‘You Took me Back to the sea:' Using Narrative to Explore and Inform the Practice of Social Work with Dying People

This article centres on a qualitative interview extract, the ‘Story of the Pebble', in which a West African Hospital Social Worker Ado, working in a UK context, and identifying as a Shaman, describes successfully trusting his instincts to create a symbol for a dying patient. Despite criticisms from colleagues, Ado's capacity to understand his patients needs are justified both before and after her death.The article discusses significant themes from the interview extract, including the meaning of professionalism, practice wisdom and cultural influences in a UK social work context, as well as through Ado's heritage and identification as a Shaman. The article considers holistic patient care in a medical context and suggests this has some useful lessons for social workers, particularly those involved with dying people. Although the extract, and wider research study from which it is drawn, pre-date the Covid 19 pandemic, this is referenced throughout, linking the interview extract to ways of helping practitioners and educators to consider people holistically at end of life. AD -, Chichester, UK ;, Chichester, UK

Comparing the Experience of Pre-Service Teachers in the First and Final Semesters in Online Learning Using a Focus Group Study

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, online learning has become the innovation and an alternative virtual education adopted by universities, due to campus closures. The sudden adoption of the innovation without prior preparation and training causes the ineffective implementation of online learning in most institutions. Based on this description, insufficient information is available regarding the experiences of the student population, which are the most affected by online learning in higher education. Therefore, this study aims to explore the experiences of pre-service teachers regarding their numerous abilities to provide a good online learning program. Using a qualitative focus group study design, data were obtained through the focus group discussion (FGD) on 58 and 52 teachers, which were divided into 10 study groups during the first and final semesters. The results showed that both groups had similar and different experiences, regarding lecturers' ability to effectively perform online learning. According to the experience of the participants, the lecturers with pedagogical and social-personal skills were able to emphasize and encourage the attractiveness of online learning. In addition, some of the differences highly depended on the specific indicators of the two aspects. These results are expected to provide a framework for university lecturers and administrators, towards implementing the learning process.

COVID-19 and spiritual well-being: implications for social work

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has presented unprecedented health challenges across all strata in society throughout the world. During this time, spiritual care forms a vital component of holistic health management, especially in terms of coping, coming to terms with illness, sufferings, and ultimately death. Spiritual care deals with the provision of compassion and empathy during the time of heightened stress, distress, and anxiety. Spirituality refers to the individual's personal experience that provides a greater sense of inner peace, harmony, hopefulness, and compassion for others and oneself. The term "Spiritus” is a latin word which means "the breath,” that is the most vital element for life. Religiousness may focus on the personal attitude, emotions, and personality factors. Spirituality may encompass positive emotions- love, hope, joy, forgiveness, compassion, trust, gratitude, and awe. Religion refers to the interpersonal and institutional aspects of religio-spirituality based on the doctrine, values, and traditions of a formal religious group. This paper seeks to highlight the role of spirituality in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic with use of social work throughout this process.

Another economy calls for another perspective

Economics makes sense of the economy. Another economy that may or may not come about in response to the Corona crisis will require another sense making. This article provides a possible alternative perspective, a value-based approach. It includes a model with five spheres that encourages a visualization and conceptualization of the economy beyond the market and governmental spheres that dominate the standard economic perspective. By including social and cultural spheres as well as the sphere of the oikos (home) we are encouraged to think of social arrangements, relationships and other "shared goods,” sense making, culture and other qualities of living. The exploration of another perspective includes two concrete proposals for alternative institutions to deal with problematic debts and creating work for people with limitations.

Prime Minister Versus the Premiers: COVID and the Premiers' popularity

The National Cabinet, designed as a much more agile, flexible and dynamic alternative to the former Council of Australian Governments' (COAG) approach, initially brought a sense of policy cohesion and unanimity of purpose to the national conversation around COVID-19, reassuring the public that all was in hand. The prospect of spending two weeks in isolation was challenging for some people who exhibited mental health symptoms. [...]Australia did have its own program in Queensland, but it was abandoned due to complications in the early trials which related to false positives. Australia's constitution, little known and even less understood, retains state governments' operational control over public health, law and order, education, and most emergency services.

When top-down infrastructures fail: spaces and practices of care and community under COVID-19

Throughout this article, we focus on the lives and experiences of residents in the Sun Valley public housing project in Denver. During the stay-at-home orders, the Sun Valley residents – an economically impoverished yet diverse community that includes refugees, Black and LatinX families, single-parent households, and individuals who are permanently disabled – faced extremely precarious conditions. COVID exposed and exacerbated the already failed infrastructures in Sun Valley, but within this failure, radical openings emerged, new connections surfaced and alternative practices developed among the residents leading to vernacular infrastructures of care. To understand and highlight these vernacular infrastructures, we utilized a combination of photography and interviews to understand 17 residents' and key community support actors' experiences during the initial stay-at-home orders from March to June 2020. From this data, we argue that, through community practices and relationships, Sun Valley residents' and community support networks addressed the crisis and uncertainty by developing vernacular infrastructures of care.

Seizing the opportunity to redesign physical education teacher education: blending paradigms to create transformative experiences in teacher education

The COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged many to engage with determining what is most effective in the realm of teaching and learning and how we can negotiate what we have done in the past with what makes sense for the future. In proposing a framework in which to encourage the community of physical education teacher educators to redefine physical education teacher education (PETE) practices, we argue that we need to start by revisiting, embedding and challenging Zeichner's [(1983). Alternative paradigms of teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 34(3), 3–9] paradigms at a programmatic level. Drawing on Rink's [(1993). Teacher education: A focus on action. Quest (Grand Rapids, Mich), 45(3), 308–320] main thesis of considering the different philosophical orientations as complementary, and not competing ideologies, this paper is a response to the call of Carmi and Tamir [(2020). Three professional ideals: Where should teacher preparation go next? European Journal of Teacher Education] to improve strategies for blending paradigms in teacher preparation programmes, by providing some specific directions and reflective prompts for PETE programmes. We introduce the reader to the consideration that decisions made around the paradigms and the blending of paradigms across a programme may be essential to provide pre-service teachers (PSTs) with transformative experiences that enable their understanding of the different contexts and ontologies to succeed in their pedagogical and professional endeavours. We develop a double-pyramid approach evidencing how more than one paradigm of teacher education can co-exist to create a holistic and comprehensive plan to facilitate PETE. We convey that a programmatic structure with decisions around the paradigms and their blending, and how those might shape PSTs' educational experience will provide a starting point if teacher educators are to re-define PETE practices.

Community-led housing: Between ‘right to the city', ‘actually existing neoliberalism' and post-pandemic cities

This paper examines the Self-Managed Housing Program (Law 341), in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This programme created 45 cooperative housing units between 2001 and 2020 in consolidated urban areas currently undergoing renewal processes. It investigates the conditions that the programme has generated for the realisation of the ‘right to the city' in the context of ‘actually existing neoliberalism' and challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper analyses the origins of the process and mode of cooperative housing production, including tangible and intangible aspects and capacities acquired by the inhabitants. This study used a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology. The analytical strategy focused on defining a set of dimensions that characterised the self-managed mode of production, conditions of social and urban insertion in the case studied and participants' perceptions of the influence of material characteristics and organisational arrangements during the pandemic. This paper contributes to our understanding of the socio-economic dynamics in the production of urban space by elucidating the role of the state and specific tensions arising due to bottom-up policies, specific forms adopted by urban experiences of resistance and their contribution in the promotion of concrete conditions of urban life. Finally, this paper characterises an emergent self-managed urbanism and reflects on its possibilities of dialogue with the construction of alternative local policies that challenge growing territorial inequality caused by the subordination of policies to real estate financialisation and its deepening tendencies in the pandemic context.

From Postcolonial to Post-COVID: Midnight Thoughts While Waiting for the Dawn

This essay reflects on the theories and methods of global science and technology studies (STS). It first examines postcolonial STS and points out certain problems and limitations of the approach. It then discusses a few alternative approaches that have benefited from postcolonial STS, and also tries to carve out new directions. Finally, this article uses China and the current pandemic as a case study to explore certain critical questions for a new global STS.

Trabajo docente en tiempos de pandemia: agudización de las desigualdades e intensificación de la tarea en la provincia de Buenos Aires

Este artículo es el resultado de una investigación sobre las condiciones y los condicionantes de la tarea docente en el nivel secundario de la provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina, durante la pandemia por la covid-19. El objetivo es analizar cómo se cruzan las desigualdades de género, tecnológicas y sociosanitarias en el quehacer educativo, en un contexto signado por la intensificación de la labor docente y la profundización de las distancias sociales. Consideramos el período comprendido entre marzo de 2020 y marzo de 2021, y analizamos las siguientes particularidades: las regulaciones oficiales, las condiciones laborales docentes, la composición y situación social del hogar de profesoras y profesores, los recursos tecnológicos disponibles y los soportes institucionales que condicionaron la labor pedagógica. Nos basamos en las normativas del período, la estadística oficial, y las encuestas y entrevistas abiertas a docentes de secundaria de cuatro municipios, que reflejan la heterogeneidad de esta provincia argentina. Entre los hallazgos sobresalen la intensificación de la labor de enseñar durante la pandemia y su particular impacto en el nivel secundario por la estructura del puesto de trabajo;en las docentes mujeres la situación se complejiza por la asimetría en el reparto de las tareas de cuidado. La emergencia del trabajo colectivo para afrontar estas condiciones se constituyó como alternativa y soporte a fin de superar el aislamiento.Alternate :This article is the result of an investigation into the conditions and determinants of teaching at the secondary level in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective is to analyze how gender, technological, and socio-health inequalities intersect in educational work, in a context marked by the intensification of teaching work and widening social gaps. We considered the period between March 2020 and March 2021, and analyzed the following particularities: official regulations, teachers' working conditions, the composition and social situation of teachers' households, technological resources available, and institutional support that conditioned pedagogical work. We studied the regulations of the period, official statistics, and surveys and open interviews with secondary school teachers in four municipalities, which reflect the heterogeneity of this Argentine province. Among the findings, we emphasize the intensification of the work of teaching during the pandemic and its particular impact on the secondary level, due to the structure of this job position;among female teachers, the situation became more complex due to asymmetry in the distribution of care work. Collective work emerged to confront these conditions, as an alternative and support mechanism to overcome isolation.

A New Time of Reckoning, a Time for New Reckoning: Views on Health and Society, Tensions between Medicine and the Social Sciences, and the Process of Medicalization

This article seeks to capture variations and tensions in the relationships between the health–illness–medicine complex and society. It presents several theoretical reconstructions, established theses and arguments are reassessed and criticized, known perspectives are realigned according to a new theorizing narrative, and some new notions are proposed. In the first part, we argue that relations between the medical complex and society are neither formal– nor historically necessary. In the second part, we take the concept of medicalization and the development of medicalization critique as an important example of the difficult coalescence between health and society, but also as an alternative to guide the treatment of these relationships. Returning to the medicalization studies, we suggest a new synthesis, reconceptualizing it as a set of modalities, including medical imperialism. In the third part, we endorse replacing a profession-based approach to medicalization with a knowledge-based approach. However, we argue that such an approach should include varieties of sociological knowledge. In this context, we propose an enlarged knowledge-based orientation for standardizing the relationships between the health–illness–medicine complex and society.

Analysis of Prospective Teachers’ Perceptions of the Flipped Classroom as a Classroom Methodology

In order for students to be the protagonists of the teaching and learning process, teachers must change their role in the classroom. A successful alternative is the flipped classroom methodology, where educational technology is integrated into a reorganisation and optimisation of class time. Based on this alternative, this paper aims to analyse the perceptions of future teachers about the FC as an active methodology. A quantitative longitudinal panel design was carried out with pre-test and post-test measures, with a descriptive, inferential and predictive approach. The sample consisted of 284 prospective teachers from the University of Malaga (Spain), who were asked about their perceptions of the FC using an ad hoc questionnaire. The results reflect positive perceptions of the FC methodology on the part of the future teachers, with significant differences by gender in favour of men. The variables gender, re-watching videos, digital competence and autonomous learning were predictors of the participants’ perceptions. In conclusion, it is important to highlight the importance of implementing active methodologies such as the FC with future teachers that they can use when carrying out their work.

Education as an Opportunity for Integration: Assessing Colombia, Peru, and Chile's Educational Responses to the Venezuelan Migration Crisis

With over 5 million Venezuelans fleeing their home country, Latin America is facing the largest migration crisis in its history. Colombia, Peru, and Chile host the largest numbers of Venezuelan migrants in the region. Each country has responded differently to the crisis in terms of the provision of education. Venezuelan migrants attempting to enter the primary, secondary, and higher education systems encounter a variety of barriers, from struggles with documentation, to limited availability of spaces in schools, to cultural barriers and xenophobia.This paper examines the distinct educational policy responses to Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, Peru, and Chile. It begins by contextualizing the current crisis through a sociopolitical and economic analysis of the origins of the Venezuelan migration phenomenon. Venezuelans are not officially and legally recognized as refugees by the UNHCR. Refugee status is considered on a case-by-case basis at the country level. The regional coordinating bodies tasked with promoting safe, orderly, and legal migration of Venezuelans to host countries have given uneven attention to education.The paper examines each country's response to Venezuelan migrants from a human rights perspective. It provides sociopolitical context and discusses the specific educational offerings from the primary to tertiary levels in Colombia, Peru, and Chile. It considers alternative or flexible education models, second shift schools, access to school transportation and feeding programs, and teacher training opportunities that cater to the growing migrant population. It explores barriers to entry into the educational system, including documentation challenges due to legal and enrollment requirements, constraints on the host countries’ education systems, and discrimination due to lack of intercultural training and xenophobia. It also discusses challenges related to the quality of the educational opportunities for Venezuelan migrant children, and the specific needs of these children.The paper considers several ideas to protect Venezuelan migrants’ rights to an education and to strengthen their integration. Finally, it offers recommendations on sustainable education solutions for Venezuelan migrants at all levels in the three countries. These recommendations include improving information sharing, addressing structural bottlenecks to school enrollment, and expanding pathways (existing and complementary) to higher education.

The Big Pivot: Moving a Continuing Education Program Online

In 2020, the rapid onset of the COVID-19 pandemic made the delivery of in-person social work continuing education impossible, suddenly leaving online training as the only viable and safe alternative. This article describes the experience of a large continuing education program, based at a school of social work, and its transition to deliver synchronous webinars for the first time. This process included cancelling 200 previously scheduled in person programs and rapidly moving to online synchronous webinars. It also led to a shift in staff roles and responsibilities and the recognition of the value of virtual mutual support among the team. Some of the key lessons learned during this transition include building staff and trainer webinar literacy, troubleshooting and navigating online platforms, development of best practice skills for online training, and evaluation of synchronous webinars.

Family Relationships at the Time of COVID-19: the Perspective of the Italian Sociological Review

The pandemic highlighted social processes that were unknown to many citizens. Not only did it reveal the high level of interdependency between nations and continents but also the marked disparity between the beneficiaries and victims of globalization. Some countries were provided with tangible proof of their underlying fragility, especially in terms of their economies and access to resources (such as vaccines). The gulf between rich and poor nations was also underlined, as well as domestic poverty gaps. Inequality and injustice emerged with all their tragic overtones. It is necessary to come to terms with, rather than cancel, the past in order to imagine a different future, also as far as the family is concerned. The analysis of the research data shows that Italian households adopted coping strategies during the lockdown. Financially speaking, they drew on their savings and reduced certain forms of consumption, while couples - above all women - tackled the emergency by buckling down to care work and family responsibilities. The social and relational repercussions of all this have yet to be fully considered. In light of these remarks, envisioning the future of the current and new generations becomes a high-stakes game. Pursuing the dynamics triggered by the pandemic will herald a return to the traditional family model with the wife-mother as homemaker or homeworker and the husband-father employed in flexible work with little security (meaning also a family with fewer financial resources that can invest less in the care, upbringing, and education of children). The alternative is to rethink social policies. In this way, reinvestment in public services for childcare, healthcare, and welfare, as well as in labour policies, will ensure the survival of the various forms of family as the sphere of daily life where new generations learn justice and respect for others despite their diversity.

It's Time: The re-form of Australian public universities1

Managers, administrators, academic staff and students now function under a commercial, transactional system of hierarchical power relations informed by 'managerialism' and 'new public management' principles. [...]universities do not have to undergo a living death. [...]in alerting us to other possibilities, Hil et al. discuss the many alternative models of higher education that exist globally, and which offer the prospect of a regenerative university capable of responding to the challenges of the twenty-first century. The authors are members of Academics for Public Universities (https:// publicuniversities.org), a group of academics interested in undertaking independent research to understand, address, and improve the current state of Australian public universities.

Factors Affecting Dental Students' Comfort with Online Synchronous Learning.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic caused many universities to expand their use of videoconferencing technology to continue academic coursework. This study examines dental students' experience, comfort levels, and preferences with videoconferencing. Methods: Of 100 s-year US dental students enrolled in a local anesthesia course, 54 completed a survey following an online synchronous lecture given in August 2020. Survey questions asked about prior experience with videoconferencing, comfort levels with online and traditional classes, and reasons for not turning on their video (showing their face). Results: Overall, 48.2% had little or no experience with videoconferencing prior to March 2020. Students were more comfortable with in-classroom parameters (listening, asking questions, answering questions, and interacting in small groups (breakouts)) than with online synchronous learning, although differences were not significant (p's > 0.10). Regression analyses showed there were significant positive associations between videoconferencing experience and comfort with both answering questions and interacting in breakouts (B = 0.55, p = 0.04 and B = 0.54, p = 0.03, respectively). Students reported being more comfortable during in-classroom breakouts than in breakouts using videoconferencing (p = 0.003). Main reasons for students not turning on their cameras were that they did not want to dress up (48.1%), other students were not using their video features (46.3%), and they felt they did not look good (35.5%). Conclusions: Dental students were somewhat more comfortable with traditional in-person vs. online classroom parameters. Prior experience with videoconferencing was associated with increased comfort with synchronous learning, suggesting that after the pandemic, it may be beneficial to structure dental school curricula as a hybrid learning experience with both in-person and online synchronous courses.

'Because COVID Ruined Everything': The Impact of Learning Modalities and Accommodations on Students with Disabilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Children with disabilities rely on access to special education services and accommodations, physical, occupational, and speech therapies, and medical interventions. However, these accommodations are not provided equally across all students. The COVID-19 pandemic brought these disparities to light, as untested forms of at-home, virtual, and hybrid learning were implemented. Limited in-person learning affects students with disabilities, as many cannot participate fully in these modifications. While parents have long fought for services and accommodations for their children, alternative educational delivery became the norm during the pandemic. This study examines how K-12 education was delivered to students with disabilities during the pandemic, the benefits and challenges these modalities created, and how we can implement future changes to improve educational access for students who require special education. Interviews with teachers and parents were conducted to understand educational impacts on students. Findings address these modalities' positive and negative aspects and their impacts on educational outcomes using a social vulnerability framework. This research informs K-12 policy and recommends we consider how accommodations can assist students during a national health crisis and how they can be utilized in times of stability to decrease social vulnerability.

What Do Gender Equality and Women's Rights Have to Do with China's Global Engagement?

Particularly in the past decade, as executive committee member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (dawn), a Global South feminist ngo, I have observed numerous UN negotiations on various processes regarding Sustainable Development Goals (Rio+20), the International Conference on Population and Development (icpd+20 and +25), and women's rights and gender equality (Beijing +20 and +25) at regional and global levels.5 In collaboration with feminist groups and other human rights activists from both the South and North, we have been advocating for the recognition of gender equality and inclusion of women's human rights language, especially with respect to sexual and reproductive health and rights (srhr), in the outcome documents of these meetings. With China's growing influence in the world, there is increasing criticism and skepticism with regard to Chinese overseas investment and initiatives within the public opinion of recipient countries, leading to charges such as the "China Threat" and "neocolonialism"9 In response, China is revamping its global engagement strategies to counter these narratives as well as to strengthen the mutual benefits and mitigate the negative impact of its relations with other countries. Through its aid projects, donations to UN Women, and other South-South cooperation projects, China has actively promoted the development of women's health, education, economy, poverty alleviation, and the environment in developing countries. Nearly 1,000 Chinese women participate in UN peacekeeping missions, of which China is one of the major funders and the largest troop-contributing country among the permanent members of the UN Security Council.15 Following that report, at the high-level panel discussion commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action held at the forty-third session of the UN Human Rights Council on February 25, 2020, in Geneva, Chinese representatives proposed to advance gender equality and women's development in three areas: advance women's cause through development, improve the protection of women's rights through laws and policies, and strengthen international cooperation with adherence to the principle of cooperation for win-win results.

Insurgent African Intimacies in Pandemic Times: Deimperial Queer Logics of China's New Global Family in Wolf Warrior 2

The Wolf Warrior is a gorgeous, muscled, Chinese male rogue soldier in exile who adventures through the archipelago of the prc's shipping, mining, and medical projects across the Global South to battle white mercenaries, corrupt Asian businessmen, and local pirates - all while saving Africa from a ravaging pandemic. Paradoxically, it also enacts a horizontalist, nonbiological family network mobilized by an anti-imperialist vision - a kind of bonding achieved not through marriage and childrearing, but through adoptive intimacies as well as trans-generational and "mixed race" friendships and empathies. The latter are described by Chunyu Zhang as practices through which queer female and non-binary fans turn "a voyeuristic gaze upon men . . . [which] allows fans to play with patriarchal gender constructions, provides escapism, and creates aesthetics that offer an alternative to clichéd heterosexual romantic storytelling. "8 This deconstructive Danmei/BL/Slash method aims to excavate a utopian vision of feminist South-South solidarity via imaginaries of transracial adoption and militant intimacy, map queer possibilities for China-Africa cooperation via alternative orderings of a "global family," and identify contradictory agendas for insurgent anti-imperialism via racialized homoeroticisms involving rogue Asian soldiers both wrestling and disidentifying with white mercenaries as well as Black pirates.