How does social work keep its balance between the requirements of its clients and its role as agency of state and society? In the historical analyses from various countries international experts show, how social work has succeeded in keeping those conflicting demands at bay. The contributions look at the historical situations in Finland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, Russia, the former Soviet Union, Switzerland, and former Yugoslavia.

This brief resource sets out a rights-based framework for policy analysis that allows social workers to enhance their long-term vision as well as their current practice. It introduces the emerging P.A.N.E. (Participation, Accountability, Non-discrimination, Equity) model for evaluating social policy, comparing it with the traditional needs-based charity model in terms of not only effectiveness and efficiency but also inclusion and justice. Recognized standards for human rights are used to identify values crucial to informing policy goals. Exercises, key documents, and an extended example illustrate both the processes of creating empowering social policy and its best and most meaningful outcomes. Included in the coverage: Rights-based and needs-based approaches to social policy analysis. Regional and international human rights instruments. Grounding social policies in legal and institutional frameworks. Conceptualizing social issues from a human rights frame. Measuring progress on the realization of human rights. Rights-based analysis of maternity, paternity, and parental leaves in the United States. For social workers and social work researchers, A Rights-Based Approach to Social Policy Analysis gives readers a modern platform for achieving the highest goals of the field. It also makes a worthwhile class text for social work programs. ​

After years of relative neglect, culture is finally receiving due recognition as a key factor in the evolution and resolution of conflicts. Unfortunately, however, when theorists and practitioners of conflict resolution speak of culture, they often understand and use it in a bewildering and unhelpful variety of ways. With sophistication and lucidity, "Culture and Conflict Resolution" exposes these shortcomings and proposes an alternative conception in which culture is seen as dynamic and derivative of individual experience. The book explores divergent theories of social conflict and differing strategies that shape the conduct of diplomacy, and examines the role that culture has (and has not) played in conflict resolution. The author is as forceful in critiquing those who would dismiss or diminish culture s relevance as he is trenchant in advocating conflict resolution approaches that make the most productive use of a coherent concept of culture. In a lively style, Avruch challenges both scholars and practitioners not only to develop a clearer understanding of what culture is, but also to take that understanding and incorporate it into more effective conflict resolution processes."

Technology, Society, and Conflict comprehensively studies and systematically highlights technological inequalities as a source of conflict in digital development while developing an economic and legal approach to resolving them.

Short-term study abroad experiences are on the rise across social work programs. This increase is fueled by the Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) that social work programs graduate students who are ready to engage diversity and function ethically as global citizens who understand mechanisms of oppression. With the increasing number of short-term study abroad trips, this brief offers a framework that provides strategies for empowering the populations and communities in which these trips occur. Developing short-term study abroad trips from a human rights-based framework rather than a needs-based approach is urgent and necessary, as the community in which the visit will occur is placed at the center of planning efforts and its members become equal and active participants. The brief is accessible and relevant to both instructors and students, with thoughtful emphasis placed in each chapter to align with the needs of each group more distinctly. It is conceived with both travel-based (field education) and classroom learning (pre-trip preparation) in mind. Though developed with more depth, theory, and evidence than a "how-to manual," the brief serves as an exemplary "guide" that prepares those engaging in short-term study abroad trips with information and strategies that are derived from the key concepts of a rights-based approach to field education. Human Rights-Based Approach to Short-Term Study Abroad is essential reading that engages students and faculty with case examples to illuminate the complex concepts that are taught by faculty as well as specific exercises and assignments to guide both faculty and student through the process of developing and implementing short-term study abroad trips. This brief is of immediate relevance for undergraduate and graduate coursework in field education, international social work, human rights, global social work, and macro social work, as well as useful for any practitioner seeking CSWE accreditation.

In a world where post-conflict and postcolonial countries struggle to heal from the past and meet new challenges, peace education is often neglected and instrumentalized for political agendas. Drawing on case studies from Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burundi, Colombia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and Uruguay, this book shows that cultural and structural violence can, in turn, lead to direct violence. An effective program of peace education responds to these dynamics meeting our urgent problems and opening up new opportunities for peacebuilding. With this direction in mind, this book addresses the practices of peace education from around the world. The fundamental question answered here is: can peace be taught, especially where the scars of war and legacies of colonialism are entrenched in society? Peace education is foundational to a more equitable future where global citizens share a planet in justice, equity, with human security, and all the elements of sustainable, resilient peace. Foremost, it is an essential pillar for societies scarred by violence.

How does hope for peace form and proliferate in the seemingly hopeless reality of conflict, and why do despair and fear often prevail? How do political elites utilize hope and skepticism to manipulate their public during conflict? And how does hope manifest itself at the societal level? Hope Amidst Conflict takes on the bold challenge of answering these questions by merging insights from philosophy and social psychology and investigating hope for peace in an intense political context--the intractable, violent conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Hope for peace has gathered scholarly attention in the last decade. However, the work has been focusing on the mechanisms of hope while failing to ask the bigger questions about hope's role in the politics of conflict. Moreover, existing research presents a confusing account of what hope "is" and how it can be measured. This confusion yielded mixed results regarding the levels and consequences of hope during conflict. Combining the wisdom of more than a hundred years of scholarship on hope with insights from original data collected in conflict zones, Hope Amidst Conflict offers a novel conceptualization of hope and a standardized way to measure hope in a wide array of contexts. Using these new approaches, the book embarks on a journey to identify the determinants and consequences of hope amidst conflict.