Jonas Christensen

Proposed Enhancement of Bronfenbrenner’s Development Ecology Model

How academic disciplines are constituted and the related professional development must be viewed within their wider social, political and economic aspects. When studying the organisation, transformation and spheres of influence of professions, the Development Ecology model provides a tool for understanding the encounter between societal, organisational and individual dimensions, a continual meeting point where phenomena and actors occur on different levels, including those of the organisation and society at large. However, the theory of development ecology may be questioned for how it looks at the individual’s role in relation to other actors in order to define and understand the forces underlying the professional development and constitution of academic disciplines. Factors relating to both the inside of the individual and social ties between individuals and in relation to global factors need to be discussed.

Academic writing in social work education : reflections from an international classroom

Abstract The affordances of processing subject knowledge through academic writing are rarely explicitly realised in social work education. In this article, we highlight the link between instructors’ efforts to facilitate students’ academic writing and students’ perceived increase of knowledge in the subject of social work in an international context. Based on instructors’ and students’ reflections collected before, during, and after a course, we aimed to answer the following questions: in what way can academic writing support students’ learning in social work? What are students’ reflections on the pedagogical model involving academic writing? The theoretical framework for the analysis was based on learning theories focusing on collaborative learning. The main conclusion is that the instructors’ awareness of how to scaffold students’ ability to write in an academic context and to develop the students’ understanding of social work in a local and global context is an important factor in student learning.

The creation of a university discipline in a societal and social context : A Profession in change : Higher Education in Lithuania

Th is article aims to present a picture of how a university discipline has been created in Lithuania, given the background of changes caused by the Lithuania’s emancipation from the Soviet Union. Th e theoretical frame of reference is provided by a modified model of Bronfenbrenners developmental ecology. Data collection has primarily been in the form of interviews with university staff from Lithuanian institutions for higher education. In addition to the interviews, literature lists, course schedules and other key documents have been collected and analysed. Th e analysis focuses on individual’s conceptualisation of three main areas. Th e study demonstrates how the creation of management and economics as a university discipline in Lithuania has been formed by a combination of political/ideological, economic, institutional and individual factors. One of the study’s main contributions is to highlight the signifi cance of the concept of academic freedom and to focus on the paradox, where constraint under the old system is replaced by another form of constraint. In this case, where the rigidity of the old Soviet doctrine is replaced by a new freedom; but instead of being given greater opportunities to influence and change the subject, the academic staff are forced into a position where, once again they are subjugated to the influences of international sources.