This definition conveys that human rights and social and economic justice can be advanced in social work practice and policy. Many social workers, however, are uncertain exactly how to operationalize these concepts in practice (Ife 2012; Libal et al. 2014; Rountree and Pomeroy 2010). For example, how do they use their understanding of oppression and discrimination in practice? What does advocacy for human rights and social and economic justice mean? Which practices will advance human rights and social and economic justice? The answers vary with each worker, practice context, and population; as with all generalist practice skills, there are countless ways to engage in this work (Ife 2012; Reichert 2011). Nevertheless, students need to know how to translate theoretical concepts into their fieldwork and to identify the basis for assessment of their competence. In their recent volume on human rights and social work education, Berthold et al. (2014) frankly state
Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment (Empowerment) download pdf
Field instructors and social work interns alike often struggle to identify opportunities in field for students to apply human rights to their assignments and develop practice behaviors to promote the advancement of human rights and social and economic justice in keeping with the EPAS standards (p. 500).
There is a real need for concrete, intentional ideas and guidance about opportunities for advancing human rights and social and economic justice at all levels of practice. This study provides such examples by examining how social work students planned to enact these concepts in the field and how they conceptualized the connection between these activities and the practice behaviors for this core competency. When students develop these skills in their social work education, they become equipped to enact the mission of the profession after graduation.
For each practice behavior, students identified activities that they would engage in to develop and demonstrate an ability to advance human rights and social and economic justice. Many students included activities that simply reflected aspects of good practice or expectations for all interns and were not explicitly related to the core competency. While it is noteworthy to mention these findings, they were not analyzed further as they do not deepen the understanding of how students advance human rights and social and economic justice in their field placement.
There are several limitations to this study. Although the sample consisted of four cohorts of BSW seniors, all of the students were from one social work program. Most of the data came from existing learning contracts. Students were expected to complete a draft of their learning contract before discussing this assignment with their field faculty. Their input, however, may still have influenced how students described how they would advance human rights and social and economic justice at their field placements. Current students were invited to elaborate on the connections between activities and practice behaviors, but it was not feasible to include alumni in this additional data collection to probe their understanding further. The 15 students who did participate account for 60 % of the senior class; two students were absent on the day of the class exercise, but it is unknown why the other eight students chose not to permit their exercise to be used as research data and may reflect bias in the data.
Social and cultural norms are rules or expectations of behavior and thoughts based on shared beliefs within a specific cultural or social group. While often unspoken, norms offer social standards for appropriate and inappropriate behavior that govern what is (and is not) acceptable in interactions among people. Social and cultural norms are highly influential over individual behavior in a broad variety of contexts, including violence and its prevention, because norms can create an environment that can either foster or mitigate violence and its deleterious effects.
Human beings may be entering very difficult times with the degradation and potential destruction of our sustaining natural world. Collectively, we may be facing a fundamental shift in values and approaches towards living on and with this planet. Governments are beginning to respond. There are suggestions that society could be in the initial stages of constructing an environmental state much as we created the welfare state in the last century (Meadowcroft, 2007). What relevance does social work have as humankind faces these serious challenges? As a profession with a long-standing declared focus on person-in-environment, social work might be expected to play a leadership role in the planning stages of any new environmental state. Yet we have generally been silent on these serious threats to human well-being and continued existence.
How has the physical environment been perceived and conceptualized at the core and at the margins of the discipline of social work? To what extent have our foundational assessment and intervention strategies incorporated the physical environment? In what ways might our language, our assumptions, and our conventional knowledge-building approaches be limiting our ability to perceive connections between people and the world we inhabit? This paper attempts to address these important questions, and concludes that it is time (or past time) for social work to move beyond our conventional metaphor of person-in-environment towards a new paradigm, a new understanding of the relationship between people and the physical environment.
Environmental psychology has been actively exploring interrelationships between environments and human behaviour, with an emphasis on multidisciplinary efforts to understand the meaning of places (Bonnes & Bonaiuto, 2002). The discipline of sociology has been exploring an embodied sense of place, habitus, and the implications for local life opportunities (Hillier & Rooksby, 2005). Environmental design is involved with understanding place as a concept then applying this knowledge through active placemaking to create livable and sustainable communities (Architecture for Humanity, 2006). Mutual influences between people and the planet are also a focus of study in human geography incorporating discussions of belonging, identity, and place attachment (Norton, 2004). Concepts of community allegiance and rootedness have led to approaches of place-based education, actively connecting students with local environmental and social issues. A concerned focus on people and place has given rise to a new vision of education for learning to live well in place, very different from the long-standing goal of achieving context-free credentials (Haas & Nachtigal, 1998; Orr, 1994).
Across these areas of study outside of social work, (particularly in the applied disciplines), three common themes are apparent. The first is an acceptance of place as a foundation concept that integrates human activity with the physical environment. The second is a vision of sustainability achieved through processes such as stewardship, earthkeeping, and living well in place. The third is a belief that multidisciplinary responses are needed to take on the challenges of the environmental crises we have created.
In a globalized, highly dynamic, and interconnected but greatly unequal world, tackling complex social and public health issues requires the use of comprehensive frameworks that capture the complexity of the interlocking environments that structure social problems. This paper sought to describe a transdisciplinary model grounded in ecological and psychopolitical thinking and potentially suitable for the comprehensive analysis of health personnel migration and other social determinants of health. Having been proposed for the first time in 2008 [29, 30], the EPV model is not new. However, it has barely been applied outside the interdisciplinary field of community psychology, and empirical validation of its potential for knowledge generation has yet to be fully investigated. This paper has suggested a way forward by highlighting how the EPV model can be applied to the collection and analysis of qualitative data in the social/behavioral sciences and in public health research.
Despite the promise of theoretical models of health behavior, their ability to explain and predict health behavior has been only modestly successful [28,29,30]. Many theoretical models have regarded human behavior as linear or static in nature and have not recognized that behavior is dynamic and responsive to diverse social, biological, and environmental contexts. And, theoretical models have heavily focused on between-person differences in behavior and have not embraced the study of important within-person differences in behavior. Further, many theoretical models of health behavior and behavior change have often been derived within siloed disciplines (e.g., health psychology, neuroscience) with little crosstalk [31, 32].
This manuscript provides a review of the state of the science of digital health data-driven approaches to understanding human behavior. The manuscript first describes various methods of digital health assessment and sources of digital health data. It then provides a synthesis of the scientific literature evaluating how digitally derived empirical data can inform our understanding of health and risk behavior. It then focuses on how digital health may help us to develop a better empirically based understanding in the assessment, diagnosis, and measurement of clinical trajectories of aberrant/dysfunctional disorders in the field of psychiatry (a field that has led pioneering research in digital health [52]). Finally, it concludes with a discussion of future directions and timely opportunities in this line of research and its clinical application, including the development of personalized digital interventions (e.g., behavior change interventions) informed by digital health assessment.
A theory presents a systematic way of understanding behaviors, events and/or situations. It is a set of interrelated definitions, concepts, and propositions that predicts or explains events or situations by specifying relationships among the variables [3]. The notion of generality, or broad application, is important. Thus, theories are by their nature abstract and not content- or topic-specific. Although numerous theoretical models can express the same general ideas, each theory uses a unique vocabulary to articulate the specific features considered to be significant. Additionally, there is a variation in theories in the extent to which they have been developed conceptually and tested empirically. A very crucial feature of a theory is its ability to be tested [3]. Numerous theories and concepts exist for understanding Human Behaviors in Environmental Preservation. Few of these theories are reviewed below alongside their application to environmental preservation. These theories and concepts enhance further understanding as to why people participate in different environmentally influencing behaviors. It is however evident, that no single theory, gives a perfect explanation of the complete interactions and relationships among variables influencing Human Behavior in Environmental Preservation. Models and theories to be reviewed include the following; Primitive models (Behavioural change model, Environmentally Responsible Behaviour model, Reasoned/Responsible Action theory), Planned behaviour theory, Environmental Citizenship model, Model of Human Interaction with the Environment, The Value-Belief-Norm Theory of Environmentalism, Model of Diffusion of innovation and Health Belief Theory. 2ff7e9595c
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