Using groups to teach the connection between private troubles and public issues (original) (raw)
AI-generated Abstract
This paper advocates for the use of group work in educational settings to help students grasp the relationship between private troubles and public issues. It argues that while individual and family contexts highlight personal pain, group discussions can illuminate the broader social contexts behind these troubles. The authors propose a curriculum that integrates group work methods, offering teaching strategies that enable students to connect individual client problems with larger societal issues, thereby enhancing their understanding of social work practice.
Related papers
The founders of American sociology a century or more ago in cities like Atlanta and Chicago wanted to reduce social inequality, to improve the lives of people of color, and more generally to find solutions to the most vexing social problems of their times. A former president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, A. Javier Treviño, has used the term service sociology to characterize their vision of their new discipline. This book is grounded in this vision by offering a sociological understanding of today's social problems and of possible solutions to these problems.
Instructor's Resource Manual on Social Problems
2001
This third edition of the ASA Instructor's Resource Manual on Social Problems provides materials to help those teaching social problems for the first time as well as experienced instructors. The manual includes 13 syllabi, 35 exercises and assignments, and a guide to web resources. In this introduction we reflect on what we have learned in compiling and editing these materials and make several suggestions for fruitful directions for teaching social problems. First we want to explain how we compiled this manual. We solicited materials for this manual as widely as possible, placing requests for contributions on the Teachsoc electronic discussion list (twice), in the ASA newsletter Footnotes, and in the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) newsletter. We also tried to contact all contributors to the previous edition and all SSSP division chairs and newsletter editors. In response to our requests, we received about 20 syllabi, a wide variety of assignments, and other assorted materials. We do not claim that the materials in this manual are a representative sample of all approaches to teaching social problems, but we do think that they provide important information on how social problems courses are taught at the beginning of the 21 st century. Perhaps even more interesting, they indicate how social problems are not taught. Reflecting on teaching social problems leads to an obvious question, one that Brooks and Broad raised in the previous edition of this manual: "What does the social problems course add to a curriculum, both for majors and for minors" (Brooks and Broad 1997:1)? This question took on immediacy for one of us recently in the context of new program development. A joint Sociology and Anthropology department that had long offered a criminology concentration within the sociology major was developing a new major in Criminal Justice. Discussion of the new program was intense and often contentious. Much of the debate focused on whether students in the Criminal Justice major would be required to take Introduction to Sociology or whether they could take either Introduction to Sociology or Social Problems as a required introductory course. Keeping in mind that the new major was criminal justice rather than sociology, one can make good arguments for either position. However, that is not our point here. What was striking about much of this disagreement was the view of social problems courses on which it was based. That view seemed to reflect, at least in part, dated assumptions about the nature of such courses. Brooks and Broad had noted that many still questioned whether the social problems course was "just a grab-bag of 'problems du jour,' an a-theoretical collage of sociological voyeurism that only serves to remind students of a high school civics class" (1997:1)? The second edition of the manual offered evidence that the stereotype was not true in 1997; this edition makes it even clearer. The materials we received contradict the image of social problems courses as "grab-bags of 'problems du jour.'" Naturally, social problems classes by their nature do focus on social problems and issues that are in the news, but Introductory Essay _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Introductory Essay _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 7 In addition to using the web for teaching social problems, the web itself is a fascinating topic for exploration in social problems courses. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, provides a sense of the design and vision that guided the creation and development of the World Wide Web in his Weaving the Web (1999). Berners-Lee notes that "the Web is more of a social creation than a technical one" (1999:123). His history of the web is fascinating, his vision for the web is powerful, and his assessment of its current uses is troubling. A MISSING TREND: INQUIRY-BASED INSTRUCTION We were puzzled by something we did not find in materials submitted to us. Almost none of the materials introduced inquiry-based instruction into courses. In recent years instructors in the social and natural sciences have increasingly emphasized inquiry-based or active learning in their courses. Incorporating social science inquiry into social problems classes seems like an especially valuable way to help students develop critical thinking skills. In the January 1997 issue of Footnotes, Carla Howery noted that "critical thinking seems to be particularly useful in social problems courses," and suggested that infusing social science inquiry into lower level sociology courses would help foster critical thinking. It would also enable students to "experience sociology as a process of discovery, hypothesis testing, reflection on theories to identify predicted relationships, and as a creative process" (Howery 1997:9). According to an old Chinese proverb: "I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand." We think that doing sociology by using sociological data to investigate social problems can enhance student understanding, and enable them to see sociology as a process of discovery and testing. Given the emphasis on inquiry-based learning in many disciplines and knowing that many sociologists have been involved in such approaches, we were surprised that only one syllabus in this manual (Carroll) emphasized elementary data analysis and social science inquiry. Some of the syllabi provided here and some of the assignments seem designed to emphasize inquiry, but almost none of the courses build it in systematically. For example, Crone emphasizes students developing their ability to interpret statistics. Habel provides two exercises in which students use statistical data, and so does Steele. Nonetheless, we had expected more emphasis on using sociological data to analyze social problems. This may just reflect the syllabi we received; yet it surprised us nonetheless. Certainly there are sufficient resources available for infusing inquiry-based learning into social problems classes.
Social Change through Group Work
Practice Skills in Social Work & Welfare, 2020
By the end of this chapter students will be able to: Describe the fundamental role that groups play in our lives Identify the key foundations of strength-based group work Summarise the key functions that group provide for us in our lives Describe the life cycle of groups from the perspective of gender Explore their own experience of group
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.