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The idea of “applying theory to practice” is one of the core beliefs at the heart of social work education. It now informs an extensive literature and underpins teaching on theory and methods cours...

With this special issue we aim at furthering the entrepreneurship as practice perspective by grounding the broader and contemporary ‘practice turn’ in social science (Schatzki, Knorr-Cetina, and vo...

Dying, death, and bereavement do not occur in a social vacuum. How individuals and groups experience these phenomena will be largely influenced by the social context in which they occur. To develop an adequate understanding of dying, death, and bereavement we therefore need to incorporate a sociological perspective into our analysis. This article examines why a sociological perspective is necessary and explores various ways in which sociology can be of practical value in both intellectual and professional contexts. A case study comparing psychological and sociological perspectives is offered by way of illustration.

Reflective practice has become an influential concept in various forms of professional education, for example, in nursing and social work. However, there has been a common tendency for it to be oversimplified in practice, and, furthermore, dominant understandings of reflective practice can themselves be criticised for lacking theoretical sophistication in some respects – particularly in relation to the social and political dimensions of learning and professional practice. This paper therefore seeks to clarify the theoretical underpinnings of reflective practice and to propose developments in relation to the missing sociological elements. It briefly reviews current dominant understandings of reflective practice before proposing developments in the theory base to make it more theoretically sophisticated in general and more sociologically informed in particular. In this way, the foundations for a critically reflective practice are sketched out.

There has been an increasing interest in reflective practice in recent years, but the theory base underpinning it remains relatively underdeveloped. We have seen a move away from essentialist ‘technicalism’ to a more constructivist exploratory approach consistent with existentialist philosophy. This paper therefore explores how existentialism can be used as a more sophisticated and wide‐ranging theory base to underpin the future development of reflective practice.

Undergoing a traumatic experience can be a life-changing event, having a significant impact on individuals, families, communities, workplaces and societies. Traumatology is therefore a complex field of study demanding a sophisticated level of understanding to serve as a theory base. This article explores the potential for existentialist philosophy to make an important contribution to our understanding of trauma and its effects. It presents trauma as an existential injury and explores the psychosocial basis of traumatic experience — that is, conceptualising trauma as having both psychological and sociological dimensions, the combination of which has profound existential resonances. While the theoretical ideas discussed can be applied to trauma at any stage in the life course, this paper focuses in particular on childhood trauma. Consequently, child abuse is used as an example of how trauma can have a significant (and detrimental) effect on identity development, invoking a need for a commitment to trauma re...

Aurora kinases play a key role in regulating mitotic division and are attractive oncology targets. AT9283, a multi-targeted kinase inhibitor with potent activity against Aurora A and B kinases, inhibited growth and survival of multiple solid tumor cell lines and was efficacious in mouse xenograft models. AT9283-treatment resulted in endoreduplication and ablation of serine-10 histone H3 phosphorylation in both cells and tumor samples, confirming that in these models it acts as an Aurora B kinase inhibitor. In vitro studies demonstrated that exposure to AT9283 for one complete cell cycle committed an entire population of p53 checkpoint-compromised cells (HCT116) to multinucleation and death whereas treatment of p53 checkpoint-competent cells (HMEC, A549) for a similar length of time led to a reversible arrest of cells with 4N DNA. Further studies in synchronized cell populations suggested that exposure to AT9283 during mitosis was critical for optimal cytotoxicity. We therefore investigated ways in which these properties might be exploited to optimize the efficacy and therapeutic index of Aurora kinase inhibitors for p53 checkpoint compromised tumors in vivo. Combining Aurora B kinase inhibition with paclitaxel, which arrests cells in mitosis, in a xenograft model resulted in promising efficacy without additional toxicity. These findings have implications for optimizing the efficacy of Aurora kinase inhibitors in clinical practice.

Ethics are, of course, a fundamental part of professional practice. There are different philosophical schools of thought relating to ethics and, although there are often degrees of overlap, they are characterized more by difference than harmony. Among these philosophical schools, one school that has received relatively little attention in the professional literature (and a waning level of interest in the philosophical literature) is that of existentialism. This article outlines some of the main points of ethical theory in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the founders of existentialist thought, and Jean-Paul Sartre, the best known of the existentialist thinkers, as well as other contributors to existentialist thought. Possible developments in existentialist ethical theory since the time of Sartre are also sketched out, and these are linked to contemporary social work concerns.

We have witnessed in recent times an increasing emphasis on the need to identify outcomes. This paper explores the significance of this development and relates it to previous work on the subject, notably the long-standing concept of systematic practice. Possible objections to the use of systematic practice (and therefore, by extension, outcome-focused practice) are identified and addressed. Some key implications for practice are identified. The paper seeks to distance outcome-focused practice from the problems associated with managerialism.

The considerable number of major disasters in the last decade have had a significant impact on very many children. Some have been victims, some bereaved, others just generally anxious and frightened by their proximity to, or awareness of such disasters. Additionally, many personal disasters-accidents, illness, family breakdown, and, of course, child abuse-befall children and their caregivers, producing a traumatic, crisis-torn existence for large numbers of children, a proportion of whom will come to the attention of the caring professions. One dimension relatively unexplored in the growing literature on the subject of disaster work is that of the existential or “ontological”. A number of existentialist concepts can help us piece together a picture of this missing dimension. This article explores some of these key concepts to show their applicability to this complex and demanding area of health and social welfare practice. To explore the basic questions of ontology I shall draw on existentialist ...