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Because, for George Herbert Mead, the “social act” is the basic unit of analysis for understanding human social existence, and thereby, his entire body of thought, it demands much more critical attention than it thus far has received from sociologists. Here, his notion of the social act will be critically examined – in terms of his definition of social action, the underlying organizing principle he uses to explain it, the different fundamental forms of social action he identifies, and the basic operating elements that he contends comprise these forms – for the purpose of developing a better conception of social action than he provided. Mead sees social action as organized on the basis of “sociality,” expressing itself in two fundamental forms – “cooperative” and “conflictive.” He also views the cooperative form as comprised of five basic elements – attitudes, roles, significant symbols, attitudinal assumption, and common social objects – while the conflictive form is comprised of only the first four elements. After a critical examination of Mead’s social act is completed, an alternative and improved conception of social action, with domination as its organizing principle, is proffered. More importantly, it is argued that this new notion of social action, termed the “collective act,” provides the grounds for the development of a novel interactionist perspective, dubbed here “radical interactionism,” which is based on the principle of domination rather sociality. Thus, this new interactionist perspective, is dramatically different from the traditional interactionist perspective Mead and Blumer developed.

An Act to amend the law relating to benefit under the Ministry of Social Security Act 1966 and to certain benefits under the National Insurance Act 1965 and the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965; to increase the penalties for failure to pay contributions under the said Acts of 1965; to abolish local advisory committees under the said Act of 1966; and for purposes connected with those matters. [5th August 1971]

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of volunteers and its impact on related accountability practices towards beneficiaries by a large humanitarian non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Indonesia.

The authors adopted a qualitative case study design. The empirical evidence comes from rich fieldwork carried out in an Indonesian NGO. The authors collected the evidence mainly via 46 interviews and five focus groups.

The authors found that the case NGO drew heavily on the social and cultural capitals of volunteers in the process of serving its beneficiaries, which, in turn, facilitated the enhancement of its accountability to the beneficiaries. The authors also found that volunteers play a bridging role to reduce the distance between NGOs and beneficiaries.

For NGO managers, this study provides necessary empirical evidence on the positive role played by the volunteers in the development and operationalisation of accountability to the beneficiaries. In the authors’ case, beneficiary accountability is enhanced by the social conduct and practices performed by the NGO’s numerous volunteers. Beneficiary accountability is of significant concern to the policy makers too. This study shows that volunteers and NGO can work in a reciprocal relationship where social and cultural capital can be mobilised to each other’s advantage. To facilitate beneficiary accountability, NGOs can draw on the socio-cultural capitals held by the volunteers who appear to share the same norms and expectations with the beneficiaries. This process can also lead to the building of social and cultural capital by the volunteers themselves as they achieve great satisfaction and gain valuable experience in this process that could lead to greater satisfaction in their spiritual and material lives.

The authors extend the previous literature on beneficiary accountability by highlighting the under-researched role of volunteers in such accountability practices. In this paper, the authors first discuss the facilitating role of volunteers in enhancing NGOs’ accountability towards beneficiaries. Then, this is illustrated empirically. In addition, the authors argue that although Bourdieusian concepts like field and capital have been widely used in the analysis of various organisational practices the concept of habitus received limited attention particularly from the context of developing countries. The authors undertake an examination of the habitus of volunteers in the Indonesian case organisation and explore their linkages with the field and associated capitals.

The social housing sector is under increasing pressure to do more with less and provide value for money as part of the UK Government’s public debt reduction strategy. This study aims to explore the current practices towards unlocking social value in the housing sector through the adoption of the Social Value Act 2012. The Social Value Act seeks to ensure that public sector procurement deliver added value in terms of social, economic and environmental outcomes.

The study adopts quantitative research methodology through a survey with 100 housing professionals charged with the delivery of social value outcomes in the social housing sector in England.

The results of the study reveal that there is a low level of understanding of the Social Value Act 2012 among the professionals in the social housing sector. Once again, most organisations in the social housing sector do not have social value strategies or policies and rarely consider social value outcomes during procurement. However, employment skills and training and crime and antisocial behaviour reduction are the most social value priority outcomes/needs identified with organisations currently promoting social value in the social housing sector.

The issue of social value has importance towards the wider society, and the study provides an insight into current practices towards the realisation of social value outcomes in the housing sector.

The Social Value Act 2012 came into force in January 2013, and little has been written on the impact of the Act on the social housing sector in England. This study identifies current practices in the social housing sector towards the delivery of social value outcomes in the day-to-day business operations.

Citizen willingness to participate in social action depends, in part, on certain beliefs about the world and one's power to initiate change. This study examines how belief in a just world (BJW) affects willingness to participate in social action. The model also incorporates antecedents to BJW, including personality factors (authoritarianism, self-esteem, powerlessness); political orientation (national identity, patriotism); social characteristics (religiosity, ethnicity, education, income); and the relationships among these factors. Data are from a representative sample of the Jewish Israeli population. Findings indicate that as BJW decreases, so to does the willingness to act, and that personality, political, and social characteristics influence both BJW and willingness to participate in social action.

The planning and provision of care for older people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities is an increasing challenge to traditional welfare systems. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of the newly implemented Care Act 2014 in England for developing an anti-discriminatory approach.

The review draws on existing research and conceptual literature to identify how key provisions of the new act can be interpreted in light of current knowledge.

Overall the provisions of the Care Act lend themselves well to positive interpretation in relation to the needs of older LGBT people and their support networks. A potential tension, however, arises in the locality focus of the legislation that could constrain good practice with geographically dispersed communities. There is also a need to challenge both heteronormative and ageist assumptions that lead to older LGBT people remaining unrecognised.

Applied with imagination and commitment, the provisions of the new act could enable new forms of person-centred care to emerge to support older LGBT people.

Social workers are in a key position to influence how the Care Act is interpreted and applied in practice and can act as change agents for a societal move towards older LGBT people having greater choice and control over their well-being.

This review presents examples of how the provisions of the legislation can be utilised to support positive change for older LGBT people.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Purpose: The author seeks to identify how suicide-bereaved individuals conceptualize their relationships with deceased loved ones. The author engages Durkheim’s theory of suicide to provide a new framework to analyze this population.

Methodology: The author uses qualitative research and coding methods to produce a secondary analysis of previously collected interview transcripts.

Findings: The author concludes that participants experience the suicide of a loved one as a social event, conceptualizing it similarly to how Durkheim defined his four suicide types – characterized by too much or too little regulation and/or integration.

Research Limitations: As a result of the secondary analysis, a lack of demographic information remains the largest limitation, and the available demographic information indicates the participant population is not a diverse one. Therefore, the larger analysis is limited.

Practical and Social Implications: This work provides potential ways to improve current prevention and postvention practices for both the suicide-bereaved and those struggling with suicidality. Subsequently, it may help to improve the health outcomes of these groups.

Originality: To the author’s current knowledge, this is the first published use of Durkheim’s Suicide (1897/1966) as a framework to directly examine the suicide-bereaved population in this way. Thus, this work contributes to suicidology and sociology more broadly in two ways: by providing a new way to understand and ultimately help a vulnerable population and by providing a new use of a classic theory.