Uzo Anucha

Exploring a New Direction for Social Work Education and Training in Nigeria

American and British models of professional social work that have been exported to Africa have been critiqued as unable to address the unique issues and cultural characteristics of the majority of Africans. Such critiques have increased as the social work profession in the Western world has failed to come up with answers to many of its own most vexing social problems. African social work educators are therefore questioning the borrowing of such ‘problematic’ Western social work knowledge. This paper critically reviews the challenges for social work education and training in Nigeria of this Western‐influenced social work legacy that is largely remedial in nature and underpinned by the charity and casework model that locates problems within individuals and their families. Building on recent scholarship, personal experiences of schooling and working in Africa and the West, as well as experiences from collaborating on a project with colleagues in a social work program in a Nigerian university, three issues are put forth that could guide an exploration of a new direction for social work education in Nigeria.

Trans-nationalism, social identities and African youth in the Canadian diaspora

This paper discusses processes through which African Canadian youth construct their identities as well as form friendships within and across ethnic boundaries. The paper presents how, through these processes, youth use resources in history that help them construct and negotiate diaspora identities and friendships while simultaneously distancing themselves from the core group of white Canadian peers.

Community Policing—A Shared Responsibility: A Voice-Centered Relational Method Analysis of a Police/Youth-of-Color Dialogue

Racial discrimination in policing and its effect on police/minority youth relations were explored in a federally funded Canadian race relations initiative, using semistructured dialogue and voice-centered relational data analysis. Participants were frontline police officers and male youth of color. For enhancing communication between the groups, findings emphasized ongoing, face-to-face interaction. Substantial related concerns were the need for trust, respect, self-preservation, information sharing, and improved police/minority youth relations. These were understood and highlighted as embedded within a system of ruling relations in the participants’ sociocultural context. Implications of these issues for police relations with racialized youth and their communities are discussed.

Housed But Homeless? Negotiating Everyday Life in a Shared Housing Program

This article discusses the challenges associated with what has become a common approach to the rehousing of “hard to house” groups–-shared housing models. The researcher collected and analyzed data from participants living in 2 shared housing programs for formerly homeless people in Toronto, Canada, who were on the verge of being evicted from their apartments. Findings illuminated participants’ pathways to homelessness and other related experiences during multiple episodes of homelessness, the negotiations they made to continue living in their current shared housing program, factors that jeopardized their housing stability, and the resources they utilized to stay housed. Findings underscore the need for a multidimensional approach to the provision of housing and for related support services that address recurrent homelessness.

Negotiated Positions Immigrant Women’s Views and Experiences of Employment in Canada

On the basis of a qualitative study with immigrant women in Windsor, Ontario, this article looks at women’s responses to the challenges they face in the Canadian workplace, together with the value they place on working outside the home. The women reflected on their job searches, employment conditions, and work experiences as mediated by the norms and traditions of their home countries. Because of the struggle to obtain a job and the delicacy of retaining a job in a precarious economic climate, the women did not fight the discrimination they encountered in the workplace.