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3Loneliness and social isolation are increasingly recognized as important challenges of our times. Inspired by research hinting at beneficial effects of interacting with nature on social connectedness and opportunities provided by ambient technology to simulate nature in a rich and engaging manner, this study explored to what extent digital nature projections can stimulate social aspirations and related emotions. To this end, participants (N = 96) were asked to watch, individually or in pairs, digital nature projections consisting of animated scenes which were either dense or spacious and depicting either wild or tended nature. Subsequently, they filled out a questionnaire comprising measures for social aspirations, awe and fascination. Results show that spacious scenes elicited significantly higher social aspiration and awe scores, especially when watching alone. Design implications are discussed for making digital nature accessible for people with limited access to real nature.
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This essay focuses on the aspirations of young people, which we take to be a critical drive to their political and social commitments. As reflected in a wealth of social scientific research on educational and occupational aspirations of young people, the formulation of a desirable future is an important step in formal education and one’s preparation to enter the labour market. Yet, aspirations also matter in other spheres of social life. For example, young people may have aspirations that relate to the consumption of goods. The prospect of having a high purchasing power happens to impact school motivation. Additionally, active political participation may reflect the aspirations of some citizens with regards to a desirable future. Nowadays, aiming at achieving happiness is largely regarded as a universal, if not a basic right, applying to anyone, regardless of culture, ethnicity, social class, gender, age or sexual preference. However, young people obviously don’t all have the same aspirations. How do aspirations arise? What do we know about what shapes the aspirations of young Europeans? What makes young people capable of aspiration/what enables the aspiration of young people?
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Feelings of disconnectedness and social isolation among older adults are increasingly recognised as important challenges of our times. Interestingly, nature interaction can stimulate social connectedness and enhance perceived social support, indicating that nature can contribute to social wellbeing. However, nature may not always be around or accessible for older adults. In such cases, digital nature could provide an alternative means for enjoying nature's benefits. To identify limitations and restrictions that older adults experience with respect to nature interaction, and to explore preferences with respect to digital nature and their potential for influencing social wellbeing, two studies are reported: a qualitative study comprising focus groups with Dutch care centre residents (N = 26) and a subsequent quantitative study (N = 200) testing effects of digital landscapes on social wellbeing measures. Findings from the focus groups indicate that opportunities for nature interaction and preferences for digital nature vary with mobility restrictions, whereas findings from the quantitative study testify to the potential of digital nature for enhancing social wellbeing and related emotions. These findings extend research on how (digital) nature interventions can contribute to the social wellbeing of older adults and pinpoint essential nature characteristics important for doing so.
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Educational practices are complex and value-laden, shaped through the interplay of societal expectations, pedagogical commitments, organisational arrangements, and everyday interactions between teachers, pupils, and colleagues. Teachers do not act as neutral implementers of external prescriptions; rather, they interpret situations, exercise judgement, and contribute to shaping and renewing practice. This dissertation therefore conceptualises teachers as critically reflective professionals who co-construct educational practices with others. The study examines teacher agency as a socioculturally situated and relational phenomenon. Agency is understood as teachers’ capacity to purposefully shape professional action and contribute to the development of practice, while professional identity is simultaneously formed and renegotiated. From a subject-centred sociocultural perspective, agency is not treated as an individual trait but as an emergent, normatively charged process visible in teachers’ meaning-making, positioning, and action within and across practices. The empirical setting consists of dual learning contexts in which a professional master’s programme is intertwined with teachers’ workplace practices. These contexts connect off-the-job and on-the-job learning within a dynamic constellation of practices. Their potential can be described in terms of affordances: action possibilities arising in the interaction between teachers and their environments. Affordances become meaningful when teachers recognise, interpret, and mobilise them in relation to their aspirations and workplace conditions. The dissertation addresses two main questions: (1) Which processes underpin the development of teacher agency across domains of professional practice? and (2) How does teacher agency develop over time, and how do teachers interpret the contribution of participation in a dual learning context? The dissertation comprises a theoretical synthesis and three empirical studies. The synthesis integrates research on workplace learning, professional identity, relational agency, and normative perspectives on education, resulting in an analytical framework specifying agency across four interconnected domains: meaning-making, professional identity, collaboration, and organisational processes. Within these domains, twelve agentic qualities are identified as sensitising concepts for tracing agency as a dynamic, context-dependent phenomenon. Empirically, the study adopts a longitudinal multi-case design in which six teachers from primary, secondary, and special education were followed over two years through repeated interviews, supplemented by interviews with colleagues, school leaders, teacher educators, and document analysis. Across cases, agency development appeared non-linear and uneven, closely connected to teachers’ engagement with systemic tensions, such as tensions between pedagogical ideals and established routines or between taking initiative and fostering shared ownership. Under supportive conditions, such tensions functioned as catalysts for reflection, repositioning, and new forms of practice. Agency was strengthened when programme-related resources (assignments, concepts, feedback, coaching) were meaningfully connected to teachers’ practice-based questions, and when relational and organisational conditions enabled dialogue, experimentation, and shared responsibility. Dual learning contexts do not automatically foster agency; their value depends on how teachers and others co-construct affordances across settings. The dissertation contributes a socioculturally grounded framework for analysing teacher agency development as situated, relational, and normatively oriented, and offers implications for designing professional learning that supports meaning-making, identity work, collaboration, and organisational conditions for sustainable educational development.
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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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Vergelijkende Europese studie in opdracht van Kees van Aken, toenmalig directeur van de opleiding Social Work i.o. van de Hogeschool Zuyd, naar welke verschillende varianten er mogelijk zijn als er gesproken wordt over een Internationale Bachelor Social Work - Maastricht. Op welke manieren zijn er in Europa reeds internationale bachelors zijn ontwikkeld. Het onderzoek moet een overzicht van enkele blauwdrukken van een Internationale Bachelor Social Work opleveren, om mede op basis daarvan een keuze te maken voor een (eventueel meerdere) voor Hogeschool Zuyd wenselijke variant(en) daarvan in Maastricht. Er is vergelijkend Europees onderzoek gedaan naar de verschillende filosofieën en organisatievormen van curricula International Social Work zoals die op verschillende Hogescholen en Universiteiten in Europa functioneren. Met name zijn “good practice” ervaringen onderzocht en met elkaar vergeleken, om op basis daarvan een aantal varianten helder te krijgen voor de opdrachtgever.
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full text via link. Wat zijn de ontwikkelingen in social media research, naar wie luisteren we nu eigenlijk in social media, wie is de werkelijke innovator en wie is de werkelijke deler, en wat kunnen merken met klantervaringen? Anita Cox (Insights Director) trapt af met de vraag: Waarom zagen we social media 5 jaar geleden niet aankomen? -
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This article presents the results of a survey on the internationalization of Bachelor’s education in social work, which was carried out at 33 schools of social work across Europe. Many universities are seeking to “internationalize” their social work curriculum. However, although many social work educators are convinced of the importance of cross-border exchange, others are sceptical about the added value of internationalization for a professional career in social work. The aim of this study is to contribute to the discussion about the significance of internationalizing the curriculum of Bachelor’s programmes in social work. Since internationalization in itself is an ideological endeavour, educators must reflect on and formulate their own ideological motives and aspirations. To this end, representatives of schools of social work completed a questionnaire concerning the aim of internationalization, the structure of the curriculum, student and staff mobility, international policies and challenges. This study demonstrates that all universities have added an international dimension to their curricula. Many educators believe that internationalizing the social work curriculum contributes to qualitatively better future professionals “at home”. However, most of the respondents are dissatisfied with what has actually been achieved in terms of their universities’ international ambitions. This is due to a lack of language skills and facilities. Above all, we think, that this dissatisfaction is related to the underlying debate on universalism and indigenization in social work practice and education.
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"Despite many efforts, people with a refugee background still have great difficulties to find a job on the Dutch labour market. This has adverse consequences for the economic independence of people with a refugee background, their social connections, personal development, health and general well-being, but also for employers as well as society in general. There are many sectors in the Dutch labour market with large, structural labor shortages, while at the same time much talent remains untapped. Meanwhile, more and more social enterprises in the Netherlands are stepping into this void, with the explicit goal to facilitate access to the labour market for people with a vulnerable position, including people with a refugee background. Consequently, these so-called work integration social enterprises (WISEs) are — by far — the dominant type of social enterprises in the Netherlands. Although the diversity between WISEs in terms of economic sectors, specific target groups and business models is large, the way in which they organize their key activities can serve as an example for regular employers, who still tend to think in problems rather than opportunities when it comes to employing people with a refugee background. At the same time, the impact of these social enterprises still remains relatively limited in comparison to the scale of the societal challenge. The aim of this study therefore is twofold: 1) to obtain a better understanding of the role of WISEs with regard to the sustainable labor participation of refugees, and 2) to assess the ways in which WISEs can scale their societal impact with respect to labour participation of refugees. These conference proceedings focus in particular on (new) forms of collaboration between WISEs and regular employers that aim to become more inclusive employers."
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ENSURE is a project involving 9 partner organisations from the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The aim of ENSURE was to create a model of peer to peer support that can be implemented with different groups of people and that can be instrumental in enabling social inclusion for people who, for whatever reason, may be vulnerable to or more likely to be socially excluded. The goal being that by enabling social inclusion for one group of people we can ensure social inclusion for subsequent generations. The project draws peer to peer support from within the local community, and focuses on creating longer-term sustainable networks of support for individuals to ensure that they remain socially included and do not slip back into situations that would create future exclusion. A key element of this is connecting excluded people to the professionals, systems and organisations that can provide support over the longer term. The project was based on the highly successful ‘Mums for Mums’ project developed by Community Centre ‘De Mussen’ in the Netherlands. It was granted more than 2.5 million euros of European Development Funding via the Interreg VA 2Seas programme and ran from February 2020 to March 2023. The Health and Europe Centre is the Lead Partner working with: • IGEMO (BE) • Kent County Council (UK) • HZ University of Applied Sciences (NL) • University College Artesis Plantijn (BE) • Community Centre ‘De Mussen’ (NL) • AFEJI (FR) • Goes City Council (NL) • Community Arques (FR) The following document outlines the lessons that all our partners have learnt about setting up a peer support scheme over the duration of the project. We have broken the process down into a number of simple steps and have included examples from partners to illustrate how that step was implemented during the project and in their specific context.
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