Miu Chung Yan
Biographic Data
| ID | 160569 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Miu Chung Yan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Miu Chung |
| FAMILY NAME | Yan |
| SIGNATURE | YAN M C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4221-7430 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 45 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 340 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Transnational family care: Experiences of family carers of people with dementia among migrants from Hong Kong in Vancouver
Older immigrants with co-morbidities and functional disabilities require care, which is often provided by their families. While transnational family care for older immigrants has been widely studied, little attention has been paid to those living with dementia. Hong Kong Canadian immigrants are widely recognized as flexible circular transnational migrants, yet dementia restricts the mobility of both older adults and their family carers. Using a t…
The development of social work education in South Korea: A historical review
Social work education is a major institutional mechanism for providing trained and capable professionals who can ensure the profession’s accountability to public interests. In many countries, through enacting laws and issuing policies, the state plays an important role in shaping the training and preparation of professional social workers. Despite the significant role of the state in shaping social work education, this topic has attracted little …
Leaving the Homeland Again for My Family’s Future: Post-return Migration Among Hong Kong Canadians
Immigrant Identifications and ICT Use: A Survey Study of Chinese and South Asian Immigrants in Canada
Indigenization without ‘Indigeneity’: Problematizing the Discourse of Indigenization of Social Work in China
While acknowledging mutual alignment in their critique of social work’s dominant Eurocentric lens, indigenous and indigenization of social work have thus far forged separate routes. Indigenous social work predominantly focuses on groups in the settler colonial states of North America and Australia where the term ‘indigenous’ as an official identity category is embraced by groups to signify their a priori territorial claims, traditional way of lif…
Canadian immigrant youth and co-ethnic friendship group change
Cross-ethnic friendships are at the heart of the immigration experience. We examine the incidence and change of co-ethnic friendship groups among 1.5 and second-generation immigrant youth in Canada using the nationally representative Ethnic Diversity Survey. We find that visible minority immigrant youth friendships are more co-ethic than those of non-visible minority immigrant youth. We also find visible minority individuals’ friendship groups be…
Social Infrastructure and Social Capacity Development Among Newcomers to Canada: The Role of Neighborhood Houses in Vancouver
Mechanisms of Gatekeeping in the Social Work Profession: Lessons Learned from Canada, Hong Kong and South Korea
Striving to be a full-fledged profession with statutorily delegated self-regulatory authority has been a goal of the social work profession in many countries since Abraham Flexner’s (1915 ‘Is social work a profession?’, Paper presented at the Forty-Second Annual Session of The National Conference of Charities and Correction, Baltimore, MD, pp. 581, 584–8, 590. denial of its professional status in the USA. A full self-regulation requires two gatek…
Connecting the dots: Neighbourhood House and institutional accessibility
Accessibility to public resources has been a major challenge to many service users. The fragmentation among different organizational stakeholders in social service generates a ‘wicked problem’ that creates an institutional barrier for service users in the community to navigate the maze of service networks. However, this institutional barrier has not been fully discussed and articulated in the social service literature. Based on the findings of a …
Subethnic interpersonal dynamic in diasporic community: A study on Chinese immigrants in Vancouver
201909 bcrc
China’s social welfare: The third turning point
From a functional perspective, Wilensky and Lebeaux (1965) have long argued that under the capitalist mode of economy, social welfare is basically an instrumental social response of a society to th
Continuing Education for the Emerging Social Work Profession in China: The Experiment in Shenzhen
In-service training as a form of continuing professional education (CPE) is important for social work professionals to maintain their skills and enhance their knowledge for publicly accountable practice. These goals are concerns in Mainland China, which has experienced rapid development in social work since economic reforms started in the early 1980s. This article reports the findings of a qualitative study that explored the in-service training e…
Incorporating individual community assets in neighbourhood houses: Beyond the community-building tradition of settlement houses
As a global movement, neighbourhood houses (NHs) are found in urban communities all over the world. Following the community-building tradition of early settlement houses, NHs have been actively nurturing and mobilizing community assets to serve the local community, but it is not known whether NHs have incorporated these assets in their infrastructure. This article reports the findings of a clearinghouse survey of 15 NHs in Metro Vancouver, Canada…
Bridging the Gaps: Access to Formal Support Services among Young African Immigrants and Refugees in Metro Vancouver
Although it is widely recognized that the most marginalized people tend to face extra barriers when accessing mainstream services intended to serve everyone, few studies have dealt with the specific barriers and challenges that immigrant and refugee youth from small, marginalized communities encounter when seeking access to services aimed at facilitating their settlement and integration into Canadian society. Our exploratory study of the particip…
Driving ducks onto a perch: The experience of locally trained Shenzhen supervisor
The importance of supervision for social work practice has been recognized by the Shenzhen government, which has invested great effort into developing the mentorship model for supervisor training. This pioneering effort has resulted in the emergence of young local supervisors. This paper reports findings of a qualitative study which used in-depth interviews to explore the experience of 14 locally trained supervisors in Shenzhen. The findings reve…
Examining the neoliberal discourse of accountability: The case of Hong Kong’s social service sector
Social workers always strive for an intricate balance between the competitive demands of different discourses of accountability. However, the neoliberal welfare regime, which privileges the ideologies of free market choice and managerial control, has synchronized the different discourses into a neoliberal discourse of accountability. Using Hong Kong as an example, this article examines how this discourse is put into practice and how it demoralize…
Catching the shimmers of the social: From the Limits of Reflexivity to Methodological Creativity
With the questioning of the neutral objective researcher, reflexivity has jumped to the forefront of qualitative research, thus positioning the embodied researcher within the research process. In its power to reveal tacit embodied social structures, reflexivity is touted as the hallmark of methodological validation while also being described as a messy process, particularly in participatory research. In this article, we use illustrative examples …
Social work in the making: The state and social work development in C hina
The instrumental role of government in the development of social work in C hina has led to questions about its political function. So far, little has been reported on how the government has “made” social work in C hina. To fill this gap, we first provide a brief chronological review of major policies and activities of the C hinese government in its making of social work in C hina. The state's intervention has indeed been massive and crucial altho…
The response of youth to racial discrimination: Implications for resilience theory
This paper presents a qualitative participatory study of Canadian young people who identified themselves as visible minorities and who have experienced discrimination based on their skin colour or ethnicity. Eighteen participants aged 15–24 (12 girls and 6 boys), representing four ethnic minority groups, participated in focus groups and in-depth interviews and shared their responses to racial discrimination against them. Analysis of the data from…
Return Migrant or Diaspora: An Exploratory Study of New-Generation Chinese-Canadian Youth Working in Hong Kong
Towards a pragmatic approach: A critical examination of two assumptions of indigenization discourse
The current discourse of indigenization has been dominated by a normative approach that puts culture and social work values at the centre of discussions of social work's transference ‘from the West to the rest’. Taking a social constructionist perspective, this article argues that we need to critically examine some underlying assumptions of this normative approach, which may have led to misunderstandings of indigenization. The pragmatic approach,…
Rethinking youth violence and healing
In a world where violence and healing are posited as oppositional, critical youth studies, youth work practitioners, and human rights and social justice activists often locate themselves on the healing side of the divide, shedding light on the suffering and alleviating the pain of the violence. However, current theoretical developments prompt us to critically engage this oppositional binary constructed between violence and healing. We have come t…
The School-to-Work Transitions of Newcomer Youth in Canada
Over half of all migrants to Canada are under 29 years of age and one quarter arrive as refugees. Studies on occupational achievements and labour market status have been largely ignored in favour of studies on adult migrants rather than on youth. This paper uses data collected from two sources: a national study of newly-arrived newcomer youth living in Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg and Vancouver using qualitative interviews, and a quantitative anal…
A challenged professional identity: The struggles of new social workers in China
This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study of how 28 new social workers in China experienced challenges during the early formulation of their professional social work identity in the workplace. Through social work training at the school, they had been taught that some key social work values were core elements of their social work professional identity. These values have informed their daily practice. However, negative experiences in t…
A profession with dual foci: Is social work losing the balance
Individual and social are the two foci of the mission of change that drives the social work profession. This dual-focus provides not only a cultural mechanism by which the profession can negotiate its professional boundaries but the flexibility for the profession to adjust its focus when its social assignment changes. However, the uncritical pursuit of a full-fledged professional status within a neoliberal ideology is upsetting the balance of the…
Chinese corpus, western application: The Chinese strategy of engagement with western social work discourse
Indigenization is a key issue in the development of professional social work in China. Chinese social work scholars have adopted the century-old conceptual formulation of ‘Chinese corpus, western application’ to balance the need for western knowledge and the need for intellectual autonomy. This article explores major current debates on ideology, teleology, epistemology and technology within the social work profession in the West and their implica…
Social work in the making: The state and social work development in C hina
The instrumental role of government in the development of social work in C hina has led to questions about its political function. So far, little has been reported on how the government has “made” social work in C hina. To fill this gap, we first provide a brief chronological review of major policies and activities of the C hinese government in its making of social work in C hina. The state's intervention has indeed been massive and crucial altho…
Social work as a moral and political practice
English In their efforts to promote the Global Standards for the Education and Training of the Social Work Profession, the authors discovered the withering of the moral and political bases of social work practice in the West. The revitalization of the roots of social work is important to the promotion of social justice. French Dans leurs efforts pour promouvoir les Standards Mondiaux pour l’Enseignement et la Formation aux Professions Sociales, l…
Examining the neoliberal discourse of accountability: The case of Hong Kong’s social service sector
Social workers always strive for an intricate balance between the competitive demands of different discourses of accountability. However, the neoliberal welfare regime, which privileges the ideologies of free market choice and managerial control, has synchronized the different discourses into a neoliberal discourse of accountability. Using Hong Kong as an example, this article examines how this discourse is put into practice and how it demoralize…
A challenged professional identity: The struggles of new social workers in China
This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study of how 28 new social workers in China experienced challenges during the early formulation of their professional social work identity in the workplace. Through social work training at the school, they had been taught that some key social work values were core elements of their social work professional identity. These values have informed their daily practice. However, negative experiences in t…
Community Centers in Urban China: Context, Development, and Limitations
While China's economic progress and social transformation demand an urgent refurbishment of its social welfare system, after a decade of development community centers have gradually become the major infrastructure of service delivery in urban China. In this article, the authors examine the social and historical context of the development of community services in urban China, and then focus on the community center as an emerging force in a society…
Another Snapshot of Social Work in China: Capturing Multiple Positioning and Intersecting Discourses in Rapid Movement
The magnitude and speed of social work's development in mainland China is unprecedented in human history. This inevitably gives rise to multiple perspectives on its nature and future development, particularly as part of the international social work discourse. Some of these perspectives are based on unexamined assumptions about China. In the present paper, we examine three of these assumptions, namely the homogeneity of Chinese culture, the globa…
The quest for western social work knowledge: Literature in the USA and practice in China
English Despite the fast development of social work education, scholars in China are eager to import and adapt western social work knowledge which is portrayed as a monolithic entity. Using a case study of American social work literature, we question the existence of a monolithic system of western knowledge. French En dé pit du développement rapide de la formation en travail social, les étudiants chinois sont pressé s d’importer et d’adapter le s…
Bridging the Gaps: Access to Formal Support Services among Young African Immigrants and Refugees in Metro Vancouver
Although it is widely recognized that the most marginalized people tend to face extra barriers when accessing mainstream services intended to serve everyone, few studies have dealt with the specific barriers and challenges that immigrant and refugee youth from small, marginalized communities encounter when seeking access to services aimed at facilitating their settlement and integration into Canadian society. Our exploratory study of the particip…
Catching the shimmers of the social: From the Limits of Reflexivity to Methodological Creativity
With the questioning of the neutral objective researcher, reflexivity has jumped to the forefront of qualitative research, thus positioning the embodied researcher within the research process. In its power to reveal tacit embodied social structures, reflexivity is touted as the hallmark of methodological validation while also being described as a messy process, particularly in participatory research. In this article, we use illustrative examples …
Riding the Boom: Labour Market Experiences of New Generation Youth from Visible Minority Immigrant Families
With changes in the source of origin of immigrants, a new cohort of new generation youth from visible minority immigrant families has begun to be established and become the key replacement of the aging Canadian labour force. Based on existing research, being young, being visible, and coming from an immigrant family are possible disadvantages in the labour market. Research on this new generation youth, however, is limited. This paper reports findi…
Subethnic interpersonal dynamic in diasporic community: A study on Chinese immigrants in Vancouver
201909 bcrc
Social functioning discourse in a Chinese context: Developing social work in mainland China
Towards a pragmatic approach: A critical examination of two assumptions of indigenization discourse
The current discourse of indigenization has been dominated by a normative approach that puts culture and social work values at the centre of discussions of social work's transference ‘from the West to the rest’. Taking a social constructionist perspective, this article argues that we need to critically examine some underlying assumptions of this normative approach, which may have led to misunderstandings of indigenization. The pragmatic approach,…
Bridging the Fragmented Community: Revitalizing Settlement Houses in the Global Era
In the global era, with the retrenchment of welfare states, people have to turn to their community, a major component of civil society, for support. In this paper, a fluid concept of community is proposed in response to the fragmentation and diversity caused by globalization in the local community. It is argued that to bridge different interests in the community, settlement houses, as a third sector organization in the community, is an effective …
Social Capital and Ethno-Cultural Diverse Immigrants: A Canadian Study on Settlement House and Social Integration
With ethno-culturally diverse immigrants arriving in constantly increasing numbers, connecting newcomers to residents in the local community is a growing challenge. Settlement houses have traditionally been the “machinery of connection” that bridges such diverse groups. This article reports the results of a study on settlement houses in an urban center located in western Canada. The results show that by embracing bridging as their mission, promot…
Double Jeopardy: An Exploratory Study of Youth From Immigrant Families Entering the Job Market
This article reports the findings of an online survey and 16 in-depth interviews that show family and friends are neither the predominant nor most useful social resource for young jobseekers from immigrant families. Instead, they tend to use more formal job-search strategies. In our sample, the employment outcomes of ethno-racial minority immigrant youth were less desirable than those of their counterparts from the dominant group. Based on the st…
The response of youth to racial discrimination: Implications for resilience theory
This paper presents a qualitative participatory study of Canadian young people who identified themselves as visible minorities and who have experienced discrimination based on their skin colour or ethnicity. Eighteen participants aged 15–24 (12 girls and 6 boys), representing four ethnic minority groups, participated in focus groups and in-depth interviews and shared their responses to racial discrimination against them. Analysis of the data from…
Return Migrant or Diaspora: An Exploratory Study of New-Generation Chinese-Canadian Youth Working in Hong Kong
The School-to-Work Transitions of Newcomer Youth in Canada
Over half of all migrants to Canada are under 29 years of age and one quarter arrive as refugees. Studies on occupational achievements and labour market status have been largely ignored in favour of studies on adult migrants rather than on youth. This paper uses data collected from two sources: a national study of newly-arrived newcomer youth living in Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg and Vancouver using qualitative interviews, and a quantitative anal…
The resilience of the settlement-house tradition in community development: A study of neighborhood centers in San Francisco
It is argued that the contemporary urban community may have lost its capacity to deal with all kinds of challenges due to weakened solidarity among residents. Community practitioners have innovatively developed many new community development approaches in revitalizing communities by nurturing the solidarity and capacity of local residents. In this paper, based on the findings of a study of neighborhood centers in San Francisco, we trace the legac…
Searching for Chinese characteristics: A tentative empirical examination
In the mid‐1980s, social work, which had been practised in China in the years before 1949, was reintroduced as a newly imported social discipline. Like many other imported social ideas and practices, such as the free market, it was not well‐adapted to the socialist ideology of China and, therefore, was required to exhibit ‘Chinese characteristics’, (a term proposed by Deng Xiaoping to justify the economic reform in the early 1980s). In this paper…
The Politics of Indigenization: A Case Study of Development of Social Work in China
Internationalization and indigenization are dialectical processes of knowledge transfer. However, social work literature has paid scant attention to the process of indigenization, which can best be understood as one of recontextualization. This paper introduces Basil Bernstein's theory, which contends that recontextualization is a political process, as an analytical tool for us to understand the politics of indigenization. To demonstrate the usef…
Recapturing the History of Settlement House Movement: Its Philosophy, Service Model and Implications in China's Development of Community-based Centre Services
(2002). Recapturing the History of Settlement House Movement: Its Philosophy, Service Model and Implications in China's Development of Community-based Centre Services. Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development: Vol. 12, The Development of Human Capital, pp. 21-40
China’s social welfare: The third turning point
From a functional perspective, Wilensky and Lebeaux (1965) have long argued that under the capitalist mode of economy, social welfare is basically an instrumental social response of a society to th
Social functioning discourse in a Chinese context: Developing social work in mainland China
Repositioning cross-cultural counseling in a multicultural society
This article examines the nature and limits of the existing cross-cultural counseling discourses in order to search for a more culturally sensitive cross-cultural counseling approach. The authors pinpoint the inherent cultural deficiencies of the existing modification-based cross-cultural counseling approaches and advocate that the cross-cultural counseling process should be an inter-subjective interaction between the counselors and counselees, b…
Chinese corpus, western application: The Chinese strategy of engagement with western social work discourse
Indigenization is a key issue in the development of professional social work in China. Chinese social work scholars have adopted the century-old conceptual formulation of ‘Chinese corpus, western application’ to balance the need for western knowledge and the need for intellectual autonomy. This article explores major current debates on ideology, teleology, epistemology and technology within the social work profession in the West and their implica…
Recapturing the History of Settlement House Movement: Its Philosophy, Service Model and Implications in China's Development of Community-based Centre Services
(2002). Recapturing the History of Settlement House Movement: Its Philosophy, Service Model and Implications in China's Development of Community-based Centre Services. Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development: Vol. 12, The Development of Human Capital, pp. 21-40
Antiracism Discourse: The Ideological Circle in a Child World
Antiracism is a dominant discourse in contemporary societies. The understanding of antiracism, however, varies. Government, through its own textually mediated organization of apparatus, tends to homogenize the discourse. This paper is to demonstrate, by employing institutional ethnography, how a child's act can ignite the socially organized textual engine to include the children's world in the ideological circle of antiracism discourse dominated …
Bridging the Fragmented Community: Revitalizing Settlement Houses in the Global Era
In the global era, with the retrenchment of welfare states, people have to turn to their community, a major component of civil society, for support. In this paper, a fluid concept of community is proposed in response to the fragmentation and diversity caused by globalization in the local community. It is argued that to bridge different interests in the community, settlement houses, as a third sector organization in the community, is an effective …
Community Centers in Urban China: Context, Development, and Limitations
While China's economic progress and social transformation demand an urgent refurbishment of its social welfare system, after a decade of development community centers have gradually become the major infrastructure of service delivery in urban China. In this article, the authors examine the social and historical context of the development of community services in urban China, and then focus on the community center as an emerging force in a society…
The Politics of Indigenization: A Case Study of Development of Social Work in China
Internationalization and indigenization are dialectical processes of knowledge transfer. However, social work literature has paid scant attention to the process of indigenization, which can best be understood as one of recontextualization. This paper introduces Basil Bernstein's theory, which contends that recontextualization is a political process, as an analytical tool for us to understand the politics of indigenization. To demonstrate the usef…
Charity Development in China An Overview
While benefiting from the wealth generated by economic reform, China has also faced increasing social and environmental problems. With the restructuring of state enterprises, the previous occupational-based welfare system has been abolished. To decentralize the state's role in social protection while tackling social problems, the Chinese government has tried to experiment with different social measures to diversify welfare financing and provision…
The quest for western social work knowledge: Literature in the USA and practice in China
English Despite the fast development of social work education, scholars in China are eager to import and adapt western social work knowledge which is portrayed as a monolithic entity. Using a case study of American social work literature, we question the existence of a monolithic system of western knowledge. French En dé pit du développement rapide de la formation en travail social, les étudiants chinois sont pressé s d’importer et d’adapter le s…
Social Capital and Ethno-Cultural Diverse Immigrants: A Canadian Study on Settlement House and Social Integration
With ethno-culturally diverse immigrants arriving in constantly increasing numbers, connecting newcomers to residents in the local community is a growing challenge. Settlement houses have traditionally been the “machinery of connection” that bridges such diverse groups. This article reports the results of a study on settlement houses in an urban center located in western Canada. The results show that by embracing bridging as their mission, promot…
Another Snapshot of Social Work in China: Capturing Multiple Positioning and Intersecting Discourses in Rapid Movement
The magnitude and speed of social work's development in mainland China is unprecedented in human history. This inevitably gives rise to multiple perspectives on its nature and future development, particularly as part of the international social work discourse. Some of these perspectives are based on unexamined assumptions about China. In the present paper, we examine three of these assumptions, namely the homogeneity of Chinese culture, the globa…
Riding the Boom: Labour Market Experiences of New Generation Youth from Visible Minority Immigrant Families
With changes in the source of origin of immigrants, a new cohort of new generation youth from visible minority immigrant families has begun to be established and become the key replacement of the aging Canadian labour force. Based on existing research, being young, being visible, and coming from an immigrant family are possible disadvantages in the labour market. Research on this new generation youth, however, is limited. This paper reports findi…
Searching for Chinese characteristics: A tentative empirical examination
In the mid‐1980s, social work, which had been practised in China in the years before 1949, was reintroduced as a newly imported social discipline. Like many other imported social ideas and practices, such as the free market, it was not well‐adapted to the socialist ideology of China and, therefore, was required to exhibit ‘Chinese characteristics’, (a term proposed by Deng Xiaoping to justify the economic reform in the early 1980s). In this paper…
Intersecting social capital and Chinese culture: Implications for services assisting unemployed youths
English For youths to seek employment, social capital is as important as human capital. This article conceptually examines how guanxi, a form of social capital in Chinese culture, may be instrumental in helping young people access jobs. Suggestions of alternative services for helping unemployed youths in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are offered. French Pour les jeunes à la recherche d’un emploi, le capital social est aussi important que l…
Social work as a moral and political practice
English In their efforts to promote the Global Standards for the Education and Training of the Social Work Profession, the authors discovered the withering of the moral and political bases of social work practice in the West. The revitalization of the roots of social work is important to the promotion of social justice. French Dans leurs efforts pour promouvoir les Standards Mondiaux pour l’Enseignement et la Formation aux Professions Sociales, l…
An Exploratory Study of How Multiculturalism Policies are Implemented at the Grassroots Level
The concept of multiculturalism has become a fixture in Canadian society as part of a nation-building mechanism. In many ways, this suggests a perception that public policies promoting multiculturalism are working. However, this perception is based on assumptions that there is a coherent and shared definition and understanding of the implementation of multiculturalism policies. This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study that examined…
Immigrant Youth and Employment: Lessons Learned from the Analysis of LSIC and 82 Lived Stories
The resilience of the settlement-house tradition in community development: A study of neighborhood centers in San Francisco
It is argued that the contemporary urban community may have lost its capacity to deal with all kinds of challenges due to weakened solidarity among residents. Community practitioners have innovatively developed many new community development approaches in revitalizing communities by nurturing the solidarity and capacity of local residents. In this paper, based on the findings of a study of neighborhood centers in San Francisco, we trace the legac…
A challenged professional identity: The struggles of new social workers in China
This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study of how 28 new social workers in China experienced challenges during the early formulation of their professional social work identity in the workplace. Through social work training at the school, they had been taught that some key social work values were core elements of their social work professional identity. These values have informed their daily practice. However, negative experiences in t…
A profession with dual foci: Is social work losing the balance
Individual and social are the two foci of the mission of change that drives the social work profession. This dual-focus provides not only a cultural mechanism by which the profession can negotiate its professional boundaries but the flexibility for the profession to adjust its focus when its social assignment changes. However, the uncritical pursuit of a full-fledged professional status within a neoliberal ideology is upsetting the balance of the…
Double Jeopardy: An Exploratory Study of Youth From Immigrant Families Entering the Job Market
This article reports the findings of an online survey and 16 in-depth interviews that show family and friends are neither the predominant nor most useful social resource for young jobseekers from immigrant families. Instead, they tend to use more formal job-search strategies. In our sample, the employment outcomes of ethno-racial minority immigrant youth were less desirable than those of their counterparts from the dominant group. Based on the st…
Towards a pragmatic approach: A critical examination of two assumptions of indigenization discourse
The current discourse of indigenization has been dominated by a normative approach that puts culture and social work values at the centre of discussions of social work's transference ‘from the West to the rest’. Taking a social constructionist perspective, this article argues that we need to critically examine some underlying assumptions of this normative approach, which may have led to misunderstandings of indigenization. The pragmatic approach,…
Rethinking youth violence and healing
In a world where violence and healing are posited as oppositional, critical youth studies, youth work practitioners, and human rights and social justice activists often locate themselves on the healing side of the divide, shedding light on the suffering and alleviating the pain of the violence. However, current theoretical developments prompt us to critically engage this oppositional binary constructed between violence and healing. We have come t…
The School-to-Work Transitions of Newcomer Youth in Canada
Over half of all migrants to Canada are under 29 years of age and one quarter arrive as refugees. Studies on occupational achievements and labour market status have been largely ignored in favour of studies on adult migrants rather than on youth. This paper uses data collected from two sources: a national study of newly-arrived newcomer youth living in Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg and Vancouver using qualitative interviews, and a quantitative anal…
Sociology (41 works) · Political science (39 works) · Law (20 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (19 works) · Social Work (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Economics (16 works) · Social science (16 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (15 works) · China (14 works)