School Social Work Now!

Supporting Innovative Practice,

Effective Leadership & Applied Research 

School Culture and Change: An Examination of the Effects of School Culture on the Process of Change    

"There is an old saying among anthropologists that fish would be the last creatures to discover water (Kluckholn, 1949, as cited in Finnan, 2000) even though it is the most ubiquitous and influential aspect of a fish's existence. So it is with school culture and teaching. Just as water surrounds and envelopes fish shaping their perspectives and determining their courses of action, culture surrounds and envelopes teachers forming their perspectives and influencing their decisions and actions. Teachers work within a cultural context that influences every aspect of their pedagogy, yet this pervasive element of schools is elusive and difficult to define. Culture influences all aspects of schools, including such things as how the staff dresses (Peterson & Deal, 1998), what staff talk about in the teachers' lounge (Kottler, 1997), how teachers decorate their classrooms, their emphasis on certain aspects of the curriculum, and teachers' willingness to change (Hargreaves, 1997b). As Donahoe (1997) states, 'If culture changes, everything changes' " (p. 245).   Read full paper.

Tier 2 Supports to Improve Motivation and Performance of Elementary Students with Behavioral Challenges and Poor Work Completion 

 . . . Within the three-tiered framework, Tier 2 interventions and supports hold promise for intervening before the behavioral and academic challenges of students become resistant to intervention efforts (Walker et al., 2004). Tier 2 interventions are less intensive in terms of time and resources and can often be delivered to students by general education teachers within the structure of the school day during a designated intervention block of time (e.g., Oakes, Mathur, & Lane, 2010). Much attention has been devoted to primary and tertiary supports within the context of three-tiered models of prevention; less research examines supports and interventions offered at the secondary level of prevention (Bruhn, Lane, & Hirsh, 2012; Mitchell, Stormont, & Gage, 2011). Integrated models pose a particular benefit at Tier 2 given that behavioral, social, and academic concerns influence one another (Wentzel, 1993). For example, the strongest predictor of student achievement, after current level of academic achievement, is academic motivation followed by study skills (for older students) and then social skills (DiPerna, Volpe, & Elliott, 2002). So it follows that if students have the academic ability (acquired skills) but are not performing academically (e.g., not completing work), interventions should target improving academic enablers (e.g., interpersonal skills, motivation, engagement, study skills; DiPerna & Elliott, 2000). The critical nature of the relation between academic achievement and academic enablers supports the use of tiered models of prevention integrating academic, social, and behavioral supports in the school setting. Thus, interventions addressing improved student outcomes in all three areas must be explored.  Read complete study.   FL 

Response to Intervention (RtI) in the Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Domains: Current Challenges and Emerging Possibilities   

Education professionals continue to struggle to address the needs of an increasing number of students who have social, emotional, or behavioral difficulties (U.S. Department of Education, 2008). Social-emotional and behavioral problems among students are associated with a variety of poor school-related outcomes (Greenberg et al., 2003; Zins et al., 2004). Too frequently, schools address student behavior problems by employing consequences such as detention, suspension, and expulsion (Skiba & Rausch, 2006). A disproportionate amount of time and energy is spent on serving a small number of students with social-emotional and behavior problems. One potential remedy for this issue is early identification of and intervention with students at risk for such problems. This approach, known as Response to Intervention (RtI), has been recommended as an alternative to the "wait-to-fail" approach that some schools have historically used (Gresham, 2005). Until recently, RtI has been primarily utilized in the academic domain to identify students with specific learning disabilities (Jimerson, Burns, & VanDerHeyden, 2007). However, RtI may also serve as an effective approach for preventing and remedying the social, emotional, and behavioral problems of students who respond to behavioral interventions and therefore do not need more intensive services in special education. On the other hand, students who continue to display behavior problems despite early interventions should continue to receive increasingly targeted services.  The intent of this discussion is to explore RtI as a service delivery model for social, emotional, and behavioral problems in schools.  More.   FL

What Does Racism Have to Do with Leadership?   Countering the idea of color-blind leadership: a reflection on race and the growing pressures of the urban principalship     

Federal Funding of Social Work Research: High Hopes or Sour Grapes?  

. . . Schools of social work have been late to realize the importance of research vis-a-vis teaching and service (National Association of Deans and Directors of Schools of Social Work Task Force on Administrative Research Infrastructures within Social Work Education Programs, 1997). Until approximately the early 1990s, much of social work research was conducted without federal support through the auspices of university funding and external nonprofit granting organizations. However, with the ascent of neoliberal university policies (see Canaan & Shumar, 2008, for discussion)--including declining support for public programs and increasing desire to connect universities to business and serve as engines of economic development--public funding at the state level has declined, and one response by many universities has been to "encourage" faculty to pursue federal funding, which comes with generous indirect costs that departments and universities can use to underwrite their programs (or, in other words, to offset declining state support). These arrangements are affecting private universities as well, as the need for expansion of buildings and enrollments combined with increasing competition for private donations has created financial dilemmas on many campuses, only exacerbated by the recent economic recession and the loss of billions of dollars from university endowments.

In social work, these conditions have contributed to and been aided by the trend toward social work programs becoming more aligned with the health sciences rather than the humanities and by the expansion of doctoral programs. The new relationships created have spawned some important and interesting research and program collaborations, but they have also aligned social work with institutional environments rooted in federal funding for research. Indeed, it is now common to see preconference workshops at national social work conferences led by staff at federal research institutes providing pointers on how to be a successful applicant. What we often see now, in fact, is the replacement of evaluation of faculty candidates on the basis of publications with assessments of their ability to seek and receive external funding.

Although federal funding may provide important support for academic research, we need to be wary of it becoming the "standard" for success in academia and beyond.  Read full article.     FL

Links Between Middle-Childhood Trajectories of Family Dysfunction and Indirect Agression    

"Though mostly cross-sectional, research from the past decade has helped us better understand the concept of indirect aggression within a developmental framework. The present study uses a large national data set to examine its nature and course in relation to that of dysfunctional family processes during middle childhood. We apply family systems, developmental psychopathology, and life-course conceptualizations to meet our objective.

Indirect aggression is remarkably subtle compared with its more direct counterpart, physical aggression-which implies physical force or insult against another, with or without the assistance of an object (Tremblay & Nagin, 2005). Indirect aggression calls upon more underhanded and relational means to injure another morally or socially, as in generating rumors, cattiness, social exclusion, or transmission of confidential information (Lagerspetz, Bjorqvist, & Peltonen, 1988). The intent is to cause psychological discomfort by hurting, disenfranchising, alienating, discrediting, or isolating a particular individual in a select social system. During middle childhood, the covert manipulation of peer relations represents its modus operandi (Vaillancourt, 2005). A kin concept, relational aggression, expands the core construct by also integrating more frank and straightforward methods (Crick, Casas, & Nelson, 2002).

Although both sexes can and do use direct and indirect means to hurt others, recent research tells us that gender differences emerge when either forms of aggression are persistently intense (Crick, 1997; Tremblay et al., 2004; Vaillancourt, Brendgen, Boivin, & Tremblay, 2003)."  Complete study.

By the Numbers: Childhood Poverty In the US   

Missing Children with Special Needs 

December 19th, 2-3 pm ET

This Webinar will explore the challenges that families, law enforcement, first responders, and search teams face when a child with special needs is missing and will provide strategies for investigators who coordinate search efforts for these children.  The behaviors and actions of missing children with special needs are often very different than that of a missing non-affected child. As such, finding and safely recovering a missing child with special needs often presents unique and difficult challenges for families, law enforcement, first responders and search teams. This webinar's goal is to enhance efforts to help locate children with special needs by increasing the audience's awareness of the challenges associated with searching for children with special needs and providing strategies for investigators who search for them. Participants will receive information on investigative resources available to them through NCMEC.  Register for FREE webinar.   

New this week:  Lansing, MI     New Fairfield, CT (.8 FTE)     Providence, RI 13-14 sy      

Continued this week:  Chicago, IL     Detroit, MI     Elgin, IL     Fairfax County, VA    

Flint, MI     Gages Lake, IL (sub)     Hartford, CT 13-14 sy

Manhattan, NYC     New York, NY     Newark, NJ (HS)    Newark, NJ (MS)

 Norridge, IL (Mat Lv)     North Chicago, IL (sub)    Woodridge, IL

 Connecticut (Various Locations)

Louisiana (Various Locations)

 Dean, LSU, College of Human Sciences & Education

Ezra Jack Keats Foundation Accepting Minigrant Applications  

Free to Tweet Campaign    

During a 15-day online celebration of First Amendment rights, high school and college students can win one of five $5,000 scholarships. Beginning at midnight, Dec. 1-Dec. 15, students can tweet their support for the First Amendment with the hashtag #freetotweet, which will enter them into the scholarship competition.  Learn more.

• increasing research projects and their application within the school environment;
• developing a national school social work role framework paper;
• establishing a National Center for School Social Work Practice, Leadership and Research, a long-term goal,
• hosting the 2nd Louisiana State-wide School Social Work Conference, February 18-19, 2013, in New Orleans, LA, at the Tulane University Lavin-Bernick Center.   
• presenting the 4th National School Social Work Research Summit.  Watch for details to come. 

If you have interest in participating in any of these activities, contact Judie Shine.  ACSSW strives to be inclusive and transparent in all of its activities and welcomes, whether lengthy or short, the participation of its members.