This paper explores the social distance between local residents and African–Americans who havesettled in Ghana since the 1960s. Data generated from in‐depth interviews suggest the African–American expatriates felt their proximity to collective slave memory or particularly slavery heritageconferred on them certain rights to exclude local residents who are more susceptible to forgettingthe past. By appropriating traces of the past, the African–American expatriates provide a range oftourism services, albeit to visitors they believed subscribed to socially constructed meaningselicited at slave sites. The study suggests explicit recognition of African–American expatriates inthe levels of contestations that result from slavery‐based heritage tourism
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This research aims to contribute to a better understanding of strategic collaborations between work-integration social enterprises (WISEs) and for-profit enterprises (FPEs) with the joint objective to improve labour market opportunities for vulnerable groups. We find that most collaborations strive towards integration or transformation in order to make more social impact.
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‘The fear of crime’ is “upon everybody’s tongue” nowadays (Farrall & Gadd 2004:1). The concept is widely accepted as social problem across the globe (Gray, Jackson & Farrall 2008, Garland 2001) as it is held to impinge ‘(…) upon the well-being of a large proportion of the population’ (Farralll et al. 1997:658). But do we actually have a valid picture of a genuine ‘social problem of striking dimensions’ (Ditton 1999:83)? Critical voices say we don’t. ‘The fear of crime’ - as we generally know it - is seen by them as ‘(…) a product of the way it has been researched rather than the way it is’ (Farrall et al. 1997:658). And still, 45 years after the start of research, ‘surprisingly little can be said conclusively about the fear of crime‘ (Ditton & Farrall 2000:xxi). This research contributes to a growing body of knowledge - from especially the last fifteen years - that treats ‘the fear of crime’ as ‘(…) a complex allocation of interacting feelings, perceptions, emotions, values and judgments on the personal as well as the societal level’ (Pleysier 2010:43). One often replicated and paradoxical observation catches the eye: citizens perceive a growing threat of crime to their society, but consequently perceive a low risk that they themselves will fall victim of crime. Taking a social psychological approach (e.g. see Farrall et al. 2000; Jackson 2008), we will search for suitable explanations for this paradoxical observation in the fear of crime’s research tradition. The aim of this research is ‘to integrate social psychological concepts related to the individual’s identity and evaluation of his position in an increasingly complex society, to enhance our understanding of the fear of crime concept’ (Pleysier & Cops 2016:3).
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PURPOSE: Walking ability in general and specifically for lower limb amputees is of major importance for social mobility and ADL independence. Walking determines prosthesis prescription. The aim of this study was to mathematically analyse factors influencing claimed walking distance of lower limb amputees of 500 m or more.METHOD: A total of 437 patients returned two questionnaires: the Groningen Questionnaire Problems after Leg Amputation, in which walking distance was assessed, and the RAND 36.RESULTS: The chance of walking 500 m or more reduced when a transfemoral amputation was performed. The chance reduced even more when phantom pain or stump pains were present. If the amputation was performed because of vascular disease or because of vascular problems because of diabetes the chance reduced again. Independently of these factors, age reduced the chance of walking 500 m or more.CONCLUSION: The chance of walking 500 m or more reduces with increase in age and a more proximal amputation. The chance reduces even further when the amputation is performed because of diabetes or vascular disease and also if phantom pain and or stump pain is present.
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The number of social enterprises in the Netherlands has increased rapidly. Social enterprises are looking for new, innovative and economically sustainable ways to tackle structural societal challenges that generally fall outside the direct focus and objectives of the public and private sector. Social enterprises are primarily mission-driven, where profit is not a goal in itself but a means of creating societal impact with regard to a specific social problem. Many social enterprises aim to increase their societal impact by growing their organization. However, despite their ambition, scaling up and expanding their impact remains challenging in practice. This research aimed to identify the main constraining factors in scaling up social enterprises and to develop effective methods to tackle these barriers in order to achieve more societal impact. The research was conducted among twenty social enterprises in the Netherlands, all of which aim to stimulate the labor market participation of people who are at a distance from the labor market, generally referred to as work-integration social enterprises. The results show that the majority of the participating social enterprises succeeded in achieving growth in the past two years with regard to specific indicators, but generally not in the way they had originally planned.
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Article about social work and social policy in the Netherlands. It gives information about the background, history, the meaning of the profession and the different types of professional areas in which the profession is divided. Other subjects are: social work curricula, the European dimension of social work an current challenges for social professionals in the Netherlands.
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At this critical moment in time, April 2020, when we are living with the cataclysmic event of Covid-19, television – a medium declared almost dead at the beginning of this millennium – has become a vital resource for solace, daydreaming, social ritual, knowledge and storytelling. In conditions of lockdown, we turn towards television, not away from it (Ellis, 2020; Negra, 2020). We are checking news on national channels, and tuning to live broadcasting for campaigns to help the health services and communities in need, such as with the globally broadcast One World: Together At Home special. We are curling up on the sofa to engage with gripping drama, like Ozark streaming on Netflix, re-watching favourite series from the beginning, such as Buffy or Breaking Bad, and taking part in television quiz shows like Pointless, even watching repeats, to recreate a pub quiz atmosphere in the living room. On a darker note, we are also overloaded with corona news; the ritual evening news bulletin can be a source of anxiety and a cause of sleeplessness. Television infrastructure can break down, from broken satellite dishes to lost remote controls, which are tricky to fix when technicians are not so readily available to help; and television can be an economic burden. The cost of streaming Breaking Bad can push the limits of monthly contracts and data packages. Television both lightens and darkens the mood of domestic spaces and social relations in lockdown culture.
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Article about social work and social policy in the Netherlands. It gives information about the background, history, the meaning of the profession and the different types of professional areas in which the profession is divided. Other subjects are: social work curricula, the European dimension of social work an current challenges for social professionals in the Netherlands.
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During the first half of 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus had a huge global impact. The physical health of many was (often severely) threatened and affected, resulting in numerous deaths. Furthermore, all aspects of human coexistence came under pressure, such as economic activities and material living conditions, psychological well-being and social contacts, human rights and democratic decision-making, international political relations and global solidarity. As in other parts of the world, COVID-19 kept the Netherlands in its grip.In this article we would like to address the following questions:-What impact did pandemic and policy have on Dutch social work education and how was this experienced by students?-What was the impact of pandemic and policy on social work practices and what were its challenges for social professionals?-What does this all mean for the future of social work education, since it has to take the present concerns of students into account as well as prepare them for social work practice in the near future?
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In many fields within management and organizational literature there is considerable debate and controversy about key theoretical concepts and their definitions and meanings. Systematic metaphor analysis can be a useful approach to study the underlying conceptualizations that give rise to these controversies and putting them in perspective. It can help identify the different ways a theoretical concept is structured and given meaning, provide insight into the way these different conceptualizations relate to each other, and show how these conceptualizations impact further theorization about the concept. This article describes the procedure for a systematic analysis of the metaphors used to conceptualize key theoretical concepts. To examine its usefulness, the authors apply the approach to the field of social capital, and in particular to the concept of ‘relationships’ in organizations. In the metaphor analysis of three seminal articles on social capital, the authors identify seven metaphoric concepts for relationships. The metaphors are illuminated as important for providing imagery that adds specific meaning in the process of authors theorizing about social capital like ‘tie’, ‘path’ and ‘bridge’. They add dynamics and controllability to the concepts by attributing an array of verbs like ‘to move between’ or ‘to use’ relationships. In addition, the metaphors allow for the attribution of specific characteristics to the concept of relationships that can be used as variables in theory construction, such as the strength of a relationship or the ‘distance’ between people. These insights are useful in exploring and reconciling differences in social capital definitions.
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