As the world marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens's birth, social workers may take note of the contributions Dickens made to 19th century social reform. Ever the advocate for people who were poor and oppressed, Dickens, in his timeless fictional narratives, continues to have relevance for contemporary social justice advocacy. This…

In "Educations in Ethnic Violence", Matthew Lange explores the effects education has on ethnic violence. Lange contradicts the widely-held belief that education promotes peace and tolerance. Rather, Lange finds that education commonly contributes to aggression, especially in environments with ethnic divisions, limited resources, and…

Thanatologists, as Balk recently commented (Balk, 2004), have been saying that there is no recovery from bereavement, or that we should not speak of bereavement as leading to a recovery. The term recovery has a high level of plasticity and can be shaped to fit diverse meanings, including contradictory meanings. We will sort our way through some of…

Discusses the effect of the interactive accomplishment of conversational normalization. To illuminate this process, this article investigates how the parties to a news interview collaborate to normalize the interviewee's practices in operating a house of prostitution. The methodological impetus for this study involves a variant of conversation…

Analyzes and explains the change of a crowd into a mob. Uses as a case study the behavior of crowds involved in the integration of two previously all-White elementary schools in New Orleans (Louisiana). Emphasizes the role of the White students who continued to attend the schools. (FMW)