| The list of participants | Programme of Summer school 2001 |
In
2001 the Social Work programme at Saratov State Technical University celebrates
10 years anniversary. The Department of Social Anthropology and Social Work has
hosted on the 2nd-13th June 2001 an International Summer
School devoted to this anniversary. The School Social Work. Social Politics
and Human Rights: research, education, practice that included five-days
EDU-ACTION workshop was held at a resort Volzhskie Dali and has been
co-sponsored by TEMPUS/Tacis Joint European Project Enhancing Professional
Social Work Education in Russia and Civic Education Project. At the
picturesque Volga embankment 50 participants of the School junior faculty
members, researchers, social workers have been debating and studying acute
issues of family and family policy, problems of foster families and rights of
the child, gender issues of transitional society, perspectives of professional
development of social work, status and problems of the disabled and migrants,
methods of teaching social work as well as approaches to research into social
problems and social politics. Lecturers were professors from Russia, USA and
Sweden, while among the School participants there were representatives of
universities and research centers of Russia, Belorus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,
Mongolia, employees of social services of Saratov city and oblast,
representatives of non-governmental organizations, students. The geography of
Russian participants was very diverse: Tomsk, Irkuts, Almaty, Tashkent,
Stavropol, Murmansk, Saransk, Ulianovsk, StPetersburg, Moscow.
At
the opening ceremony the Minister of Labor and Social Development of Saratov
oblast Alexandr Gatvinski has stressed the importance of professional education
and research in development of quality of social work services in Russia.
Saratov oblast Ombudsman Alexandr Lando has presented a lecture on the main
issues of human rights and the work of ombudsman in the region. One of the
features of this School was the dialogue philosophy of debates: when the
politics of disablement was in the focus of discussion, people with disabilities
joined the discussion at one round table with officials from the ministry of
labor and social development as well as from the bureau of medical-social
expertise. The academic discussion was thus enriched by the perspectives of
medical professionals and people with disabilities who were students and leaders
of local NGOs.
Professor
Margareta Bck-Wiklund from Goteborg University, Sweden, has given two lectures
on family studies and family policy in Sweden. She told about de-familialization
trends that has been sponsored by national family policy and specific ideology
of Scandinavian welfare state. Ingrid Hjer, a lecturer at the same university
has devoted her lectures to foster families routine and childrens rights.
C.E.P. visiting lecturer in Omsk, Betsy Sweet, has been lecturing here on
feminist research methodology in regards to oral history approach. She spoke
about her recent findings in Omsk where she interviewed women of different age
and occupation groups. C.E.P.-Bosh fellow at Saratov State Technical University
Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova gave a lecture on professionalization of social work in
current Russia. C.E.P.-Bosh fellow in Tver Anna Borodinas presentation was
devoted to gender aspects of human rights. Alla Anisimova, a former Eastern
Scholar of C.E.P. at Novosibirsk has given a report on her case studies in a
small business organization. This report was a part of one-day seminar on case
study methodology that was led by Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova and her colleague
Pavel Romanov. The presentations of Saratov colleagues within that seminar have
demonstrated the progress of the research into social services sponsored by
MacArthur foundation.
MacArthur
foundation program have been presented the other day by Galina Ustinova (Moscow
office). Ford foundation program of social policy research has been presented by
Oksana Siniavskaia (Institute for Independent Social Policy Research, Moscow).
Alexei Levinson (VTsIOM, Moscow) has given a lecture on public opinion in
todays Russia on human rights and liberties. He also presented information
about C.E.P. and the brochures have been distributed among the participants.
Serguei Oushakine (New York, USA and Barnaul, Russia) apart from his lecture on
multiculturalism has distributed information concerning current CEU and OSI
programs.
One
of the days was devoted to the issues of multiculturalism in social work and
education. The students of social anthropology and social work have presented a
performance Picnic which was followed by a discussion of the meaning of
local wars and armed conflicts for Russian citizens and a debate on drama
approach in education. The intercultural communication simulation game
Ba-Fa-Ba-Fa which has been brought from CEP student conference in Budapest by
Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova was enthusiastically perceived by the participants.
Afterwards the players expressed their opinions on cultural diversity and
cultural competence in research, education and social work practice.
The
School has demonstrated that social work in todays Russia is developing from
the form of occupation and social engineering into the realm of very important
and interesting research in areas of sociological inquiry, public policy
analysis, effectiveness studies. One
of the conclusions that the School participants have come to was related to the
formulating of the new ideas of collaborative research projects, action and
participatory research programs and educational exchange. The topics of those
are connected to studying the consequences
of municipalization of enterprise welfare in Russia, development and
implementation of civic education programs, social support network development
for migrants, widening participation for youngsters with disabilities to higher
education, comparative research in international and cross-cultural perspectives, publication of the new
textbooks, monographs and collections that will attract public attention to
understanding the nature of social problems and ways of resolving them.
The closing ceremony of the School was arranged in humorous and
solemnity atmosphere. The
organizational committee in Master of Social Work ceremonial clothes caps
and gowns has been handing out the certificates for successful completion of
the School program to the participants. Afterwards there were symbolic prizes in
humorous nominations awarded which were met with applauds and laugh. Later that
evening included humorous competition for the best song about the School. Next
day the city tour was arranged.
The
School participants have expressed hope to extend inter-regional and
international educational and research initiatives in area of social work,
gender studies, social politics and human rights. The organizers of the School
have learned a lot from working during these ten days which will make next
programs easier to implement and more effective. At the end of the School the
feed-back questionnaires have been filled in by the participants. This was the
first experience of Saratov department of social anthropology and social work to
organize a summer school and there is a hope to continue in the future. A new
application is being now prepared for gender studies summer school to be held in
June 2002 with the support of Womens Network Program by OSI, Russia.
The photo-gallery from the School will be placed
at http://sstu-socwork.narod.ru
