Background In 2015, Amsterdam became part of the WHO Age Friendly City community, thereby accepting the responsibility to work towards a more age friendly Amsterdam. To study senior citizens’ needs and wishes concerning the age friendliness of their neighbourhood, the municipality asked the Amsterdam …

In many Western welfare states, social work services that have traditionally been provided by paid employees are being replaced by family support, community support, informal networks and volunteering. For the field of social work, it is relevant to know what it matters to beneficiaries whether services …

BackgroundIn the coming decades the number of older people increases and correspondingly the number of people with chronic conditions. Chronic conditions can have a significant impact on the quality of life of elderly and their family caregivers. They face a lifelong challenge with the illnesses, treatments, …

Networked learning happens naturally within the social systems of which we are all part. However, in certain circumstances individuals may want to actively take initiative to initiate interaction with others they are not yet regularly in exchange with. This may be the case when external influences and …

The exploration of the narrative nature of local memory websites in relation to empowerment theory produces new insights in the nested levels of analysis of both. Empowerment’s value orientation calls for a focus on strengths instead of weaknesses and, as such, requires specific language that accommodates …

The nation-state had a long history of success, but today it is failing its citizens on a global scale. Over the last hundred years, nation-states focussed on maximizing internal unity and jurisdictional sovereignty. Benjamin R. Barber’s ‘If Mayors Ruled The World’ is the central source of this thesis …

Over the past decades, international terrorism started to reach its ideological peak, challenging and disrupting whole societies and governmental organs. This modern form of terror contains violent implications, psychologically pressing the innocent masses. Initially inspired by occasional, domestically …

This text is structured as follows. Section 1 concerns the background to this public lecture: the fact that social participation is becoming increasingly important in our society. This is evident, for example, from the way we are evolving from a protective welfare state into an activational, participative …

Although previous research programs have yielded valuable knowledge that can help sugar beet growers to innovate farming processes, actual transfer of this knowledge to the growers so far is lacking. Currents ways of knowledge transfer do not match learning styles, personal traits or the social environment …