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The locus of pathology exists not in the autistic person, but in the interaction between a hostile environment and the subjugated autistic. It is essential for parents, practitioners, educators, and autistic people themselves to ask the crucial question— Is the autistic a machine, or an organism? Are we active agents in our own embodied experience, or are we a locus of behavior? It is not with defiance, but autonomy, that I declare as an autistic person— I am not a manifestation of stimuli and response. I am agential. I am Autonomously Autistic.

The engagement of individuals in self-management of their chronic illnesses has been a policy focus of the Australian federal government and health services for over two decades, seeking to address the prevalence of chronic illnesses and the associated burden on health systems and communities. Governments, health services and community agencies have invested in self-management support initiatives to enhance individuals' engagement in illness management. Concurrently, research has evaluated the support initiatives, developed theories of self-management, and identified factors that facilitate or hinder engagement. Despite this, a lack of agreement remains on how engagement in self-management is conceptualised, particularly from the view of consumers, and operationalised in practice. There is also a lack of research evaluating the consistency of consumer engagement in self-management beyond limited follow-up periods. This PhD study analysed data collected as part of a randomised controlled trial of a generic self-management group education program conducted in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The PhD study involved 16 participants with various chronic illnesses. A modified grounded theory approach was used to inductively develop and identify primary variables or components of the self-management process, contextual factors and a typology of engagement. A mixed methods analysis was undertaken to explore associations between the primary variables and establish a Conceptual Model of Consistency in Self-Management Engagement. The resulting model suggested different primary factors are associated with levels of engagement (high, low). Key factors associated with a high consistency of engagement included: where the purpose of engagement was to control the illnesses and promote a healthy lifestyle; where responsibility was delegated to the provider for illness-management decisions; and where the type of engagement was either shared with, or dependent upon, a significant other (e.g. partner). Other influencing mediating ...

This essay critiques the assertion that an appreciation of animal sentience necessarily runs counter to their exploitation as industrial resources. It is argued that the U.S. meatpacking industry has consistently engaged animals as sentient creatures in order to elicit behavior that enhances manufacturing efficiency. This discipline of animals in and around the packing plant is exemplified in Temple Grandin's "humane" slaughter technologies. The author suggests that even as the representation of these innovations tends to obscure the role of labor in industrial meat production, they demonstrate that discipline is a cross‐species regime, recasting the packing plant as a continuum of violence.

Conducting research in care homes is difficult, and research originating from care homes is lacking. This article provides reflective insights into the determinants that affect research engagement among UK care home staff. The Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, Behaviour (COM-B) model of behaviour has been used to structure and explore our reflections relating to time, funding and skills. Our reflections suggest that wider determinants influence research engagement among care home staff and that a culture of research within care homes remains in its infancy. Our reflections highlight that more needs to be done to enable and empower care home staff to engage in research.

The use of digital technology has become increasingly commonplace within the United Kingdom, with many public services, including healthcare, becoming 'digital by default' in response to COVID-19 pandemic and pledged government objectives. Digital healthcare delivery has shown to be a beneficial mode of delivery, yet it is unclear whether the benefits of digital healthcare are experienced evenly throughout society. Individuals from lower income households, individuals residing in areas with poor digital infrastructure, and individuals without adequate digital skills are at risk of being excluded from digital healthcare. It is imperative that the determinants of digital inequality are addressed to ensure that vulnerable members of society can assess healthcare that is increasingly being delivered digitally. To achieve this, stakeholders spanning many sectors should collaborate to understand and address the impact that digital inequality has upon health inequality. Keywords: digital healthcare, digital divide, health transformation, health equity, health inequality

In the 21st Century context of violent racial divides, dismantling racism in social work education requires deep trust that social transformation and healing is possible. "Wringing out the whitewash" metaphorically captures the heavy labor of interrupting the rigid Eurocentric epistemological hegemony undergirding the pedagogy, research, and praxis canons of social work. It requires rigorous attempts to unsettle and decenter entrenched white supremacist ideology, assumptions, and values. In this labor, we create space for the multiple identities and worldviews that students and professors occupy to reshape educational encounters. In this paper, we present our critical pedagogical approaches as Black social work educators committed to liberation and healing. We articulate how our positionalities as Black cisgender women at urban universities, one a Northeastern Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and another at a Northeastern public university, facilitate our intentions to honor truth-telling and intergenerational interdependence. We present differences and similarities in how we use assignments to disrupt the institutional reproduction of racism, provide solace for repair and healing, and re-center collective identity as strength. We present transdisciplinary frameworks shaping our pedagogical choices, namely historical trauma and urban womanist social work pedagogy. Implications for the future of social work education will be discussed.

Schools of social work are increasingly developing online courses and programs. While the majority of research comparing online and face–to-face courses has found equivalent outcomes, skepticism still exists, particularly about the ability to teach practice courses effectively online. This study adds to the growing body of research within social work that specifically examines the comparative effectiveness of online and face-to-face practice courses. Using an anonymous survey, 23 face-to-face and 12 online students enrolled in two separate sections of social work generalist practice rated the quality of the learning environment, the extent to which the course objectives were met, and the effectiveness of the teaching strategies from the students' perspective. In addition, scores on assignment rubrics and student course evaluations were also compared. Results indicate no significant differences in learning outcomes as measured by assignment rubric scores, student perceptions of the extent to which learning objectives were met, the quality of the learning environment, and the effectiveness of five of the six teaching strategies used. We recommend that research moves beyond determining if online practice courses are as effective as face-to-face courses, and instead focus on a closer examination of the factors responsible for teaching effectiveness.

1. Ambivalent Narratives of Motherhood and Mothering: From Normal and Natural to Not-at-all -- 2. One Hand Clapping: The Loneliness of Motherhood in Lucia Berlin's "Tiger Bites" -- 3. "their mothers, and their fathers, and everyone in between": Queering Motherhood in Trans Parent Memoirs by Jennifer Finney Boylan and Trystan Reese -- 4. Struggling to Become a Mother: Literary Representations of Involuntary Childlessness -- 5. Orality/Aurality and Voice of the Voiceless Mother in Abla Farhoud's Happiness Has a Slippery Tail -- 6. From Survivor to Im/migrant Motherhood and Beyond: Margit Silberstein's Postmemorial Autobiography, Förintelsens Barn -- 7. The (M)other's Voice: Representations of Motherhood in Contemporary Swiss Writing by Women -- 8. Contested Motherhood in Autobiographical Writing: Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti -- 9. A Plea for Motherhood: Mothering and Writing in Contemporary Norwegian Literature.

This open access volume offers original essays on how motherhood and mothering are represented in contemporary fiction and life writing across several national contexts. Providing a broad range of perspectives in terms of geopolitical places, thematic concerns, and theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches, it demonstrates the significance of literary narratives for understanding and critiquing motherhood and mothering as social phenomena and subjective experiences. The chapters contextualize motherhood and mothering in terms of their particular national and cultural location and analyze narratives about mothers who are firmly placed in one national context, as well as those who are in "in-between" positions due to migrant experiences. The contributions foreground and link together the themes central to the volume: embodied experience and maternal embodiment; notions of what is "normal" or natural (or not) about motherhood; maternal health and illness; mother-daughter relations; maternality and memory; and the (im)possibilities of giving voice to the mother. They raise questions about how motherhood and mothering are marked by absence and/or presence, as well as by profound ambivalences.