Fall 2021 SOWK 486 Class 02 Weekly Email

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It was really great to be able to meet everybody this last week, and I am looking forward to going through the process of this class with all of you. Remember, if you would like to receive this email every week at your home email address, you can fill out the form Google Form or email me saying telling me what email address to use.

Unit Introduction and What You Will Learn

Week two is a cross-sectional look at some of the perspectives, frameworks, and theories commonly used in social work. It should assist in gaining awareness about the difference between these ways of thinking discussed in social work literature. We will look into the following:

  • Perspectives, theories, and frameworks
  • Systems theory
  • Ecological perspective
  • Strengths perspective
  • Solution-focused brief therapy

After this session, students will be able to articulate the difference between perspectives, theories, and frameworks. Students will also have knowledge about a couple of theoretical options for their integrative paper due later in the semester.

Unit Resources

The readings for this week are not out of the textbook and are being provided to help supplement the discussion. We won’t directly be talking about them during class. Green and McDermott (2010) provide some context and understanding related to the person in the environment. De Jonge and Miller (1995) give helpful ideas for how to draw out strengths from clients, which is an essential aspect of implementing strengths perspective. The hope of these readings 1 is to introduce you to some peer-reviewed journal articles and to some of the theories they discuss. It can help develop your integrative paper due at the end of the semester.

Reference

Green, D., & McDermott, F. (2010). Social work from inside and between complex systems: Perspectives on person-in-environment for today’s social work. British Journal of Social Work, 40(8), 2414–2430. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcq056

De Jonge, P., & Miller, S. D. (1995). How to interview for the client’s strengths. Social Work, 40(6), 729–736. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/40.6.729

The presentation for Fall 2021 SOWK 486 - Week 02 - Theories & Perspectives

View Fall 2021 SOWK 486 - Week 02 - Theories & Perspectives.

If you are interested as well, I have a video where I talk about my use of Zotero for keeping my references updated. You can see it at Transdisciplinary Literature Reviews using Zotero, How I Manage References [YouTube Video].

A couple of years ago, when I was teaching SOWK 459, Social Science Research Methods, I had a lesson Week 04 - Theoretical Frameworks - What is behind the research that we complete, which had some good information to dive a bit more into various theories within social work.

View Week 04 - Theoretical Frameworks - What is behind the research that we complete.

Unit Assignments

Read the two articles linked above.

To Do Lists

  • Attend class on Wednesday at 5:30 PM
  • Complete readings
  1. Please note that the use of the author’s names in the “text” of my discussion here is what an in-text citation is, and then there are also reference list entries. This is what APA formatting looks like in writing. You will see it inside your textbook, and in most journal articles, you read as a part of your ongoing studies. There is a link at the end of each reference. This is what is called a DOI number. It is useful in finding what article is being discussed and even putting the material into software like Zotero or Mendeley. This is not generally helpful for actually reading the article, as usually it takes you to the journal’s abstract page for the piece. Most journals cost, and you get access to them through the university library (unless its open access). I’ve turned the title of each of the articles into a link that is attached to the file so you can download and read the article. 

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