Can children and young people be empowered in participatory initiatives?: Perspectives from young people's participation in policy formulation and implementation in Ghana

Empowering children and young people is often cited as the goal of participation. However projects that seek to empower children and young people show little attempt to define what empowerment means. There is an implied but inadequately explored conceptual link between participation and empowerment. This paper explores the link between participation and empowerment by discussing a research with 15–17 year young people involved in two participatory initiatives in Ghana. The paper discusses the various typologies of children's participation and the concept of power, and concludes that participation does not lead to empowerment. Therefore the increasing theorisation of children and young people's participation as empowerment is flawed. The paper argues that children and young people's participation should instead be conceptualised as recognition and dialogue.     

Constructions of child and youth advocacy: emerging issues in advocacy practice

The development of child and youth advocacy has been informed by varying theoretical perspectives and in the last decade has been increasingly incorporated into policy and legislation for young people in receipt of welfare services. Through examining the varying perspectives of young people, advocates and commissioners of advocacy services it can be seen that although there is some consensus about how advocacy should be provided, the construction of advocacy by adults may have a significant impact on how it is experienced by young people. This paper draws on material from five advocacy projects to examine how advocacy is constructed by those involved in the provision and receipt of services. It argues that there is a danger that the construction of advocacy in an adult proceduralised way is likely to compromise its potential to challenge the structures that deny young people opportunities to participate in decision making about their lives.     

Adversity,resilience and young people: the protective value of positive school and spare time experiences

This paper argues for the value of resilience as a key concept in work with young people in need and considers some of the implications of a resilience led approach for policy and practice. Resilience refers to a capacity to do well despite adverse experience. Social and developmental factors influencing a child or young person's degree of resilience are discussed, with particular reference to the resilience enhancing potential of school experiences and spare time activities. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The storyscapes of teenage pregnancy. On morality,embodiment, and narrative agency

Young women tell different stories about teenage pregnancies. Their stories are embedded in the storyscape of their environment, which offers a limited set of narratives. Normative discourses influence the stories young women tell about their pregnancies. Social norms and stigma play an important role in the construction of the meaning of teenage pregnancies. However, the embodiment of being pregnant constitutes meaning as well. This paper draws on findings from a qualitative study conducted in 2015 among 46 young Dutch women who got pregnant before their 20th birthday. Our study explores how young women navigate the moral arena when they are confronted with a teenage pregnancy and which role the embodiment of pregnancy plays in the construction of social meanings. The concept of storyscapes visualises how young women are constrained by their embeddedness in multiple storyscapes, defined by different and often contrasting audiences. Nevertheless, our study indicates that the momentum of pregnancy can offer agentic possibilities to take up another position towards their social environment and develop narrative agency.     

Governmentality,subjectivity, and the neoliberal form of life

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the appropriate answer to the question of the form contemporary neoliberalism gives our lives rests on Michel Foucault’s definition of neoliberalism as a particular art of governing human beings. I claim that Foucault’s definition consists in three components: neoliberalism as a set of technologies structuring the ‘milieu’ of individuals in order to obtain specific effects from their behavior; neoliberalism as a governmental rationality transforming individual freedom into the very instrument through which individuals are directed; and neoliberalism as a set of political strategies that constitute a specific, and eminently governable, form of subjectivity. I conclude by emphasising the importance that Foucault’s work on neoliberalism as well as the ancient ‘ethics of the care of the self’ still holds for us today.     

Social Transformation in China and the Development of Social Assessment

Since the late 1990s, China has been pursuing a policy of economic expansion with extensive investment in large-scale infrastructure projects. The social side effects of these projects—such as involuntary resettlement—are but the tip of the iceberg of so-called externalities of economic transformation. This paper introduces the background and methodology of social assessment in China and argues that the assessment of social risks in development projects and programmes, undertaken as an integral part of a larger complex of future-oriented sustainability strategies in China, can be analysed as particular ‘governmental technologies’ in the sense of the Foucauldian school.     

Expertise and forms of knowledge in the government of families

This paper examines the relationship between the state and the individual in relation to an aspect of mundane family life – the feeding of babies and young children. The nutritional status of children has long been a matter of national concern and infant feeding is an aspect of family life that has been subjected to substantial state intervention. It exemplifies the imposition upon women the ‘biologico‐moral responsibility’ for the welfare of children ( Foucault, 1991b ). The state's attempts to influence mothers’ feeding practices operate largely through education and persuasion. Through an elaborate state‐sponsored apparatus, a strongly medicalised expert discourse is disseminated to mothers. This discourse warns mothers of the risks of certain feeding practices and the benefits of others. It constrains mothers through a series of ‘quiet coercions’ ( Foucault, 1991c ) which seek to render them self‐regulating subjects. Using data from a longitudinal interview study, this paper explores how mothers who are made responsible in these medical discourses around child nutrition, engage with, resist and refuse expert advice. It examines, in particular, the rhetorical strategies which mothers use to defend themselves against the charges of maternal irresponsibility that arise when their practices do not conform to expert medical recommendations.     

SPLOGS AND ABANDONED BLOGS: The perils of sampling bloggers and their blogs

In this paper the authors explore the problems inherent with sampling bloggers and their blogs, specifically several factors unique to these populations: spam blogs, abandoned blogs, access-restricted blogs, and non-traditional blogs. Reviewing 24 blogging studies, they focus on the four strategies that researchers have employed to sample bloggers and blogs on the Internet: self-selected and convenience samples, sampling through blog hosts, sampling with the assistance of blog aggregators or indexing websites, and sampling from ready-published lists of blogs. They look closely at the practicality of such methods and discuss their tradeoffs. They then examine several techniques that researchers utilize to sample elusive, networked and rare populations in an offline context, emphasizing how they can be applied to sampling bloggers and blogs. In conclusion, they propose that these suggestions be applied to sampling methodologies concerning other Internet-based communities.     

The mental health of young people aging out of care and entering adulthood: Exploring the evidence from England and France

This paper explores the research evidence from England and France on the mental health of young people aging out of care and into adulthood. It represents the first comparative review based on the evidence from these two countries. Set in the legal, policy and service framework for both countries, it reviews evidence on the mental health of young people in the general population, young people living in care, young people aging out of care, and young adults. It shows: the high levels of psychological adversity of young people entering care; the high rates of mental health problems of young people in care compared with the general population of young people; the increased risk of mental and physical problems at the time of aging out of care, and the general improvement in longer-term outcomes for young adults, although some continue to have serious mental health problems. In conclusion, it suggests that interventions across the life course of young people are needed.     

Habitus,Practice and Agency of Young East Timorese Asylum Seekers in Australia

This article explores the process of agency and empowerment through a case study of a group of young East Timorese asylum seekers who arrived in Australia during the 1990s. Using Bourdieu's concept of habitus and his theory of practice, the article considers how the asylum seekers dealt with the challenges of exile and adjusted to Australian society. In addition to the difficulties asylum seekers normally face in exile, such as limited financial and social support and coping with trauma and loss, the East Timorese who arrived during the 1990s faced particular challenges due to the Australian Government's treatment of their cases. The article argues that, despite their vulnerable and liminal position, the asylum seekers were not just passive victims. On the contrary, they were active agents who through practice, consciously or unconsciously, dealt with their liminal situation. Their power to act was positively affected by their young age upon arrival.     

Religion: friend or foe of the aging?

Religion can be a guide in the quest of older adults for a fuller understanding of their lives and purposes as they cope with the diminishments brought about by aging.     

Young People's Participation — Where Next?

This article is about young people in the UK's participation in decisions that affect them. It draws, in particular, on three research and evaluation projects that were undertaken in partnership with young people as researchers, and directly exploring the views and experience of young people of their participation in the voluntary and statutory sector. Its purpose is to contribute to reflection on young people's participation to review what has been done and what has been learnt, to consider what next, where our efforts should be focused in the future as adults and young people seek together to develop and implement meaningful opportunities for participation.     

The sovereign state v Foucault: law and disciplinary power

A Foucauldian analysis of discourse and power relations suggests that law and the juridical field have lost their pre–eminent role in government via the delegated exercise of sovereign power. According to Foucault, the government of a population is achieved through the wide dispersal of technologies of power which are relatively invisible and which function in discursive sites and practices throughout the social fabric. Expert knowledge occupies a privileged position in government and its essentially discretionary and norm–governed judgements infiltrate and colonise previous sites of power. This paper sets out to challenge a Foucauldian view that principled law has ceded its power and authority to the disciplinary sciences and their expert practitioners. It argues, with particular reference to case law on sterilisation and caesarean sections, that law and the juridical field operate to manipulate and control expert knowledge to their own ends. In so doing, law continually exercises and re–affirms its power as part of the sovereign state. Far from acting, as Foucault suggests, to provide a legitimating gloss on the subversive operations of technologies of power, law turns the tables and itself operates a form of surveillance over the norm–governed exercise of expert knowledge.     

Framing the Other: cosmopolitanism and the representation of difference in overseas gap year narratives

This paper engages with debates surrounding contemporary cosmopolitanism and the outcomes of cultural encounters. It considers if overseas gap years, often put forward in the UK as a way of becoming a global citizen, enable young Britons to ‘broaden their mind’. I explore representations of the people and places encountered during these periods of time out through an analysis of young people's travel blogs. Four key themes are highlighted in these narratives: the exotic place; feeling ‘out of place’; the importance and outcomes of local interaction; and the historical legacies that are implicated in constructing places as ‘different’. Gappers display a willingness to interact with and gain knowledge about their host communities. Yet as gap years are designed to be distinct from the normal course of things, they also demonstrate the ‘difference’ of places. This can often result in the reproduction of established ways of representing the Other in order to frame them as meaningful. There is a tension in the narratives between ‘globally reflexive’ and ‘globally reproductive’ representations of difference, and I suggest that we might question the development of cosmopolitan attitudes and competencies through undertaking a gap year.     

Collective caring: creating safety through interactions between young activist groups and young adults in Sweden

Existing research explores safety among young adults as a complex phenomenon in diverse social spaces. Nonetheless, it largely approaches perceptions of unsafety and safety strategies as discrete individual action. In this paper, we show how safety is created through the social interactions between young activist groups and their main target or audience, young adults. Our study aimed to explore how young adults created meanings and actions of safety within their activism. Grounded Theory method was use to collect and analyze qualitative interviews with young adults of ten social change groups located in two medium-size cities in Sweden. To interpret our findings, we drew upon interactionist concepts of shared definitions and joint action [Blumer, Herbert. 1966. “Sociological Implications of the thought of George Herbert Mead.” American Journal of Sociology 71 (5): 535–544]. Shared definitions challenged narrow notions of unsafety by identifying uniform categories and harmful stereotypes as the source of the problem, and thereby locating constraints upon the capacity of different groups of young adults to define situations as (un)safe. Joint action combined an immediate response of moving to where young adults were with an enduring response of being there for young adults. Combined, these constituted an overarching social process of collective caring, which we linked to Isabel Lorey’s [2015. State of Insecurity. London: Verso] concept of practices of caring.     

Families,meals and synchronicity: eating together in British dual earner families

Based on a sample of British dual earner families with young children drawn from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, the paper examines their food practices, in particular the conditions under which families are able to eat together or not during the working week. The concept of synchronicity is drawn upon to shed light on whether meals and meal times are coordinated in family life and the facilitators and constraints upon coordination. The paper suggests that whether families eat together is not only influenced by parents' work time schedules but also children's timetables relating to their age and bodily tempos, their childcare regimes, their extra-curricular activities and the problem of coordinating different food preferences and tastes.     

Are They Not Worthy? How Partisan Political Blogs Legitimize the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street

Social movements struggle to gain acceptance as legitimate actors so that they can raise money, recruit members, and convince politicians to meet their demands. We know little, however, about how this legitimacy is granted by various political authorities, in part because legitimacy is often poorly operationalized. To operationalize legitimacy, I revise Charles Tilly's ( 1999 ) classic concept of WUNC displays (i.e., public presentations of worthiness, unity, numbers, commitment) to assess how political authorities legitimize social movements. I analyze original data on the coverage the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street received from 20 elite political blogs during a critical event early in each movement's development. I find that liberal and conservative blogs both use the same aspects of worthiness (and not unity, numbers, or commitment) to endorse their preferred movement but different aspects of unworthiness to denounce the movement they opposed. Conservative outlets were more partisan on both accounts. This suggests that these blogs' shared status as distinctly partisan political outsiders produces a similar, but not identical, relationship with social movements. While both sets of blogs legitimize and delegitimize a movement based on its specific strengths and weaknesses, conservative blogs act more as a partisan bullhorn and liberal blogs act more as a forum for debate.     

Reflections of older Iranian women: Adapting to life in the United States

Age is an important and often overlooked attribute that influences adjustment to a new cultural context. This paper focuses on the ways in which older Iranian women, who spent their youth and middle adult years in Iran, have adapted to life in the United States. The results are based on extensive interviews with 19 Iranian women over the age of 65 (age range was 65 to 85). Although the majority of women interviewed expressed positive feelings about themselves and a sense of satisfaction with the transitions in their lives, considerable individual differences were identified. These differences focused primarily on the ways in which they attempted to adapt or cope with the new cultural environment in which they were living. Analysis resulted in the identification of three general strategies of adaptation to immigration. These strategies were labeled as withdrawn, insular, and assimilative.     

Coping strategies used by LGB older adults in facing and anticipating health challenges: A narrative analysis

ABSTRACT

Given that lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) older adults face notable health disparities compared to their heterosexual counterparts, there is a need for understanding how LGB adults cope with health challenges in late life. The current study analyzes narratives from nine LGB adults age 65 and older living in an urban area in the Southeast United States. Participants spoke of coping strategies related to health promotion behaviors, shifting perspectives of health and body, trusting in spirituality for comfort, and accepting the end of life. We discuss implications for social services professionals who work with older LGB adults and for future research.