sections but follow on from each other to make up this course. You will be introduced to five main themes that shape practice in the field of social care and social work. The aim of this course is to enhance your understanding of the relationship between social work practice and the law.
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What does it take to become a critical practitioner in social work? This free course, Becoming a critical social work practitioner, will guide you through some important concepts. An understanding of 'critical perspectives' will help you take a positive and constructive approach to problems that arise in social work practice.
