Entries in the Category "School Social Work"
Education & summer break
I thought it very interesting to read the research by Karl Alexander about the cumulative gap that occurs for students based on social/economic class. While his study is extremely small and there is a chance it is not generalizable, I think that it fits with what we know about the academic differences based on class. Poor children are more likely to start school with a gap and life continues to exacerbate that gap.
see study at
http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/April07ASRFeature.pdf
As a school social worker it makes a strong case for advocating for changes in our system. Possibly for a different kind of school year: one with shorter breaks that occur more frequently, so that perhaps children go to school for 3 months and have 3 weeks off and 3 months and 3 weeks off. Or perhaps there need to be more free summer programs that combine academics with additional life opportunities (that children growing up in poverty may not have as much access to).
Bullying
I am trying to figure out an effective series of interventions to implement at a middle school/high school level to really change the bullying dynamics. I have found curriculums out there but they are more directed at elementary ages. It's interesting to me how people either do not see bullying or label it as inevitable/a rite of passage. (despite a significant body of research that says otherwise, and despite the tragedies that happen at schools nationally). Hopefully the Ohio state law will have a meaningful impact, but I am afraid that people will only give it lip service, or that they will hide what is going on (since they have to place the statistics on their school websites, I have to believe that some districts will not want to fully disclose, as that will change how they are perceived.)