Category / Sociology & Social Policy

HSC postgraduate student speaks at Canadian Conference

PG research

 

Pratik Adhikary spoke about his Ph.D. research at the American Canadian Conference for Academic Disciplines (Toronto: 19-22 May 2014).  Pratik presented the key findings from his thesis under the title ‘Health status and health risks to Nepalese migrant workers in the Middle East and Malaysia’.

Pratik is originally from Nepal and he conducted his research with male migrant workers who were returning to Nepal for definite or for a holiday/break.  He is supervised by Dr. Steve Keen and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen both in HSC.

 

Pratik’s study has been supported by Bournemouth University, the PGR Development Fund and the Open Society Foundations.

 

Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Delivering healthcare in prisons

PG research, Research Ethics

A special event has been arranged at BU that will focus on health care within prisons. The session to be held on 28th May will be led by Jane Senior from the University of Manchester. Jane is a clinician-researcher and Research Project Manager for the Offender Health Research Network. Jane is a qualified mental health nurse with over 20 years of post qualification experience of working in prison and secure mental health settings.

Jane’s session will be of great value to anyone :

  • thinking about undertaking research within UK prisons
  • wanting to know more about health care delivery in prisons
  • thinking of working with or in a prison health care team

During the session Jane will outline findings from her recent prison research projects. These include studies into how to manage the health and wellbeing of older prisoners and her recent work in developing the Older Prisoner Health and Social Care Assessment and Plan (OHSCAP). She will also highlight some of the specific issues that can arise when undertaking research within a prison environment.

Staff and students are welcome to attend the session. If you would like to attend please email Holly Crossen-White (hcrossen@Bournemouth.ac.uk).

HSC paper cited over hundred times in Scopus

Publishing

The academic publisher Elsevier alerted us today that our paper has been cited for the 101st time in Scopus.  The paper ‘Factors affecting the utilization of antenatal care in developing countries: Systematic review of the literature’ was published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing.  The paper was part of the first author’s Ph.D. research into maternity care in Nepal.

This paper is one of the four outputs submitted to the UK REF for both Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen as part of the Bournemouth University submission and for Dr. Padam Simkhada as part of the University of Sheffield submission.

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH, School of Health & Social Care

Panel discussion at Conference of the Canadian Society Sociology of Health Montreal 2014

Bournemouth University Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen was invited to take part in a panel discussion at the 4th Conference of the Canadian Society of Sociology of Health.  The panel consisted of academics are long-term collaborators on a project called Birth by Design (BBD).  The meeting was made possible by fellow BBD collaborator Prof. Ivy Bourgeault (University of Ottawa).

The BBD collaboration comprises academics from a range of different scholarly backgrounds including sociology, political science and midwifery.  The group started in 1997 with international colleagues who worked originally on a collaborative project called ‘Birth in Europe and North-America’.  This work resulted in the book Birth by Design1 and many papers in major sociology academic journals including Sociology of Health & Illness and Social Science & Medicine.2-10

 

 

 

 

The panel discussion was introduced and led by BBD collaborator Prof. Cecilia Benoit (University of Victoria, Canada). Dr. Sirpa Wrede (University of Helsinki) outlined the BBD project and the new methodological insights it provided at the time of cross-national comparative research into maternity care.  Prof. Raymond DeVries (University of Michigan & Maastricht Universiteit) spoke of the difficulties Dutch midwives face in their effort to maintain the unique maternity care system in the Netherlands.   Prof. Gene Declercq (Boston University School of Public Health) presented findings of a study of US mothers.  Prof. Jane Sandall (King’s College London) spoke about the policy implementation gap and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen reminded the audience to keep a theoretical perspective in mind when conducting comparative research in general.     Prof. Bourgeault had organised that all slides were translated in the French as the conference was bi-lingual.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

References:

  1.  DeVries, R., Benoit, C., Teijlingen van, E. & Wrede, S. (eds.) (2001) Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe, New York: Routledge.     Birth by Design was short-listed for the 2004 BSA Medical Sociology Book Prize!
  2. van Teijlingen, E.R., Sandall, J., Wrede, S., Benoit, C., DeVries, R., Bourgeault, I. (2003) Comparative studies in maternity care RCM Midwives Journal 6: 338-40.
  3. DeVries, R., Wrede, S., van Teijlingen E., Benoit, C. & Declercq, E. (2004). Making Maternity Care: The Consequences of Culture for Health Care Systems. In: Vinken, H., Soeters, J. & Ester, P. (Eds.), Comparing Cultures, Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 209-231.
  4. Benoit, C. Wrede, S., Bourgeault, I, Sandall, J., DeVries, R., van Teijlingen E. (2005) Understanding the social organisation of maternity care systems: Midwifery as a Touchstone, Sociology of Health & Illness, 27(6): 722-737.
  5. Wrede, S., Benoit, C., Bourgeault, I.L., van Teijlingen E.R., Sandall, J., De Vries, R. (2006) Decentered Comparative Research: Context Sensitive Analysis of Health Care, Social Science & Medicine, 63: 2986-2997.
  6. van Teijlingen, E.R., Wrede, S., Benoit, C., Sandall, J., De Vries, R. (2009) Born in the USA: Exceptionalism in Maternity Care Organisation Among High-Income Countries Sociological Research Online, 14(1) www.socresonline.org.uk/14/1/5.html
  7. Sandall, J., Benoit, C., Wrede, S., Murray, S.F., van Teijlingen E.R., Westfall, R. (2009) The reconfiguration of professional relations with clients: social service professionalism or market expert? Current Sociology 57(4): 529–553.
  8. Bourgeault, I.L., Declercq, E., Sandall, J., Wrede, S., Vanstone, M., van Teijlingen E. DeVries, R. & Benoit, C. (2008) Too posh too push? Comparative perspectives on maternal request caesarean sections in Canada, the US, the UK and Finland. In: Chambré, S.M. & Goldner, M. (eds.) Advances in Medical Sociology Patients, consumers and civil society. Vol. 10. London: JAI Press, 99-123.
  9. Sandall, J., Benoit, C., van Teijlingen E., Wrede, S., Declercq, G. & De Vries, R. (2012) Gender and maternal healthcare. In: Kuhlmann E. & Annandale, E. (eds.) Palgrave Handbook of Gender & Healthcare (2nd edn.). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 389-404.
  10. Benoit, C., Sandall, J., Benoit, C., Murray, S.F., van Teijlingen E., Wrede, S., Declercq, G. & De Vries, R. Maternity Care as Global Health Policy Issue. In: E. Kuhlmann, E., Bourgeault, I. (eds.) Palgrave International Handbook on Health Care Policy & Governance,  Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming).

More about academic writing

Publishing

Earlier this year (13th Jan. 2014) we wrote a BU Research Blog under the title ‘Writing about academic publishing’.  We can now add two further contributions this body of work.  The first article in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology offers some advice on how to construct a title for an academic article.  The authors (BU Professors Edwin van Teijlingen and Vanora Hundley; BU Visiting Faculty Ms. Jillian Ireland and Dr. Padam Simkhada and international collaborator Dr. Brijesh Sathian) have a wealth of experience reviewing papers and all have experience as editor board members and/or editors.  The authors are associated the editorial boards of the many journals, including: Birth, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, Medical Science, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, Essentially MIDIRS, Sociological Research Online, Hellenic Journal of Nursing Science, Midwifery and Asian Journal of Health Sciences.  In our joint capacity as reviewers and editors we have seen some great and some awful titles.  The paper in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is an attempt to improve the appropriateness and usefulness of titles chosen by budding authors.

Editorial Midwifery 2014

Editorial Midwifery 2014

The second addition is an editorial in the international journal Midwifery published by Elsevier.  Together with HSC Visiting Faculty Prof. Debra Bick we address the question: ‘Who should be an author on your academic paper?’   Still too often we hear about worrying stories from fellow academic s and postgraduate students about inappropriate behaviour related to authorship of academic journal papers.  The Midwifery Editorial advises academics to discuss authorship and authorship order early on in the writing process.  At the same time, it highlights that authorship ‘rules’ or ‘traditions’ can vary between different academic disciplines.  Thus when working in a multidisciplinary team, issues of authorship of any papers which arise out of the study should be discussed before problems or concerns arise.

 

We would like to take this opportunity point our readers to another interesting and useful BU Research Blog written by Shelly Maskell under the title: ‘How to design a completely uninformative title’ (7th Feb. 2014).

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Prof. Vanora Hundley

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health, Bournemouth University

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(1): 344-347.
  2. van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Bick, D. (2014) Who should be an author on your academic paper? Midwifery 30: 385-386.

 

Highest marks for International Fellowship for Midwives research in Nepal

 

In 2013 Wellbeing of Women joined the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) to offer the International Fellowship for Midwives (worth £20,000).  Their first ever recipient was BU Lesley Milne with her supporting team.  Lesley is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery based at BU’s Portsmouth Branch Campus and her proposal set out to undertake a research project to explore barriers to facility birth in Nepal.

 

Delivery bed small hospital Nepal

Apart from Lesley herself the BU team comprises Vanora Hundley, Professor in Midwifery, Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research, and two HSC Visiting Faculty members, namely Dr. Padam Simkhada, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, and Ms. Jillian Ireland, Community Midwife NHS Poole Hospitals.

 

Small commercial pharmacy outside local hospital (Nepal)

Small commercial pharmacy outside local hospital (Nepal)

At the end of March 2014 we submitted the final report on the research to Well-Being of Women and the RCM and this report gained an ‘A’ in their scoring system.  Last week at the feedback meeting in Well-Being of Women’s office in London Lesley presented some of her key findings which she illustrated with some of her photographs.  The comments from those round the table were that the topic was well researched and that the qualitative research findings could help focus the funders in their future work.

 

Having reached the dissemination stage, we are planning scientific papers as well as a feedback session in Kathmandu (in September this year). Currently we are working on two academic papers, one is in an advanced stage approaching submission and the other is just passed its draft stage.

 

 

Lesley Milne, Vanora Hundley, Jillian Ireland (Visiting Faculty),Edwin van Teijlingen & Padam Simkhada (Visiting Faculty)

 

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

School of Health & Social Care

 


Optimising Childbirth Across Europe (Optimise2014)

Publishing

Last week BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen attended the international conference ’Optimising Childbirth Across Europe (Optimise2014)’ [http://optimisebirth.com/] in Brussels, Belgium.  This new conference  in the maternity care field was based on the work of the COST (Co-operation in Science and Technology) Action IS0907.  This Action, over the period 2010-2014, set out to advance scientific knowledge about ways of improving maternity care provision and outcomes for mothers, babies and families across Europe by understanding what works, for who, in what circumstances, and by identifying and learning from the best.

 

As part of this COST Action several academics have spent time over the past three years at Bournemouth University’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health.  Susanne Grylka-Bäschlin a Swiss midwife studying at Hannover Medical School, Germany, studied cultural differences in postnatal quality of life among German-speaking women in Switzerland and Germany.  See gave an excellent oral presentation of this first ever study to translate and apply the Mother-Generated Index in German. Mother-Generated Index was originally developed by Dr. Andrew Symon who is based at the University of Dundee [http://dundee.academia.edu/AndrewSymon ].

A further BU contribution to the conference involved the work of another European visitor to the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health.  Dr. Ans Luyben, a Dutch midwife working in Switzerland presented a poster based on work in Switzerland at the COST Action conference at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health

ENABLE: Reflections on a Fieldtrip

Fusion, Women's Academic Network

A room with a view

We arrived fairly late in the evening. The roads were dark and seemed more windy and enclosed than during the daytime, and yet the bus driver, somewhat perversely, insisted on overtaking at speed on occluded bends whenever he possibly could!

The barrier to the ‘resort’ was shut when we arrived but our interpreter told the guard that we were indeed going to the Tasik Chini Resort – the only place one can go after passing through the gate. After deliberation, he let us proceed.

The receptionist indicated that tonight we had two rooms rather than the one room we had booked, having asked for two extra beds in the room for the children. One room had a twin bed and a mattress, and the other a single bed, but she said she would sort it all tomorrow. We paid in full after debating three or four times what the actual price was for the stay; a kind of mental gymnastics that pulls the mathematical body into contorted shapes only vaguely resembling the original anatomy from whence it came.

The rooms: interesting that the room with the twin beds and a ‘mattress’ was exactly that; no sheets or blankets just the mattress. The other room, however, looked more promising at first sight. There were in fact two beds there not one. OK, so the toilet ballcock was gone and water was constantly overflowing from the cistern onto the bathroom floor, but TWO beds!

So, we divided the children, given they didn’t want to sleep without an adult, sprayed the rooms with insecticide and prepared for the night. It was then that I (Jonathan) looked at the two beds and saw that whilst one was fine, the second was covered by dead, dying and some struggling ants and assorted insects; and the toilet was still dripping, resonant off the hollow dampness of Derbyshire’s Blue John mines! That bed couldn’t be slept in as I then preceded to spray it.

So, back to plan A with me (Sara) and one of the girls in the bed and one on the mattress. But, just a minute, there’s a mattress but no covers or pillow. No that’s not going to work so three in a bed it is, with some topping and tailing, and me back to the bed in the other room keeping the insects at bay and drowning the noise of the leaking cistern by air conditioning that’s making everything too cold and dry.

Fieldwork is, of course, meant to be a little uncomfortable and sometimes evocative of van Gennep’s ‘rite of passage’, a gaining of one’s socio-anthropological spurs! However, we are staying at what purports to be the premier resort for Tasik Chini. This is important because, until 2004 – (and here I (Jonathan) had to stop writing for a while to scratch that itch that turned out to be a troop of ants seeking solace in my bed) – in 2004 eco- and ethno-tourism (although somewhat contested) was seen as an important means of securing the economy of the area. It seems now, a decade on, that this resort finds anyone staying a rather irritating yet bizarre intrusion into a life that happily runs purposelessly for itself, except for weekend weddings, or as a place for the army cadets to stay and practice manoeuvres through the night. (Manoeuvres punctuated by eerie whistles, commands and shouts!) And, rather perversely, it seems that staff cannot get a single order right, no matter how small or precisely articulated it is: kopi ice O kosong (black iced coffee, without sugar) usually has milk and sugar in it; roti bakar (toast), if it comes at all, takes longer (much longer) than nasi goreng (fried rice)!

It also seems to evoke, more seriously, something that mimics the tragedy happening to the lake in bio-environmental terms and, from a human perspective, to the Orang Asli people living around the lake. It is an intrusion into the ill-thought plans of others or an encumbrance to manage that imposes rather than seeks dialogue!

And still the dripping cistern spits! (Should have consulted ‘Tripadvisor’ first http://www.tripadvisor.com.my/Hotel_Review-g298291-d2213723-Reviews-Lake_Chini_Resort-Pahang.html!)

Jonathan Parker & Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Cyber Security Seminar: Everyday Security for Everyday Lives (Lizzie Coles-Kemp, Royal Holloway)

Our next Interdisciplinary Cyber Security Seminar will take place on Tuesday, 4th March at 5pm.
The seminar will take place in EB202 in the Executive Business Centre, and will be free and open to all. If you would like to attend, please register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/interdisciplinary-seminar-in-cyber-security-tickets-10691914805

Our speaker will be Dr Lizzie Coles-Kemp. Lizzie is a qualitative researcher, interested in the everyday practices of information production, circulation, curation and consumption within a broad range of communities. She works in Possible Futures Lab within the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway University of London. Her main focus is the interaction between people and security and privacy technologies, how each influences the other and the communities of practice that emerge. As part of this focus, she explores topics such as identity and technology use, gender and information management and information control as a means of power. Current interdisciplinary work includes: value sensitive design in public service delivery, cultural analysis in institutional security and the use of visual research methods in interdisciplinary research.

Abstract: Over the last five years at the Information Security Group, Royal Holloway, a research group called Possible Futures Lab has been working on projects that explore what notions of information control mean in the context of everyday lives. We have two primary objectives: to improve designs related to everyday information production and control and to influence thinking on topics of everyday information security. Each of our projects has started with ethnographic research that has enabled us to identify and observe the relevant spaces and places. From there we have co-designed with each community discovery tools for seeing, experiencing and exploring these spaces. These tools help us to better understand the community viewpoints on information and its control and to design/re-design services and technologies to better support this position. This talk gives examples of this approach in two of our projects that focus on cyber security decision making.

BU Social Science Input at Tasik Chini, Malaysia

Fusion, Women's Academic Network

A very significant aspect of our Fusion Funded Study Leave has been our invitation to spend time as Visiting Professors at the Tasik Chini Research Centre, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.  This Research Centre is primarily a natural science-based one, which is now expanding its remit to embrace social science, and which focuses on Tasik (Lake) Chini in the State of Pahang, about 4 hours drive from Kuala Lumpur. This lake, one of only two freshwater lakes in Peninsular Malaysia, is composed of a very large area of 12,568 acres, and in terms of beauty and grandeur was not dissimilar to England’s Lake District.  Google the lake and a serene vision will appear of placid waters smothered in ravishing pink and white water-lilies in a valley of opulent, teeming rain forest and rimmed by green mountains. A veritable paradise, seemingly, and also the traditional ‘native’ lands of a community of indigenous, ‘first-people’, of Malaysia, the Jakun tribe of the Orang Asli (original people).

 

Hardly surprisingly maybe that this wonderful area received coveted UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status due to its lush diversity of flora and fauna. However, although once a popular eco-tourist destination, very few tourists are spotted now and the trade has virtually died off. The reason being that the lake itself is dying with total and irreversible collapse of the ecological system predicted by 2030.  Unrestrained mining of the mineral-rich soil in the area has led to mass deforestation, while logging, itself, and destruction of the colossal swathes of the forest has made way for Oil Palm plantations. Contaminants from mines in very close proximity to the lake have caused considerable pollution and the replacement of local flora with a pernicious species of aquatic weed and algae.  To add to a catalogue of disasters, and against the wishes of the those Orang Asli communities who managed to hear of it (as they were not formally consulted) and Malaysian environmentalists, an ill conceived dam was placed in 1994 at the juncture of the Tasik Chini and the great Pahang River. This served to prevent the annual ebb and flow of the lake that made boating of tourists difficult at times but was essential to the ecosystem of the area  The lake is now stagnant, polluted and  the fish, upon which the Jakun relied on as fisher folk, frequently unfit to eat, their flesh being tainted and their bodies invaded by parasites.

 

Our role as social scientists invited to work with the Tasik Chini Research Centre is to help to bridge the gap between scientific knowledge of the problems here and the local communities. Our work is to aid amplification of their voices in speaking of their experiences of trying to survive in traditional native lands that have been violated and usurped.  With our fourth intensive field trip to Tasik Chini coming up this week and a packed itinerary of interviews and focus group discussions planned with the local villagers, our ethnographies are rapidly developing. The Orang Asli people have much to be angry about and although too often treated as backward and uneducated in Malaysia itself, they have impressed us considerably with their passion for their lands, their rage and grief at the destruction, their eloquence, their gracious hospitality to us – and their ability to organise their communities and their protests up to the highest levels of Government. Truly they are a great if much abused people and we count it a pronounced honour to be so warmly welcomed by them, and regard this as some, and maybe, the most important work of our careers.

 

We hear much in the UK of the trite, overused and sometimes disingenuous phrase ‘making a difference’ when applied to higher educational endeavour and these experiences have brought into sharp relief the differences between its application to the banal and to the truly tragic. This area is part of the traditional land of the Jakun, and as such should be protected and preserved. But much more than this it is an international site for the earth’s future generations and we must, as academics, plough back what little knowledge we have into securing this heritage.

 

Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and Jonathan Parker

ENABLE-ing Social Work Education: Sharing UK experiences and insights with our Malaysian colleagues

Fusion, Women's Academic Network

Debating the curriculum

As seasoned academics who have, between us, experienced numerous reviews of social work education, it was fascinating and exciting for us to learn about and discuss some of the proposed changes to qualifying social work education in Malaysia in anticipation of their forthcoming Social Work Act. We were fortunate to attend a meeting to discuss how current social welfare workers in government and non-governmental organisations might be assisted in developing knowledge and education to a qualified and pre-qualified level. The meeting, attended by an independent Australian consultant, Malaysian academics, NGOs, representatives of MASW and the Methodist College of Kuala Lumpur, expressed the laudable concern to professionalise social work rightly focusing on increasing and regulating the educational qualifications needed to practise in Malaysia.

Context is all-important when designing and developing any curriculum but more so in respect of social work programmes because of the interpersonal, social and cultural aspects of the work. However, isomorphic global trends in higher education in general and social work in particular make comparisons and sharing ideas useful, even when we acknowledge that social work as a discipline and practice differs from nation to nation across the world. We were able to offer some insights and reflections following recent UK experiences as a way of highlighting some of the pitfalls that might arise and could be best avoided. We followed this by exploring possible ways forward for academic social work including publication strategies and internationalising the curriculum and departmental outlooks for those universities offering social work. This will be continued in discussion later in March 2014.

Learning by experience & ways forward:
There are, we believe, a number of key aspects of learning that Malaysian social workers and social work academics may wish to reflect on in the exciting times ahead as the Social Work Acts get closer to endorsement and implementation in Malaysia. These are:

• The need to reflect critically on moves towards professionalization, regulation and registration; recognising and identifying exactly what these moves are intended to achieve and not accepting uncritically that they will automatically produce better social work services.
• Developing appropriate ways to ensure that numbers of social workers employed in social work posts increase and, whilst paying attention to retaining those social care workers who may not be able to qualify at the desired level and protecting their career interests, not diluting the core principles underpinning reform.
• Speaking with one voice for social work, including Government departments, professional bodies, NGOs, practitioners and academics to ensure that unwelcome political interference is resisted. This may require developing a critically reflective stance and, at times, resistance to official pronouncements.
• Developing a robust research base for the profession that speaks with authority and evidence. Research that is about, for and with social work and social workers.
• Learning from the mistakes of other countries, e.g. England’s recent official approach to professionalization, as well as from their successes, whilst ensuring that all developments are appropriately contextualised and address the needs of all peoples in Malaysia.
• Internationalising social work education to be able to assess the worth of other models, to understand other approaches and to enhance confidence in bespoke Malaysian approaches where they work well and to adapt them when they do not.

A core element of learning that UK, and especially English, social work academics and practitioners need to undertake is to reflect on the core principles that are demonstrated elsewhere in the world; principles that are, in fact, illustrated by the commitment, energy and ‘can-do’ attitude we have seen from Malaysian social workers, NGOs, professional bodies and academics. In a recent note we sent to our UK Association of Professors of Social Work about our need to learn from global approaches to social work, we were heartened to hear how many of our colleagues agreed wholeheartedly.

Malaysian social work possesses a number of important strengths that will assist in making the most of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. These include strong and competent academic teams within the universities who work with each other, government departments, NGOs and professional bodies and speak with a single voice, in the main, about the way forward. The enthusiasm and dedication of social workers, managers and academics promoting a ‘can-do’ attitude that will make positive change happen. It is important, however, to foster a critically reflexive approach that allows for challenge and resistance where that is appropriate. This may be harder to achieve for our colleagues for whom compliance is a virtue taught from an early age.

Malaysian social workers should promote their achievements across the region and across the world. We saw many examples of good practice to highlight. Furthermore to sustain these excellent developments we discussed the importance that the universities, in conjunctions with other social work groups, develop and work towards a robust research strategy.

Social work research is not costly, and much more important than addressing university KPIs for income-generation (which in social science, in general, is difficult and often more so for social work which across the world is seen either as a poor relation to other disciplines or a troublesome aspect of life). However, conducting social work research provides both understanding and illumination of social phenomena and an evidence-base for social work that can be used to grow its future. One of the most important elements of such a strategy that we discussed together concerned publication and we offered our experience suggesting that publication in international, as well as ASEAN, journals represents the best way forward. Whilst this can be difficult when writing in a second language our established experience with social work colleagues at both Universiti Sains Malaysia and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak shows that writing with scholars from other countries, and including native English speakers can overcome these difficulties. Doing so increases the visibility of Malaysian social work and citation counts, something that our colleagues we aware may appeal to their university managers.

The future is potentially very bright for Malaysian social work, and we hope that the opportunities will be grasped and a qualified, skilled, principled and professional workforce represents the future.

(Much of this blog was adapted from a paper written for the Malaysian Association of Social Workers journal)

Prof Jonathan Parker & Dr Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Another Santander award…

Fusion, PG research, Women's Academic Network

Another recent beneficiary of the current round of BU Graduate School Santander Mobility Awards is Higher Education Academy (HEA) funded PhD student David Galley. His study has attracted funding of £1000 allowing him to travel on fieldwork to other universities around the UK, seeking the perceptions of male social work students on their journeys through qualifying programmes.
The PhD thesis research of David Galley is based on male student’s perceptions of the lack of male practitioners in social work practice in the UK, why those males who undertake qualifying degrees enter the profession, and what their experiences are of what has been described as ‘pedagogically feminised’ programmes. His mixed-methods study will examine current and established perceptions which may inform future social work curricula. His research is supervised by Prof Jonathan Parker and Dr Sara Ashencaen Crabtree who have both researched and published in this area.

BU Social Science Study Leave at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Fusion, Women's Academic Network

Just one week into our fusion-funded study leave and work is developing, growing and coalescing around the objectives we set and negotiated last June and July.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur last Saturday evening (11th Jan), stumbling into our hotel after the 11-hour flight having watched the films Rush and one featuring an improbably accident prone and deranged Sherlock Holmes character, with the children glued to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.

Sunday 12th January took us straight into our first meeting, after a brief punctuation for swimming, to discuss the plight of the Jakun, a tribe of the Orang Asli (first people), living at Tasik Chini, one of only two natural freshwater lakes in Peninsula Malaysia. The effects of mining, concomitant environmental damage, the needs of the people and some of the perceived tensions between those working and researching with the Orang Asli were described.

Our thoughts concerning the plight of the Orang Asli were further agitated by discussion with the social science team, the meeting being chaired by Prof Dato’ Mushrifah Idris, the head of the Tasik Chini Research Centre at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM – National University of Malaysia) of which we are honoured to be visiting professors. The mining activities have expanded significantly since we last met with Prof Mushrifah in summer 2012 and the outlook for the already resettled Orang Asli seems increasingly bleak.

A large part of our work whilst we are with UKM is to assist with the research. We were heartened to learn of the formation of the social science team within the Tasik Chini Research Centre since our earlier discussions with Prof Mushrifah, a natural scientist. Discussion centred on the fact-finding work and concern to illuminate the perceptions of the Orang Asli, our particular contribution being to consider how we can elicit the stories, beliefs, wants and needs of an increasingly voiceless people.

Over the next few weeks we will be making introductory visits and meeting people who work alongside these groups as advocates and welfare workers. The social science team also want us to work with their social work and sociology student groups to help develop a community development approach at the Tasik Chini site. It was suggested that a Participatory Action approach would probably be the best way forward where community members act as equal partners with academic staff and students to identify needs and solutions.

From the first meeting onwards, we also discussed some of the fears expressed about developments in social work education and practice as Malaysia moves slowly towards passing, and subsequently, implementing its Social Work Bill. A new college initiative is being proposed to address some of the anxieties of non-social work graduates and many NGOs regarding the concern that they will be marginalised by graduate social workers solely benefitting from social work becoming a protected title. We have been asked to advise on the curriculum in this venture.

We were also invited to assist in the development of a new Master’s programme in social work at UKM, determining whether a niche in medical sociology and social work or an emphasis on marginalised and disadvantaged groups would play best to strengths. Prof Vishantie Sewpaul, vice president of the International Association of Schools of Social Work and Kwa-Zulu Natal South Africa, and ourselves joined the UKM team in exploring how they might best develop the academic elements and niche areas. This will involve further discussion but was given a boost the following day (Thurs 16th) at a special colloquium at the Institut Sosial Malaysia, in which we advised on publication and research strategies.

In between this work, background reading, catching up with emails (when we can as email connection is sporadic!) trying to swat mosquitoes, find food and locate a local launderette – and generally navigate our way around on foot in a largely non-pedestrian society where wheels are essential, we are also busily educating our children. In many ways this provides an important balance and helps us in engaging with our family-friendly hosts!

We have also been delighted to meet our former Malaysian students attending the meetings that we have each respectively taught over the years at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and at University of Hull, who have now reached positions of prominence in their chosen professions. We were both astonished to find out that so many people we have met this week were not only were aware of our individual previous research but were able to refer knowledgably to a number of our papers that relate to the Malaysian context.

So early days and only one week in; but already there are signs of meeting those key fusion objectives of developing international research links, educational opportunities that may link to professional practice outcomes.

Jonathan Parker & Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Social/Medical Model and the concept of ‘Normal’ Birth

Publishing

The December issue of The Practising Midwife included the slightly more theoretical article ‘Normal birth: social-medical model’.[1] The paper is written by Ms. Jillian Ireland, midwife and Royal College of Midwives (RCM) Union Learning Rep. at Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Visiting Faculty at Bournemouth University in collaboration with BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen.

The paper argues that someone’s perspective of birth is not simply semantic. Thus, whether a midwife describes her role as being ‘with woman’ through labour or as someone who ‘delivers’ women of babies does not just demonstrates a more or less currently politically correct description. No, it suggests having different perspectives or world views of pregnancy and childbirth. Sociologists recognise two different approaches as two different models, a social model and a medical model of childbirth. The social model stresses that childbirth is a physiological event that takes place in most women’s lives. The medical model highlights that childbirth is potentially pathological. In the latter view every pregnant woman is potentially at risk, hence she should deliver her baby in an obstetric hospital with its high-technology screening equipment supervised by expert obstetricians. In other words, pregnancy and childbirth are only safe in retrospect.

The Practising Midwife’s paper argues that having some understanding of the underlying sociological models of pregnancy and childbirth can help politicians, journalists, policy-makers, midwives, doctors, and new mothers (and their partners) to put issues around ‘normal birth’ into perspective. This paper builds on previous work by the second author on the medicalisation of childbirth and the social/medical model published in Sociological Research Online[2] and Midwifery.[3]

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health


References:
1. Ireland, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2013) Normal birth: social-medical model, The Practising Midwife 16(11): 17-20.
2. van Teijlingen, E. (2005) A critical analysis of the medical model as used in the study of pregnancy and childbirth, Sociological Research Online, 10 (2) Web address: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/teijlingen.html
3. MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: a critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26(5): 488-496.

ENABLE: Establishing Sustainable Research Networks and Building Learning Environments

Women's Academic Network

As part of the Fusion Investment Fund, we (Prof Jonathan Parker & Dr Sara Ashencaen Crabtree) won a study leave grant throughout the current academic year.

Our project aims to create sustainable research and education opportunities across BU through the establishment of a social science research, education and professional practice network with Southeast Asian and Asian universities. An aim which also enhances and builds on our personal research agendas that will lead to the development of robust Research Council funding applications, and contribute to fusion and the BU 2018 vision.
The project will identify, scope and establish a sustainable social science research academic network across BU. This aim has been initiated through discussion with some key individuals in BU and the potential to develop, in 2014-15, research council bids in respect of:
a. gender relations and practices in the professions
b. understanding the ways in which conflict resolution is culturally specific and that learning can enhance our opportunities for establishing social cohesion and a reduction of conflict
c. examination of the neo-imperialism of research ethics scrutiny from Western perspectives
d. it may also lead to work in respect of sustainability in the lives of indigenous peoples.
The core part of the study leave will develop and conduct research and research collaboration in Southeast Asia, predominantly Malaysia but including Cambodia, and Hong Kong. As part of our study leave we have both been awarded visiting Professor status at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in Kuala Lumpur where we will spend January until April 2014, followed by visiting professorships at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in Penang from April until July. We will also be visiting universities in Hong Kong, Cambodia and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) in Kuching, East Malaysia.
Four core fusion and BU 2018 objectives underpin our project. These will result in funded research bids, increased student experience, and reputational enhancement for BU, and will be achieved through four workstreams:
Research:
1. establish a sustainable research network promoting social sciences and interdisciplinary research at BU (workstream 1).

2. develop research streams of locally specific or cross-cultural relevance (workstream 2).

Education:
3. engage and promote educational initiatives via guest lectures/research seminars, developing joint postgraduate research supervision and educational initiatives promoting student mobility, e.g. credit transfer (workstream 3).

Professional Practice:
4. engage in discipline-specific activities in relation to social work/development and welfare (workstream 4).

We have been invited to join the Tasik Chini Research Centre at UKM, a centre dedicated to research concerning the ravaged freshwater lake near Kuala Lumpur. As part of our research we will be undertaking an ethnography and conflict resolution narrative work with the Jakun tribe of the Orang Asli (the indigenous people of the region) with a view to promoting the marginalised voices of these people, disenfranchised by modernising agendas. We will also be researching approaches to unfair and wrongful discrimination in social welfare practices in the UK and Malaysia.

We look forward to keeping BU colleagues up-to-date with our work in Southeast Asia through our blogs. For those interested in developing research across these areas please contact us as we wish to ensure that social science research is highlighted across BU.

Professor Jonathan Parker & Dr Sara Ashencaen Crabtree